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Memo to Self: Remember NextMail

Memo to Self: Remember NextMail

Busy Execs Have a New Way to Remember Crucial Information

BY BRAD GRAVES

Staff Writer

Pacific DataVision, Inc. looks to 2003 as the year it takes its message service national.

The 25-employee company sells a technology that lets people send short voice clips from a walkie-talkie phone.

Nextel Communications, the wireless telecom carrier, resells the service and handles the billing.

The service, called NextMail, became available Oct. 1. So far it has only been available in Southern California and Las Vegas.

Executives at San Diego-based Pacific DataVision said beverage distributors, real estate companies, school districts and law enforcement agencies have been giving the service a try.

To use the service, a person speaks into a walkie-talkie phone, presses the button and by doing so, sends that voice clip to a friend’s e-mail.

The friend can listen to the clip on his computer speakers. If he wants, the friend can respond with a text message to the original sender.

NextMail builds on company founder Peter Lasensky’s idea of turning a walkie-talkie phone into an electronic memo pad for construction superintendents.

Until recently, Lasensky was principal of the self-named Peterbuilt Corp. The general contracting company reported $34 million worth of business in 2001.

He sold the company early this year to focus on his telecom venture.

That venture builds on what Lasensky knows about human nature: that generally, construction people never get around to writing down notes to themselves.

A manager on his way to his trailer office to do that may be stopped at several points by the electrician, the plumber and the building inspector , and never put down all of the concerns that need to be in writing.

Lasensky hit on the idea of dictating notes into a walkie-talkie phone, on the spot, for retrieval later.

An assistant or other authorized user could pick up the messages over the Internet and transcribe them as necessary.

One key component to the system is the time and date stamp that Nextel gives the messages. Lasensky said it’s third-party documentation that an order was received.

Eventually Lasensky got to thinking about applications in other industries that have people in the field, such as insurance adjusters.

He also saw beauty in the idea’s simplicity. He is fond of saying that “Dick Tracy’s watch didn’t have a keyboard.”

Golden Turner Construction Co. used a variant of the NextMail service, called SkyLog, in late 2001 when it worked on the San Diego Convention Center expansion. The builder sent back good reviews.

“The ease of recording events and project issues via the phone with SkyLog really streamlined the documentation procedures necessary for a project of this size,” said Ron Rudolph, a manager with Turner Construction.

Pacific DataVision will soon retire the SkyLog name in favor of the moniker “NextMail Pro.” The 6-year-old company is also waiting to see what happens on three patent applications for its technology.

Pacific DataVision announced their plans to go national in a Dec. 12 press release about receiving a construction technology award in Dallas.

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