The good side of a bad accident

I got the call late on a Saturday night, about six weeks ago.

My brother Jay had been in an accident while racing on a motorcyle track, somewhere in West Virginia. He was unconscious and in critical condition in a local hospital, and they were planning on transporting him to the level one “shock trauma” hospital in Baltimore the next morning.

We drove through the night from New York City, and finally got to the hospital around 5 AM.  This is when we learned the extent of his injuries.  The good news was there was no head or spinal injury, and there was no skin injury because Jay was wearing his racing leathers.  The bad news, though, was he had two broken shoulders (one shattered), a punctured lung, and “probably most” of his ribs were broken.

And his condition was deteriorating under the multiple trauma, so he “crashed” during the night.  He stopped breathing and doctors couldn’t get his oxygen levels back up.  They gave him an emergency chest tube and put him on a ventilator, which saved his life — and stabilized him enough to be driven to Shock Trauma.  The family followed the ambulance in a small convoy of vehicles, in a surreal Sunday morning drive through the beautiful Virginia countryside.

Jay ended up being in Shock Trauma for two weeks. He crashed one more time when his other lung collapsed, and it didn’t look so good for a while there.  But he’s a tough guy, and now we know he’s going to be alright.  If my mother doesn’t kill him first for racing a motorcycle!

I’m still trying to figure out the lessons learned from the whole experience.  And one key lesson, strangely, is, about being an entrepreneur.

The lesson is this:

There’s nothing more important than building your company’s team.

You see, when the accident happened, my life was instantly put on hold.  I told the Scenios management team that I would be unavailable — effective immediately  — and not sure when I would be back.  My family was circling the wagons and I needed to be there.

Fast forward to now.  It’s been six weeks since the accident, my brother is on the road to recovery, and I’m finally able to get back into my role as the CEO of Scenios.

The most incredible thing?  The Scenios team didn’t miss a beat.  They continued executing on our vision and building what we all believe will be a really amazing new technology.

And I’m pleased to say that, because of their efforts, the alpha version of Scenios is just about ready — and we’ll be sending out the first invitations next week.

I want to say thanks in particular to our CIO Jeff Schacher and lead developer Rob Raux, for driving so hard in my absence.  You guys have created something amazing, and I can’t wait to show it to the rest of the world.

And thanks, especially, for teaching me an important lesson about the real value of building a great team.

Mark Davis
CEO and co-founder, Scenios

Digital Asset Management for the Rest of Us

Digital Asset Management software has been around for many years. It helps people manage their large collections of videos, photos and audio files — and share them as well.

Problem is, the DAM industry (as it’s known in industry jargon) is fundamentally flawed:  systems cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (or millions) to purchase, and require multi-year contracts and complex integrations.  This means that only the largest media companies can afford and use this technology.

But what about the rest of us?

• The television producer who only needs a DAM system while he’s in production.

• The director who needs to share files with his team on location, and also with his producers who are on the road

• The camera operator who needs a place to post his dailies.

• The wedding videographer who needs to share videos with his clients online.

• The college student who wants to make a film with his buddies, and needs a place to pull it all together.

• And the high school kid who wants to do the same!

These people all have the same kinds of challenges — they need to share content and collaborate on video projects more easily and more cost effectively.  But they can’t get access to a DAM system, so what can they do?

Well we’re going to try and change that, by building a digital asset management system for “the rest of us.”

It will support open standards like h.264, at full broadcast resolution.

It will support multiple formats like Mac, PC, and Linux—and it will be optimized for the iPhone.

It will have an open API framework that will allow people to build their own applications and technologies.

And most importantly, it will be built within an online community of video professionals and digital media enthusiasts, so that they can connect more easily with each other no matter where in the world they may be.

To find out more about Scenios and the team behind it, you can read the company’s first press release.

In the meantime, please do apply to participate in the private beta we’ll be launching in October – and let us know what you think!

Mark Davis
CEO and Co-Founder, Scenios