Here’s to You!

Last night, the Portland business community – and our management team – raised our glasses to recognize the achievements of Prolifiq Board Chair Kirby Dyess.

Prolifiq Chair Kirby Dyess (right) and husband Carl Dyess

Tech America presented Kirby a Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing her for-profit and community service work during her career with Intel, as an Angel Investor, and Board Director for public, private and government organizations. Kirby is the first female recipient of this very prestigious award.

Congratulations Kirby! Both you and your family have earned this recognition.

Art of the Possible

During a chance meeting with a family friend (who because of his humility and desire for anonymity shall be known here as TL) I was reminded of what is possible.

TL beamed telling me: “Today is the 37^th anniversary of my American experience.” TL and his family were fortunate enough to be evacuated from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon on April 23, 1975. Because their luggage (1 piece per family member) was blown off the roof by rotor-wash from the helicopter, TL arrived in America with no material possessions. At 16 years old – and not speaking any English – TL began a new life.

Today TL owns a design firm that is to performance apparel what Frog Design is to computers; his sister is the Program Lead for a major defense contractor; his brother heads a global civil engineering firm (his own) that designs BIG infrastructure around the world.

TL and his siblings are living examples of “the art of the possible” – what happens when optimism, ingenuity, drive and opportunity collide.

TL, thank you for all you do; and for the reminder.

Human Touch

Elvis Costello could easily have been talking about customer experiences when he penned:

“I just want someone to talk to

And a little of that human touch.”

We’ve all had that frustrating experience of a customer support line interactive voice response (IVR) system (voice jail) that makes it very difficult to speak with a human.

So I was struck by the blog post: “How come no one CRM’s me?”.

I was struck because we are often asked: “So how are you different from a CRM system?” Quite simply:

1)      CRM systems are – at their core – a database.  They are used to capture, record, and retrieve data about customers.

2)      Prolifiq is – at its core – a communications platform. It is used to engage with customers, augmenting a human experience with digital content.

Every toolbox has multiple tools and each is used for a different purpose. One needs tools to talk about a customer; one needs tools to talk with customers. The task determines which tool is needed when.

I WAS the Remote

Co-worker Rock and I often laugh about growing up in the 1960’s during the heyday of television, talking about how we were the “remote controls” — having to get up out of a chair and change the channel for a parent/sibling.

Today, Avrim Pitch penned an article about 15 common technology items today’s infants will never use.

Several years ago, we provided my sons cell phones for us to stay in touch. My eldest asked me: “Dad, what kind of cell phone did you have when you were a kid?” I laughed so hard I almost snorted my coffee, telling him I was 26 when they were invented.

The technology march is incessant. I have witnessed: a) punch cards to tape; tape to floppies; floppies to hard disk; hard disk to solid state; now the cloud; b) vinyl to tape; tape to CD, CD to MP3; c) rotary dial to touch tone; analog to digital voice; wireline to cellular; d) mainframe to mini; mini to micro; micro to smartphone; smartphone to tablet; e) command-line to GUI; GUI to touch; touch to voice; voice to gesture. (See: “Wave goodbye to how we use computers”).

The pace of change is accelerating, causing product life cycles to shorten. A result — we can be easily seduced into chasing “the shiny new object.” However, it is important to remember that our business applications should provide productivity enhancements first, wow factor second. If you can do both, you have a winner.

We Are Honored

This week is pretty special as two of our own are being honored for their contributions to the business community and for their personal achievements.

Kirby Dyess, Prolifiq Board Chair, was selected by Tech America as the first female recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award. Kirby is being honored for her 23 years helping build Intel Corporation and for her work in the Oregon entrepreneurial and venture-backed start-up community.

On Thursday, many of the team are taking a break to join his family as Hemingway Huynh, Prolifiq founder and CTO, is honored by the Portland Business Journal as one of Oregon’s “40 under 40″. This award recognizes those who have significant business impact within Oregon and who have not yet crossed the age of 40.

It is a pleasure to be “in the trenches” with Hem on a daily basis, and anyone who works with him knows he lives the company motto: “work hard; play hard; get your sh_t done.” Congratulations Hem!

I report Directly to Kirby and serve with her in a governance capacity as a Board member of Prolifiq. She combines great governance, high expectations, tough love and compassion and knows how to “push” a company to achievement. Kirby, you helped build a company that transformed how we all live; thank you for brining your learnings to Prolifiq. Congratulations on this recognition!

I speak for all Prolifiq employees and shareholders when I say: “We’re honored to serve with you.”