A Toast to Success

By Robin Bulanti
Now’s the time of year we pause to give thanks. Sandwiched between the Thanksgiving holiday and Dreamforce, we’ll squeeze in our annual holiday party this week, when we get together to celebrate success and show some serious love to our clients, colleagues, and partners.

This was another evolutionary year for Kulesa Faul—we branched into new areas like greentech with People Power and expanded our cloud practice introducing new clients Model Metrics and Host Analytics. We also saw exciting developments across our enterprise portfolio with the “return” of ALM innovator Serena Software, a bright spot for MySQL customers with the public launch of SkySQL and the acquisition of one of our favorite hot companies: KACE is now officially Dell KACE.

We owe a great deal of our success to our team and foundation of core values, so it was especially fun to be named one of PR Source Code’s top five tech communicators in the small agency category this year, the result of an independent vote by more than 800 journalists and bloggers. As an agency, we aren’t one to chase our own awards, so this came as a lovely little surprise and testament to the work we do every day. The honor follows another for my colleague Tami Casey, who was named a PR Source Code top tech PR pro in another independent vote of journalists .

Our clients also had some notable wins including Model Metrics recently named Chicago Tribune’s top small company to work for, Inc. 5000 top private company and CRN 2010 fast growth company, CloudShare and Host Analytics named to the AlwaysOn OnDemand 100 and Host Analytics winning a Ventana Research Leadership Award.

We’re looking forward to seeing many of our friends this week to celebrate these and other successes…Here’s to many more!

App to the Future

By Dave Struzzi
Apple’s recent “Back to the Mac” event got a lot of Mac fans excited. The big hardware news from that event, of course, was the introduction of the next generation of the MacBook Air, their ultraportable and futuristically thin notebook. Lost in the shuffle of Apple’s hardware and operating system upgrades, however, was a smaller news item that I believe can drastically change the landscape of the Mac vs. PC wars: the introduction of a new App Store for Macs.

Similar to how the App store caters to iPhone and iPads, Apple plans to give software developers a portal for distributing their apps directly to consumers with MacBooks and other Apple products. The goal is likely to recapture the excitement and runaway success of the original App Store; one that gave iPhone users access to hundreds of thousands of programs, games, and tools, at a minimal price.

Adding this capability to MacBooks is a major milestone because the sheer number of available software compatible for Apple computers has historically paled in comparison to its PC counterpart. One stroll through the software section of your local Best Buy can attest to that, with aisles filled with PC software versus the shelves filled with Mac software.

The App Store for Macs is a smart move on Apple’s part to bolster its software lineup, especially considering that all the software in that portal will get the Apple “stamp of approval” to be there. Its biggest hurdle, however, will be ensuring that all developers get a fair chance to appear in the store, even if their software competes with Apple’s own offerings.

Giving Back to Our Alma Mater

By Danielle Salvato and Ana Embry
At Kulesa Faul we see the value in following through with ideas and passions that our company and employees believe in, such as traveling to Costa Rica for a week to help others less fortunate, or donating our time to advise students on their potential. It’s a privilege to say that Kulesa Faul strongly believes in giving back in different ways.

The two of us have a great amount of respect for our alma mater, Chico State. We believe strongly in giving back to the program that helped get us where we are today. This past Friday, we went to visit and speak to the Chico State Department of Journalism. Within the department is a well-driven PR program that leads Tehama Group Communications, a student-run PR agency. Twenty years ago, TGC opened its doors at Chico State. Since then, it has brought together more than 400 students to serve nearly 100 local, regional, national and nonprofit clients. We are just two of the 400 students.

For TGC’s 20th Anniversary, the department had two full days filled with alumni speaking panels and individual insight on various topics. We led speaking sessions on job-hunting for college seniors—more specifically, how to find a job in a tough economy and interviewing do’s and don’ts.

We are honored to do something that gives back to the college that gave us so much and appreciate that Kulesa Faul supports us in this endeavor.

The Ellison-Benioff Standoff Continued Last Week at Oracle OpenWorld

By Kelly Indrieri
While they may share a billboard on 101 and exhibit at each other's events, Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff still can't help but take digs at each other whenever there's an opportunity.

I attended last week’s Oracle OpenWorld and was in the audience for Larry Ellison's introduction of Oracle’s ‘Cloud in a box', Exalogic. I have to say, I agree with Benioff. ‘Cloud in a box?’ Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Yes, we all know, Mr. Ellison, that salesforce.com runs on servers. But isn't the business benefit of public cloud computing NOT having to have the box in the first place, but really to let someone else handle your IT?

Can you have the best of both worlds or is it just an attempt by Oracle to get into the cloud market? Whatever is at the heart of their public but friendly standoff, I think both companies know that Oracle and salesforce.com aren't going anywhere because they both add business value. So lets stop the bickering, gentlemen, and recognize the value in what you both deliver to the IT and business community. Maybe consider calling a truce...at least until December’s Dreamforce, of course.
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The Nitty-Gritty of a Twitter Tangle

By Ana Embry
With so many Twitter tools available for managing followers, I find myself wondering which tool will work best for someone like me who is fairly new to Twitter. I researched some of the tools out there and want to share with you some of my favorites. Here are a few trustworthy tools that will take the headache out of managing followers, whether you have 50 or 5,000.

Twittangle - This is a free service that allows users to untangle the possible mess of having numerous followers, allowing an easier engagement and a less stressful experience. It will show all of your followers and allow you to tag and move them into particular lists. Twittangle then compiles a custom timeline for those followers.
FRIENDorFOLLOW – FRIENDorFollow is a free and quick tool that shows which of your friends actually follow you back. You simply plug in your username and it does all the work for you.
Future Tweets – Want to plan a Tweet for the future? This service does just that. While it doesn’t help manage your followers it engages them during peak and/or quiet viewing hours. You can set Tweets up to a year in advance for product launches, tradeshows or whatever the case. The only drawback to compiling too far in the future is unplanned changes, and the opportunity for timely responses to any conversation started with followers after hours.
Co-Tweet - This beta tool is often used for companies that may have more than one user, such as a social media team or a trustworthy few that collaboratively contributes to the Twitter feed. The clever part of co-Tweet is that it also monitors ‘who Tweeted what.’ This is critical for those who may be looking into which person receives the most re-Tweets, or wants to collaborate as a team on the strategy that is working the best.
Splitweet - An optimal choice for individuals or companies that have more than one account to manage, one main twitter and another for tech support, per se, and allows you to update in one simple step and report for each account, brand or user. The concept is similar to TweetDeck.

Happy Twittering!

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"Sustainable is Attainable”

By Danielle Salvato
This week, Kulesa Faul launched our sustainability initiative to shrink our ecological footprint by reducing our impact and bettering our business and community.

As a team, we are proud to announce that we have started taking solid, yet simple, steps to become a “green” (excuse the cliché) company. We are committed to change our everyday behavior by reducing the impact of what we consume, reusing what we already have and recycling everything we can. Yesterday, our team met to develop the Kulesa Faul green vision, mission statement and actionable pledges. We’ve already begun changing our every day behavior by taking on the necessary steps of acknowledging what we consume and how we can decrease our ecological footprint.

We, as a team, have pledged to:
1. Reduce our use of non-renewable resources.
2. Recycle 100 percent of recyclable materials.
3. Promote sustainable behavior in our community.

And even though it is never easy to change bad habits, we are taking steps forward to do our part to make the business world, our community and lives a better place for generations to come. Please join us in this effort to make a difference. What do you pledge?
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Avoiding software failure—is there an app for that?

By Julie Tangen
I recently read about a Six Flags roller coaster that got stuck on its tracks. Turns out it was due to a computer glitch. I’m always surprised when I hear about a glitch or software failure. With all the advances in technology and all the products available to solve the needs of every single consumer and company doing business today, I keep thinking that someone will finally figure out a way to create fail proof software that runs as its intended with no glitches, crashes or failures. Why can’t we get it right?

The topic of ‘getting software right’ is an ongoing discussion at my company. Most of us have worked together since the early days, representing companies like Mercury Interactive and Compuware, then later Borland and Codegear. The topic was top of mind then, and still today we’re reminded of the poor state of software every time we flip on the news; whether its an airline glitch that causes delays, or the NASDAQ going down. But when you’re stuck on a roller coaster 50 feet in the air, or behind the wheel of a Prius during a time of safety recalls, it hits home and we’re then reminded just how much we rely on software and computers in our daily lives. Technology innovation intended to make our lives easier also puts us at risk. When will we get to the point where we can truly trust software?

We’ve been thrust into a digital world and like it or not, we’re all along for the ride. I believe that with innovation there needs to be a greater focus and dedication to developing software and the systems that run them, otherwise we’ll continue to see big failures in the news. Why aren't software companies getting together to establish standards and best practices that shape and govern the creation of software and critical system? What about a consortium that focuses on ‘getting software right?’ Is there an app for that?
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