The Haiku of Finance for 08/31/18

Lemonade stand math
Price per cup must cover cost
Taste the capital

Regulatory Risks Of Leveraging Federal Lab Innovation

The Federal Laboratory Consortium is a gold mine begging for exploration. Technology gathering dust in lab basements and filing cabinets needs entrepreneurs to make it economically viable. The regulatory landscape has holes at the federal level that beg to be filled. Here are some Alfidi Capital tips for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to make tech innovation work while avoiding regulatory traps.

The Brookings Institution published "Going Local" in 2014 about how DOE's labs should support regional economic growth. White papers are full of ideas that gather dust, just like great tech ideas without people implementing them. The lead time for processing a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) or a work for other agreement (WFO) may be too long for specific product development but just right for a basic tech demonstration. The SMB moving a tech concept out of the lab's basement may be suited for small-scale funding typical of the NREL's technical and analytical service agreements.

The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report "Big Data: A Technological Perspective" from 2014 will set federal policy on data privacy for years. Government regulations crossing multiple agencies' jurisdictions has a way of guaranteeing a market for products. Large firms faced with the regulatory risk of meeting Big Data privacy mandates will need solutions. Small firms should factor privacy compliance into their product development milestones.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences report "Restoring the Foundation" in 2014 recommended permanent Presidential attention to R+D spending. Federal tech funding as a GDP percentage cannot stagnate forever. Its eventual recovery will provide funding opportunities for SMBs ready to jump into grants and contracts.

Watching the slow progress in implementing all of these reports' recommendations is disheartening. Untangling the jumble of federal advisory committees shepherding regulatory reform is outside the private sector's control, unless the President appoints business-friendly people to run the process. American SMBs cannot wait for reform. They should master the funding application system now and gain experience working through the system.

The Haiku of Finance for 09/23/15

Finding the right help
Training new employees well
Know who minds the store

Online Local Business Listings Have Complex Interactions With Google

Google's Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) concept drives home the importance of a ubiquitous presence for business brands.  The ZMOT is a compressed decision time frame between a stimulus and a purchase decision.  Consumers who switch between several computing platforms during the day, say from personal smartphone to business desktop to personal laptop, engage in "sequential screening."  Marketers now face a challenge of keeping up a brand's presence all day long through inbound marketing.  Business listing sites have figured out Google.

Marketing used to spread brand identities across several media in the age before the Internet.  People read newspapers in the morning, kept their radios on in the car or in the office, and watched TV at night.  Ad spending became more difficult to target as people became more mobile.  The explosion of smartphones into several different sizes and operating systems initially compounded the targeting problem.  The curse of Big Data for marketers is also a blessing, as those same mobile devices generate a stream of updates about a consumer's daily minutiae.

Enter the magic of Google's search algorithm and page ranking system.  Google has figured out that some business listing services are simply more reliable in delivering high-quality solutions to consumer Web searches.  The best business listings maintain a brand's ubiquitous presence in front of a target demographic, across multiple platforms.  Brand ubiquity increases the chance that a consumer will select a well-positioned brand once they reach their ZMOT and make a purchase.  It is no accident that the most successful business listing sites configure brands in rich snippet formats that resemble Google Places listings.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) cannot rule out business listings in their branding strategy.  Google is powerful enough to reward advertisers who select favored keywords in ad spending and punish business listings that do not deliver attractive search results.  Many skills in SEO and content marketing are interchangeable enough that SMBs can learn the basics.  I do not believe the financial cost of an outsourced SEO effort is all that high, but the time needed to devote to the SEO learning curve may be a sufficient pain point for business listing services to solve.  Business listing services may fill a gap for SMBs lacking the time or budget to optimize for mobile.  Some of them may cost nothing at all.

The Haiku of Finance for 12/03/14

Spending petty cash
Small biz stocking up supply
Pass reorder point

Wasting Time at the Small Business Expo San Francisco 2014

I can't resist business conclaves.  I ought to resist that impulse once in a while.  I attended last week's Small Business Expo San Francisco thinking I could learn something from subject matter experts on the scene.  The people I met there have a lot to learn themselves.  They will probably learn it the hard way.

I walked into the Fort Mason Pavilion to the very green-lit sight you see above.  The first harbinger of woe was the general cluelessness of the vendor representatives on the expo floor.  The booth people I encountered mostly gave poor explanations of their services.  I asked one booth babe with a VOIP provider what her company offered, and she pointed to a flat screen TV while mumbling "Uh, five free phones."  Her babe pal tried to save her with a lame assist:  "Uh, it's security.  You can talk to this guy."  They were both blondes.  Whenever I get two lame handoffs at a vendor booth, I get the heck out of there.

I sat in several workshops that were nothing but regurgitated pep talks and asinine product pitches.  The first scheduled main stage speaker was a no-show, so a "business coach" filled in.  Maybe ten people attended in a seating arrangement set for a couple of hundred.  I don't know what the guy's qualifications were to be a business coach because he displayed pictures of his family instead of describing his credentials or professional history.  That told me he was aiming for a low-information audience that could relate to his storytelling ability.  Folks, that's not how I interact with tech startups run by educated professionals.  Wait, it gets more entertaining.  The coach dude asked me about my ideal client, and I said, "Myself!  I'm sick of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, and I enjoy making the world angry because I'm sick of humans."  He did not get the message and asked me twice about my biggest challenge (hint:  it's to get web traffic); he forgot what I told him the first time even though he wrote it on his white board!

The coach dude continued to amuse me with non sequiturs quoted from such business luminaries as . . . Michael Jackson, the freakish pop star.   The whole train wreck reminded me of other free teaser seminars I attended that were sales pitches for very expensive "coaching" programs.  I have never ever paid for coaching because I'm the best coach I've ever known.  He asked the tiny crowd to name a leader's single biggest mistake; I thought my biggest mistake was attending this talk.   His reasons for leadership failure were kindergarten level gibberish, not the results of peer-reviewed scholarship.  He cited a "Law of the Lid" that came out of nowhere, with no data or references.  I walked out of that talk after about twenty minutes of nonsense (it started about seven minutes late).  I could not take any more amateurish "business coaching" that was nothing more than a motivational pep talk for the vulnerable fools in the audience.

I ate a nine dollar sandwich at the very limited concession stand in the Pavilion.  An event of this size should have at least had some food trucks outside.  Alas, it was not meant to be.  Picking a spot in the Pavilion's upper corner where I could view the Golden Gate Bridge was the highlight of my day.  Staying far above the nonsense below was the best decision I made at the expo.

I had to venture back down to the workshops just to gauge the general intelligence of the attendees.  If the content was lame and the people ate it up, they were morons.  Sure enough, other presenters allowed me to lower my expectations by the minute.  One presenter discussing Web optimization said WordPress wasn't a robust enough platform for a business website.  Say what?!  Does he even know how thoroughly WordPress has penetrated the Web?!  Wow, such stunning ignorance.

Another presenter's slide show didn't work so she read from her printed slides verbatim.  She obviously had not prepared to do anything other than rattle off stats without context.  Her talk was supposed to be about the power of integrating social media with mobile tech.  None of her points came across well or made sense.  I have heard about social and mobile at countless events from true experts, and her effort did not even come close to clearing the first step on a stairway to competence.  She was at least a hot babe, so she was fun to look at even though she wasn't showing cleavage or bare legs.  I imagined her stripping off because it would have made my time in her workshop worthwhile.  Her best line?  "The last time you left home without your smartphone, you felt naked."  I sure wish she had felt naked right there and then.

I thought the talk on venture funding would at least be recognizable, since that's the space I inhabit.  I was wrong.  The speaker had a couple of prepared bullet points about how VCs invest in the "leader and plan" of a business.  Huh?  That's it?  Really?  He did mention the goal of a 10x return, but nowhere did I hear the distinction between scaling up a tech startup into a billion dollar segment and the challenges of something more prosaic (like a restaurant).  He also revealed his inexperience by stating he liked to invest in a business plan with (I kid you not) . . . "ups and downs . . . the outsourcing team . . . the unemployable experts on the advisory board."  Folks, none of that makes any sense to experienced venture investors.  The dude was talking out of his hindquarters.  I was really amused at this circus.

Much of what the "venture funding" guy said was really another disguised sales pitch for business coaching.  I hope my intelligent readers see a pattern emerging.  The offers for special discounted fees and vast co-investing networks were all over the place.  The name-dropping of famous "friends and partners" came fast and furious.  Blink and you'll miss a celebrity.  I asked him what he thought of crowdfunding, and he galled me by saying it was illegal!  Say what, bro?!  If he had actually read the JOBS Act and the SEC's latest rules he would know about the legal protections in place.  I was right in the front row and clearly stated that he was incorrect, loud enough for him to hear me.  He did not even break his stride.  I was amazed at how many imbeciles stayed through his entire talk, lapping up everything.  P.T. Barnum was right about suckers, and a lot of them are now being born in San Francisco.

The only useful information I picked up was a rehash of bank loan tips I've seen before at much better conferences.  I still cannot believe I wasted half of a perfectly good day attending this expo.  I could have spent that time productively blogging.  Instead I ended up as the only real thought leader in a pavilion full of aspirational ding-dongs.  You won't catch me at this thing next year.  Buh-bye.  

Checking Out VEDC Access to Capital San Francisco 2013

The VEDC Access to Capital Business Expo in San Francisco has become one of my perennial favorite conferences.  I had to attend and check out innovations in raising capital for small businesses.  The Hyatt Regency San Francisco never disappoints with hospitality.  VEDC renamed the conference this year as "Here's the Money!" instead of just asking where the money hides in years past.

Check out the awesome signage above.  You just can't go wrong with signs like that showing you the way to money.  I would posts signs like that around my home office but they would just get in the way of my daily moneymaking.  VEDC comes all the way up to San Francisco every year to show us the money, which is a long trek away from their usual SoCal partnerships with organizations like Golden State Certified Development Corporation.  They've been reaching out for partnerships with Mission Economic Development Agency here in town and the Nevada Microenterprise Initiative.  Where's the money?  It's here, there, and everywhere.  I noticed that the conference also coincided with an unaffiliated event, EO Alchemy 2013, at the same venue.  The entrepreneurs doing their alchemy may have had no idea that Access to Capital was just around the corner.

The introduction from VEDC announced their new venture, Aquaria Funds, specifically to operate outside Los Angeles.  I think it's great that VEDC created a vehicle that entrepreneurs can use to obtain capital in addition to other local microfinance partners.  They also offer more conventional SBA loans.

I started my morning checking out the session on startup financing.  Interstate Business Capital mentioned cash advances on purchase orders and other merchant advances but I'm pretty sure those are only options for revenue-stage companies.  No one can offer advances for purchases that haven't been made if the business is still trying to launch itself.  There just aren't accounts receivable to accelerate or accounts payable to defer at most early-stage startups.  Kiva Zip is enlisting its microlenders as evangelists for the non-profit projects they launch.  That's great for Bay Area do-gooders.  The Green2Gold guy, Bruce Blechman, mentioned CCVF's Clean Business Investment Summit and their founder's radio show on new venture money.  Bruce is a genius and his rapid-fire rundown of non-bank lending, licensing, collaborative co-ops, advance order funding, and sweat equity is like a five-minute MBA education.

I slipped in to the concurrent seminar on financing for existing businesses but it was mostly a panel of larger banks discussing their established loan programs.  Banks look at an industry's default rate in addition to a business' specifics, which will disappoint a lot of the aspiring restauranteurs and beauty parlor owners attending this conference.  It's good to know that SBA-backed financing covers a ten-year cycle for equipment instead of banks' normal five-year cycle considerations.  That was all I needed to know before going back to the last part of the early-stage financing panel.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Chinese entrepreneurs were successfully pushing their government to crack down on IP infringement.  I'd like to see more confirming evidence of stronger Chinese IP protection before I revise my low opinion of the rule of law in China.  In the meantime, there is such a thing as insurance against IP infringement.  It works just like other policies with premiums and deductibles.  Yeah, just don't tell the ACA exchange folks about it, or they'll force us all to buy it with another mandate.  Startups who want to protect their IP as early as possible should file a provisional patent application with the USPTO.

Strolling the expo floor meant listening to bank loan sales pitches.  My eyes doth glaze over when I hear big banks say they have a community bank culture.  Sorry, but I'm not a believer.  Only two things determine a large corporation's culture.  Number one is the CEO's personality and expressed strategic goals, because other executives will model that behavior and push their business units to meet those goals so they can get promoted to the C-suite.  Number two is the HR department's policies on hiring, firing, promotions, and performance bonuses.  Those are the hard incentives that motivate human behavior.  Any big bank that aspires to live a community bank culture would have to devolve so much autonomy to its local branches as to make its corporate structure nonviable.

I sat in the next session introducing local resource partners.  The usual cast of characters from the SBA, SCORE, SBDC, Operation HOPE, and others were on hand.  The Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, San Francisco Community Business Resources, Pacific Community Ventures, and OBDC's Bay Area Small Business Finance were also in attendance at the expo.   I would have preferred to see the San Francisco Center for Economic Development (SFCED) in attendance but alas, it was not to be this year.  Entrepreneurs from underrepresented demographics need to check out California's Veterans Business Outreach Center.  I'll give you this panel's best quote, free of charge:  "The one time a banker won't give you an umbrella is when it's raining."  That means banks won't give you a loan if your business is losing money or the microeconomic climate for your sector has a poor outlook.

The most valuable insights I got out of that local partners panel was from the SCORE guy who previously worked with Harvard Angels and Sand Hill Angels on early stage investing.  He said records of the term sheets and signed subscription agreements that support a startup's capitalization table are a must.  Banks and angel investors will want to review those documents during their due diligence phase.  Corporate structure is the key to determining capitalization structure because it must allow for selling equity shares.  The choice of an S-corp or C-corp IMHO depends on how rapidly the business expects to scale up.

One participant at "Here's the Money!" mentioned Wells Fargo's financial support of microfinance platforms, which I presume to be Grameen America.  I've blogged before about how SIFI institutions will eventually purchase microfinance and crowdfunding platforms to broaden their product offerings.  The consolidation won't start until the SEC finalizes the regulatory structure enabling the JOBS Act.  You heard it here first.

The keynote speaker after lunch was Kevin Harrington, a TV pitch innovator who brought you Ginsu Knives on shopping channels and infomercials before he joined the Shark Tank show.  I'll share his tips on "Creating Brand Success" pretty much verbatim because they apply to lots of different business types.

Kevin liked the "Three Steps and a Stumble" approach to raising capital and growing a business.  Step One is "curiosity overload."  Deep market research reveals product trends, so collect industry publications and attend trade shows.  You know what . . . that's exactly what I do.  Step Two is "hijack your habits."  Think outside the box.  Make things happen.  Don't do something the same way forever because business changes quickly.  Hey, I do that too.  Step Three is "build a brand for both the company and yourself."  Man, this guy must be reading my blog because surely he recognizes the pure unrivaled genius that is both Alfidi Capital and Yours Truly, Anthony Alfidi.

Kevin also laid out five skills for entrepreneurs.  Here they come.

- Skill One:  Create the perfect pitch.  Show healthy profits, exponential growth, acquisition opportunity, strong market, bootstrap capital from founders, uniqueness, powerful presentation using his "tease / please / seize" structure, the industry gap you fill (which I interpret as the pain points you solve), and your exit strategy.

- Skill Two:  Publish.  The business plan must have an executive summary, industry overview, competitive analysis, marketing plan, strong financials, and an exit strategy.

- Skill Three:  Productize.  Show your product's mass market, problem solving ability, uniqueness, magical transformation, celebrity endorsement, multi-functionality, credible testimonials, documentation and clinical studies, publicity, and value proposition compared to cost of goods.

- Skill Four:  Profile.  New media accelerates publicity.  Smartphones now have multimedia production capabilities equivalent to a full broadcast studio.  Shooting smartphone videos for YouTube will go a long way.

- Skill Five:  Partnerships.  Find parties with resources you need, and offer them resources they need.

Now for the "stumble" Kevin mentioned.  If you must fail, do it fast and cheap.  Make it up on the next venture.  Kevin shared videos of a lot of his very successful infomercial products and few that were disappointments.  No one remembers your disappointments if you recover and follow up with new successes.

These VEDC events are highly condensed equivalents of college seminars in finance and marketing.  So where's the money?  Well, here's the money, in my wallet.  It's yours too once you line up investors and creditors who have confidence in your business prospects.  Don't ask me for money.  Go out and find it with the local partners VEDC lined up for you.  

The Limerick of Finance for 03/25/12

Vets came to their first hackathon
You had to see what's going on
Teams formed and then planned
Pitched apps they understand
New wealth starts in some electron

Entrepreneurship Creates Hyperinflation-Resistant Cash Flow

The mess in Europe will eventually come to an inflection point.  Maybe late March 2012, when Greek bond auctions and EU/IMF bailout payments coincide, will determine whether a sovereign nation in a currency union can execute a controlled crash.  Global policymakers should concern themselves with the most likely policy responses, namely a repeat of the Fed's ginormous dollar swap lines and uncontrolled quantitative easing.  Investors should concern themselves with the most likely economic consequences, namely a hyperinflationary depression.

Owning a fully-paid business can be a boon during inflation because the proprietor can raise prices to keep up with the devaluation of a domestic currency.  Some business types may prove more useful to own than others.

So what are some of the most useful types, IMHO?  I'll suggest a sample list for starters.

Hard asset producers.  Owning a gold mine could literally be . . . well, a gold mine.  So could oil and gas wells, wind turbines (the large rural kind, not the useless "small urban" kind), solar arrays, potash deposits, and other stuff that produces a "flow" from some physical source.  The flow of hard assets will always have some value regardless of its currency of denomination.

Urban necessities.  I seriously think an urban laundromat would be a decent inflation-resistant thing for me personally to own.  This is anecdotal, but a Bay Area businessperson I've known for years has grown rich partly from the cash flow of laundromats he's owned for years.  The big risk here is the method of payment.  Coin-operated machines would quickly become useless if physical currency loses value by the day.  There is no point in pumping quarters into a washing machine if one cycle costs a million inflated dollars.  Hyperinflation demands machines whose prices can be updated daily.  I have yet to find washing machines and dryers configured to take credit cards with LED displays that carry seven-digit price readouts.  It would be a hoot to watch the price change during the spin cycle.

What would be the least useful types of businesses to own during hyperinflation?  I for one would not want to own these in hyperinflation.

Residential real estate.  Rent control laws become very popular with politicians when renters start seeing their disposable income seriously pinched by inflation.  Commercial real estate would not be subject to this problem.

Import/export businesses.  Hyperinflation invites capital controls that restrict the ability to move currency out of the country or exchange it at a rate other than one set by the government.  The government-controlled rate will probably not be a market rate, so anyone in the import/export sector will have problems.  Importers will find it difficult to buy goods from non-U.S. customers if those customers are reluctant to be paid in rapidly depreciating U.S. dollars. Exporters may find it easier to make a sale to a strong-currency customer, but they will lose money on many transactions if they have to convert foreign currency to dollars at an artificially unattractive rate.  Terms of trade financing and payment will make all the difference.

I should caveat this post's title in a couple of ways.  I think a wholly-owned business is inflation-resistant rather than inflation-proof.  No business will be completely unaffected by hyperinflation.  Even enterprises that produce and distribute hard assets - mining, pipelines, railroads, etc. - incur energy and transaction costs that can be unpredictable during hyperinflation.  I also think earnings are more vulnerable to inflation than cash flow.  This subtle difference is key.  Collecting cash payments from customers immediately is imperative to keeping a business afloat during hyperinflation, as is delaying cash payments to vendors for as long as sales terms will allow.  Booked earnings that look attractive at the time of sale look less desirable a month later when the cash flow is collected in a devalued currency.  The delay between recorded accounting earnings and collected cash can wreck a balance sheet for a business subject to covenants from lenders.  Then again, recording a liability and then paying it a month later with devalued cash may offset this effect.

I periodically check listings of businesses for sale (using resources like BizBuySell) for examples of potential winners.  I am reluctant to take on debt but the effects hyperinflation can have on reducing a debt load are tempting.  Going into debt to buy a business in this type of environment is a high-risk, high-reward strategy where timing is everything.  Taking on debt to soon before the onset of hyperinflation risks an indefinite wait before the devaluing power of inflation reduces a mountain of debt to a molehill.  Waiting too long risks seeing credit providers close off loans to anyone unwilling to pay usurious rates.

Do not take any of this discussion as some kind of recommendation to rush out and buy a business.  I have no idea whether anyone who reads my blog is capable of handling the risks of running a business.  That is why I don't tell people what to do with their money.  None of the speculation I have discussed above constitutes advice of any kind.  It merely outlines possibilities I am considering for my own personal portfolio.  The months ahead will test entrepreneurs' mettle.  Thinking out loud is how I prepare for trying times.  

Impressions From VEDC Access To Capital Business Expo In SF

I can't resist free conferences on financial topics.  I saw an ad for the third annual Where's The Money? Access to Capital Business Expo in one of San Francisco's weekly magazines.  I signed up for a free pass out of curiosity, wondering what the Valley Economic Development Center from SoCal was doing holding an event so far up north on Nov. 19, 2011.  Don't they have enough SBA lenders in SoCal?  It was worth attending for the free lunch (thanks Chase Bank for sponsoring) and yours truly even learned a couple of new things. 

The winner for me was the panel discussion on "Sources of Unconventional Financing."  The stars of the show were Greg Salomon of Capital Partners, Dave Kocharhook from Riviera Finance, and Alan Tratner of Green2Gold and the California Coast Venture Forum.  Thanks to moderation from Antonio Pizano of Pacoima Development FCU, Dave and Greg were able to explain the nuances of asset-based finance (primarily factoring accounts receivable and merchant cash advances) and vendor finance (primarily purchase order financing).  Fully utilizing asset-based finance is a must for businesses moving physical goods.  Entrepreneurs need to check out ABF Journal for tips.  Retailers need to know that factoring breaks down into recourse and non-recourse factoring, where recourse factoring leaves the company liable for unpaid receivables.  I'm not a retailer, so I enjoyed hearing for the first time that a factoring transaction is priced according to sales volume, average invoice size, payment timing, and other elements. 

Alan wowed the crowd with awesome tips, as follows . . .
   - Forming a C-corp structure provides flexibility when you need to grant sweat equity to minority investors or get funding from VCs or angels.  VCs don't like to invest in LLCs or partnerships. 
   - The financial food chain for entrepreneurs includes both debt and equity funding.  It runs from the 3Fs (friends, family, fools) through crowd funding, VC/angel backing, and even licensing and co-ventures.  I had always considered licensing to be a form of revenue for a mature product rather than a financing option for something unproven, but some startups can apparently make a go of things by inventing stuff just to license out production.
   - The success rate for businesses that spring from a formal business incubator is 90%.  That got my attention.  You can find an incubator focused on your business's sector at the National Business Incubation Association. 
   - Doing a patent search before you file for a patent of your own will help determine whether you'll end up reinventing the wheel.

I did hear one other comment during the panel discussion that I had never heard before.  Alan said a business's brand identity counts as intellectual property.  This is a twist on the old definition of a brand as an intangible asset.  Apparently academic thinking on the subject of brand identity and ways to protect it has matured since I got my MBA nine years ago.  Copyrights, trademarks, and service marks can now constitute a brand portfolio.  How about that. 

I needed to talk to a few of the banks who staffed expo booths here because I'm wargaming whether I'll need a small loan to fund a business project I have in mind.  Please note that this project is super top secret and I will reveal it when the time is right.  Let's just say it's a practical application of the resilient community paradigm.  Anyway, Wells Fargo and TMC Financing were particularly informative.  Wells Fargo offers cash-secured commercial and consumer loans that are useful for equipment purchases, and TMC Financing offers SBA 504 loans for purchasing real estate.  I asked specifically if the SBA 504's requirement that a business facility be 51% occupied referred to the human proprietor's physical presence or merely the presence of continual business activity.  It appears that mere activity is sufficient; if correct, that will be key to execution of the 24/7 presence my remotely-monitored project will involve.  Hey reader, please don't take this as legal advice.  Check with your own banker and lawyer when you start investigating loan terms and requirements. 

I mentioned the free lunch already, but I will state for the record that the Hyatt Regency San Francisco prepares a decent chicken with risotto.  I went nuts for the cheese biscuits and I would have scored a second apple tart if some latecomer hadn't sat down at the last minute.  The keynote speaker, Dane Boryta of Bottle Cap restaurant, implored us to respect the cooking by cleaning our plates.  Entrepreneurs know good stuff when they see it.  VEDC needs to invite me to be a panelist next time so I can score some more free food. 

Nota bene:  None of the companies or institutions mentioned have given me any compensation or consideration for this blog post.  My recollection of this conference is provided as a public service.