To the Editor: Realities of Trade With Mexico
The Full Breadth Of Discrimination
Corrections or additions?
This article by Kathleen McGinn Spring was prepared for the March
21, 2001 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Mining the Web’s Data: Connotate
Under the leadership of Tom Pisello, Internet data
mining start up Connotate Technologies has made the leap from the
Rutgers computer science department to 3,000 square feet of office
space on George Street in New Brunswick.
Responsible for getting no fewer than four Internet companies up and
running — “sometimes two at a time” — Pisello
confesses
to being a start-up junkie. “It’s a disease,” he says.
Connotate was founded by Rutgers professors Tomasz Imielinski, author
of 100 papers and two books on database mining, Donald Smith, director
of the university’s laboratory for computer science (LCSR), and Vince
Sgro, senior application programmer at LCSR.
Imielinski and Smith remain at Rutgers, while Sgro works full time
as Connotate’s chief technology officer.
One of the first spin offs to come out of Rutgers’ computer science
department, Connotate is built on technology that allows users to
tag any website, use keywords to “teach” the site what
information
it wants, and receive that information through E-mail, fax, cell
phone,
or a personal digital assistant (PDA) such as a Palm Pilot.
Last year, New York equity firm Trautman Wasserman & Company Inc.
joined Rutgers in launching Connotate as a private company. Trautman
Wasserman, which recruited Pisello to be president and CEO, provided
cash and management advice to get Connotate started. The company’s
principal owners are Rutgers, the three co-founders, and Trautman
Wasserman.
The equity firm is recruiting other investors with the help of Dan
Conley, who is listed in the business plan as venture catalyst finder
and Oncall CFO. Connotate expects to fulfill its $2 million first
round of financing this spring, says Conley; he is taking the company
to this season’s early stage venture fairs, including the New Jersey
Technology Council fair on March 26. (see page 10).
Connotate has a website (www.connotate.com) where consumers can
at no cost try out its service. Going to any of the 3 billion websites
now in existence, users can request, say, Little League scores in
games where one team is from West Windsor, or recall information on
products for infants, or flight delay updates for Newark Airport.
A number of other companies will send similar information to
consumers,
but generally from just a small number of websites. Connotate is not
planning to derive its revenue from consumers, however, but rather
expects that it will make money by licensing this technology, which
can be used as one piece of a complete suite of functions delivered
through a cell phone or wireless device.
Connotate does have competitors, Pisello says, naming Pumatech Inc.
as one. Based in San Jose, California, Pumatech (Nasdaq: Puma)
has been around since 1993, and has evolved to take advantage of the
proliferation of wireless devices and the concurrent demand for
anywhere,
anytime information delivery. Connotate takes the technology one step
further, Pisello says, by sending not just alerts when new information
is posted on websites, as Pumatech’s NetMind software does, but by
sending the text itself. Connotate’s technology also is different,
he says, because it uses XML — a method for putting structured
data in a text file — which can be used in databases and in any
information device.
While consumers are free to take advantage of Connotate’s service,
the website is just a showcase for the company’s technology. “The
challenge with consumers,” Pisello says, “is that it’s
expensive
to reach them, and it’s hard to monetize the relationship.” In
other words consumers have shown they do not want to pay for the
information
they receive.
Connotate expects to find its some of its clients among companies
that are developing software platforms for use in wireless devices.
Connotate’s data mining technology could be part of a larger suite
of capabilities — maybe voice recognition, notification, content
management, and customer relationship management — that would
be bundled and sold to large companies seeking a wireless system for
delivering information to employees or clients. Other licensing
possibilities
include deals with wireless carriers, Internet portals, and online
content syndicators.
The company’s technology is in beta testing with several clients,
Pisello says. They include Comstar Interactive, formerly Bell South,
a paging service that is adding Connotate’s one-way wireless
technology
on top of its two-way service. Most of Connotate’s 10 employees
are technical people developing its products, but the company also
has a small sales force.
Pisello says he signed on with Connotate because of its technology,
but also for because it had a raw sales and marketing strategy. “I
like to build a team from the ground up. I’ve tried companies at other
stages, and I’ve tried working for someone else, but I’m spoiled,”
says Pisello, whose company launches include E-publishing software
company DigitalOwl, policy management software company Full Armor,
home decor E-tailer PuertaBella, and online cost analysis company
Interpose, which was purchased by the Gartner Group.
Another reason Pisello accepted the top spot at Connotate was his
desire to work on the East Coast. Raised on Long Island, Pisello
graduated
from the State University of New York (Class of 1986) with a degree
in electrical engineering. He now lives in Orlando with his wife Judy,
a creative director, and his 18-month-old daughter, Sophia. While
Orlando with its laid back atmosphere and warm weather is an ideal
place to live, Pisello says, it is not the place to nurture startups.
“Orlando gets less venture capital than Wyoming,” he says.
Ten years ago Pisello thought technology would mean everyone could
work wherever they wanted to. Not so, it turns out. “Venture
capitalists
want to invest in their own backyards,” he says. It is also easier
to recruit talent here, he has found, and to network. He says the
opportunities for tech companies are four times greater in an area
like metro New York than they are in Florida.
While he came north for opportunity, Pisello, who has logged 2 million
miles with Delta, has not pulled up his Florida roots. He commutes
home every Friday, and plans to keep right on making the 2,000 mile
roundtrip commute for another four to five years or so. His father,
who sells commodity paper for Websource, is semi-retired, but also
commutes from Florida to New York on a part-time basis. “Sometimes
we travel together,” Pisello says.
The New Jersey/Florida commute is far from all bad, Pisello says.
“When you’re doing a startup, it can be all consuming,” he
says. “It can cut into weekend and family time.” Now he
concentrates
on work 100 percent during the week, and leaves it behind on weekends.
During the week, “technology keeps you close,” he says. He
and his wife “are E-mailing all the time.” And sometimes they
even talk face-to-face during the week when Judy, who does some
projects
for Connotate, comes north.
Much as he is enjoying marrying the challenge of work in a high tech
corridor with a Florida lifestyle, Pisello says “startups can
burn you out.” He likes to work with a new company until it
reaches
about 50 employees, and then hand the reins over. He is already
thinking
of an exit strategy for Connotate. A public offering is not out of
the question, he says, but a more likely strategy is a merger with
one or more of the companies with which he is now seeking licensing
deals.
Of more concern is a threatened strike by Delta pilots. If that
happens,
“I’ll cry,” says Pisello. “They’re very good to me.”
— Kathleen McGinn Spring
Connotate Technologies, 303 George Street, NewBrunswick 08901. 732-296-8844; fax, 732-296-0330.Www.connotate.com.Top Of PageCompany IndexCompanies listed here may be found in the current edition of U.S.1 Newspaper, both electronically and in hard copy, with page numbersprovided.American Arbitration Association, 4;Buchanan Ingersoll, 8;Cambrex Corporation, 49;Cares Built, 10;Cell USA, 12;Chiragene, 49;Clemens Construction Company, 51;Connotate Technologies, 11;Courtyard by Marriott, 51;ebudgets.com, 49;Environmental Liability Management, 50;Eric David & Sons, 52;Exide Technologies, 49;ExpertPlan, 10;FRx, 49.Gallagher, Briody, Butler, 50;Geeps.com, 12;GNB, 49;Great Plains Software, 49;Harbour Management of Somers Point, 7;Helmsman Group, 49;The Hermes Group LLP, 52;Hydrocarbon Technologies Inc., 10;Institute for Advanced Study, 15;Institute of Real Estate Management, 7;IPGDirect.com, 12;Knite.Inc., 12;Lorman Education Services, 8;Make Us an Offer, 12;Mercer County College, 4;Microsoft, 49.New Jersey Economic Development Authority, 49;New Jersey Technology Council, 10;New Jersey Theatre Alliance, 6;Nex-i-com, 12;PanamaTech, 10;Pennsylvania Private Investors Group, 15;Planned Parenthood Association of theMercer Area, 52;Princeton Multimedia Technologies., 10;Progress Bank, 51;Rutgers University, 11;TechBanc, 51;Vectramed Inc., 12.Top Of PageBetween the LinesGods of printing plants and late winter and early springweather conditions willing, this Wednesday, March 21, will mark thearrival of your weekly U.S. 1 Newspaper and your annual U.S. 1BusinessDirectory.As always this Wednesday will be free Business Directory Wednesdaywherever we hand deliver U.S. 1 — one free copy will be left atevery office visited by our deliverers. After this Wednesday, asalways,the directory will be available for a nominal charge ($13.95 at theU.S. 1 office and at bookstores) and $17.95 by mail. See our couponon page 16 of this issue for ordering information.Next week in this space we hope to regale you with some results fromour ongoing longitudinal study being conducted in conjunction withthe Business Directory. What categories are growing, shrinking, orjust emerging; which companies are the employment leaders; which arenot. For the time being, however, we are simply trying to climb outof the morass of paperwork that we find ourselves in this time ofyear. For us at U.S. 1, “March madness” is more than justa basketball tournament.Top Of PageTo the Editor: Realities of Trade With MexicoIn a Survival Guide article on March 7 your writer seemsto accept, without so much as blushing, the proposition that it isperfectly okay for a New Jersey business to pack up and move toMexico.You quote the director of Mercer County Community College’s Centerfor Global Business: “In Mexico there is such a dramaticdifferencein labor costs, it quickly makes financial sense to establish yourown plants . . . You pay less for a day’s work in Mexico than foran hour’s work here.”That is perfectly true, BUT. First, what happens to the New Jerseyworkers who are laid off when the plant moves? Right now, most willget other jobs, but generally at significantly lower pay than before.And in a severe recession? Second, what does it mean for a Mexicanworker to get $6 to $8 a day? It means living in miserable,overcrowdedhousing, often in neighborhoods lacking running water and sewers,on a nutritionally inadequate diet, with minimal if any access tomedical care, and with children often doomed to poor education, poorerhealth, and no future but to work in sweatshop-type factories, theinfamous maquiladora system — the system that your article seemsto accept without question.And then there is the problem many Mexican managers and otherprofessionalsput at the top of their list: corruption and rampant street crime,which of course is in large part due to the widespread poverty andvast inequalities of income and wealth one sees everywhere. It isthese conditions that are largely responsible for Mexicans emigratingto the United States nowadays.The first step in changing the equation so that conditions in Mexicoimprove and at the same time American workers have a shot at faircompetition would be to improve wages and conditions in Mexicodrastically.This would also lower the numbers of Mexican immigrants.Martin OppenheimerAssociate Professor of SociologyRutgers UniversityTop Of PageThe Full Breadth Of DiscriminationYour March 14 article, “Discrimination’s Cost”discussed attorney John Thurman’s March 20 speech at the WorldwideEmployee Benefit Network. The article stated that “according toNew Jersey and federal law, employers can in no way discriminate basedon sex, ancestry, race, or disability. Also, genetic testing isillegal.”I looked at the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, as quoted here:Title 10 Civil Rights 10:5-3. Finding, declarations 3. “TheLegislaturefinds and declares that practices of discrimination against any ofits inhabitants, because of race, creed, color, national origin,ancestry,age, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, marital status, familialstatus, liability for service in the Armed Forces of the UnitedStates,or nationality . . .”I find that your writer omitted the following: creed, color, nationalorigin, age, affectional or sexual orientation, marital status,familialstatus, liability for service in the Armed Forces of the UnitedStates,and nationality. Disability and genetic testing are handled elsewhere.Your writer may consider the three (or four or five) areas mentionedas the most important, but the legislature added the omitted areasbecause people who belonged to those groups were being discriminatedagainst.I hope you understand that by omitting these areas, you are minimizingthe importance of the discrimination those people have experienced.Also, when you review the discrimination laws, don’t make the mistakethat other writers and attorneys frequently make by stating that thefederal government and all state governments have laws prohibitingdiscrimination based on sexual or affectional orientation. In fact,New Jersey is in the minority in having a law against suchdiscrimination.I am sure Mr. Thurman’s speech will go into all necessary detail andnot omit important areas.Bill GlazenerWhite House StationThe letter writer correctly assumes that all the protectedclasses were covered in the interview and at the Thurman lecture.Space did not permit the inclusion of all of them in the article.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
