Ithaca College professor participates in StartupBus entrepreneurial competition

Launching a startup is hard enough, never mind doing it with complete strangers. And, on a bus with spotty Internet access, in 72 hours.

That’s exactly how Ithaca College Professor Adam Peruta spent three days in March as part of the StartupBus entrepreneurial competition. Ten different groups set off from cities around the country to spend 72 hours making their way toward the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

They spent the time developing new business concepts. The event closed with a pitch session at SXSW among finalists chosen over the course of the competition.

Peruta’s bus, which embarked from Washington, D.C., had about 26 people on it. He ended up working on an idea he brought to the table with just one other person. And although his idea, a system to provide live, real-time ratings of college classes, didn’t make the finals, he says the trip was worthwhile.

“I would definitely do it again,” he says. “There were so many smart people on the bus. They were some guys who could do things I just can’t wrap my head around.”

StartupBus began in 2010, apparently as a joke. The competition’s founder, Elias Bizannes, was talking with some friends about setting out on a road trip from San Francisco to SXSW and launching a startup along the way.

People thought he was serious, according to the StartupBus website. The contest began in 2010 and started expanding to other cities the following year.

The experience was appealing precisely because of the obstacles it presented, says Peruta, who first heard about the competition on Twitter. Being faced with an extremely tight deadline, working in unusual circumstances, and having the chance to meet an array of talented people seemed like a good way to spend a few days, he says.

In addition to working on their ideas, the teams stopped at a number of tech accelerators and incubators along the way to work on their pitches.

“You got to practice pitching your idea over and over again to different groups,” Peruta says. “I realize now that’s a core skill that everyone needs.”

Peruta teaches in the Department of Strategic Communication at Ithaca College. He has been at the school since 2007. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer graphics from Syracuse University (SU) in 2000 and a master’s degree in new media from SU in 2004.

There’s an application and interview process for StartupBus, Peruta says. Participants spend some time at the start of the trip pitching each other different ideas and forming teams.

Peruta says his concept of live, real-time ratings could be applied in other ways. The competition’s judges thought a market like television might make more sense, he says.

“It’s a bigger market and it’s monetized more easily,” he says.

Peruta and his partner, Jesse Hixson, plan to keep working on the concept this summer. They focused intensely on getting a working rating system up and running, Peruta says.

They were able to complete about 90 percent of a functioning app over the course of the three days, he adds. But because there were just two of them, they didn’t have as much time for promotion, marketing, or other buzz-building activities as some of the other, larger teams, Peruta says.     

SYRACUSE — Growth in Central New York continues to be a priority for accounting firm The Bonadio Group, even after it acquired the Syracuse operations of Philadelphia–based ParenteBeard last year.

The deal added all 25 people from ParenteBeard’s Syracuse office, including four partners, to bring Bonadio’s total work force in Syracuse to 55. The Bonadio Group, based in Rochester, has 350 employees statewide with additional offices in Buffalo, Albany, Geneva, Perry, and New York City.

Managing Partner and CEO Thomas Bonadio doesn’t expect the firm’s Syracuse growth to stop. The market remains a priority for more expansion, along with the Hudson Valley or northern New Jersey and Buffalo.

Bonadio says he expects another two mergers in the next two years and it’s likely at least one will be in Central New York. The firm is in active discussions in nearly all its markets on potential acquisitions, he adds.

The ParenteBeard deal added about $3 million in revenue to the firm, which is projecting $46.4 million in revenue for 2011. The firm’s fiscal year ends in April.

That’s an increase of about 10 percent, but even without the Syracuse acquisition revenue rose about 8 percent, Bonadio notes.

Consolidation is ongoing throughout the accounting industry, he adds. The Bonadio Group itself has completed 11 mergers since 1994. All the partners involved in those mergers are still with the firm, Bonadio says, unless they retired as part of the deals.

In upstate New York, the deals are being driven partially by the number of accounting firms in the region. There are simply too many for the level of economic activity here, Bonadio says.

Plus, many firms in the area have aging populations of partners. Often, they don’t have good succession plans in place, Bonadio says.

Size also helps when competing for new business, he adds.

“You need to have a breadth of talent,” he says. “You need to have a wide variety of products. You need to be able to solve complex problems.”

The ParenteBeard deal brought the Bonadio Group a new practice area in financial institutions. Although Bonadio did some work in the space before, the new Syracuse group had extensive connections with banks, credit unions, and other institutions, says Stanley Konopko, managing partner for the Syracuse office.

“This was a significant addition,” he says.

The new resources have helped Bonadio win new business in the space throughout the state and even outside New York, he adds.

The Syracuse market itself offers plenty of opportunity for more growth, Konopko notes. The Bonadio Group has strong practices in nonprofits, health care, government, labor, and higher education.

“If you look at the Central New York footprint, there’s a lot of entities and organizations that fit that description,” Konopko says. “We believe there’s a lot of upside potential in all those areas.”

New York City continues to offer strong growth potential for the firm as well, Bonadio says. The firm opened a satellite office on Wall Street last year.

The Bonadio Group has a small physical presence in the market, but has staff there nearly every day working on projects, Bonadio says.

“We believe we’re very competitive there value-wise and price-wise and talent-wise,” he adds.

The Bonadio Group first entered the Syracuse market in 2007 with the acquisition of Loguidice & Kamide, CPAs PLLC.

SYRACUSE — Lunchtime at this year’s Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (WISE) Symposium will span nine decades.

That is, women in nine different decades of life will take part in a roundtable discussion starting at 12:30 p.m. at the April 3 symposium. Ages represented in the discussion will range from the 10s — a Girl Scout, Madelyn Rhinehart, who sold more than 1,200 boxes of cookies last year — to the 90s — Dorris Montour of the Kahnawake Mohawk First Nations Territory in Canada, who is translating books into the native Mohawk language.

“We’re telling the whole story of how you don’t have to be a certain age to be an entrepreneur,” says Lindsay Wickham, events and communications manager for the WISE Symposium. “It happens throughout your lifetime. And it could mean different things, but it centers on the fact that you’re dreaming, you’re believing, you’re pursuing — you’re actually making your dreams come true.”

This is the 10th year for the annual symposium. Wickham says that the event isn’t just for entrepreneurs — it is for everyone in the business community, from the corporate world to business owners to those who are considering starting a company.

“It’s not limited to just women, although we cater it specifically toward the unique challenges that women face,” Wickham says. “Anyone can attend, and we do have men in attendance as well.”

This year’s symposium is scheduled to run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 3. It returns to the Oncenter in downtown Syracuse after a year away while the facility hosted the 2011 United States Bowling Congress Women’s Championships.

Last year, the WISE Symposium took place at the Holiday Inn Syracuse-Liverpool. Space constraints forced organizers to limit the event to 850 preregistrations and about 900 attendees, according to Wickham. But, this year’s symposium in the larger Oncenter will have no attendance limit, she says.

Registration for an all-day ticket costs $85, or attendees can register for just the afternoon exposition for $30. Full-time student registration is $20. 

Wickham encouraged attendees to register before the event, as admission at the door will cost $100. Anyone who wants to register can do so at http://wiseconference.com/register or by contacting Wickham at lwickham@syr.edu or at (315) 443-3550.

Attendees will have access to an expanded WISE Women’s Business Center Connections Café, which is an onsite version of the WISE Women’s Business Center, offering one-on-one counseling sessions. This is the café’s third year, and it will be offering more specialized advice than in the past, according to Joanne Lenweaver, WISE Women’s Business Center director.

“This year we’re going to have experts like [an] attorney and a person who understands exporting,” she says. “All kinds of things that are unique, very pointed topics where women may need just a little more information.”

The WISE Symposium will also host about 50 speakers covering a variety of topics, from social media to business planning. The morning keynote speaker will be Nell Merlino, the founder and president of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, a New York City–based not-for-profit organization that says it helps women grow small businesses into large enterprises.

“She’s going to be speaking to the women who are in the Women Presidents’ Organization in town,” Lenweaver says. “How can they grow and make an economic impact in our community? You need to grow your business, pass that plateau that a lot of women get stuck at.”

The afternoon keynote speaker will be Barbara Corcoran, who started The Corcoran Group real-estate firm in New York City in 1973 with a loan of $1,000. She sold that company in 2001 for almost $70 million. 

Corcoran currently is the real-estate contributor to NBC’s TODAY Show, where she comments weekly on trends in the real-estate market. She is also an investor (“shark”) on ABC’s reality show “Shark Tank,” now in its third season. Corcoran bought 11 new businesses on the show, which she’s now helping to lead. She is also the author of three books including her most recent, “Shark Tales,” detailing her story and her best advice for anyone starting a business.

“The most amazing thing about Barbara is she is rags to riches, truly,” Lenweaver says. “This is her 19th job. She went through 18 different iterations of a career.”

Another notable speaker at the WISE Symposium is the founder of Chobani, Inc., Hamdi Ulukaya. Ulukaya will speak about founding the South Edmeston yogurt company.

DeWITT  —  Speakers at this year’s local Construction Outlook conference took on a more hopeful tone than in previous years, Stephen Poplarski said at the close of the event.

“From what I’ve seen and heard today from our speakers, I think the outlook is much brighter than it has been in the last four years,” said Poplarski, who is treasurer of the Syracuse chapter of the Construction Specification Institute (CSI).

CSI and the Syracuse Builders Exchange (SBE) hosted the Construction Outlook 2012 on March 26 at the Best Western Plus on Old Collamer Road S. in DeWitt. It was the fourth year for the program, which brings together representatives from construction, architectural, and engineering firms to address CSI and SBE members.

Just over 100 people attended the event, according to CSI Syracuse Chapter President Kevin Phillips. Nine speakers discussed the state of the construction market and upcoming projects.

The first speaker was Steven Moolin, principal at Beardsley Design Associates Architecture, Engineering & Landscape Architecture, P.C., which has offices in Auburn, Syracuse, and Malone. About 60 percent of the firm’s revenue is coming from government work, from barracks at Fort Drum to window replacements through the state Office of General Services to work at the village level, he said.

“We’re doing an awful lot of work in existing buildings,” Moolin said. “I think the message is people are looking to do more with what they have currently.”

QPK Design is also seeing increased activity in the military and government sector, according to Vincent Nicotra, partner at the Syracuse–based architectural, engineering, and site-planning firm.

The medical market has been strong over the last few years but tailed off slightly recently, he said. And QPK is seeing some private-development retail activity, according to Nicotra, although he said he could not share specifics.

“We have, I think, in the short term what I would call a little bit of a mix of everything,” he said. “We keep thinking every six months that it’s going to take off, and then it seems to pick up and then it sort of eases off a little bit. But I think it’s more encouraging than maybe it was a year ago.”

Syracuse–based Holmes King Kallquist & Associates, Architects has plenty of reason to be encouraged, according to partner Carlton Holmes. The firm is busy and seeing activity in all sectors that it serves, he said.

Those sectors include housing, industrial work, retail, religious work, government work, and interiors. They also include what Holmes said is a major source of activity: universities.

“Right now, the universities are spending a ton of money,” he said. “At some point it’s going to stop. But in any case, they’re doing a lot of work right now, so jump on quick while it’s going.”

Paul Levesque, a principal at HOLT Architects, P.C. in Ithaca, expressed more cautious optimism. The year is shaping up to be positive, but HOLT is experiencing a lot of competition from firms based outside of the upstate New York area, he said.

One reason for optimism is a large number of clients doing planning studies, according to Levesque.

“That’s a good thing,” he said. “When we see that, it makes us feel good because there’s a future.”

Demolition and infrastructure work will be popular in the future, predicted Paul Moyer, executive vice president of The Pike Co., a construction-services company based in Rochester that has a regional office at 711 N. Townsend St. in Syracuse.

Environmental regulations are leading to coal-fired power plants shutting down around the country, Moyer said. He did not name any local plants that are slated to close.

“With these, there’s a lot of demolition removal, asbestos removal, abatement that will be coming up,” Moyer said.

James D’Aloisio, principal at the DeWitt–based structural engineering, landscape architecture, and building science firm Klepper, Hahn & Hyatt, said the company has seen a decline in work at K-12 schools. About five years ago, 75 percent of its work was in those schools, but just 25 percent is in schools now, D’Aloisio said.

Building-envelope assessment has turned into an excellent niche for the firm, he said. A building envelope is the barrier between the inside and outside of a building. Assessments can save school districts and senior facilities money, according to D’Aloisio.

“That’s where I see potential future markets,” he said. “Not just in square footage or bigger, more elegant buildings, but tighter buildings, better designed buildings.”

Other speakers included Peter Lindabury, executive vice president at RobsonWoese, Inc. in Salina. Lindabury started by explaining RobsonWoese’s acquisition late last year by GHD, Inc., and that it will soon be changing its name to some derivation of GHD.

He also discussed financing for construction projects.

“My contact at GHD basically said banks are starting to lend more money, but it’s still slow,” Lindabury said. “He says the money’s just not pouring out quite yet.”

Lisa Loftus, senior marketing coordinator at Syracuse–based King + King Architects LLP, said her firm is anticipating it will work on construction projects valued at a total of about $106 million this year. Major markets include health care and education, she said.

Ron Kenyon, the Syracuse City School District’s architect and educational facilities planner, rounded out the speaker list. Kenyon explained the district’s $926 million reconstruction program to renovate 35 schools. That program is currently in its first phase, which consists of six separate schools, he said.     

SYRACUSE — A new certificate at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool) aims to give students the tools to analyze the massive amounts of information generated pretty much everywhere in the modern world.

The school announced the certificate March 21. It’s the first state-approved certificate of advanced study in the topic area of data science in New York.

Its goal is to give students the skills to analyze and take advantage of large amounts of information for all types of organizations. The program is intended for both graduate students and working professionals.

“This allows people to capture this data and allows people to see patterns,” says Erin Bartolo, the iSchool’s program manager for the data-science initiative. “Predictive analysis is not new, but what is new is the ability to do this with such big data sets.”

The program will also include specializations like data analytics and visualization.

The certificate has roots in science. Several years ago, the iSchool was working with physicists to help them analyze large amounts of data using connected grids of computers, says Jeffrey Stanton, associate dean for research and doctoral programs at the school. It became apparent during that work that the problems faced by physicists in dealing with large data sets were also present in the corporate world.

The new certificate is the result, Stanton says.

The fields involved in data science have been around for a long time, he notes. But they’ve been isolated.

Working with large amounts of data requires expertise in everything from statistics to systems.

“It’s so large and complex that it’s gone beyond any one discipline’s ability to deal with it,” Stanton says of the world of modern data. “You need an interdisciplinary approach.”

Even the simple key-ring tags shoppers get from their local grocery stores generate massive quantities of data every month. It’s
only recently that organizations have started to realize that in the right hands, that information can provide a competitive advantage, Stanton says.

The data-science certificate will give students the chance to pursue more technical careers in fields like software development, he adds. 

They could also pursue a different tack and focus on communication and presentation. Many times, organizations need individuals to help bridge the gap between employees with data skills and the decisionmakers, Stanton says.

Another career possibility is data curation. Figuring out the best way to store data sets so they can be easily used in the future for a wide range of applications is critical for many organizations, Stanton says.

Fields in need of those with data-science skills include clinical research, defense intelligence, customer behavior, medical diagnosis, and risk management, according to the iSchool.

A 2011 report from the McKinsey Global Institute, the business and economics research arm of consulting firm McKinsey & Co., estimated that the United States could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills in the next few years. The report also noted a potential shortage of 1.5 million managers and analysts with the knowledge needed to use analysis of big data to make effective decisions.