Information Technology : Innovation + Job News

Developed by Dublin-based WD Partners in 1999 to give architects and engineers a better way to share project drawings and documents with clients and team members, Expesite has become one of the fastest growing companies in America.

Spun off in In 2003, Expesite has rapidly expanded its business solutions through acquisitions and partnerships with industry leaders in technology and within its markets.

Led by CEO Jeffrey Sopp, the company provides project management solutions primarily to the retail, restaurant, financial services and commercial real-estate industries, with nearly 350,000 users in more than 80 counties. With headquarters in Columbus, it also has offices in Los Angeles and Toronto.

According to Sopp, Expesite, has increased its workforce 10 percent this year to 45 and expects to grow further, projecting revenue growth of 52 percent 2011. The company has made the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America list four consecutive years in a row.

That growth was bolstered in 2009 with the acquisition of Hilliard-based Report Hawk, which Sopp says positioned the company to gain market share in the construction and/ real estate industry.

"By vertically integrating the two SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings, Expesite's solutions portfolio now spans from the largest retail owners to the smallest vendors/contractors," he says.

Last year's acquisition of VisionFM of Toronto "was an essential element of Expesite's strategic evolution into an end-to-end platform solution for real estate development and facilities management," adds Sopp. "This acquisition increased Expesite's market share, and provided clients with a unified view for project management and facilities management."

Expesite doesn't appear to be slowing down. Sopp says Expesite is considering three companies for potential acquisition in 2011 to expand its markets and better serve clients.

Source: Jeffrey Sopp, Expesite
Writer: Gene Monteith

In less than a year, Scott Bailey has seen the germ of an idea explode into an online advertising powerhouse. And it all came from the thought that he wasn't seeing many small business advertisements anymore.

"Newspaper and television advertising was out of the reach of a lot of small to mid-sized companies," says Bailey, the CEO and founder of LocalGreatDeals.com, which began operating last year.  "We started to think about how we could not only grow our business, but how we could help other small businesses do the same."

The website, which began operating in Cincinnati before branching out to other major Ohio cities, offers smaller businesses the chance to get their names in front of local consumers by offering what it calls "a unique and unparalleled local deals/coupons advertising experience." Now spread throughout the east coast and midwest and partnering with local television affiliates websites, Bailey estimates the site has brought more than 500,000 new contacts to its roughly 5,000 clients.

"Consumers go to our website because they can find great deals, and businesses come to us because that's where consumers are," says Bailey.

The website now operates in 25 cities, and expects to expand to 100 by the end of the year.

In October, LocalGreatDeals.com launched sister site DealsThatGiveBack.com. The new site also offers many of the same consumers deals from local businesses, with the added twist that 10 percent of all purchases go to charitable organizations, local schools and churches selected by the consumer. Plans are to launch DealsThatGiveBack in other cities in the near future, following the same footprint of LocalGreatDeals.

Bailey's company continues to grow exponentially, after adding 25 new employees to its Loveland call center in 2010. As both websites expand, so too, will new jobs.

Source: Scott Bailey, DealsThatGiveBack, LocalGreatDeals
Writer: Dave Malaska

Kevin Gadd believes there should be a way to give entrepreneurs and business schools resources that can work together for the benefit of new and emerging companies.

That's the thinking behind Venture Highway, a web-based service Gadd launched Dec. 31.

Venture Highway combines educational courses with tools gathered from Gadd's years of experience as a serial entrepreneur and former director of information technology commercialization at TechColumbus. The new company is backed by NCT Ventures, founded by fellow Digital Storage alum Rich Langdale, Gadd says.

Venture Highway's educational component hinges on curriculum developed by Sharon Alvarez at Ohio State University's Center for Entrepreneurship. Students will soon be able to access Business 290 online.

"Students will be able to sign into our website and see a weekly syllabus of what they're going to go through, and then they'll have readings -- content from Sharon Alvarez that she wants them to understand. The idea is that at the end of Business 290 the students will prepare an executive summary" of how they would establish a new business.

Gadd adds that he hopes "professors who are teaching entrepreneurism will see this as a novel, creative, fun way to teach entrepreneurism."

Students who have completed the course -- or non-students who are interested only in the other tools on the site -- can then tap site resources related to innovation, viability, planning, operations and exit.

"The final product from each of the modules is geared specifically toward sending it out to investment, or coaching, or somebody to get on your team," Gadd says.

Users currently can use the venture innovation tool and viability module; the others will be built out later, Gadd says. The innovation tool is free, while Venture Highway will charge between $100 and $200 for the other modules, as well as a fee for taking Business 290.

Source: Kevin Gadd, Venture Highway
Writer: Gene Monteith

Prfessor.com officially launched this year, beckoning anybody who knows something about a subject to create an online course for the benefit of others.

According to Jim Kukral, one of three owners of the Rocky River-based e-learning curriculum designer, "hundreds of thousands of visitors and students have experienced Prfessor." Topics currently on the site range from marketing to green living.

Now Prfessor is promoting the use of its online resource for businesses that want to educate staff without the expense and time-consuming nature of classroom-style training. Prfessor offers corporations, small businesses and nonprofits a variety of advanced interactive tools designed to encourage self-paced learning.

This style of training benefits both employer and employee, according to Kukral. 

"Prfessor.com helps you control your costs as you improve the quality of your staff and they, in turn, improve profits by doing their jobs better selling more products, providing better customer service and leading their teams effectively," he says. "Prfessor allows anyone, without tech skills, to go out and teach what they know."

Businesses and organizations can take advantage of Prfessor by signing up online to create unlimited courses, develop quizzes to gauge students' understanding of topics and make use of A/V, PowerPoint and graphics to stimulate the learning process.

Kukral foresees strong growth in Prfessor's future, thanks to ever-expanding use of the Internet for educational purposes. "The market for education online is growing by leaps and bounds," Kukral says. Prfessor is designed to encourage users to "empty your head onto the Web," he adds.

Source: Jim Kukral, Prfessor.com
Writer: Diane DiPiero

This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland.

Can man mimic nature to improve health?

Maybe. That's what a University of Akron polymer engineering expert is researching at the Ohio Supercomputer Center in Columbus.

Hendrik Heinz is using advanced modeling and simulation techniques to more precisely understand biomineralization, nature's ability to form complex structures, such as bones, teeth and mollusk shells, from peptides; and organic photovoltaics. The work could advance knowledge of how organic materials bond to inorganic materials. Ultimately, the results of Heinz's efforts could affect the making of materials used for things like bone replacement and sensing systems -- and even disease treatment and energy generation.

Heinz has noted previously that advances in materials science such as in biomedical and energy conversion devices increasingly rely on computational techniques and modeling. In particular, work at the nanoscale level -- such as charge transport mechanisms in solar cells, the formation of biominerals, and self-assembly of polymers in multi-component materials -- is difficult to observe. Model building and simulation are critical, he says.

The Air Force Research Laboratory/Office of Scientific Research in Dayton; Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, the National Science Foundation; and ETH Zurich  and Sika Technology AG , both of Switzerland join UA and the Supercomputer Center in supporting Heinz's activities.

Heinz is "just one of scores of researchers" who are doing "amazing work" on the computational and storage systems of the Supercomputer Center, says spokesman Jamie Abel.

The Ohio Board of Regents established the center in 1987 as a statewide resource. The state's universities, businesses and others use it for an array of educational and business purposes.

Sources: Jamie Abel and Kathryn Kelley, Ohio Supercomputer Center
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

SOURCE: SOAPBOX

A former University of Cincinnati architecture student may have graduated in the spring, but his idea to link the university's creative talent to help solve real-world business problems lives on.

Adam Treister, who now works for an Over-the-Rhine real estate developer, is in the process of developing StudentDesigned.com. The social networking website would allow design, engineering, architecture and other creative students to showcase their student work in a central place where business could check it out. Businesses could contact individual students they believe could help them with a project.

"The idea started from a lot of studio projects we'd done. There is a lot of student and professor time, money and resources that go into creating a fictitious product like a building or a clothing line. It's basically an exercise where we practice our skills," and those skills could be put to real life use, Treister said. "The creative studios and companies or government agencies could team up and collaborate on projects."

Treister entered the idea in a couple of entrepreneur-oriented contests, including Cincinnati Innovates, where he came in fourth place just shy of a monetary award. But the publicity that came along with promoting his idea helped move it forward. He's been profiled by several news sites including his hometown paper the Charleston (W.V) Gazette.

He's now working with a well-known software developer, who he asked not be named, to get the site live. He expects it to be off the ground in six to eight months.

"I've already received notices from different companies requesting the help of student architects," Treister said.

In fact, before the site is up Treister may pair up UC students with a West Virginia company looking for a green renovation of an 80,000 sq. ft. building. Such collaboration is a win-win for those involved.

"It's providing a really good opportunity to work on real-world projects and to enhance the education experience," Treister said. "The companies will get an unparallel creative product for an affordable price."

Source: Adam Treister, Student Designed.com
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on twitter @feoshiawrites

By the fall of 2004, it was clear to Vince Broerman that mobile phone owners were beginning to use their devices for things other than voice services. At the same time, it was also clear that a sea change was taking place within print media as newspapers gained online readership and continued to lose print subscribers.

By the spring of 2005, he had formed a new company: ZebraMobile.

Housed in the Hamilton County Development Center, ZebraMobile today provides a service that has allowed hundreds of newspapers to push content out to readers through its Just For Me application.

"It beautifully renders content on more than 11,000 different mobile devices," says Broerman. "And that is the foundation of any other products that we have since built."

While Broerman built the business around Just For Me, he's most excited these days about the potential of Ferg.it, a direct mail application that allows mobile device users to receive promotional offers tailored to their specific interests.

"As a consumer, you get all this crap in the mail," Broerman explains. "How much do you look at? What if you could receive a coupon book which is totally personalized, based on your interest, that is based on businesses you've tagged as favorites, and so it's filled exclusively with coupon offers and promotions from your favorite retailers, restaurants, so forth?"

The company has steadily grown, Broerman says, with a ten-fold growth in revenues since coming the Hamilton incubator. It employs six to 10, depending on product needs, he says.

Along the way, the company has benefited from investments by North Coast Angel Fund, Ohio TechAngels and the CoreNetwork in Toledo. ZebraMobile also has been awarded up to $1.25 million through the Ohio Third Frontier's Innovation Loan Fund.

Source: Vince Broerman, ZebraMobile
Writer: Gene Monteith

A booster shot of venture capital will help OnShift Software flex its marketing muscle in 2011.

The Cleveland company announced this month it recently had secured $2.3 million, both from its Ohio investors -- Early Stage Partners, JumpStart Inc., North Coast Angel Fund, and Glengary LLC, -- and Draper Triangle Ventures, of Pittsburgh. Early Stage and Draper receive some of their investment dollars from the Ohio Capital Fund.

The money will be used for hiring across the board, but mostly for sales and marketing positions, CEO Mark Woodka says.

Response to OnShift's innovative staff management system has been so positive the company is convinced it needs to quickly increase the number of its representatives. OnShift had 26 customers in 2009. It will end 2010 with more than 200.

Likewise, the company began with three employees; this year it has 24 and next year, Woodka says, it will double that amount.

OnShift's system, whose key benefit is prevention of overtime costs, has been deployed mostly at long-term care facilities, such as skilled/assisted living nursing homes and retirement centers. Hospitals are a large potential source of expansion.

It's a "very green field" of a market, Woodka says, and "the need for what we do is going up over time."

Woodka credits early support from Ohio groups such as JumpStart for OnShift's fast rise.

Source: Mark Woodka, OnShift
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

Ohio made its best showing yet in a national survey that measures the economic structure of each state. Still, there is room for improvement, according to findings in " The 2010 State New Economy Index," released last month by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The report shows that Ohio rose to 25th overall, up four places from the last survey, conducted in 2007. The jump was larger than all but two other states: Kansas, which rose eight places, and Montana, which rose five.

The survey examined five main categories: knowledge jobs, globalization, economic dynamism, transformation to a digital economy, and technological innovation capacity.

Ohio made its best showing in the knowledge jobs category, where it ranked 16th nationally, up six places from 2007. Within that category, Ohio was 9th in immigration of knowledge workers and 15th in information technology jobs, a 10-place surge from 2007. 

The state rose four places in the globalization category to 24th nationally, and rose three places -- to 31st -- in the digital economy category. While Ohio remained at 25th in the innovation capacity category, it rose six places -- to 24th -- in the subcategory of non-industry investment in R&D.

The only main category in which Ohio fell in the rankings was in economic dynamism, where it fell to 38th from its previous ranking of 37th. Scott Andes, a research analyst at the ITIF and co-author of the report, says it's difficult to pinpoint reasons for the change, but noted a contributing factor could have been Ohio's drop from 17th to 25th in the number of fastest-growing firms.

"It's important to remember that the State New Economy Index measures economic structures, not performance," he says. "Some reports gauge a state on how well they have performed in the near term, yet such measurements can be volatile. While Ohio should be encouraged by its progress, it should be clear that becoming a national leader will take more than a few years."

Sources: The Innovation Technology and Innovation Foundation, and Scott Andes, ITIF research analyst
Writer: Gene Monteith

A three-year-old Columbus firm is forging a new path in branding by developing browser themes that fans can download for their favorite sports teams, news sites or other entities.

Brand Thunder, founded in 2007 by former AOL/Netscape marketer Patrick Murphy, has provided themes -- or skins -- to more than 250 brands, including 60 NCAA universities.

"Brands are looking for new ways to engage their audience," says Murphy, the company's CEO. "Great brands are building these destination sites . . . but we all know people are getting their content elsewhere. So, how do these brands embrace their users, no matter where they are on the web?"

RSS feeds, Twitter feeds and Facebook updates can be built into brand themes, providing users with up-to-the-minute information about the goings on of their favorite brands -- and driving them to that organization's website, Murphy says.

"The Huffington Post one was one of our first clients. The average reader maybe visits their site three times a day. But we found if they were using our browser, usage was about 20 times a day."

The company shares advertising and merchandising revenue with clients based on clicks from within browser. But the principal revenue comes from the search function, enhanced by a recent partnership with Bing, which becomes the default search engine when a skin is downloaded (Murphy says users can easily change to a different engine afterward).

"As soon as that person clicks a sponsored link, Bing just made a buck or two,"  Murphy says -- and Brand Thunder earns a percentage.

Two and a half years ago, Brand Thunder received $350,000 from TechColumbus, and more recently received $1 million from the Third Frontier's Ohio Innovation Loan Fund. The company is closing on a second round of investment from North Coast Angel Fund and Ohio TechAngels.

Brand Thunder currently has seven employees -- three outside of Ohio -- but expects to add up to a dozen more in the next three to four years.

Source: Patrick Murphy, Brand Thunder
Writer: Gene Monteith

Zoo Games, Inc. has emerged as a major player in the development, publishing and distribution of interactive software for family-oriented consumers.

The Cincinnati company, which in 2007 sprang from Take Two -- the creator of Grand Theft Auto and one of the top game publishers worldwide -- focuses on more casual games.

"Triple A or blockbuster games like Grand Theft can cost from ten to eighty million dollars to develop, whereas development budgets for our casual games are anywhere from one hundred thousand to one million dollars," says Mark Seremet, Zoo Games CEO. "Casual games don't have steep learning curves and are generally played for short periods of time. The Wii and most iPhone apps are some examples of casual games."

Themes include sports, racing, game shows, strategy, and action-adventure. Zoo develops software for all major consoles, handheld gaming devices, PCs, and mobile and smart-phone devices, as well as the emerging "connected services." Its 100-game library will grow to 150 games by the end of the year.

The company's innovative content creation site, indiePub Games, develops opportunities in digital entertainment. The site, which consists of independent game developers and players, offers the resources to create new games and serves as a venue where enthusiasts can help to create new software. "indiePub is like an American Idol for video games," says Mark Seremet, the company's CEO.

Sales for the first nine months of the year show a 50 percent year-over-year increase compared to last year's sales of $48.5 million. Zoo's games vary in price from about $20 to $40.

Source: Mark Seremet, Zoo Games
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

Joelle Rubcich, along with partners Erica Krumlauf and Dave Michels, started Leading EDJE three and a half years ago when a competitor purchased the IT company they were working for.

Today, the company is gaining recognition not just for its IT services, but for its growth and business philosophy.

Recently, the 15-employee firm was named one of the fastest-growing companies in central Ohio, coming in 13th in Business First's recent Fast 50 rankings. Last week, Rubcich was honored as one of 11 women business owners to receive the Ohio Department of Development's 2010 Keys to Success award. And also last week, Business First included Leading EDJE among the region's best places to work for the second year in a row.

Leading EDJE, located in the village of Galena north of Columbus, develops custom software for a who's who of central Ohio customers, including universities, retailers, fast food restaurants and healthcare organizations, says Rubcich, the company's president.

"We partner with clients of all industries and help them custom build software solutions to allow them to gain a competitive edge," she explains.

Revenues were up more than 60 percent last year over the previous year, and employment has been rising steadily, she says. While growth is important, Rubcich says doing it the right way is paramount.

"The real focus of our company is providing extraordinary technical talent with high positive energy, and creating fun in the workplace," she says -- explaining why she holds the Best Places to Work award above the others in importance. "We're not going to compromise our business plan for the sake of growth. If it gets to the point where we're focusing on anything but enjoying what we do, we've broken our business model. We're concentrating on having a blast being excellent geeks."

Source: Joelle Rubcich
Writer: Gene Monteith

Friends and business partners Jennifer Wexler and Kelly Bucci have poured their money, talent and time into a software company that helps hospitals catch billing errors that lead to lost dollars.

The pair founded Eris Medical Technologies, housed in the Youngstown Business Incubator, to build on more than two decades of personal experience finding those errors.

"Our software looks at patients' claims and predicts where hospitals have inaccurately charged for services, or services that have not been charged for," Wexler said. "For a very long time Kelly and I travelled together across the U.S. and did this work manually. We reviewed claims and showed clients where they were missing money or had charged insurance incorrectly. We thought, There has to be a better way to do this."

Bucci, who has a background in medical coding, believed she and Wexler could develop a better way. So they quit their jobs, borrowed money on their houses and in 2007 started Eris. Three years later they're still going strong, selling two web-based products: erisRx and assess.

The software is based a proprietary engine that boasts over 375,000 algorithms with code pairing capability. Wexler and Bucci developed the algorithms, and subcontracted an outside software firm to complete development.

The software is out on the market, and the company is working to expand its client base and partner with other companies to reach a wider healthcare provider network. The incubator has been crucial in allowing the self-financed company to grow offering free rent in their early years and access to accounting and other business services.

Sources: Jennifer Wexler and Kelly Bucci, Eris Medical Technologies
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Al Wofford founded CDO Technologies 15 years ago based on a simple "can do" philosophy of business. In fact, if you look closely, Can DO is right there in the name.

Today, Wofford's own name is mentioned among the heavy hitters around west central Ohio. Recently listed among the Dayton Business Journal's regional 10 Most Influential People of the year, Wofford has built a company with 330 employees in Ohio, Illinois, Alabama, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.

CDO is one of Dayton's largest minority-owned firms and an IT integrator with numerous clients in defense, government and private industry.

One of CDO Technologies' core competencies is in asset visibility and management -- think bar codes and radio frequency identification (RFID) systems -- that track inventory accurately and precisely real time.

"We don't build any technology and hardware, but we build software to tie different systems together," explains Bryce Stuckenschneider, marketing coordinator. "Sometimes we're getting calls from the CFOs and CIOs saying we need more accountability (for assets), and we're losing things at a rapid rate, and other times we get calls from the engineer on the line saying I'm being held accountable for this.

"One of the big commercial areas we're diving into are hospitals," he says. "They lose an alarming amount of inventory, and every year they will order four times more than they need because they have no idea what they have."

While asset identification and tracking comprises much of CDO's business, Stuckenschneider says the company can't be pigeonholed.

"Everything we do is focused on creatively applying technology, and sometimes that's auto identification -- RFID or bar coding -- and sometimes the market asks us 'how do you redesign air space over major cities?' which is a huge problem that America has. So we have a couple of industry experts who have recently come on board trying to come up with great ways to retrain air traffic controllers."

About a third of CDO's employees are in Ohio, with about 65 at company headquarters in Dayton.

Source: Bryce Stuckenschneider, CDO Technologies
Writer: Gene Monteith

Carving $1.5 million for IT out of a $10-million budget is par for the course among for-profit companies, Adam Roth says. For non-profits, where administrative costs are closely monitored, it's a red flag.

That's why so many non-profits have struggled to keep up with leading-edge technology that could help them better manage internal affairs, board business and programs, he says. And it's why Roth created StreamLink Software, a Cleveland firm that has developed two products to help non-profits.

Since StreamLink's first product launch in July of 2008 -- a solution called BoardMax -- the company has attracted more than 100 customers, including Ronald McDonald House, the Boys and Girls Club of Cleveland, and the American Heart Association.

Roth, the company's CEO and former chief operating officer for Cleveland's West Side Ecumenical Ministry, began exploring the software landscape in 2006 after being frustrated by a lack of good, economical software programs for non-profits. At the same time, the development of web-based software was growing, giving entities a way to avoid the high infrastructure costs of internal IT programs.

Thus, BoardMax -- a web-based product designed to increase board engagement and organizational compliance with regulations and standards.

"Our tool really helps internal management manage the organization as well as helping board members connect with the organization," he says.

AmpliFund, released earlier this year, "focuses on the whole grant cycle," Roth says. "Everything from trying to understand what opportunities are out there, to creating and personalizing those opportunities for each organization, building a plan, a solicitation strategy around each opportunity, tracking and managing an organization-wide plan that can allow you to create projections throughout the year."

After a program is implemented, the software becomes a management tool to capture data related to performance and expenditure of funds.

Along the way, StreamLink has had help from North Coast Angel Fund ($200,000), the Lorain County Community College Innovation Fund ($100,000) and $400,000 in private investments.

Roth says the company employed two a year ago; today, it employs eight and plans to grow.

Source: Adam Roth, StreamLink
Writer: Gene Monteith