The Business Journal chooses to support the AMA at the Platinum level because it is impressed by the high level of professionalism of the organization and its strong, active membership. Sponsorship offers the Business Journal a means of staying in front of the city's business leaders and to help fulfill its desire to help the Portland business community thrive.

Working towards a healthier, more vibrant business community is good business for the Business Journal, as well as for the community. To this end, the Business Journal produces 23 events every year for its clients, the totality of the Portland business community. These events include bringing to town CEOs from important national and international companies. Past speakers have included the COO from Southwest Airlines, the CMO of Yahoo!, and the CEO of Xerox.

Two events, in particular, are on their way to becoming important community involvements for the Business Journal. The first is a fete for Oregon's Most Admired Companies and the second will likely become a signature event. It is a spotlight on Corporate Philanthropy scheduled for October 8 with the Trail Blazers. This second event will celebrate how Oregon businesses distinguish themselves as good corporate citizens through contributions of money, people and facilities.

Mr. Horton finished up our interview by saying that Portland would do well to have more high quality organizations like the AMA.

THANK YOU PORTLAND BUSINESS JOURNAL!

Marketing Challenges of Nanotechnology Present and Future (cont.)

What does “nano” mean? Most people have some feeling for what “micro” means. A micro(meter) is one millionth of a meter in length. A nano(meter) is one thousand times smaller than a micrometer. Being able to fabricate things on a nano scale means that technologists can begin to exploit some of the mind bending effects of quantum mechanics. A favorite example of this is to fabricate “quantum dots” in particle sizes of ~ 15-50 nanometers across and then dissolve each size of particle in a clear liquid. The solution with the smallest particles in it is colored blue. The next bigger particle size makes a green solution. Increase the size yet again and get a red solution. There are no tricks of chemistry here. The quantum mechanics are very clear. The smaller the containment vessel, the bluer the particle. Make the containment vessel a little bigger, and the color of the particle shifts to warmer hues.

To get a little better understanding, consider a guitar, with its strings. We've all experienced what happens to the pitch of the sound when one finger holds down a string very close to the sound hole while plucking the string with the other hand as the first finger slides upward towards the top of the neck of the guitar. The pitch of the sound changes from high, when the string is short (the containment vessel is small), to low, when the string is long (the containment vessel is big). Indeed this great way to understand the wave-like nature of quantum particles!

So what's the Marketing aspect to all of the Gee Whiz? It's going to be in humanizing the nanotechnology experience for customers. Unfortunately, the most common type of marketing in use for products already for sale, might be characterized as "technical connoisseur." That is, the marketing presentation can only be appreciated by persons with extensive backgrounds in the technology being presented.

Take as an example, the website for Nanoventions ( www.nanoventions.com ). What Nanoventions is best known for are their nano scale lens array films. These are currently being used to foil counterfeiting of paper currency. In about two years, Nanoventions' lens films will be on all U.S. $100 bills. The lens films make the underlying image flicker as the bill is turned from side to side. What that means is, if the bill is tipped right to left, the image on the bill shifts up and down. If the bill is tipped from toward and away from you, the image shifts from right to left. Looking at the website, you will learn that one of the company's products is a film used as a security measure for currency. The website has a number of really nice pictures of lens arrays, but there is no mention about the flickering images or even a photograph of a film on a piece of paper currency. Clearly, only science connoisseurs will be attracted to the website, and that's a really small market! Surely, Nanoventions is not attracting as large an audience as it could if the website was warm and personable. Consider, for example, including some animation depicting the directional flickering of the image on the paper bill.

Another one of the applications of nanotechnology presented at the Conference was of a new kind of lighting. The embodiment shown was of a thin vertical sheet, much like a large, unlined file card, that glows white when energized. This lighting device provides for more light per watt of electricity than even modern fluorescent tubes. Another embodiment of the same idea was a flexible plastic backed lighting device. This isn't going to be science fiction for much longer—Walmart is working with General Electric to build this kind of light to go into their cooler compartments less than two years from now. The marketing for either of these two lighting concepts would benefit from images of people working, or playing, in spaces lighted with the new devices.