Computer Support Blog

It is absolutely astonishing to see how fast a social network can rise on the Internet.  It seems like Internet social networks fall much, much slower than they rise – one need only look at the slow fading of MySpace to recall how they might linger – but when a new social network is a hit, it can come out of nowhere.  That is the story of Pinterest.  Pinterest may not be a household name yet, but the little social network had about one third the traffic of Twitter in January 2012, making it a sudden force in the social network market.  With such a sudden demand for its service, Pinterest has a great reliance on Aubrey Obata Kendall.

Aubrey Obata Kendall is the chief recruiter for Pinterest.  Since November of 2011, Kendall has been staffing up Pinterest in order to help the small company grow to meet the current and forthcoming demand for their services.  Because Pinterest is currently so small, the recruiting position is especially important to the company.  Aubrey Obata Kendall’s judgment on staff may well affect the course of the entire company, so the reliance Pinterest has on her is actually quite high.

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In the quest to make digital music a viable business endeavor instead of just a cool idea, there have been many businesses and websites that have already come and gone.  While digital music pirating has been a huge issue for most of the services that have failed, rapidly changing hardware has been a serious issue as well.  One quarter, the dominant digital music device is an MP3 player, the next it is a smartphone!  Failure to adapt the digital music service to the new technologies has sunk some of the digital music services distributing digital music files over the Internet.  Spotify is deeply invested in making sure that does not happen.  For that, they have Oskar Stal!

Oskar Stal is the Chief Technology Officer of digital music distributor Spotify.  As Spotify developed as a website, but prepared to take its service international, the company sought a CTO who had extensive experience with mobile operating systems.  Without a CTO who knew the ins and outs of various mobile platforms, Spotify could not take their business to the next level.  Having been employed at mBlox, a company deeply invested in mobile transactions and the technical interactions between mobile platforms, Oskar Stal rose to the top of Spotify’s list of desirable candidates for the position.

Oskar Stal’s resume is more extensive than simply working for mBlox, though spending eight years as the Director of Development in the technical department at that company was the weightiest factor in Spotify hiring him.  Fortunately for Spotify, Stal was exceptionally interested in the position; he was already impressed by how much Spotify had accomplished without someone as experienced at the top of their development branch!

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It can be very tough to break into the social network and online media markets.  Given how YouTube has virtually dominated much of the online media market and how the major Internet social networks continue to develop tools to make it easier to stream videos, share music, and distribute photos, it is a tough time to be a new online service in that niche.  Even so, that has not stopped Demand Media and it is not slowing down Joanne Bradford.

Joanne Bradford is Demand Media’s Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer.  Bradford joined Demand Media after working for Yahoo!, which is one of Demand Media’s biggest business rivals.  It is easy to see why both Yahoo! and Demand Media would want Joanne Bradford; Bradford graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Journalism (Advertising).  Since college, she has trail-blazed with some of the most influential companies in the tech sector and the media world.  She started her ascent up the corporate ladder at publishing giant McGraw-Hill where she served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for BusinessWeek Magazine!

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Sometimes, the only thing more confusing than figuring out what all of the charges on your various utility and media bills are for, is figuring out who is still providing the services you want to engage.  It seems like almost every day there is a new energy provider or a local telephone company finally sells to a massive international conglomerate.  The telephone, mobile phone and smartphone market has been an especially volatile one, made more so with the rise of cell phones and smart phones.  One of the companies that remains in the industry longer than many analysts anticipated is Cricket.  One of the reasons for the company’s continued survival is Annette M. Jacobs.

Annette M. Jacobs is the West Area President for Leap Wireless International, the parent company of cell phone service provider Cricket.  Jacobs went to work for Leap Wireless International in 2010 and at the time, many suspected that Cricket – which was closing many of its retail locations with their iconic green couches – was in the process of a collapse.  But through the hard work of people like Annette M. Jacobs, Cricket has had a positive turnaround and the West Coast operation of Leap Wireless International is running smoother than ever!

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Computer circuits have traditionally been rigid squares of metal or plastic, which have not worked well with direct organic interface such as in a human body. That is currently changing. John Rogers, a professor at the University of Illinois, has been researching and creating an electronic circuit that he applies directly onto human tissue without interfering with movement.

In conjunction with Yonggang Huang, a professor from Northwest University, Rogers has created a stretchable electronic circuit. When Rogers puts one of the circuits onto living tissue, the circuit can move freely with the natural movements of the organism. This opens up an entire range of possible uses for this new technology.

These small circuits are made of silicon, with tiny wavy structures across the surface of the thinner-than-a-hair circuits. Some news sources have dubbed them “electronic tattoos” because they can be applied on the skin in a similar manner to temporary tattoos.

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Some of the coolest ideas in the tech sector come about by accident.  These accidental ideas might not have the overwhelming significance to humanity that medical science kismet discoveries – like the discovery of penicillin through bread mold – have, but they can be pretty neat in their own right and lead to surprisingly cool businesses.  Andrew Houston is an American Internet pioneer whose frequent forgetfulness led to the creation of Dropbox!

Andrew (Drew) Houston studied computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 2000s.  Born and raised in Massachusetts, Drew Houston frequently forgot his USB flash drives while attending MIT.  Always on the run, Houston soon came to lament how forgetting his flash drive would affect his time, grades, and travel.  Houston began to back up his files so he had remote access to them.  When he started doing that, he realized the idea might translate into a service.  With his fellow MIT graduate, Arash Ferdowski, Drew Houston translated the idea for the service into a business: Dropbox.

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In the ever-more-complicated online world, new social networks seem to pop up (or close down) almost every month.  As you surf the web, you might be astonished to discover there have been entire social networks that you never heard of before.  Some of the photo sharing and intimate social networks actually only make headlines when they shut down!  But one social network you may not have heard of that is not closing down anytime soon is Yammer.  And while you may not have heard of Yammer, that is not the fault of An Le!

An Le is the Vice President of Business Development for Yammer.  Yammer is a company that builds social networks for private companies, almost like a social network for a business’s intranet.  Yammer serves companies like Ford, LG, and Pitney Bowes and developing the network to more companies is the responsibility of An Le.  As Vice President of Business Development, An Le helps businesses understand how vital an internal social network can be to increasing productivity, teamwork and corporate efficiency.

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There are some truly incredible minds working in academia today.  The best teachers can inspire the next generation and help change the world by providing the fundamentals of their given field to their successors.  But only the most jaded people actually believe the unfortunate adage “those who can’t, teach.”  In fact, some of the very best educators lead by example and continue their professional development by excelling in their field while teaching.  Louis McPhee is one such educator and his latest invention, a medical robot, may well change the world.

An assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, Louis Phee is able to translate simple ideas into complex, working technologies.  Louis Phee is credited with the design of a new medical robot based upon a crab!  When Lawrence Ho mentioned to Phee that cancer extraction would be much easier using a crab, over a crab dinner, Phee explored the possibility of taking that outlandish idea and making it into a reality.  Louis Phee and Lawrence Ho worked together to create a surgical robot designed like a crab that is now treating cancer in the esophagus!

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Some companies in the technology sector work very hard for years before their brand is successful enough to have name recognition outside the industry.  In 2010, two of every five personal computers that were sold used a mother board by computer manufacturer ASUS.  Even so, it was not for a few years later that ASUS began to market computers effectively enough to compete in the computer manufacturing market.  The transition from support company providing vital internal hardware to a recognizable brand of its own comes as the result of Jonney Shih’s hard work.

Jonney Shih is the Chief Executive Officer of ASUSTek Computer, Inc. (commonly known as ASUS).  Shih has been the Chairman and CEO of ASUS since 1993 and he has presided over the company’s longest period of sustained growth.  In fact, it is hard to imagine where ASUS would be if Jonney Shih were not guiding the company.  Virtually every major policy that has made ASUS a household name resulted from Shih’s influence and direction.

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There are few CEOs whose personal story is as interesting as the biography of Jason Hsuan.  Abandoned as a child in China, the Chinese government sent Jason Hsuan to a labor camp where he toiled from ages fifteen to eighteen.  When he became ill from tuberculosis, Hsuan was deported to Taiwan to be with his remaining family.  While that sort of hardship might crush a lesser man, Jason Hsuan used the experience to grow, learn and develop his corporate philosophy.  Now, Dr. Jason Hsuan is the CEO and Chairman of TPV Technology Limited, the world’s largest manufacturer of computer monitors!

Despite having spent three years in a labor camp, which robbed him of educational opportunities and was largely dehumanizing, Jason Hsuan lifted himself up.  Once in Taiwan, Hsuan began working to improve his lot in life.  While he worked for six years at General Electric, he saw it as his duty to go help his father when the Taiwan Pepsi Cola branch suffered a severe economic downturn.  Hsuan prioritized his family and went to work for Pepsi, serving as a Vice President of the Taiwan branch.  That sense of responsibility served Jason Hsuan exceptionally well when he came to the United States to pursue his education.  At Boston University, Hsuan earned his Master’s in Systems Engineering.  After earning his Master’s, Jason Hsuan went to the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn where he applied his talents to getting his Ph.D. in Systems Engineering.

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