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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Is Google everything it’s cracked up to be?

It’s often hard to tell what’s a gimmick, and what’s a real business tool. As I sit staring thoughtfully at Google’s stripped-down, Zenlike home page, I can’t decide whether it’s another Clippy (the annoying animated paperclip character introduced in Microsoft Word 97), or another paperclip (which is so ubiquitous and essential in business that we don’t even think of it as technology anymore). It could be either, or even both. Google has left the desktop in Microsoft’s grasp, but staked…

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Cleaner diesel fuels growth at southeast-side factory: Former International Harvester plant is a star for Chicago-based parent Navistar International Corp.

Workers at the once-beleaguered International Truck and Engine Corp. plant on the city’s southeast side are thinking expansion following a $300 million plant upgrade and word of an aggressive 2006 marketing campaign designed to clean up the public image of diesel engines. Improvements to the 1.1-million-squarefoot Brookville Road facility were necessary to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates for diesel engines set to take effect in 2007, but the plant’s future seems secure well beyond that. The local subsidiary of…

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INVESTING: Powerhouse tech stocks may have more room to run

Technology is cool, especially when you can profit from it in the stock market. There have been all kinds of breakouts in the technology sector the last eight weeks, and with the pullback occurring now, opportunities abound. Let’s start with the big guy, Microsoft. (My fund owns Microsoft.) This stock had been lagging the market this year until it went bananas Aug. 2. The stock broke out that day on almost triple the average volume. It then climbed near $28…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: If tired of browsing for news, why not try an aggregator?

The bane of the Information Age is information. At least when my father went to work in the factory he ably kept running for many years, he knew the aisles would still be in the same places, the machinery still exhibiting the same behaviors, and that the number of unknowns in his life would be manageable. I’m better situated in life than he was, but I pay for it with uncertainty. The content of my job isn’t machinery, but information,…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Prison reform is off state’s radar

What do the following cities have in common? Auburn, C r aw f o r d s v i l l e , Greenfield, Griffith, Huntington, Logansport, New Castle, Seymour and Shelbyville. Each has a smaller population than the number of people in Indiana prisons. The Indiana Department of Correction reports we have more than 19,600 adults in our prisons at an annual cost in excess of $21,500 per prisoner per year, for a total of $420 million. According to…

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NOTIONS: The faulty presumption of perpetual accessibility

I was in pain. I lost lots of blood. My blood sugar skyrocketed (I’m diabetic). In the wee hours that Friday morning, nurses pumped me full of morphine, injected me with insulin and watched my vital signs while doctors pressed and squeezed, pushed and prodded, and talked it all over in hushed tones. An hour before surgery, an anesthesiologist visited. He asked lots of questions about allergies and dental work. Then he warned me of potential doom-perhaps even death on…

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Former Chamber of Commerce CEO launches firm: Christopher LaMothe leaves Oxford Financial Group

For a decade as Indiana Chamber of Commerce CEO, Christopher LaMothe pressed to enhance Indiana’s business climate. Then he spent several years leading Oxford Financial Group Ltd.’s team of advisers for wealthy clients. But the whole time, LaMothe aspired to be a dealmaker. Now, he’s done something about it. This summer, he founded the one-man Ascendanci Ventures LLC and is on the hunt for prospects. “I’m doing what I have dreamed about for the last 10 or 15 years,” LaMothe…

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Group wants energy czar: Coalition believes utilities slow to climb on efficiency bandwagon

Chris Maher’s crews at Thermo-Scan Inc. have been plenty busy inspecting for drafts and puny insulation in many of the 14,000 new homes built each year in the metro area. Even so, the principal at the Carmel firm can’t help wonder about the vast potential to make the hundreds of thousands of existing homes and businesses more energy efficient-if only homeowners had a little more incentive. Utility companies, he says, have relatively few dollars budgeted to coax customers to install…

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Eli Lilly spawns start-up: Maaguzi plans rapid growth selling software to manage clinical research trials

Eli Lilly and Co. has sold clinical-research software it created to a veteran Indianapolis entrepreneur who plans to market it globally, potentially growing his startup company into one of the area’s largest technology firms. Joe Huffine, best known as co-founder of the technology consultancy Onex Inc., said his new firm, Maaguzi LLC, should benefit as the market for research software grows explosively. Maaguzi’s software allows researchers and patients to record data electronically instead of on paper. The software is geared…

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State firms pioneers in boosting electric efficiency:

Indiana already has a number of firms working on technology aimed at boosting energy efficiency and capacity. Early this month, Indianapolis-based Trexco LLC said the U.S. Patent Office awarded it two dozen patents for a cooling system it has developed for large electrical transformers, such as those used at utility substations. The “transformer extender” is designed to stretch the capacity and lifespan of the transformers, which typically cost $2 million to $5 million and are the size of a Mack…

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NASCAR puts marketer in fast lane: Brown builds reputation for closing big sponsorship deals

Zak Brown retired as a race car driver years ago. But he’s never moved faster than he does today as the founder and president of Indianapolis-based Just Marketing. On the heels of this year’s Brickyard 400, Brown expects to announce two more major NASCAR sponsorship deals brokered by his company. Those deals-which he can’t yet discuss-along with recent deals to bring Johnnie Walker and Hilton Hotels to Formula One, will bring his sponsorship portfolio to near $150 million annually. Though…

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Defining success: Those who’ve tasted it share their thoughts on just exactly what ‘it’ is

How do you define career success? We posed that question to a variety of high-profile women and men in the Indianapolis business community. While the responses did confirm some of our preconceived notions-such as that men would mention financial rewards more often than women-there are far more similarities than differences, regardless of gender or profession. Still, “Career success is defined differently by each individual,” as Alex Slabosky, president and CEO of The Healthcare Group, so wisely put it; and as…

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Haverstick lands DWD’s controversial IT contract: Original award to India-based Tata was election issue

Last year, it was the contract that helped turn the gubernatorial election. Now, it’s a nice piece of business for Carmel-based Haverstick Government Solutions. When Indiana awarded a multimilliondollar project to an India-based information-technology developer, Gov. Joe Kernan, a Democrat, endured intense criticism. By November, Kernan had canceled the agreement with Bombay-based Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. He also introduced “Opportunity Indiana,” an initiative for government-procurement reform. But the political damage had already been done. Republican Mitch Daniels triumphed at the…

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Electronic network prepares to branch out: More hospital systems, doctors in line for speedy test results through Indiana Health Information Exchange

The Indiana Health Information Exchange starts a busy fall next month with plans to add two more hospital systems to a cutting-edge electronic network designed to improve patient care in central Indiana. The expansion is helping keep Indiana ahead of other states exploring this new branch of medical technology, experts say. The state also is home to the Indianapolis Network for Patient Care, a system that started in the mid-1990s as a way for hospital emergency rooms to share patient…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Soon you may be able to chat at 20,000 feet

Ever since I was a kid, I resented other people’s getting by w i t h s o m e t h i n g I didn’t think I could get away with. The element of danger only adds to my Midwestern frustration at having to hold my tongue. Gas station customers smoking while fueling. Drivers cutting me off in traffic and not even noticing, thanks to the cell phones I can clearly see held to their ears. Fellow passengers…

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Rising star in GOP recasts job agency: New chief uses secret shoppers, dress code to shake up state’s work force development

Indiana Department of Workforce Development Commissioner Ronald Stiver says the world is flat, with the United States no longer having mountainous advantages over other nations. And Stiver knows Hoosiers must prepare for it to get even flatter. “You’re talking to the converted,” Stiver said. “I believe in the 21st century, the major lever for economic development will be work-force development.” Stiver, 31, is reorganizing DWD with the new flat world in mind. He envisions an agency that moves beyond doling…

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Interactive Intelligence posts profit, again: Communications software-maker nets modest earnings

Its profit may be modest. But after years of struggle, Interactive Intelligence Inc. knows the value of small gains. They sure beat massive losses. Last week, the Indianapolis-based software company reported a second-quarter profit of $290,000 on sales of $15.6 million. That compares with a profit of $304,000 on sales of $13.6 million posted during the same quarter last year. It was the company’s sixth consecutive profitable quarter, for a total of $1.4 million. That’s a big turnaround for the…

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Manufacturers struggle with China’s risk, opportunity: Currency valuation one of many competitive issues

Eighteen months ago, 110 people worked for Swiss Plywood Co., a Tell City-based cabinet-maker in business since 1945. The average tenure was 17 years. Today, only 65 employees are left at the controls of Swiss Plywood’s machines. Chairman Bill Borders blames China. “We’ve weathered storms over the years,” Borders said. “But nothing approaching this.” Manufacturers in Indiana and across the nation have long complained about what they call Chinese currency manipulation. It’s one of a litany of grumbles about Chinese…

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University Place getting major makeover: New owner IUPUI investing $13M in renovation of 18-year-old hotel

A hotel built during an era in which Indianapolis first laid claim to its title of Amateur Sports Capital of the World has a new owner that is spending millions of dollars to bring the structure into the new century. University Place Conference Center & Hotel, on the campus of IUPUI, opened amid the fanfare of the Pan American Games hosted by Indianapolis in 1987. Nearly 4,500 athletes from 38 countries converged on downtown, including a throng of media that…

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Tax credits aid blighted areas: Help open to firms targeting Center Township projects

Federal tax credits supporting roughly $6 million in economic development projects are still available for small-business owners considering expanding or locating in Center Township. The funds are administered through the New Markets Tax Credit Program, which was established by Congress in 2000 to help revitalize blighted areas. In Indiana, the locally based Urban Enterprise Association Inc. helped secure tax credits that can fund $50 million worth of projects, including $12.5 million in Marion County. The tax credits already are supporting…

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