Balance of Power Shifted (19 page)

Morning came and I got
up out of bed and went out to the living room.  I used my laptop to catch up on the news and see how the Yankees were doing.  The Yanks won last night making it five games in a row and had a three game lead on Tampa Bay and a five game lead on Boston.  Next, I dragged up the headlines for the day and was immediately shocked to see that Israel had attacked key Iranian nuclear facilities as well some important radical politicians.  Actually there was no proof Israel had done anything, it was just assumed so.  There were reports of large explosions near nuclear sites and analysts speculated that preparations for this attack might have taken up to 2 years to plan and put in place.  The news groups were predicting gas prices to shoot through the roof and go over six dollars per gallon especially since Iran was already putting ships in place to block the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil-shipping lane.  There were a couple of other articles blasting the current administration for not opening up federal lands for oil and natural gas drilling as well as permitting the use of shale fracking.  These arguments have been going on frequently over the last couple of years, but had also happened prior to the current administration.  The main differences, and why the cries were louder, were that there was better and safer technology available to extract fuels to counteract the highest gas prices in our history.  The economy had already been slowing down in reaction to the price of oil and gas and this should make it even worse.  Rico though about how Electricus could make a difference if only it was ready for mass production and adoption.  For now, he would have to follow events in the Middle East to see how Iran handled this attack.

W
e now had an encrypted 45-megabyte network connection between our two sites.  This allowed us to create a secure video conference to Kristen and connected her to the meeting.  The team meeting went well and we created some action items on how to get the next prototype projects off the ground.  We also looked for a manufacturing firm that could build our Power Pads and Power Panels in different configurations.  We felt comfortable that we would not be exposing any intellectual property.

Fiona spent about 10 minutes running us through the layout of our company web site and secured documentation system.  She had done a fantastic job and the entire team congratulated her.  I closed this meeting by reminding everyone how important security was and set the tone for Jeremy who had sent me a text that he would be here in a few seconds.

Jeremy came in with a flourish and made a half hour
presentation, which focused on physical security and personnel security.  We agreed that information security was an area that I was to handle.  If it was any other person besides Jeremy using the fear, uncertainty and doubt, FUD approach to a presentation, I would have showed them the door.  His presentation pulled no punches and did not sugar coat the dangers involved.  If Efficio, as a company wanted to succeed, we had to implement extremely tight security and procedures and follow them unequivocally. 

The current lab was the most vulnerable
, and we needed to consider a different high-security location for a future lab to protect the manufacturing process, property and our people.  We needed to periodically investigate every employee as well as utilize a lie detector to verify that employee loyalty.  Jeremy also handed out a document on ‘best practices’ on how to conduct business in public places and how to secure our homes.  A Clavis expert would visit everyone, verify security systems and scan for listening devices.  Lab and research areas would have stringent data security protocols in place, data and research notes will be stored with strong encryption.  There will be rigid controls in place limiting the transfer of data from the secure server.  At no time, were employees allowed to put company data on their own personal computers, storage devices or other devices such as a smartphone or tablet.

The rest of the afternoon
involved reviewing modifications to the Power Pad and Power Module.  Sean had been instrumental in designing a compact Power Module and had integrated modular connectors to make life easy for everyone.  The general design direction was to build a range of products rated on their wattage. Panels are to be interconnected using simple connecting cables to increase wattage ratings allowing the mat size to remain manageable but being able to scale from a 1200 square foot home to a 10,000 square foot mansion. 

We had
determined that we would need a master electrician on staff to help us understand building codes and circuit panel designs.  The discussion next centered on how to standardize on a vehicle so that we could start to template our processes instead of having each vehicle a one off solution.  We needed to purchase four identical cars to retrofit for Electricus.  In the end, we decided to search for fleet cars coming off lease and settled on a Camry or Maxima.

Around 5
o’clock, I challenged everyone to play Call of Duty on my gaming quad, which sadly, I had not played in almost 2-months.  The evening was great fun and we played for hours and enjoyed excellent Thai takeout food.  We were flying out in the morning so this interlude was a nice way to spend some down time between the team members.

A week later, Bill and I had just signed an agreement with a firm
in South Jersey to refine and build our Power Pad, while we engaged a different firm the Detroit area to build our Power Panel.  Both companies had monetary incentives built in to their contracts to improve both components.  We had also started to look at our master plan on how to bring Electricus to other parts of the world and decided that we needed manufacturing centers around the globe and specifically in countries that had the most to lose from the success of Electricus.  Our first pass included a number of Middle East countries, Russia and Venezuela.  In these cases, we would license the production for a nominal fee and not be part of the operations. 

All c
ontracts would have provisions to meet minimum units installed and pricing tiers based on the target audience.  In other words, we did not want a country to throttle production to promote other energy methods and we did not want pricing to put Electricus out of reach of the poorest citizens.  An advantage for us was that Efficio or a future subsidiary would be the sole producer of Electricus.  The manufacturers of Power Pads needed to acquire Electricus to complete the manufacturing process from Efficio. 

We were getting ahead of ourselves, but
we went and sketched out a separate charitable organization funded by profits from Electricus. The linkage of the charitable function to religious organizations will leverage their networks to help get to the world’s poor.  The organization would promote Electricus and related knowledge worldwide.  Almost as important, was a different type of knowledge, which would include such things as how to use the technology to; leverage electrical power for wells, install irrigation pumps and so forth.

A few more weeks went by and we were already feeling growing pains. 
The California site was just too small to handle all the things currently performed there.  We decided to exercise our option for the third floor of our Summit location and move all design work there.  California would remain the Electricus production site for now and Bill and Steve would remain there.  Sean, on the other hand, would come back east to run the new fabrication and design team.  One thing we were still missing was a secure location to house our prototype vehicles and Power Pads.  I gave this task to Sean with the added criteria that it must show well and support product mockups similar to a Home Show conference.  I was just coming off a video conference call with the California team, when my new iPhone started to ring.

The caller ID said it was Taylor, so I
said, “Taylor what’s going on?”  “Mike, can you talk privately?”  “Yeah sure, I am sitting in my office ready to pack up for the day.”  “We got a problem Mike.  I sent you a link on your corporate email.  See if you have it and bring it up.”  “Sure Taylor, you’re getting me nervous.”  I saw the email from Taylor and saw that it was a link to a YouTube video titled ‘Amazing.’  I clicked on the link and as it started to play my heart skipped a beat.  Taylor sat quietly on the other end of the call as he could hear Bill’s voice narrating the work done on Electricus.  I looked at the length of the video and it seemed like the entire original video was there.  “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered aloud.  “Talk to me Taylor.  What do you know about this?”  “Mike, Kristen had plugged the encrypted memory stick into her work laptop and was looking at some files on it while visiting her parents last weekend.  Her 15-year-old sister must have gotten to the PC when Kristen stepped away and saw the video.” 

Taylor continued by adding that, “
According to Kristen, her sister she saw video, thought it was ‘cool’ and wanted to show it to her friends. To share it she posted a copy of the video on YouTube.  I don’t know if you noticed, but it looks like it was online for five days and in that time has gone viral with over 332,000 views.  Brianna, Kristen’s sister, got scared with all the attention and confessed to Kristen what she had done.  Apparently, there were some very insistent messages posted against the video asking for contact information.  It is probably only a matter of time before someone does some detective work and figures out who is behind Electricus.  Kristen was going to call you, but is removing the video as we speak and trying to see if there is any way to determine the extent of any damage.”

“
Taylor, I am going to send an invite for a video conference meeting to start in 15 minutes.  I want Kristen on the call to bring us up to date so please let her know.”  I will contact everyone via phone in case the team is not monitoring email.  I think Iris and Julius are still here and I will probably join them in the first floor conference room.  Taylor, tell Kristen to relax.   We were getting close to letting the cat out of the bag anyway to entice some investors to our company.  We just need to have everyone on the same page to manage this.  I will talk to you in 15.”  Hanging up with Taylor, I immediately called Bill.  His first reaction was a nervous laugh and a joke about being famous on YouTube, but he quickly got serious and would grab Steve and call in to the meeting. 

I then
walked over to Julius and Iris’s office.  They actually shared a single large office.  I thought it was always strange to see the Julius side neat as can be while Iris’s side looked like a cyclone had blown through.  I guess women were not necessarily the neater gender. It seemed like they were packing up for the night and looked up expectantly when I walked in.  “Guys, we have a problem.  Our recruiting video has been playing for the last five days on YouTube and has over 300,000 views.”  “Ouch” was Julius’s reply.  “Do we know how it got out there” was Iris’s first words.  “Yeah, Kristen’s kid sister jumped on her laptop and was able to see the video and thought it was so cool that she had to show her friends.”  I picked up the office phone and dialed Fiona who was coordinating the installation of a new web server on the second floor.  On the third ring, she answered with the hum of the server room in the background. I asked her if she could find Sean on the third floor and both come down to the first floor conference room for an important meeting.  See you soon she said and hung up.

Using the conference room
workstation, I connected in the California site and Kristen who was at her parent’s home while the rest of the team assembled around me.  I kicked off the meeting by rehashing the events to date and then handed it over to Kristen to give us the latest information.  Kristen started with an emotional ‘I’m sorry’, which I cut off quickly and said to Kristen, but more to the team, “there is no fault here and I want to reiterate that we would have gone public in a couple of months anyway.”  Bill chimed and backed up my statement.  This seemed to calm Kristen down and she finished bringing us up to date.  When she was done, we all knew that the video was gone from YouTube, but this did not mean that downloads had not occurred all over cyber land.  She captured hundreds of comments to the video and gave an update on which ones stood out and why.  Some comments were from reporters wanting to interview someone in charge, some were from investors and some were asking about contact information, but did not state why they wanted it. 

Based on knowledge from my previous job, I was sure that it was only a matter of time until someone with enough interest would connect the dots and contact Efficio and I mentioned the same to the team.
  “Bill, jump in here if you disagree with anything I am going to say. Julius, Iris Bill and I will be the only authorized people to speak to any press or make any public statement.”  I saw Bill shaking his head in agreement on the monitor as was Julius and Iris.  “We are agreed then.  Please meet with each of your departments and ensure each of your staff understand the situation.”

Bill then raised an interesting point. 
“You know,” he said, “we should be preparing some kind of public introduction to Electricus and it would be nice to do it on our own terms.  I can ship the Hummer and two Camry’s out east in the next day or two using a car carrier service.  Maybe you can lock up the lease at that nice warehouse Sean found.  It is only a few blocks from our office and we can glam it up a bit for public relations use.”  Looking around the room, I could see everyone mulling it over and asked who was in favor of Bill’s proposal.  It was unanimous, and I could tell the idea was generating a hum of excitement since it meant the public would soon take in the future of energy.  “Nice one Bill”, I said.  “Let’s put Sean and Fiona in charge of making it a technical and marketing showcase.”  Looking at our legal team I asked if they thought there were any obstacles, to which they replied ‘no’ together.