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Space . . . The Final Frontier

Last week I had the honor and pleasure of presenting at the imagine09 conference of the American Astronautical Society. Breaking from tradition, the AAS followed the lead of TED this year and invited many speakers from across the US and across industries to present topics about which they are passionate. Some of these topics were space related but many were not and the goal was to foster dialog among the AAS membership about how these topics could be used within the context of the space industry. Cool!

One of the organizers is a member of the Rice Engineering Alumni group, of which I used to be president. Over coffee a few months ago, he somehow got the impression that I was passionate about using information technology to address the global energy challenge. I’m not sure how he got that impression . . . 😉 He invited me to join the slate of speakers and I agreed almost before he finished asking!

The guidelines I was given as a speaker were the TED commandments:

1. Thou shalt not simply trot out thy usual shtick.

2. Thou shalt dream a great dream, or show forth a wondrous new thing, or share something thou hast never shared before.

3. Thou shalt reveal thy curiosity and thy passion.

4. Thou shalt tell a story.

5. Thou shalt freely comment on the utterances of other speakers for the sake of blessed connection and exquisite controversy.

6. Thou shalt not flaunt thine ego. Be thou vulnerable. Speak of thy failure as well as thy success.

7. Thou shalt not sell from the stage: neither thy company, thy goods, thy writings, nor thy desperate need for funding, lest thou be cast aside into outer darkness.

8. Thou shalt remember all the while: laughter is good.

9. Thou shalt not read thy speech.

10. Thou shalt not steal the time of them that follow thee.

Accordingly, I put together a 20-minute talk about information-adaptive human behavior–using technology to “nudge” human behavior by providing the right information at the right time in the right way to the right people. After all, this is exactly what we’re doing at Enistic to “nudge” office employees to better energy use behaviors. Instead of putting together a dry lecture about the behavioral science theory, I presented the material as part of the story of my own entrepreneurial journey; the presentation can be found at my slideshare page.

The conference itself took place over two days last week at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. As someone who has always been fascinated with and inspired by the space industry, I was thrilled to participate. Given some of the other speakers (Bob Rogers, Richard Garriott, Wayne Hale, T. Boone Pickens III, for example), I was also honored to participate.

The talks were very engaging. For example, Wayne Hale presented a history lesson about China’s world-leading shipping and exploration 600 years ago. Abruptly they shifted from exploration to isolationism and stagnated for centuries. This fostered a great deal of dialog about what we could learn from such lessons and how they might be applied to our own exploration policy.

In fact, all of the talks fostered dialog. After a speaker presented, he/she was whisked off to a breakout room. Audience members then had the option to go engage with that speaker for more detailed discussion or stick around in the main auditorium for the next presentation. Tough decisions! When it came time for me to present, I myself was torn as I really wanted to follow the previous speaker (executive director of the X PRIZE Foundation) for dialog!

I’m glad I stuck around and gave my presentation, though. It was well received and many people (including some of the other speakers) joined me in the breakout room to discuss energy savings, human behavior, technology, and how to apply all of these to the space industry. I don’t think we solved any great problems during the breakout session but I do hope that the discussion seeded thoughts, ideas, and follow-up discussions that will continue to bear fruit for some time to come.

At the end of the conference I was exhausted from all of the energy, ideas, and discussion with new contacts. Great job, AAS, and I expect great things from the space industry! I’ll post a link to the video of my presentation once it’s available online.

Thanksgiving

My first Thanksgiving back on US soil in a couple of years was just what the doctor ordered! It began on Wednesday when Katie and I hopped in the car to begin the seven-hour drive to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Having watched the first six Harry Potter movies over the past several weeks, we listened to the audio book of the last in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, on our way up. It was great driving weather and we found ourselves at my aunt’s house in Hot Springs before we even realized it.

Truth be told, my aunt’s house isn’t actually in Hot Springs. Each year more and more of my relatives move further out to the peaceful countryside. The aunt with whom we stayed owns a house way out in the woods, far from the hustle and bustle of city life. When I was a child we used to come out there for bonfires and s’mores. Now the accommodations are much nicer but the stars are still bright and unobstructed by ambient light.

Even though I haven’t seen my aunt and uncle for almost a year, we were welcomed with open arms as if we had just been there yesterday. We spent a relaxing night there then began Thanksgiving day with a run along dirt roads, passing by several neighboring farms. The weather was in the 30s and cold air and the smell of fires in fire places filled the nostrils as we ran. Harry Potter 7, clear starry skies, running in cold weather, the smell of fires . . . I could have been back in Lausanne!

Running was fun. Each residence along our road had one or more dogs who came out to see who the runners were and then followed us as we ran. I felt like the pied piper with dogs coming out of each farm to trot along beside us, nipping at our hands and heels.

And it’s a good thing we got some exercise in because Thanksgiving Dinner (which begins at noon and lasts all afternoon) didn’t help my fitness goals. Neither did sitting around watching football all afternoon! But it was great just to kick back, eat great food, and enjoy the benefits of being back so close to the family I love.

Dinner was at another aunt’s house, also out in the country. She has a farm there with dogs, chickens, cattle, horses, and lots and lots of pasture land. Not everyone was able to make it but we were thankful for those who could. Plus it was fun playing around with my aunt’s livestock.

On Friday Katie and I continued our Thanksgiving weekend movie tradition and saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Houston’s own Wes Anderson. It was very enjoyable and, of course, featured a great soundtrack. We then spent the evening with my aunt on my mom’s side going out to dinner at Brauhaus, a German restaurant downtown. I didn’t expect to be dining on Bavarian cuisine so quickly after having left that part of the world–and I especially didn’t expect to do it in Arkansas–but the schnitzel was very good! Here again, though, the primary benefit was spending time with family.

Saturday Katie and I made our way back, still listening to Harry Potter. It’s a good thing we missed most of the day’s schedule of college football, because most of the games I cared about were very forgettable. However, the Rice volleyball team has been dominating. After winning the Conference USA tournament, they beat #17 LSU in the first round of the NCAA tournament. I’ve spent almost as much time supporting Rice volleyball as I have football, so I’m thrilled for the Owls and hope they can keep it up.

Rice-Baylor Update

Blogger’s note: none of these links work anymore.

Since my post a few weeks ago about the potential merger between Rice University and the Baylor College of Medicine, I have been made aware of many new sources of information. Many thanks to all contributed these, especially to Freddy Nguyen, Lovett ’02. All active, engaged members of the Rice community should familiarize themselves with both sides of the debate:

The “official” site
http://www.staff.rice.edu/staff/RiceBaylor_Home.asp

The Rice Student Association Site on the Merger:
http://sa.rice.edu/news/rice-bcm-merger-reports

The Faculty Senate Site on the Merger: (Results from the Faculty Merger Review Committee)
http://www.professor.rice.edu/professor/Senate_Meeting_Held_October_7,_2009.asp?SnID=542837385

Moshe Vardi’s Merger Site:
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~vardi/merger/

Moshe Vardi’s Public Lecture
http://webcast.rice.edu/webcast.php?action=details&event=2048

Here are some blogs:
http://rice-bcm-merger.blogspot.com/
http://preparingfuturefacultyatrice.blogspot.com/2009/10/links-on-proposed-ricebaylor-merger.html
http://rk.md/2009/rice-baylor-merger-update/

Houston Chronicle Articles: (There are more out there but this is the most recent editorial)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6717983.html

Rice Thesher Articles:

Milestones

The last two weeks have been very, very active and full of milestones. At enistic, we’ve secured our first investors, our first resellers/installers/distributors, and–perhaps most importantly–our first clients! We still have a way to go to raise the money we need really to get this venture off the ground but this early momentum is very, very encouraging! Moreover, most of these initial angel investors know me personally and/or professionally so I’m encouraged by the votes of confidence they are putting in my abilities.

Closing this round of funding really can’t happen quickly enough. Sitting in an office alone working on powerpoints, spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls is not how I am most effective. Building a team and working together to accomplish major commercial and operational goals is where I add the most value. Until we get to that point I feel . . . underutilized. Perhaps it’s weird to feel “underutilized” when you’re the founder, but my point is that the sooner we get past this initial hurdle, the sooner our pace of real growth will accelerate. We are heading in that direction, but I’ve never been known for my patience!

Other milestones have also been reached in my “extended” life. Last week was Rice’s Homecoming. In addition to a fantastic weekend full of lectures, alumni group meetups, and reconnecting with friends, the mighty Rice Owls football team won its first game of the season! They followed that up this weekend with another win, and today the Rice volleyball team won the Conference USA tournament to boot. Go Owls!

Last week my mother opened a new exhibit, Moving Beyond Earth, at the National Air & Space Museum. It is an immersive, interactive gallery about the history and future of human spaceflight. Katie and I can’t wait to see it when we’re in DC for the holidays. Mom continues to amaze me with her exhibits, books, papers, conference publications, awards, and myriad other accomplishments–all while managing to be a great mother. Canonically one thinks of a doting mother proud of her children, but in our case the pride goes very much in the opposite direction!

The weather in Houston has actually been relatively cool recently. Katie and I have been taking advantage of the opportunity to sip on hot chocolate in the evenings and remember life in Switzerland. If the weather stays cool, perhaps we’ll throw a little fondue party! In the meantime, big eating is ahead as we prepare for Thanksgiving. We can’t wait to see the family in Hot Springs and enjoy my first Turkey Day back in the States!

GoWear fit

Having completed one week with the GoWear fit on my arm nearly 24 hours/day, I now have enough data to begin drawing conclusions about its usefulness. I’ll break down my review into nutrition, exercise energy expenditure, non-exercise energy expenditure, and sleep.

Nutrition

GoWear Fit’s nutrition functionality is hardly unique. It provides a web-based mechanism for tracking your daily nutritional intake, just like myriad other products and sites. Its UI is probably in the 70th percentile for online food logs, which makes it a mediocre food log but a great addition to a comprehensive calorie management system.

In 2005 I logged every single food/drink item that entered my body into a spreadsheet for the entire year. It was quite a chore, but the take-aways were invaluable. It was readily apparent from the data that the #1 contributing factor to my inability to reduce body fat was consumption of empty calories from alcohol. More specifically, the few evenings of heavy binge drinking (wine dinners a the Petroleum Club or late nights clubbing/bar hopping) would create massive calorie surpluses (2,000+) that would wipe out weeks of modest calorie deficits. I modified my behavior to drink more in moderation and the following year shed 10 pounds of body fat with no other modifications to my fitness or diet plans.

Online tools make the food logging process much easier than entering everything manually into a spreadsheet so I was eager to give this one a whirl. Although I constantly had to battle error messages telling me that I had been logged off, I was ultimately able to enter each food item I consumed each day, drawing from a large database of pre-existing entries, and get a great breakdown of caloric and nutritional content. The task of food logging itself is quite onerous so I will now use averages from the last week to estimate future intake. Here are a few take-aways from my end-of-week analysis:

1. Food logging is absolutely invaluable and should be done, if not constantly, regularly. It’s amazing to see what we put into our bodies and how it differs from what we think we’re putting into our bodies. Furthermore, the simple act of measuring caloric intake induces behavioral change, causing food loggers to forego that late night snack because they know they’ll have to log it.

2. This actually has an unintended negative side effect: I found myself going back to the same foods over and over again to avoid having to enter new custom foods into the food log. This results in lower dietary variety and I’m a big believer in the positive nutritional benefits of dietary variety. Still, I believe the net effects of food logging are quite positive.

3. I consume ~120 calories per day more than I estimate in my spreadsheet.

4. I consume ~1/2 the Recommended Daily Intake of cholesterol for my 3500 calorie/day diet–that’s more or less a good thing!

5. However, I also consume ~2x my RDI of sodium and only ~2/3 my RDI of potassium and calcium. Clearly there is room for improvement here. The vast majority of that sodium is coming from dining out so I need to have heightened awareness when making my choices at restaurants.

6. I consume ~10% protein, ~50% carbs, and ~40% fat. Much of the fat and the sodium come from my cheese addiction (Allez Suisse!), so I need to reign that in a bit. My target will be 15% protein, 60% carbs (good, whole ones of course), and 25% fat.

My nutrition clearly needs some work so I’ll do another food log soon to show improvements.

Exercise

I remove the GoWear fit for swimming (It isn’t water proof.) and beach volleyball (I doubt it’s sand proof, given how insidious sand from the courts tends to be!) but I leave it on for strength training, running, cardio machines, etc.

For activities such as running and walking, the GoWear fit estimates caloric expenditure that is pretty close to the estimates provided by my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS/heartrate monitor. That is encouraging for accuracy (of both devices) but by itself it doesn’t add much usefulness for the GoWear fit.

The real advantage comes when engaging in activities for which I don’t use the GPS/heartate monitor, such as playing Wii or ping pong. For these types of activities I’ve traditionally gone to my favorite online calorie calculator and estimated my expenditure based on my weight and the nearest activity I can find. I strongly prefer the GoWear fit for this type of measurement, though, as it measures your actual exertion, which may vary a great deal during any such activity. I’ll still have to use calculated estimates for swimming and beach volleyball, but I now have much greater confidence in my data for all other activities.

Non-exercise

Although the GoWear fit and my spreadsheet of estimates largely agreed on my caloric expenditure during intense exercise, they disagreed vehemently on my total burn each day. On average the GoWear fit estimated that I burned ~550 fewer calories than I had estimated. That’s a big difference! Over a week, that amounts to a full pound of body fat of difference!

So which is right? I’m inclined to believe the GoWear fit because it calculates net expenditure at a much finer granularity. It knows, for example, whether or not I’ve slept less and, hence, burned more calories than a day during which I’ve slept more (all other things being equal). It knows whether or not I’ve gotten up only five times from my desk all day and, hence, burned fewer calories than I would have if I’d been up 20 times. It knows if I’ve been on my feet all evening at an event and, hence, burned more calories than I would have if I’d been sitting on my couch watching Harry Potter movies.

However, the data is kind of damning. According to GoWear fit, I finished the week with a surplus of ~1900 calories, which would account for the addition of ~1/2 pound of fat. According to my spreadsheet of estimates, I finished the week with a deficit of ~3000 calories, or almost one pound of fat lost. Using a three-day moving average of my body fat (as tested on my Tanita scale/body composition monitor and adjusted based on periodic measurements with a Bod Pod), I indeed lost about a pound of fat during the week.

A week is a pretty small sample set for something like body composition, which can vary wildly with, among other things, hydration. Accordingly I’ll keep these two systems running in parallel for the rest of the year to see how it plays out. Either way, I’d rather have a calorie tracking system that underestimates my expenditure rather than overestimating it.

An awesome feature for the GoWear fit would be a system that adapts its estimates of your expenditure based on your actual body fat changes over time. That’s what I’ve done with my spreadsheet and, as shown here, it’s pretty accurate.

Also a serious shortcoming in the GoWear fit is the fact that it really just tracks weight which, as we all know, is a poor metric of fitness. BMI isn’t really any better. I know most people don’t have body composition scales at home but it would be great if GoWear fit let those of us who do enter those figures in addition to weight. Until then I will always have to maintain a separate spreadsheet.

Sleep

I am pleasantly surprised with the GoWear fit’s sleep tracking function. I tend to hydrate a lot at night (maybe because of all that sodium I’m taking in during the day!) so sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. This week I noted the times that this happened and compared them with the data from the GoWear fit. Sure enough, it recognized easily that I was not sleeping during those times and counted it against my sleep efficiency measurement.

I’m not sure how useful this feature is per se but I think it’s cool and I think it’s accurate. I’m getting a little over 6 hours of sleep each night with a 91% sleep efficiency. Not bad, I think that’s enough–but I could always use more!

Sound Body, Sound Mind

Blogger’s note: I no longer use the term “Redskins” but am leaving my prior references intact in the spirit of learning.

This was a busy, but exciting week at Enistic Inc! We secured our first client–an office building owner here in Houston–and now we’re ready to raise some money to get started. This will be my first time leading a capital raise as my previous companies were either bootstrapped or had other officers in charge of investment. Houston has a robust community of angel investors in front of whom we will pitch in January. However, if we can raise some quick cash ($90k) from FFF, it will help us expedite American electrical certification and rollout with our first clients. Therefore I’ll be in fundraising mode for the immediate future–look out!

We know we’re onto something here and this was validated by a recent conversation I had with my contacts at Google. We’re talking with them about being the first business solution that uses Google PowerMeter and they confirmed that, even in their own offices, myriad high-power monitors are left on all the time with useless screen savers. This is Google, arguably one of the most forward thinking (regarding IT power consumption) companies in the world and even they would benefit tremendously from our product. We’ve got to succeed with this company–it would be irresponsible not to!

I’ve also been asked to speak at the American Astronautical Society’s imagine 09 conference this December. Many of the other speakers are quite high profile so I consider it a real honor to be included among them. As many of you will know, I have grown up in the shadow of the space industry and I have always been extremely compelled by it. For a long time, in fact, I planned to pursue a career in astrophysics before I fell in love with computer science in high school. So this presentation is of special significance to me: an opportunity to share something about which I am very passionate (inducing human behavioral change by supplying well timed information) with a community I love. There isn’t much time to put together the presentation, but I’m sure hard work will produce something good.

As always I believe strongly in a balanced lifestyle. Hard work must be balanced out by adequate rest and physical activity to produce optimal performance. As many of you know, I’m a very, very data-driven manager and I manage my own life the same way. This includes measuring my body composition every morning and calculating my daily energy intake and expenditure every evening. As a result I have a massive spreadsheet of every day’s net weight gain/loss for the last 8 years.

One problem, though, is that most of these calculations are based on estimates: calorie intake based on historical averages +/- any special daily consideration, estimated resting calorie expenditure based on body composition and activity level, estimated exercise calorie expenditure based on GPS/heart rate monitor, etc. This motivated me to try out a relatively new tool for calorie tracking: the GoWear Fit. You wear it on your arm all day and, based on the movement it detects and your skin temperature, it calculates an [allegedly] much more accurate estimate of your caloric expenditure each day.

I’ve only been using it for a week but so far I like it. There is definitely a marked difference between the days that I spend in front of a computer and those during which I am active with meetings. This helps me know when to take my evening cardio up a notch to compensate for a sedentary workday. One side benefit too is that it calculates how well you’ve slept if you wear it at night.

My strength training tools have also been upgraded. I used to print out my workout before I headed to the gym, write down my actual accomplishments as they occurred, and then enter them on my spreadsheet once I returned home. Now I have uploaded my spreadsheet to Google Docs so I can access it from anywhere over the Web. This gives me the ability to enter workout data directly into my phone while I’m at the gym, saving paper and time.

More than just measuring my fitness, though, I actually have to eat right and exercise to change those measurements in a positive direction. As part of my move back, I have added some new areas to my exercise regime. One is the Nintendo Wii. The Wii’s sports and fitness programs get me moving around a lot in a fun way that motivates me to keep going. So far I’ve been doing Wii Fit. We also have Wii Fitness Coach, which I’ll start on once Fit becomes tired. Wii Sports can also induce a sweat, as can DDR.

Katie and I have also been swimming Saturday mornings before our weekly trips to the farmer’s market. I like swimming because it is low-impact, uses muscles that I didn’t even know I had, and is a great cardio workout. However, swimming doesn’t like me! I still sink like a rock and it’s not uncommon for me to take at least one big gulp of pool water each day! Oh well, no pain no gain!

And speaking of pain, both Rice and the Redskins came back from their bye weeks with losses. Sigh.

What a week! On Tuesday I drove to Austin for the Clean Energy Venture Summit.This was my first road trip in the Smart car and it left me with several impressions. First, it is very comfortable to be and drive in. Second, because it is a city car, it has no cruise control, which makes it understandably poorly suited for long trips. Third, you can definitely feel the low power on the highway when it slows down on inclines–that never happened in my 270-horse power SLK! Fourth, the gas mileage is great; I got well over 40 MPG on the highway. And finally, it really does open up parking options that would be out of the question in most other cars!

It was great to be back in Austin for the first time in awhile. The city feels so different than Houston. Where Houston is huge and full of multinational corporations, Austin feels smaller, younger, and definitely more outdoorsy. People seem more casual there and the live music culture is thriving. I stayed with a friend of mine from Rice. She has a great little house in the middle of the city, which was very convenient for me. She also has a very sweet dog, which was an unexpected bonus!

Wednesday morning I met with a journalist from Greentech Media, a publication I have followed for many months. It was a thrill to be interviewed by Jeff St. John, their Smart Grid specialist. As expected, he was extremely knowledgeable and had great insight into the entire space in which Enistic is playing. It was a great conversation, after which I felt even more energized about what we are doing–a good way to start off the two-day summit.

The rest of the day was spent learning about current Smart Grid trends, opportunities, and potential future scenarios–exciting stuff! In the evening there was a reception at City Hall hosted by the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Although I thought I wouldn’t know anyone there, that turned out not to be the case at all. Immediately upon arrival I bumped into a classmate of mine from university who now works for an Austin-based VC. Shortly after that a classmate of mine from high school came over to say hi–he now works for a Bay area VC and would even be on the VC panel for the following day’s pitch competition! Small world! I also met many other people there as it was a pretty friendly bunch.

Afterward, instead of going out, I stayed in and rehearsed my pitch. Although I consider myself a pretty good extemporaneous speaker, especially when I’m as passionate about something as I am about Enistic, IMD taught me that I am all that much better at presenting when I am well prepared. The next day I would have only five minutes to present a compelling vision of our company, why what we’re doing is worthwhile, and how investors will realize major returns–both economic and “green” returns. Therefore I needed to be dead on about making each and every point, holding it just long enough for emphasis, and then moving on to ensure I stayed within time limits.

Thursday morning began early! I arrived at the UT McCombs School of Business AT&T Conference Center at 6 AM to run through my pitch. It may have been a bit overkill but I really wanted to ensure that they had the right version of my powerpoint and that everything showed up/transitioned well on the large projection screen. My pre-run went flawlessly so I felt kind of sheepish being there so early, but I would much rather that than the sheepish feeling of beginning my pitch only to realize that the powerpoint is the wrong version, as happened to one of the other presenters later in the day.

The morning was great and the company pitches were quite compelling. It felt wonderful to be surrounded by so many passionate, knowledgeable people who had similar goals of creating great businesses that do a lot of good for the world. I had an opportunity throughout the day to meet most of the presenters too and my impression is that they are all top notch individuals.

Lunch came and went but I didn’t have much appetite as I grew a little nervous before my afternoon pitch. This always happens: I know the presentation backward and forward but I get butterflies in advance. The butterflies build to a crescendo right before I start and I can literally feel my heart in my throat. Then, all of a sudden, BAM, I’m in the zone and it usually comes off really well. The same pattern has emerged before every performance I’ve ever given–including performances on the football field–and I absolutely revel in it. I love the feeling of nervous anticipation beforehand, the zen in the moment, and the feeling of triumph afterward.

Long story short: the pitch went really well. There were 400+ attendees out there and it felt great to share with them the grand vision for Enistic. After the pitch we had 10 minutes of Q&A from the VC panel and I was excited that the VCs had many questions for me and that their questions indicated significant interest. After the pitch, several people took me aside to compliment me on the pitch, which felt great. In the end, we didn’t win the pitch competition, which I consider a failure. It was definitely one of my goals. However, we did receive a great deal of follow-up from potential investors, business partners, and employees, so I still think it was a strong net positive.

With the Summit over, I celebrated by meeting several friends from Rice at Chuy’s, a tex mex institution. The Texas Martini, stuffed/fried avocado, and creamy jalapeno sauce reminded me how much I missed this cuisine while I was in Switzerland! Afterward we went to a wine bar in a beat-up shack nearby. Austin is definitely weird–and I love it!

Friday morning I woke up and was thrilled to see two pieces of news: first, the Greentech Media article on us had been published. Second, IMD was ranked #2 in the world by The Economist. Bolstered by the good start, I breezed back to Houston, where I met with an interested investor. All-in-all I’d say it was a great week for Enistic!

The weekend was much more laid back. Katie’s sister and cousin were in town so we spent most of our time with them. The weather was cool and gorgeous, perfect for walking around outside and watching football inside. It was also my nephew’s birthday AND I learned that my mother received a major award, so reasons to celebrate abounded! Next week will be very hectic as we kick Enistic into high gear. In the meantime, though, I am absolutely loving life!

Space . . . The Final Frontier

Thanksgiving

Rice-Baylor Update

Milestones

GoWear fit

Sound Body, Sound Mind

Rice Baylor Merger

Beginnings and Endings

Austin

Domestic Hippies