nuance intelligence

Set aside for a moment the vagueness of “green,” and let’s ask a different question.  In an era where travel is being replaced by virtual conferencing, shopping by eCommerce, and partying by Second Life, what is the carbon cost of all of our time online?

I wrote a piece over at eCo Times which ran last week that looks into the carbon footprint of data centers.  Here’s an excerpt:

According to The Economist, which quotes tier one researchers McKinsey And Company and the Uptime Institute, the data centers that host and serve the world’s registered web services, accounted for 1.2% of the world’s electricity in 2005. This amount of electricity was emitting more carbon dioxide than Argentina or The Netherlands, and this was before many of the biggest web services came online.

At the end of 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report that details the impact of data centers on the environment. Like any complex report, varying conclusions can be drawn, so feel free to check it out and draw your own. Nonetheless, these analysts, who project data center growth and related carbon emissions, predict that data centers could become worse polluters than the airline transportation industry by 2020. That’s just 12 years from now. Wow.

The truth — or at least my perspective on what the truth may be — is that technology will evolve, and get more efficient faster than air travel will.  Here’s what’s happening on the evolutionary front:

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As we laid out last month, entrepreneurial activity in Colorado is in the middle of a renaissance. While the national corporate recession hits the headlines and gas and food prices reach for the sky, our local startup scene is rocking.

David Cohen, one of Boulder’s celebrity VCs, announces two new fundings today at his blog, ColoradoStartups.com:

Symplified recently raised $6M from Granite Ventures and Allegis Capital.

Rally Software just raised $16.8M from Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV) and existing investors Vista Ventures, Boulder Ventures, and Mobius Venture Capital.

I was at Rally today, talking with their CTO, Ryan Martens, about how smaller companies (the core of the Colorado economy) measure (and ultimately improve) their operations to become more sustainable. He talks in software terms, about ‘expanding the scope’ of business operations to include externalities and bring more costs and benefits on the balance sheet.Our discussion crossed a wide range of topics, and landed on an interesting observation. Ryan pointed out, “most sustainability consultants can’t help us. Unless you know how computer hardware is built, how firmware works, and how software is developed, you can’t help me reduce my emissions any better than a junior at CU (Jack, who happened to be sitting in the room).”

What’s the nuance?

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Please take a second to review our revised clients page.  We’ve reorganized it, added some exciting new projects, and updated the descriptions of some of our partnerships, which have evolved in recent months.

Let us know how we can help you connect to these interesting opportunities.

(note: here’s a version of a piece I ran over at AWhere’s new blog. Check it out for good info on 2008′s biggest trend in business intelligence (BI).)

TechWeb published the Executive Summary of Ventana Research’s new benchmark survey on the impact of location and geo-analytics on business intelligence practices in the enterprise, calling it one of the major corporate trends of 2008.

Essentially, it demonstrates a strong business case for the deep integration of location intelligence and geo-analytics into business analysis in the growing field of BI, though it’s important to notice that it was financed by two of the largest providers of location intelligence software.

Beyond the bromides, there were some interesting revelations that buttress the benefits location intelligence provides.

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What recession? The Colorado small business economy is vibrant and growing, with a more dynamic mix of industries and sectors than we have seen in decades.  From biotech to energy, web 2.0 to nano, and an overriding mindset towards sustainability, there is a counter-cyclical boom in small business growth happening here on the Front Range.

If you want to learn more, you should really come check it out.  Here are some of the many ways to connect into this thriving community:

• New Tech Meetup.  Hundreds of geeks, entrepreneurs and cool new companies every month.
• Clean Tech Meetup. Cool ideas and innovative solutions for energy, transportation and more.
• Founders Meetup. Entrepreneurs coming together to help create great businesses.
• Colorado Capital Conference.  Hosted by the Rockies Venture Club next week, you can meet some of the best up-and-comers across a variety of sectors.
• TechStars. Cool summer program for aspiring web jockeys aspiring to become business people.
• Business Catapult. Online matching service for entrepreneurs and investors. Note: I’m one of four owners here, which makes it even cooler
• Angel Capital Summit. Annual fall investing fair, although their site has not been updated since last fall.  Look for more information in coming weeks.
• And there’s more.  Much more.  Comment here if you’ve got questions, thoughts or other interest in connecting into Colorado’s great entrepreneurial scene.

We went live today.  It’s an exciting milestone.

Today we whisper.  Tomorrow we shout.

Although we’re not known to report on every SEC filing in the known universe, the recent news that Digital Global filed for an IPO (the first in many steps before they go public) is interesting on a couple levels:

1. It’s been a while since a Colorado technology company went public, so this is another indicator of a thriving entrepreneurial economy in the state, counter to the national trend toward recession, and a depressing outlook for Silicon Valley VC investing.
2. It’s a good indicator of the value of location-based services, which includes friends at local companies including Virtual Earth and AWhere.  Read more about what these local leaders are thinking about.

What do you think about their prospects?  Would you go public today?

John Corbett turned me on to a good article at Tech Target about business-focused, web-based, location-aware data mashups, which the author terms ‘bashups.’ Here’s the nut:

BI systems are already very good at sifting through (and/or aggregating) huge volumes of data and turning it into information. If we combine this with mapping, we can get a huge increase in the understandability of the information for very little effort.

What’s the nuance? Continue reading

My first post ran over at eCo Times.

Philanthropy 2.0 covers the basics of how social media and social purpose have begun to intersect.

What’s the nuance?  Let’s hope there’s more of both (eCo Times posts and Philanthropy 2.0).

With the whole silicon valley echo chamber trying to figure out how to make money from social networks, I had very low expectations about our tiny little blog’s performance on Google search results.

When researching CPM and other detailed info on that very subject, our own blog hit the front page of google, specifically for the search “vertical social network monetization,” not exactly an obscure search given the scale of these business opportunities.

Proof, with apologies to George Jefferson, that we “finally got a piece of the pie”:

OK.  Back to work.