Reebok offers help fighting overseas abuse
Can a piece of software make a difference in the lives of factory workers in the Far East?
Peter Burrows, chief technology officer at Reebok International Ltd., thinks so -- if it gains wide adoption.
So this week, at the National Retail Federation's annual conference in New York, Burrows will talk about a new organization called the Fair Factories Clearinghouse. It will help develop and distribute a piece of software that was originally built by Burrows' technology group at Canton-based Reebok to track the working conditions at factories where Reebok's shoes and apparel are made.
The software, known inside Reebok as the Human Rights Tracking System, was something that other manufacturers had often asked Burrows whether they could buy. It has helped Reebok collect information about conditions at its factories around the world, from the number of fire escapes to the air quality to the wages to whether they're using child labor.
"When other companies told us that they'd love to buy the tool, that started some thought about how Reebok could make this available to other companies," Burrows says.
Working with Doug Cahn, Reebok's vice president of human rights programs, Burrows decided to set up a nonprofit. Reebok would donate its software, giving other companies access to it. A subscription fee, ranging from $5,000 a year to $60,000, based on the company's size, would ensure that there's enough money to continually improve the software.
"We need 20 or 25 significant commitments from companies to really make this a viable tool," says Burrows, who will be trying to drum up support in New York this week at the retailing industry's biggest gathering. (Some of the seed funding came from a State Department grant.)
One big potential benefit of the new nonprofit: It may help different manufacturers that rely on the same factories -- common in the apparel industry -- to share information about human rights conditions with one another, rather than having to collect it separately. The www.fairfactories.org website will go live tomorrow.
Angling for a promotionJon Latorella wants to move up in the world.
His Beverly company, LocatePlus Holdings, sort of went public in 2002. I say sort of because the IPO was handled by a tiny underwriter in Worcester, the offering raised less than $4 million, and the stock was listed on the OTC Bulletin Board, home of the penny stock.
LocatePlus operates a database that strikes fear into the hearts of evildoers everywhere. The company collects and organizes information about where you have lived, your criminal history, what sort of cars have been registered to you, your height and eye color, and your cellphone and land lines.
When private investigators or law enforcement officers query the database, they can find out where you've lived over the past decade, for example, find out what car you're driving, and get a list of your neighbors, relatives, and roommates.
(In a test query, the system coughed up the name of a roommate of mine from 1994, and my mother, but missed two other people I've lived with.)
Massachusetts state troopers stationed at Logan International Airport use the LocatePlus database, accessed via BlackBerry, to conduct background checks on suspicious characters. Law enforcement agencies typically pay $74.99 a month per user to access it. Latorella expects the company's 2004 revenue to top $6 million.
When I spoke with him this month, he expressed his desire for a promotion: to the Nasdaq SmallCap market or the American Stock Exchange.
"We intend to move to a national exchange in the first half of next year," Latorella says. The advantages, as he sees them: better liquidity, not to mention more attention from investors and analysts.
"There's still work to do," Latorella says, before the company can move up to the big show.
That's for sure.
"It's not easy to grow your way into the national markets," says Ben Howe, managing partner of America's Growth Capital, a boutique investment bank in Boston. "Not that it never happens, but there aren't many companies that make it."
And LocatePlus isn't doing so well, financially. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the most recent period the company has reported, LocatePlus's losses were $5.8 million, compared to $2.6 million in 2003.
And on Dec. 10, the company got an unfortunate letter of resignation from its accountants.
"We have reached this decision reluctantly," wrote Cassandra Camp of the firm Carlin, Charron & Rosen LLP, "after voicing concerns about the timeliness of information we receive and about the reliability of certain representations of your company's management."
The firm had also modified its report on LocatePlus's 2003 financials to express doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern.
James Fields, the company's acting chief financial officer, says via e-mail that "We are taking all appropriate steps required of a public company when a situation like this occurs."
My take: both Osama and Whitey will be in custody before LocatePlus stock moves to the Nasdaq or Amex national markets.
Tag -- you're itWe've heard a lot about how RFID tags will be affixed to boxes of Gillette razors and cases of Tide, so that supply chain managers can chronicle their journey from factory to store shelf. But what about using radio frequency identification technology to track errant kids on a ski mountain?
A small Woburn company, called ScooterBug, is doing just that this winter at Steamboat Springs, a Colorado ski resort.
The system at Steamboat is called MountainWatch. Kids and their parents wear a watch-size wristband that contains two different kinds of RFID tags, plus a small battery.
An "active" tag, powered by the battery, emits a pulse of RF energy every 15 seconds, which is "heard" by a network of more than 50 antennas located in high-traffic areas of the resort. Ski past the antenna located at the top of a chairlift, and the system knows you're there.
Someone looking for you goes to one of six kiosks around the resort, where the other "passive" RFID tag -- the same kind that's in a Mobil SpeedPass --tells the kiosk who's standing there, and who else is in the party. Then, they can see on a map where their other family members are. (It also tells them how long it has been since the antennas spotted that person.)
What happens if the person they're looking for is a fast skier who doesn't stay still? That's the most challenging scenario for MountainWatch. Teens on snowboards, after all, typically move faster than cases of Tide.
The system, based on technology developed by a California company called SafeTzone Technologies, is free to families with kids enrolled in ski school; for others, it costs $25 per week for a family of four. Its chief competitor will be the "family radio service" walkie-talkies sold by companies like Motorola, which cost $30 for a pair.
Chris Meehan, chief executive of ScooterBug, says he's currently negotiating with two New England ski resorts that may introduce the system as soon as next season. The wristbands may also eventually support cashless spending -- ideal for buying necessities like lip balm and glove-warmers in the ski shop.
Scott Kirsner is a contributing editor at Fast Company. He can be reached at skirsner@verizon.net.
