tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9 2008-07-17T17:29:50Z VisualShare's founders converse on entrepreneurship, technology, and where to go for lunch. Movable Type 3.31 tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9.125 2008-07-17T16:15:36Z 2008-07-17T17:29:50Z

A goal known to many Child Advocacy Centers is to keep the children away from further harm and to provide a safe environment for Children to be medically examined and diagnosed....

Jordan Jones A goal known to many Child Advocacy Centers is to keep the children away from further harm and to provide a safe environment for Children to be medically examined and diagnosed. TeleCAM™ makes it possible for Child Advocacy Centers to confidentially send images and data through a secure internet portal to an expert in another location. They can then conduct a peer review to further assess the reality of abuse or other diagnosis. The Efficiency level increases as the process that once took up to two weeks, is reduced down to one day. When a child is examined and diagnosed quickly in their community it often prevents more emotional instability than already necessary. ]]> tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9.120 2008-04-24T02:45:49Z 2008-05-02T03:40:51Z

VisualShare, a 2007 Governor's Office of Economic Development Center of Excellence Licensee awardee, recently presented and participated in the 2008 Sorenson Inventor's Showcase at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City. The Sorenson Inventor's Showcase is Utah's premier networking...

Trish Goede Sorenson Inventor's Showcase at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City. The Sorenson Inventor's Showcase is Utah's premier networking event for inventors, Universities and the business community that focuses on showcasing technologies and encouraging collaboration between Utah inventor's and the Utah business community.]]> Sorenson's Inventor's Showcase has undergone a transformation of the Showcase from a two day event to a commercial focused half day event that brings inventors together with business decision makers in Utah. The focus this year was on bringing inventor's from all of Utah's Academic centers statewide, together in a business development forum to showcase technology development - from prototype to product. In 2008, the Sorenson Showcase added an new component, the "Speed Pitch Session" that provided an opportunity for Utah inventor's to give a ten minute business pitch to investor's attending the conference. The Speed Pitch allowed potential investor's to get a high level overview of the presenting company's product or service, go to market strategy and potential business plan. The addition of the Speed Pitch sessions, in addition to the traditional exhibits, elevated the event to a bonafide forum for deal flow and validated the commercialization aspects for many of Utah's investors. The 2008 Sorenson Inventor's Showcase was sponsored by MountainWest Capital Network, Governor's Office of Economic Development, USTAR and the Sorenson Center for Discovery and Innovation.]]> tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9.118 2008-04-22T14:54:14Z 2008-04-22T16:21:36Z

VisualShare recently presented at the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) annual meeting in Seattle, WA the worlds largest scientific meeting and exposition focused exclusively on telemedicine....

Trish Goede VisualShare recently presented at the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) annual meeting in Seattle, WA the worlds largest scientific meeting and exposition focused exclusively on telemedicine. VisualShare participated by showcasing VisualStrata™ image collaboration and management solutions for diagnostic imaging in pathology, ophthalmology and cardiology.]]> tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9.115 2008-02-22T00:24:58Z 2008-02-22T00:31:29Z

In a previous blog I have stated how great the iPhone is. It is so great that we use it for sales presentations while on the road. The Flashy-ness of the phone really lends itself to presentations. Of course, Hollywood...

Chris Cochella In a previous blog I have stated how great the iPhone is. It is so great that we use it for sales presentations while on the road. The Flashy-ness of the phone really lends itself to presentations. Of course, Hollywood has placed Apple products for years based upon the same reasoning. But, the iPhone lacks support of the Flash player within Safari. The desktop version of Safari supports it so why not on the iPhone. Well, this is the hot topic of the day with rumors flying around about an Apple competitor to the Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flash player. Well, that is great and all but countless websites (Google and our application ) depend on Flash. This is a seriously limiting factor for Web browsing. So, Apple bring Flash to this grand product so we can get more and more out of it. Surely, you could sell more because your own sales associates cite (when prodded ;) that Flash support is a serious drawback. tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9.114 2008-02-22T00:14:00Z 2008-02-22T00:24:40Z

After committing myself to not being an early technology adopter I have gone and done it. That is, I bought an iPhone. I have owned many smartphones and PDA's which now rattle around in my desk drawer. I cannot throw...

Chris Cochella After committing myself to not being an early technology adopter I have gone and done it. That is, I bought an iPhone. I have owned many smartphones and PDA's which now rattle around in my desk drawer. I cannot throw them away because of how much money I spent on them only to find them completely worthless 9-12 months later. After staring at these expensive dinosaurs I committed myself to not buy expensive, early adopter technologies. Well, after reading many testimonials on the iPhone and forgetting to pickup my kids from school twice I decided I would jump back in. I am very please to say that the iPhone is worth it. And, what it does (calendar, mail, contacts, Web browsing, and all the iPod stuff) it does extremely well. No complaints on the usability of the existing functionality. Here it comes... However, it could do so much more. For example: Where is iChat? This device would be great for iChat (Instant Messenging). I am sure it would operate on the platform becuase Safari does. I suppose the reason lies somewhere in the special agreement between ATT and Apple. If iChat were available it would reduce (for me eliminate) the need for SMS text messaging which costs extra on top of the digital data plan from ATT. I would be willing to bet when the iPhone API comes out either Apple or someone will offer an Instant Messaging client and I can reduce my monthly ATT bill. tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9.110 2008-01-03T16:20:05Z 2008-01-03T21:46:34Z

Just this morning I read a brief article in BioIT World by Michael Greeley a managing general partner of IDG Ventures. The article makes the the important point that academic institutions are full of innovation and represent a portfolio of...

Chris Cochella BioIT World by Michael Greeley a managing general partner of IDG Ventures. The article makes the the important point that academic institutions are full of innovation and represent a portfolio of inventions that have high commercial potential. Of course, the potential is only realized with seasoned management. No argument here. However, he makes the case that VC's are not tapping into this value and would be well served to do so.]]> VisualShare is a recent licensee recipient). There is also the state funded USTAR initiative to bring in (we have many already including a recent Nobel) the best of class researchers in biology, physics and so on to fuel commercialization in the State of Utah. The School of Business at the University of Utah Technology Venture Development group and the Lassonde Entrepreneurial Center furthers this same goal. Then there is the Utah Fund of Funds and the Utah Technology Council to name just a few venture oriented groups that work with the public and academic institutions. There is no question that bringing technology from an academic culture to a commercial culture is a significant hurdle. I can just hear the gasps from scientists and business developers alike. Despite all this there is value. At the end of the day, there is no dearth of Venture Capital oriented effort happening in Utah. Only time will tell how much these efforts will pay off. ]]> tag:www.visualshare.com,2008:/metablog//9.109 2008-01-02T22:37:59Z 2008-01-02T23:08:43Z

On Dec 29, 2007 the Wall Street Journal published an article called "VC's New Math: Does Less = More?". The article showcases the approach of Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and their recent success with Facebook. Their approach seems to make...

Chris Cochella On Dec 29, 2007 the Wall Street Journal published an article called "VC's New Math: Does Less = More?". The article showcases the approach of Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and their recent success with Facebook. Their approach seems to make some sense. In a nutshell, the article makes the argument for smaller amounts of venture investments (less than $1 M) as opposed to apparent $2M rule of thumb. The typical (if there is a such a thing) approach of Venture Capitalists is to invest a minimum of $2-3M in startup companies. The reasoning is that it takes so much time to evaluate and manage a startup that it is not worth the time to invest any less. This makes sense. But, what if a venture group could invest less and spend less time. The risk would be less and the costs would be less. This makes sense too. The Founder's Fund takes just this approach: invest less and take a more hands-off approach. If the startup is successful the venture group can invest more which reduces risk of principle. If the startup does not do well the loss is minimized. Overall this seems like a much less risky approach and mimics trends in other industries like technology development (agile or extreme programming) or rational drug development-- make many, small, iterative and incremental changes or investments. From the point of view of a startup this approach is somewhat appealing. Considering that the amount of money is less, the time to close on a venture deal will also be less thereby aiding the startup to, well, start-up sooner and spend more time developing the business and less time pitching for money. The approach also puts more control into the hands of the startup which can be good thing when coupled with appropriate managerial expertise and Venture Capitalist guidance. This strategy appears to combine the early stage, smaller funding environment typical of Angel Investors with the operational skill and expertise of Venture Capitalists to reduce risk and setup an appropriate, staged (think Tranche) incentive structure. Whether the Venture Capital community will change their habits and widely adopt the "New Math" remains to be seen. Considering that the number and size of Venture Capital deals have barely recovered from the late 1990's, maybe it is time for a change. Regardless, this trend is worth watching as it might spark a new wave of venture backed startups. tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.102 2007-11-03T19:09:00Z 2007-11-03T19:15:55Z

Guy Kawasaki made an interesting point at an innovation presentation I attended yesterday. He recognized that when building a business based on a new innovation it is vital to stay focused. Innovators have many ideas for new products or services...

Chris Cochella Guy Kawasaki made an interesting point at an innovation presentation I attended yesterday. He recognized that when building a business based on a new innovation it is vital to stay focused. Innovators have many ideas for new products or services that could fit into many different markets and as a result, I believe, are not focused. However, to be successful one has to focus. Investors want to see a focused plan, employees need a clear target and customers need a clear message. However, focus does not mean tunnel vision. Guy went on to say that, if a group of people are buying your product that, you as the innovator, did not think would buy it, do not ignore them because they are not in your focused market. Of course, "take the money; always take the money". But, more importantly, Guy advised that they should be understood. In fact, this market may be your future. It is easy to have tunnel vision when you spend so much effort and time focusing on a given market. It becomes easy to "dismiss" other uses for a product/service as trivial as in "Our computer is for serious business people; not artists and musicians". At the same time it is not always clear when a business should switch their focus for this "new" emerging market. Switch too early and it may be confusing for investors, employees and customers. Switch too late and the opportunity is gone. No matter what, a switch will cost--re-branding, new employees, alterations of the technology and so on. Like many things the idea is simple enough to understand, moderately difficult to adopt, and extremely hard to execute. tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.101 2007-11-02T18:18:42Z 2007-11-02T18:45:01Z

Yesterday I went to a presentation by Guy Kawasaki (the famous Apple Evangelist) on innovation. What a great presentation--more on that in another blog. On his last slide he promoted his new website called Truemors which he called "NPR for...

Chris Cochella Guy Kawasaki (the famous Apple Evangelist) on innovation. What a great presentation--more on that in another blog. On his last slide he promoted his new website called Truemors which he called "NPR for the eyes". At first I thought, "I do not have time for another website". But, I went anyway (his self-promotion worked!). It is a cool site where you can find interesting non-headline stories. I went straight for ]]> Harvard. The rainbow imaging is at once both artistically beautiful and scientifically compelling. In some ways these images remind me of a colorized picture of bubbles in a glass teapot produced by my friend Ann Torrence. While the content of these images could not be farther apart it is intriguing that bubbles in water might appear to have similar patterns to developing neurons. The similarity I suppose is simply that, in nature, there are common patterns regardless of the phenomenon (e.g., dendritic patterns in leaves and in river drainage basins). I always find it remarkable what imaging can produce. I do wish, however, that the images had visual annotations illustrating the important features instead of a text description. ]]> tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.96 2007-10-15T20:55:36Z 2007-10-15T21:13:10Z

Mike Gotta in his blog Collaborative Thinking brought up an interesting topic on "Presence" in his blog Social Presence: We Need To Push The Reset Button. Most people know presence by way of instant messaging. They log-in to their instant...

Chris Cochella Collaborative Thinking brought up an interesting topic on "Presence" in his blog Social Presence: We Need To Push The Reset Button. Most people know presence by way of instant messaging. They log-in to their instant messenger or chat application and their "presence" appears to all other users in their "buddy list". For the most part this is where it ends. However, it need not end there. ]]> Why not have your presence appear throughout your networked existence. A person's presence might appear on social networking sites as available for text messaging or only available by Internet phone. Perhaps a professional photographer could appear "present" at their blog AND at flickr as available for instant messaging. At VisualShare we are working toward this goal within our VisualStrata Web application platform by presenting a logged-in user as present and available in different collaborative contexts. At a high-level a user is available for IM by all users. In addition, each image series or record is automatically created as a virtual room. A team member reviewing a specific set of images is able to see who is present, available and authorized for a multi-media conference/collaboration. The multi-context presencing of VisualStrata allows dispersed workers to take advantage of another worker's availability and increase workplace efficiency beyond the limited and bounded world of IM. tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.94 2007-10-11T22:47:48Z 2007-10-11T23:19:21Z

I have just confirmed that VisualShare will have a booth at the International Association of Forensic Nurses (IAFN) 15th annual conference October 17-20 in Salt Lake City, Utah....

Trish Goede (IAFN) 15th annual conference October 17-20 in Salt Lake City, Utah. ]]> IAFN VisualShare will display and demonstrate our image collaboration and management products to forensic nurses and professionals who support and complement the collection of materials for public or legal proceedings. The IAFN is a professional society that focuses on training nurses in the application of scientific investigation and treatment of trauma and/or death of victims and perpetrators of abuse, violence, criminal activity and traumatic accidents. VisualShare applications for image collaboration and management fit into the overall model by facilitating iterative communication and review over images between professionals involved with cases that require forensic review.]]> tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.92 2007-10-09T18:02:22Z 2007-10-09T18:46:02Z

I recently read an Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal by Bill Gates. In the same issue there was an article about how Microsoft is creating a Web portal called HealthVault.com to store people's medical information. The Op-Ed article...

Chris Cochella I recently read an Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal by Bill Gates. In the same issue there was an article about how Microsoft is creating a Web portal called HealthVault.com to store people's medical information. The Op-Ed article was right-on (IMHO) in its conclusion that primary care and prevention are the keys to reducing medical care costs and improving health care outcomes. Note that healthcare costs are the highest in the US when compared to all industrialized nations while healthcare outcomes are far from the highest--meaning that the US pays much more money for lower quality healthcare. I question, however, whether or not HealthVault is what we need. I certainly agree that a person's patient information is their property, however, it is not clear to me that HealthVault anything beyond a storage mechanism for healthcare data. The marketing hype for HealthVault talks about sharing patient data with a variety of medical providers by having the medical provider interact with HealthVault. I believe that this strategy (or perceived value) is flawed in a number of ways: 1. Physicians do not have time to learn how to use HealthVault and its competitors. My primary care physician has 15 minutes for my visit and is often 1 hour late--there is no time. 2. There is no physician reimbursement model for the effort of using such programs. 3. A physician's expectation will be that the information in a patient managed repository will be complete. More often than not the information will not be complete, meaning the physician is unable to rely and depend upon the source material. 4. Obtaining and entering medical information into an online system is a huge burden and a technical challenge for most people. For example, how would a person handle a DICOM image coming from a Radiologic investigation? Does HealthVault support this imaging format? Can I get these digital files from my health care provider? If the image is in physical form, how do I digitally scan a film that is physically larger than most scanners? The questions and limitations go on and on. My mother always told me that if I do not like something then I suggest a solution and not just whine about it. So here goes... Objectives: 1. Put patient's in charge of their healthcare information. 2. Enable patient's to obtain a copy of their healthcare information so that they can seek healthcare from a different provider. 3. Improve the patient-doctor relationship. 4. Do not increase the physician workload of providing healthcare. 5. Keep it as simple as possible for the physician and the patient so that, as a team, they can focus on the health of the patient. Solution: 1. Encourage Electronic Medical Record (EMR's) vendors to provide a patient center portal to the product that their physician already uses to manage healthcare information. Hopefully, there is an economic incentive to encourage companies to do this. If patients and physicians yell for it, it will likely come. 2. Establish a universal, open output (export) format for medical information. Indeed there are standards currently in existence like HL7 (health level 7) that is used as an exchange format between EMR applications. This way a patient could request an exported copy (through the portal in 1 above) of their health care information, bring it to another provider and either give it to them for review or, even better, for import into the new provider's medical record system. Wow, seamless! The biggest challenge to this is the support from EMR vendors. The commercial marketplace does not encourage cooperation. In other words, EMR vendors want customers (patients/physicians) to become dependent on their solution and therefore discourage the ability to move data from one system to another. It is hard to imagine what a person can do. One small step is to begin asking your physician for a copy (hopefully in digital form) of your healthcare information at each visit. Train them to give you the information. This will encourage physicians and EMR vendors to make it easier to hand over the information. And, of course you get a copy of YOUR information. tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.84 2007-10-03T20:47:44Z 2007-10-09T02:23:01Z

I am always amazed at the usefulness of Wikipedia and I am certain that I do not scratch the surface....

Chris Cochella Wikipedia and I am certain that I do not scratch the surface. ]]> FISH (Fluorescent in situ hybridization) and Wikipedia came up in the results list. At first I thought, "Oh, I know what it is overall, so I do not need a definition". Of course, Wikipedia is much more than a dictionary especially as it is a public compilation of the topic not just the definition. In addition, Wikipedia conveniently offered two links to the categories that might interest me: Laboratory Techniques Biologic Techniques and Tools So, I went there and found a great background on the various probes, analysis and medical applications. How many more times will I overlook Wikipedia as more than a dictionary?]]> tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.83 2007-10-02T20:31:22Z 2007-10-02T20:47:04Z

Laboratory use of VisualStrata imaging collaboration system leverages the value of FISH (or Fluorescent in situ hybridization) images (sample image). VisualStrata not only provides a persistant storage of the images--necessary because the fluorescent markers decay over time--but a catalog of...

Chris Cochella FISH (or Fluorescent in situ hybridization) images (sample image). VisualStrata not only provides a persistant storage of the images--necessary because the fluorescent markers decay over time--but a catalog of the present and ongoing knowledge-base of the images.]]> Once the image is cataloged and preserved, experts can layer visual annotations on the images thereby preserving the diagnostic interpretation and results. These results are stored as separate layers leaving the underlying image intact. This knowledge can be retrieved at a later time for ongoing studies, quality improvement, reporting and research. So, not only does VisualStrata preserve the results in an archive image, it allows ongoing visual and textual knowledge to incrementally accumulate. It is the value incremental visual knowledge that sets VisualStrata apart. tag:www.visualshare.com,2007:/metablog//9.82 2007-10-01T19:53:15Z 2007-10-01T20:11:33Z

A recent article in CytoJournal on the Introduction of the Thin Prep Imaging System™ (TIS) illustrates a not-so-obvious use-case for VisualStrata™. During the evaluation of TIS cytotechnologists reviewed the image as well to see how well TIS (and the cytotechnologists!)...

Chris Cochella CytoJournal on the Introduction of the Thin Prep Imaging System™ (TIS) illustrates a not-so-obvious use-case for VisualStrata™. During the evaluation of TIS cytotechnologists reviewed the image as well to see how well TIS (and the cytotechnologists!) were doing in interpreting images for detecting cervical cancer. ]]> The detection results were promising. However, there is something still missing: The criteria used in interpreting the image. In other words what visual indicators led TIS and the ctyotechnologists to make a determination. More importantly, in what visual ways were the criteria different. The image collaboration features of VisualStrata™ make it possible to automatically visually layer (e.g., pointers, lines, shapes) the images with the auto-detection criteria and at the same time provide the same image in an unobstructed way to the cytotechnolgogist. The result is a comparison of the visual detection crieteria between machine and human. These results would server not only to improve the automated and human detection processes, it would also provide valuable insight into the differences in detection.