Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...

Startups & Venture Capital

Playing matchmaker in the boardroom

 

Premium content from Boston Business Journal by Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

Friday, September 28, 2012

W. Marc Bernsau

When it comes to assembling governing boards, the process shouldn’t be “Who do we know?” but instead, “Who do we need?”
That’s according to Mark Rogers, CEO and founder of Boston startup BoardProspects, which says it’s created the first site of its kind connecting companies and nonprofits with potential board members.
Until now, Rogers noted, populating boards has largely been based on the “Who do you know?” conversation between executives.
“I became intrigued by this process, and more importantly by its inefficiency,” he said. “It’s a good way to start the conversation. Unfortunately, the boardroom recruitment conversation begins and ends with that.”
BoardProspects, which launched its site Sept. 10, is a social network-like online recruitment platform that allows nonprofits and companies of all sizes to search for candidates for their various governing and advisory boards.
Conversely, through its two-way search and matching technology, it gives prospects the ability to look for board openings or express interest in serving on a particular board, while presenting their background and qualifications. The site also offers educational tools and resources from experts, such as white papers, blogs, and webinars.
“It’s bringing boardroom recruitment into the modern age,” Rogers said.
Since launching in beta earlier this year, BoardProspects has attracted roughly 1,700 users worldwide — on both sides of the recruitment process. The company, which has roughly a half-dozen on staff, has been supported by $1.5 million in seed funding from angel investors, as well as sponsorships from the likes of Nasdaq.
The site’s healthy momentum and international attention, he said, results largely from a widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo. Too often, the “Who do you know?” conversation results in directors or executives recruiting their “buddies and business associates,” who don’t necessarily have the skill sets or talents to match the position. In other cases, openings are simply left unfilled — but not for lack of interest.
“There are a lot of people who want to serve on boards,” he said. But until now, he added, they haven’t had the forum to express their interest.
Ultimately, board recruitment needs to be a concerted effort and an ongoing process, he said, and it’s crucial to have diversity in gender and ethnicity — as well as diversity of perspective — to foster a robust, well-rounded board.
At Eastern Bank, a BoardProspects user, president and COO Bob Rivers said the traditional process can indeed be cumbersome, and also depend on how far-reaching a company’s network is. With a three-tiered governance structure of about 155 people, Eastern Bank has “constant vacancies,” he said, which the company has typically filled through outreach and networking.
But that can only go so far, he noted — so with BoardProspects, the bank is able to put out a wider net and reach different communities, and ultimately better diversify. He’s found that the platform particularly attracts younger people who they might not otherwise have been connected with.
“It’s a much more efficient search,” he said. “You get to know people much quicker.”
Looking ahead, the goal of BoardProspects is to attract more users, add new features and capabilities, and expand the site’s educational components, according to Rogers.

Original story link here.

Cleaning up the past

Several projects to benefit from Nyanza settlement

By Taryn Plumb |  Globe Correspondent  

September 27, 2012

For decades, it was literally a dumping ground.
Mercury, chemical waste, heavy metals, and used solvents leaked, or were intentionally dumped and buried, on a 35-acre property in Ashland that became one of the nation’s first Superfund pollution-cleanup sites.
Though the Nyanza Color and Chemical Co. closed in 1978, the company and its predecessors left a legacy of contamination that extended along the Sudbury River watershed. But now, out of that tragedy comes a chance at rebirth.
Eleven projects totaling roughly $3.7 million aim to improve and protect the area’s habitat and wildlife, restore waterways for fish, control invasive plants, and establish new trails and refuges.
Funded by a 1998 settlement between state and federal entities and Nyanza representatives, the projects extend beyond Ashland to communities that include Framingham, Southborough, Wayland, Westborough, and Sudbury.
“They’re diversified, and scattered throughout the watershed,” said Molly Sperduto, with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and a trustee representative for the case. “The results will be really broad-reaching.”
One of the highest-ticket projects is $1 million to control invasive weeds, particularly water chestnut and purple loosestrife, in the Sudbury River. Money will be used to purchase a harvester and to implement biological methods, according to Sperduto, who works out of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s New England field office in Concord, N.H. 
“You have to be vigilant in coming back year after year to get rid of these, to really lick it,” said Sperduto.
Back on land, meanwhile, $540,000 will help to transform Framingham’s Stearns and Brackett reservoirs, which comprise 12 miles of shoreline and 175 acres of state-owned land, into wildlife preserves with boat access and walking trails.
The hope is that more land can be similarly protected with another $720,000 set aside for conservation. Trustees will seek proposals to conserve nesting and feeding areas for tree swallows, red-winged blackbirds, chestnut-sided warblers, and yellow warblers (to name a few bird species), Sperduto said.
Other projects include $400,000 to study fish passages on the Concord River; $300,000 to improve habitats for cold-water fish; and $168,000 to create boardwalks, a viewing platform, and provide canoes and kayaks to the public at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. 
There’s also $145,000 for a boat launch and parking area on the Sudbury River in Southborough; $90,000 for school education programs; $75,000 for conservation in Belize that will help to improve wintering habitats of migratory songbirds that spend part of the year in the Sudbury watershed; and $34,000 to control invasive buckthorn at Greenways North Field in Wayland. 
The Nyanza Trustee Council — with representatives from the state Department of Environmental Protection, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration — announced the projects early this month. Though the time frame is still in flux, officials said, the goal is to begin implementing the efforts as soon as possible.
The process began in 2008, with public meetings and solicitations that ultimately drew close to 50 ideas for improving the watershed’s health, according to Sperduto.
“We wanted to make sure we restored a diversity of resources, but also that we had projects throughout the watershed so that multiple communities, and multiple people, could benefit,” said Karen Pelto, natural resource damages coordinator for the state environmental agency.
The Ashland property was operated as an industrial site from 1917 to 1978, the final 13 years by Nyanza,  a dye and textile chemical manufacturer. Over the years, large volumes of industrial waste water containing high levels of acids and mercury were released into the environment, and another 45,000-plus tons of chemical sludge, used solvents, and other chemical waste were buried on the site, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund website.
In May 1998, the agency reached an $8 million settlement with PQ Corp., Nyacol Products Inc., and various landowners, according to an EPA announcement at the time; the money was split between federal and state entities.
Years of cleanup have included excavation and disposal of contaminants, layering of clean sediment in waterways, setting up ground-water monitoring systems, capping, and installing vapor-mitigation systems in nearby single- and multifamily-homes. Still, fish in the river remain contaminated with mercury.
But even so, local, state, and federal officials see the projects as a milestone in restoring the area.
“It’s a shame that we can’t get the mercury out of the water,” acknowledged Sudbury conservation agent Deborah Dineen, “but we will see a lot of important enhancements, restorations, and protections that will help offset it.”
Sudbury, for its part, plans to submit an application for $375,000 to purchase a roughly 1.5-acre parcel on Lincoln Lane, according to Dineen. If approved, the acquisition would be paid for through the $725,000 set aside for land conservation as part of the program.
It’s the last developable piece of land on the river in Sudbury, according to Dineen, sandwiched by town-owned land and the Great Meadows refuge. It’s a developable parcel with permits for construction, she said, but its owner hopes to sell it for conservation.
“Land acquisition is a very good way to permanently protect the river and its habitats and wildlife,” said Dineen.
Ultimately, with the various projects, “so many different types of species will benefit,” said Sperduto – including people. “They will hopefully have more access to the river and learn more about the river.”
Fostering such a connection, she and others noted, is just as important as restoring habitats and cleaning up waterways. Which is the goal of the Sudbury River Schools program, also being funded through the settlement.
The goal, according to Massachusetts Audubon Society official Kris Scopinich, will be to work with at least two schools in five Sudbury River communities over the course of three years. The program will educate both students and teachers about native plants and wildlife through various studies and visits to the river.
“These young citizens are the people that we need to be reaching,’’ Scopinich said, “so that these kinds of things don’t happen again.”

  
 © 2012 The New York Times Company

Look out, YouTube

Startups & Venture Capital

Democratizing the online video process

 

Boston Business Journal by Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

Friday, September 21, 2012

W. Marc Bernsau

Every minute, 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, according to the online video giant.
That’s a strong testament to the popularity of Web video and its dominance in everyday online life. Yet, at the same time, it can also prove intimidating to businesses looking to independently create videos and draw traffic to their own sites.
But Somerville-based Wistia aims to democratize the online video process. Founded in 2006 by two young entrepreneurs, the company offers hosting and analytics services that help businesses market to — and, more importantly, engage — customers through videos on their own websites (and on their own terms).
“Eventually, every business is going to use video to communicate,” said CEO Chris Savage, who co-founded the company with CTO Brendan Schwartz just a year after the two graduated from Brown University.
Studies and statistics appear to back up that assertion: According to a report by Social Media Examiner, 76 percent of marketers planned to increase their use of YouTube and video marketing this year.
Additionally, research by online marketing agency Distilled suggests that Web pages with videos typically keep visitors on-site for longer, and help drive more sales, according to SEO consultant Phil Nottingham, who is based in London. He ultimately described the space as “fragmented” with small sites like Wistia competing with free platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo, and larger players including Brightcove, Viddler and Vzaar.
Audiences today expect, even demand, video on websites,” said Grant Crowell, a Chicago-based online video expert. “Video is the best communications medium we have today, and it allows businesses to make any topic and service more interesting and helpful.”
Wistia has experienced that demand: The company serves what Savage described as “tens of thousands” of users ranging from locally based HubSpot and Help Scout, to international brands like IBM and HP.
The company integrates with other marketing platforms, including Constant Contact and MailChimp, to help leverage video SEO. Its analytics, meanwhile, help track how people are watching second-by-second — for instance, do they click away at a certain point in the video, or when a different person shows up on-screen? — to help determine what’s working and what isn’t.
“It takes a picture of the emotional arc of the video,” said Savage, who has a background in film, and an associate producer credit to his name with the 2005 documentary “Buddy.”
Whether big or small, the key is in the presentation, he said. Too often, people make videos that are “too long, too dry, or too complex,” he said.
So another element of Wistia’s work is teaching businesses how to video market. Whether a company wants to merely talk about a product, perform a demonstration, or provide a customer testimonial, the principles are the same: Keep it short, simple, and preferably fun, Savage said.
Wistia is backed by $1.425 million raised across two rounds of angel funding in 2008 and 2010.

Original story link here.

In Thoreau's foosteps (and not just in Concord)

An exploration of Thoreau’s life beyond Walden

By Taryn Plumb |  Globe Correspondent

September 20, 2012

Laurie Swope for The Boston Globe

Thoreau interpreter Richard Smith leads a re-cent tour of the Middlesex Fells Reservation. 

Oftentimes history distills the entirety of a life into caricature — Genghis Khan as a barbarian; Cleopatra VII as a seductress; Napoleon Bonaparte as a ruthless emperor making up for his vertical inadequacies.
And so it is with Henry David Thoreau — the 19th-century author and philosopher is often remembered as a recluse and a malcontent, based solely on his two-year, back-to-the-land experiment in Concord that led to his famous book, “Walden.’’
But if time tells us anything, it’s that lives have many dimensions — and that is what the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area hopes to emphasize with the launch of a program exploring the complexities of Thoreau’s life beyond the legendary pond and surrounding woods.
“He’s got a reputation for being very connected to Concord and Walden, which of course he was,” said Corinne H. Smith, an Athol-based historian whose book, “Westward I Go Free: Tracing Thoreau’s Last Journey,” came out earlier this year. “But he did travel a fair amount in his lifetime.”
“In Thoreau’s Footsteps” is a multiyear venture launched this summer by Freedom’s Way — which is headquartered in the Devens area and extends to 45 cities and towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire — and supported by local historical societies and cultural councils. It entails a series of events aiming to illustrate Thoreau’s travels throughout the region, as well as his passion for nature, science, and philosophy. 
The last events this season will commemorate his connection to Ayer (in his day known as Groton Junction).
At 7 p.m. Thursday, Smith will give a talk at Ayer Town Hall, and on Sept. 29, historic interpreter Richard Smith (no relation) will portray Thoreau as a 19th-century guide on a nature walk along the Nashua River Rail Trail.
Previous events have taken place in Concord, Fitchburg, Medford, Westminster, and at Mount Wachusett in Princeton.
“It’s almost like Concord is finally sharing Henry Thoreau with the rest of New England,” said Richard Smith, who has been portraying him since 1999, and now does it full time, with roughly 90 events this year at Walden Pond and at colleges, high schools, churches, and libraries.
Because Thoreau was so meticulous and dedicated to keeping up his daily journal, researchers know he visited at least 39 of the 45 towns in the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area, Corinne Smith said.
One of his most notable local travels took place in 1842, when he walked with a friend from Concord to Mount Wachusett. Along the way, the pair passed through Acton, Maynard, Stow, Bolton, Lancaster, and Sterling; and on the way back, they meandered through Harvard and Boxborough.
Meanwhile, he lectured in Amherst, N.H., Bedford, Lincoln, and Medford, and cruised along several local rivers, including the Concord, Sudbury, Assabet, and Merrimack.
As Smith explains it, Tho­reau walked at first to get to his destinations; but as the railroads flourished, he took full advantage of them. (This is contrary to the belief, she noted, that he was a Luddite.)
And that’s where he developed his connection with Ayer; at the time, Smith said, it was a major railroad hub, with at least three trains going back and forth to Worcester each day. She estimates that he visited the town at least 22 times.  
“No matter where Henry wanted to go west of Concord, he always had to go through ­Ayer,” she said. But he didn’t write specifically about the town, as “he was often on his way somewhere else.”
Meanwhile, he also visited Maine and Cape Cod, and made at least four trips to Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. And Smith’s 400-plus-page book details his last great excursion, to Minnesota alongside Horace Mann Jr. in the summer of 1861, when the country was embroiled in war. When he returned to Concord, he only lived another nine months before dying of tuberculosis.
“He never would have lived anywhere else, he loved his hometown,” Smith said. But at the same time, she said, “he was more of a traveler than people give him credit for.”
And also much more complex and multitalented than many people realize.
Richard Smith, for his part, describes Thoreau as the best writer of the transcendentalists (a philosophical movement in New England in the 1830s and ’40s that emphasized the inherent goodness of man and nature and the corruptive nature of society), a “troublemaker” who questioned authority, admittedly “kind of weird,” and also incredibly spiritual and possessing a great sense of humor.
“He was a total iconoclast — he did his own thing and didn’t care what anybody thought. I find that most attractive about him,” Richard Smith said.
That same streak of individualism lured Corinne Smith to Thoreau’s writings and his life.
“Here’s a guy who says on the printed page: ‘You know, you don’t have to be like everybody else.’ ”
Not to mention he was fascinated by nature and science, she said, always studying plants, trees, and animals, taking samples, experimenting with seeds, and, while riding the train back and forth, remarking on the scenery and the weather conditions.
“This was a real person,” said Richard Smith, explaining that his goal as an interpreter is to make Thoreau three-dimensional.
At Walden Pond — where he works three days a week in the shop — Smith portrays Thoreau in the year 1847 (the end of the second year he lived there).
But in most other events, as will be the case in Ayer, he’s the Thoreau of 1855, the year after “Walden” was published, and when he was traveling and lecturing and was “kind of just being Henry, and not particularly worried about being famous,” Smith said. “I like that year, because people can ask him about literature, politics and anti-slavery, western expansion and the Indians.”
Smith doesn’t break character, so when people meet him as Thoreau they’re essentially having a conversation with the man himself.
“They laugh, they get angry sometimes, they get irritated sometimes, they agree with him, they disagree with him,” Smith explained.
Ultimately, through both his work and the Freedom’s Way initiative, the goal is to use the author, philosopher, scientist, and naturalist as a catalyst for examining the wider world.
“We’re finding ways to connect the towns, and to get people thinking about history and present day, and natural things, too,” Corinne Smith said. “We’re doing a service to Mr. Thoreau, as well — getting him out of Concord, out of the box that people put him in.”
Corinne Smith’s talk Thursday in Ayer will last 90 minutes. Richard Smith’s walk will be go from noon to 3 p.m. Sept. 29, starting at the Ayer farmers market on 70 Main St.Both events are free.
For more information, visit www.freedomsway.org, or www.corinnehsmith.com.


© 2012 The New York Times Company

Getting to the top with every sense but sight

PEAK EXPERIENCES

Blind hiker scales all the tallest White Mountains

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

 

By Taryn Plumb Globe Correspondent  / September 16, 2012

• 

Randy Pierce made his way along the Ethan Pond Trail on the way to the summit… (Mark Wilson/Globe Staff )

Each step is into a void. But out of that darkness, slight pulls one way or another serve as a beacon. Pauses, angled movements, and varying degrees of tension on a harness create a path felt, if not actually seen.
Voices serve as landmarks. Subtle changes in the air and wind indicate elevation; the methodical clack of a walking stick illustrates the layout of the land’s rocks and trees.
Randy Pierce doesn’t see a thing, but in this way — following silent cues from his yellow lab, The Mighty Quinn, and feeling, listening, and visualizing — he works his way to the tops of New England’s highest mountains.

In March, the Nashua resident, 46, became the first blind person to climb all 48 of the 4,000-foot peaks in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in a single winter (with Quinn being the third dog, and the first guide dog, to do so by his side).  
Now, in a mission he’s called “ 2020 Vision Quest,” Pierce aims to scale all of the summits in a series of summers.
“I’m not a blind hiker; I’m a hiker,” said Pierce. “I don’t put anything out of my reach.”
He started his summer journey in 2010, has done 36 of the peaks so far, and expects to complete the task — hopefully alongside Quinn, who, at 8, is nearing guide dog retirement age — by the end of next summer. Although it might seem just the opposite, his summer adventure is ultimately more perilous than his winter one. During cold-weather hikes, the trails are blanketed in snow, so he doesn’t face the pitfalls of rocks and gullies, and he also wears studded, slip-on aids known as MICROspikes to increase traction.
On Sept. 1, he and Quinn crossed No. 35 off the summer list: Mount Willey, a 4,285-footer, which they summitted via a roughly 5½-mile trail.
At 9 a.m., his group gathered at the trail head, just off the whooshing Route 302.
Like a sage adviser, Quinn sat in the back of an SUV, watching as his human companions — Pierce, his wife, Tracy, and their friends Justin Fuller and Dina Sutin — laced up their boots and cinched their packs.
Then Pierce — 6 foot 4 inches with gray-salted hair, a skinny braid occasionally finding its way to the front and getting tossed to the back again — tapped his leg. Quinn hopped out, pirouetted into position by his side, and Pierce secured his dog’s harness.
As they set out — a walking stick in Pierce’s right hand, Quinn to his left — the dog scanned the trail to Pierce’s gentle coaxes, “Hop up, show me buddy . . . what you got?”

“It’s mind-blowing when you think about it and watch what’s going on,” said Fuller, 30, a lifelong hiker and self-described “outdoor junkie” from Claremont, N.H., who met Pierce on Mount Garfield on Jan. 1, and was so inspired by what he was doing, he joined him. “He can’t see a thing, yet he’s navigating.”
None of it would happen without Quinn. Pierce called his guide dog’s abilities “incredible.”
The two share their own language of feeling: Quinn’s pauses, backward steps, slight or hard movements, and tugs on his harness let his human partner know how, when, and where to step and turn.

“To Randy, Quinn basically is talking,” Fuller said as he watched the pair traversing a section of trail studded with ankle-twisting rocks, dips, and valleys. “They have such an understanding of each other.”
Pierce grew up fully sighted, but in 1989, at age 22, within the span of two weeks, he lost all the vision in his right eye, and half in his left.
For several years, he endured tunnel vision, the dark closing in from the edges.
In September 2000, he went totally blind.
The unconfirmed diagnosis is mitochondrial disease, which affected his brain and left him using a wheelchair for 1 year, 8 months, and 21 days. But he eventually moved up to crutches, and then a walking stick.
“I had all the normal reactions: anger, denial,” said Pierce, eyes flickering back and forth [a symptom of his disease] behind his shades emblazoned with the logo of the Patriots (who named him their “Fan of the Year” in 2001).
But as he came back from the literal and figurative darkness, he settled on the attitude that, “Really, what it meant was that I couldn’t see, and everything else was up to me.”
The disability ended his career as an electrical engineer. He keeps busy (when he’s not scaling mountains) with volunteer work, speeches for schools and businesses — in just the past two years, he’s talked to 16,000 students, he proudly reported — runs road races with Quinn, and is working toward his third-degree black belt in karate.
Meanwhile, he has raised thousands of dollars through 2020 Vision Quest for the New Hampshire Association for the Blind and Quinn’s school, Guiding Eyes for the Blind. The pair’s winter adventure also was chronicled by Sutin in the documentary “Four More Feet.”
“I didn’t plan to go blind; I didn’t plan to go into a wheelchair. But none of that is what defines my life, because we have full power to choose how we respond,” Pierce said during a rest on the Willey trail. “The only thing a blind person can’t do is see.”

As he stopped to talk, Quinn stood by his side, took a moment to sit and enjoy a pat, or lap water out of a bottle Pierce carries just for him. He’s forever attentive, and never off-duty.
“He loves his work. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t be out here with him,” Pierce said. “He worries about me.”
At points where wet rocks pock the ground like jagged teeth sloping into the mouth of a gully, or 10-foot-high boulders require the use of both hands and feet to traverse, Pierce relies on the voices of his wife or Fuller to lead him up or across, and maybe a hand on a shoulder as a light escort. Quinn stands back and watches; as soon as he sees Pierce make it safely across, he bounds back by his side.
As the Willey trail progressed, Pierce felt his way up a steep set of ladders with his hands and feet and following voice commands; shimmied sideways across double log bridges; and, along the way, shared jokes and stories.
Ultimately, he hikes with all senses, and spurs others to experience the trail beyond their eyes. He remarks on the warmth of patches of sunlight speckling rocks, or cool breezes passing through, describes how the “wind plays a symphony,” and remembers the voices (as a sighted person might recall a face) of passing hikers, nearly every one of whom he engages in conversation.
Still, “I know one of the reasons people hike is what they get to see,” he acknowledged.
But he sees it, too, in his head, through the detailed descriptions of his companions, hearing the emotion and awe in their voices, and, prior to a hike, feeling the terrain and the surrounding mountains through the use of raised relief maps and a compass.
“My fingers get to feel those mountains, so I know the view. I can build those mental images,” Pierce said.
When he talks about experiences in his quest, it’s hard to believe he’s not able to see. He describes the Lafayette range during a winter hike in “Alpine glow,” when the sun’s just setting and it’s enveloped in a pink, red, and orange aura.
“He helps me put life in perspective,” said Tracy, who met Pierce in 2008 and married him in 2010. “He has a way of letting you see your way around things.”
Ultimately, because mitochondrial disease can be fatal, they don’t know how much time he has. But that reminder of mortality “helps us enjoy things a little more,” his wife noted.
“I want to be as much immersed in any experience as possible,” Pierce said with a shrug. “That’s just how I live my life.”

Original story link here.

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.

The future of education?

Startups & Venture Capital

Providing an Alleyoop for education

 

Premium content from Boston Business Journal by Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

Friday, September 14, 2012

W. Marc Bernsau

Imagine you’re virtually exploring the surface of Mars via the Curiosity rover.
As you move along, you can earn points, compare your progress with others through leaderboards, and stay connected with a wide network of users — all while learning about aerospace, physics and robotics.
This is the education for the 21st century, as envisioned by Boston-based Alleyoop. The seven-month-old startup aims to usher in a new era of learning — and better equip today’s students with math and science skills — through its intuitive, personalized, game-based website. Having already attracted tens of thousands of users and big-name content partners, it arrives on the scene as statistics continue to reflect a dire skills gap in the country in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.
“There’s a massive challenge that we’re facing in this country with adequately preparing our students for college,” said Patrick Supanc, Alleyoop’s president and founder.
According to a report released in February by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the U.S. needs to grow its STEM professionals by 1 million over the next decade if it intends to retain its “historic preeminence” in science and technology. Achieving that would require a roughly 34 percent annual increase in the number of students who receive undergraduate STEM degrees, according to the report, which largely cites weak math skills and uninspiring introductory courses as dissuading many students from completing a STEM education.
“We’ve seen the U.S. drop over the years in its international ranking around math and science,” Supanc said.
One of the biggest deterrents he sees is the clinical way in which both disciplines have traditionally been taught — which doesn’t often match up with the seeing-it-in-the-real-world-context that is most engaging for students.
To that end, he was inspired to start Alleyoop, which launched in February and is backed by Pearson Education. The company has since partnered with NASA, National Geographic and the National Science Foundation, along with smaller enterprises such as Adaptive Curriculum and Brightstorm, which provide content for the site.
Geared toward students in grades 7-12, Alleyoop has attracted roughly 40,000 users so far; they’re “fairly evenly split” between boys and girls, according to Supanc, and 20 percent of them are actually post-high school.
As the school season ramps up this fall, he expects to see “massive growth” in that user base. Most notably, a new partnership with Cincinnati-headquartered education services company Hobsons will enable Alleyoop to reach another 5 million students in 5,500 schools around the world through Hobsons’ “Naviance” platform.
How Alleyoop works: Once users create an account, the system starts asking them introductory questions, such as what they’re studying and how they prefer to learn. Fairly quickly, through its “super brain” recommendation technology, it begins suggesting activities best suited to the user, ranging from videos and NASA eClips, to flashcards, quizzes or simulations.
“With every step, it’s adapting itself to you,” Supanc said.
Along the way, users earn points for starting and finishing activities, as well as “yoops,” or virtual currency; they “level up” and go on “missions” just like in video games; and they get and give constant feedback through questions, surveys and polls. They can also take advantage of live tutors and virtual counseling services.
Alleyoop is a “freemium” service: The average user can earn enough yoops to use the system for free, but more advanced content can be accessed through subscriptions that start at $12 a month — the method by which Alleyoop eventually hopes to become profitable, Supanc said.
“Alleyoop understands that students sometimes need to be motivated to do additional work,” said Jim Bowler, CEO of Arizona-based Adaptive Curriculum, which provides science content for the site. The principles of gamification “make it more engaging for the student.”
The company also recently introduced Alleyoop mobile, and hopes to ultimately become a one-stop shop for college readiness. “To be college-ready really requires a broad range of skills, including areas beyond math and science,” said Supanc, pointing to literacy and critical thinking skills in particular.

Original story link here.

Demand for third-party workers grows

Startups & Venture Capital

IT on-demand

OnForce connects outsourced technical workers with cos.

 

Boston Business Journal by Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

Friday, September 7, 2012 

The common refrain among businesses — big and small alike — is that good workers are hard to find. But what if, instead of going through the traditional process of posting ads, performing interviews, and rifling through resumes, you could find precisely the person you needed with just a few mouse clicks?
When it comes to outsourced technical workers, this is the goal of Lexington-based OnForce Inc.: To simply, yet effectively, connect companies with independent IT professionals through a cloud-based technology platform.
“We’ve set the tone of the next generation of the way services are going to be delivered,” said Peter Cannone, CEO of OnForce, which was founded in 2003 and moved to Lexington from New York in 2007.
The vetting and directory company uses patented technology to analyze what it says are millions of data points to help businesses pinpoint the right IT worker (or workers). Jobs can include services such as installations, training and data recovery.
The platform covers 99.4 percent of all Zip Codes in the U.S., and lists well over 100,000 specialists in a variety of IT categories — several thousand of which are active at any point, according to Cannone.
Contractors who want to be listed have to apply, and only about 20 percent are accepted. Once they are, OnForce tracks 28 key metrics to best match them with a company’s needs. “We’ve created this pool of independent contractors on-demand,” Cannone said.
OnForce says it’s enabled 1.5 million service engagements, and now has a pool of 5,000 registered businesses. Customers include AT&T, Xerox and Comcast.
But perhaps most notable is its partnership with Apple, now the world’s most valuable company: OnForce dispatches technicians to help small businesses with setups, configurations and other IT and technical issues related to Apple products.
OnForce has raised at least $21.75 million in equity investment from backers including Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners, and in November received $5 million in venture debt led by North Atlantic Capital.
Cannone declined to disclose specific revenue numbers, but said the company is close to profitability.
Ultimately, companies outsource to save money and to scale their business, according to Sumair Dutta, research director of service management with Boston-based Aberdeen Group.
In a recent Aberdeen poll, 64 percent of businesses in a broad range of industries said they outsourced their field-service work. Of that 64 percent, half said they planned to increase their reliance on outsourcing in coming years, Dutta reported.
“It’s a vibrant market opportunity,” he said, noting other players such as New York-based Work Market Inc., FieldSolutions of Minnesota, and ServicePower, with offices in Maryland and California. “It’s a strong space, with a good level of growth tied to it.”
Part of that demand results from the economy: Although many companies have been hesitant to invest in workers, the need for them remains high, he said, so a compromise can be found in outsourcing.
Going forward, OnForce hopes to grow globally and to eventually expand into more markets. “I like to think we’re really changing the world of services,” Cannone said.

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