CyberFone - Simply the Future.

Opportunities in globalization

2006-06-06T08:46:00.000-04:00

Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer June 4, 2006.

Smart innovation is key to long-term prosperity. Nations won't thrive by just accepting low pay.

Rocco Leonard Martino

is chairman and CEO of CyberFone Technologies; early in his career, Martino worked with the inventors of ENIAC, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2006

The seed of globalization germinated 60 years ago at the University of Pennsylvania, where ENIAC, the first operational general-purpose electronic digital computer, was unveiled in 1946. That single 11-ton machine has spawned more than 200 million computers worldwide, a number growing at 20 percent per year. Its stepchild, the cell phone, has grown to more than 1 billion units in one-quarter the time, and that number will at least double in the next 10 years. We can now connect with anyone, anywhere, at any time. This on-demand world fulfills the vision of a "global village" Marshall McLuhan put forward in 1964.

My argument here is that we need not fear globalization if we are ready to serve this rapidly growing world of on-demand markets. Such markets will be created and energized by Web-based labor, and our political and business leaders need to do all they can to encourage and reward it in the United States.

Web-based labor can encourage the rebirth of the American cottage industry as a potent economic contributor. It will help individuals and companies to conceive, make, sell and ship goods in low-capital-requirement environments via the Internet.

Globalization has accelerated dramatically over the last decade, leading to wealth redistribution and to dislocations here and abroad. Many Americans are concerned that the newly flat playing field may put us at a disadvantage in global commerce and trade. Nations whose workers will work for the lowest bidder seem to have an advantage, and larger, high-labor-cost nations such as the United States seem to lose out.

Thus there are efforts in the West to stem globalization. In France, measures are being taken to prevent foreign acquisition of majority interest in a number of companies. Protectionist rules in agriculture have long applied in Europe, despite EU treaties seeking a level playing field.

But long-term benefits can counter globalization's short-range dislocations. Politicians too often blur the distinction between the two in seeking votes. To be sure, globalization seems to favor low-cost-labor nations. But the ultimate goal is sustainable, growing national wealth, not dominance as a lowest-cost manufacturer. Hence, the American economy need not suffer if it can continue to exercise profit control through innovation and invention.

Of the world's 6.5 billion people, it is estimated that more than 1 billion use the Web. The power this gives people is the catalyst behind the "miracle" of Ireland; the burgeoning economies of China, Japan, and Singapore; and the software revolution and wealth creation in India and other nations. It permits us to buy a PC for less than $500, with the $100 PC on the way. Many complete service components, such as customer service, are now global.

The United States is well-positioned to compete in this new world. The A.T. Kearney global management consulting firm has developed a globalization index that measures countries' "economic, person-to-person, political, and technological integration." In its 2005 report, Singapore rose to first place, overtaking Ireland, which had led for the previous three years. The United States rose to fourth place largely on the growth in its Internet hosts and secure servers.

And in fact high labor-cost, well-educated nations can compete with the low labor-cost countries, if they stay one step ahead. Progress lies with new skills, better management, new products, and above all, new industries. Globalization is creating forces that will demand new products and services geared to on-demand response.

Politically, our leaders can implement tax incentives for development and job creation in these new industries. In the workplace, the most far-reaching development will be telecommuting. The American workforce now lives in an information society - but it is stuck in an industrial workplace model. Energy consumption could be dramatically reduced with more telecommuting. The United States uses more than 20 million barrels of oil a day, two-thirds of it in transportation. Sixty percent of it is imported. Consider the effect of reducing that by 20 percent, a target well within reach with telecommuting. The result would be to reduce pollution, travel time, auto accidents, and the overhead of conducting business, all while improving productivity and employee job satisfaction. The balance of payments would be reduced by more than $100 billion a year, and GDP would increase. If we can outsource service work to Bangalore, India, then why can't we find a way to make outsourcing to American workers in Bangor, Maine, or Bowling Green, Ind., viable?

The "miracle" of Ireland can be our miracle - indeed, it can be every nation's. We simply need to engage in what has already happened with spirit and passion to succeed.

Contact Rocco Leonard Martino at rlmartino@gmail.com.

The King will Shortly be Dethroned!

2005-12-06T23:40:00.000-05:00

Intel announced a multi-year investment plan for India, Monday, totaling over $1 billion. “India has evolved into one of the world’s leading technology centers,” Craig Barrett, Intel’s Chairman stated.

This is a problem. India [and China] are quickly emerging as the future leaders of this world, only to replace the current leader, the United States. If we don’t want to be left in the dust (like we did to Europe) we must act promptly.

So what can be done? First we need to stop the arguing within and actually work together as a nation to defend our position as leader. Second, we need laws that encourage economic growth, especially at home. But finally, what better way to combat a technological adversary than with a technological revolution of our own? Looking back on our nation’s history and the periods of greatest growth, all were started with a revolutionary idea that sparked more radical ideas. UNI-LINK® is the solution.

UNI-LINK® can provide the innovative co-operation needed to get this country back in the game. It has the ability to bypass much of the drudgery of just coding screen inputs. We can replace hundreds of programs with one. With our higher paid people, we must apply ingenuity to replace the hordes. That will also give us the advantage among competing countries. In addition, UNI-LINK® spans all operating systems, is forms-driven, and OS independent. Furthermore, new capabilities can be added to any existing system since we only need to add a front-end to existing systems which we can be done with UNI-LINK®. The mobility factor is implicit in all our systems

UNI-LINK® can be the glue that holds this country together.

“We look forward to working with government and industry leaders to help generate India’s next phase of growth.” –Craig Barrett, Intel Chairman

Do you?

Onstar, meet UNI-LINK®

2005-11-30T20:32:00.000-05:00

OnStar: Hello OnStar.
Car Owner:What’s the score of the Eagles game?
OnStar: Excuse me?
Car Owner: Are we winning?
OnStar: Sir, this line is for emergencies only. I can’t give you that information.
Car Owner: What! I pay $40/month for an emergency-only line? I can’t get a live sports score, stock quote or e-mail? That is ridiculous!
OnStar: Sir you are being ridiculous! We don’t provide those services!

This sounds crazy, but it is unfortunately true. Why should you pay the price of a broadband internet service and not, at a minimum, get the same content? UNI-LINK® can provide all the services of OnStar with much more. Imagine trading stocks while driving to your next meeting, e-mailing your client by simply speaking aloud or searching the Internet for the address of the restaurant you are going to. What if you could finish a report during your morning commute and save it to a remote server, accessible from anywhere in the world?

In the event of an emergency, OnStar connects you directly to an operator to whom you need to explain your situation. The operator then contacts the necessary emergency response team, explains your problem and then finally a team is dispatched. Instead, UNI-LINK® could connect you directly to an emergency team based on information you give UNI-LINK’s ® thin-client via voice or a touch screen. This information is also relayed to an air support team and/or a local hospital if needed.

No one denies that OnStar supplies us with a useful tool that is imperative in an emergency situation. However, UNI-LINK® technology can vastly improve OnStar’s current capabilities; servicing us in a plethora of different ways, not just emergency relief.

Some may ponder where the world would be without technologies such as OnStar. In the same way, we must ask ourselves where the world is going without UNI-LINK®. UNI-LINK® is the future.

The Avian Flu is near, so what is the plan?

2005-11-15T12:18:00.000-05:00

With the recent threat of an Avian Flu virus there has been much talk about the United State’s preparation for such a pandemic. Many critics feel President Bush’s vague proposal of November 1 is a start, but no where near enough.

Under the current plan, Bush has requested $251 million from Congress to help foreign partners train local medical personnel, expand their surveillance and testing capacity, draw up preparedness plans, and take other vital actions to detect and contain outbreaks. Additionally, the President asked for $1.2 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services to purchase enough doses of vaccines from manufacturers to vaccinate 20 million people and $583 million for pandemic preparedness, including $100 million to help states complete and exercise their pandemic plans now, before a pandemic strikes…Wonderful, but what are these plans?

When and if such a pandemic takes place what emergency response system will be set in place and ready to fight back? Even if we can provide 20 million initial vaccines, to vaccine-factory workers and emergency responders what would be done for the other 93% of the US population? Granted research for newtechnologies is essential, but it could take years to develop and actually manufacture. What will be done when the virus really does sweep across the country, at its current rate, killing 50% of all infected? Using UNI-LINK® technology our country can manage such a pandemic much more effectively.

When the pandemic hits a city like New York or Los Angeles people will be frantic. There will be mass hysteria; everyone concerned about themselves and their families. Hospitals will be overcrowded and all businesses would close in fear of contracting the virus. Using UNI-LINK’s® server-side client emergency messages could be dispatched to individuals’ devices with UNI-LINK’s ® thin-client software letting people know how to proceed and where to go for assistance. Unique filtered messages would systematically direct people to different hospitals based on one’s conditions, inputted by the user and collected at a central data facility. Furthermore, UNI-LINK® technology could point people needing more assistance to one hospital while those needing little help to another, thereby minimizing the spread of the virus. Messages telling people which hospital is the least congested would save time and most likely many lives. Hospitals at full capacity would send their “divert to” message directly to a UNI-LINK® enabled device corresponding to the device’s geographic location data. If the device were enabled with GPS, the physical location of the individual at any given moment would be taken into account.

Additionally, all information nationwide could be collected and organized in such a way that doctors in Los Angeles and New York could collaborate with each other; discussing different symptoms and forms of the virus. Meanwhile, the same information is sent to labs throughout the country in real time, enabling medical research teams working around the clock to analyze the updated data and experiment with new vaccines.

There is no perfect solution, of course. But can we afford to keep technology on the shelf that can mitigate loss of life and diminish the horrendous physical, psychological and economic impact on the survivors of such a catastrophe?

“…911. What is your emergency?”

2005-11-07T19:06:00.000-05:00

Picture this scenario:
You and a loved one have just been in a bad car accident and need immediate medical attention. A nearby witness calls 911 who dispatches a paramedical team to you. Once they arrive via ambulance they realize your loved one needs more medical attention than their hospital can provide, so they need to have the victim transported to a more remote hospital and request a helicopter to pickup and deliver the victim to a more remote hospital. Now, instead of just quickly radioing the hospital’s air emergency response team, the attending paramedic must call 911 again who will relay the information to the other hospital. If that hospital has the capability and availability to handle the request, the message is finally passed to the air emergency response team who end up leaving ten minutes after the initial request. Also note that other than the location of the victim they have no details about the victims condition.

While on the scene, a medical professional records the victim’s vitals on a clipboard and then passes it on to the helicopter. When the helicopter finally arrives to its hospital the victim’s information is passed to an attending professional. It is only then that it is realized that the only doctor qualified to immediately perform a particular surgical procedure is on-call and must be paged. Thirty minutes later, the doctor arrives to starts preparations to begin the surgery.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Your loved one could very well have passed away by the time the doctor reaches the hospital, simply because of a poorly designed system.

Try this:

What if the first responder on the scene could contact whomever was needed? Instead of a clipboard we substitute a pda, laptop or any device with UNI-LINK’s® thin-client software installed. The emergency first responder on the scene is presented with a form asking what, if any, type of assistance is needed. He or she immediately selects air-transport support, which signals the nearest air-support team in the area. Meanwhile, the first responder continues putting in the victim’s vital information based on observation and prescribed procedures presented on the screen of the input device and hits submit, sending the information to 1) the air transport helicopter and 2) the hospital receiving the victim as well as any other party needing the data. In this way, the medical team in the helicopter knows what to expect and the system at the hospital uses its conditional logic to ring the first doctor on the predefined call list. Since he didn’t respond within 2 minutes, the second doctor was automatically called. Wait, he is stuck in traffic…then the third doctor is called. Meanwhile the hospital knows which specialist they are getting, how soon the helicopter is arriving (with help from GPS) and has already begun preparation.

By the time the victim lands on the ground, the doctor and an operating room are all ready to go.

Your loved one is saved.

This is what UNI-LINK can do.

How long does it take to get some "Homeland Security?"

2005-09-02T20:29:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Katrina has left a sour taste behind. It was a disaster, certainly. But even more disastrous was the non-existent planning for what has occurred. Where was "Homeland Security" in all this? Where was FEMA? Do we have to wait until the building burns down to ring an alarm, or set up adequate water supplies, adequate food, and adequate shelter? There was a short warning, yes; but there were at least a couple of days to know approximately where the storm would hit.

Surely our people deserve more than they got and are getting. Why are we always working behind the curve? Why haven't the billions spent on Homeland Security been evident now? We can spend hundreds of billions in Iraq. We can send hundreds of millions for Tsunami Relief. Why have we taken so long to get ready?

By the way. Where are the world leaders who are quick to criticize but slow to help? Didn’t we help others? Aren't we always first in line? Where are they?

Let’s get the ball rolling, in a positive way. Surely there are better ways to plan and control. This is another form of warfare, where we are battling to save our people against the enemy of nature. Where is the command and control capability we can expect, and must demand?

The situation re fuel is a crime, and should be prosecuted. If the future prices for oil are rising, does that mean the oil and gasoline in the tanks at the stations have also gone up? How dare they raise the price 10-20% for what is already in the tanks on site. Isn’t that gouging? I hope we all write to our Congressman, and the President, and demand a 100% tax on the outrageous profit margins the petroleum people are earning by overcharging and bilking. We MUST DEMAND AN EXCESS (UNFAIR) PROFITS TAX AT 100%.

Speak up! There is no reason for this kind of profiteering. There is also no reason other than incompetence, stupidity, and sloth to account for the mismanagement of this disaster. Isn’t about time we had leadership instead of buck passing.

I hope you speak up!

Stuck in the 19th century

2005-08-26T17:39:00.000-04:00

The world has many resource deposits. In the past these were considered important if they were gold, coal, diamonds, or other types of minerals. In today's global economy, oil has become the dominant commodity. And yet, measured in terms of the total global economy, oil, and all the other mineral wealth combined, are not equal in importance or wealth creation to information technology. The computer and its progeny has transformed the world economy in general, but specifically has created wealth for Ireland, India, China, Japan, Korea, Ukraine, Singapore, and of course for the United States.

The current dependence on vast amounts of increasingly expensive oil begs the question “are we living with a 19th-century mentality in the middle of the 21st century?” Certainly there is need for transportation, but is there the need to transport vast numbers of people twice every day to and from their place of work? Globalization has brought about economic success for the computer industry in India in particular, and yet, those who work on projects in India for organizations in different parts of the world do not travel to these organizations daily. It is possible for such work to be accomplished no matter where the knowledge worker may be, so long as the individual’s work is coordinated with that of others, all directed towards the project completion, meeting the objectives stipulated for the program.

When we look at deposits of resources why do we ignore the tremendous deposit of systemic capability available within the modern linkage of all computers, employing voice, data and video communication?

Let's take our heads out of the sand.