'Serial entrepreneur' corrals software

Business developer maintains ties to ranching world of Beaverlodge through rodeo

How does a rodeo cowboy from the northwest Alberta town Beaverlodge become a successful technology entrepreneur? Start with too many cold days feeding cows on the family ranch, add an engineering degree, and top it off with a penchant for taking on tough challenges.

Fred Brown still competes on the professional circuit at 49 -- he'll be calf roping in Odessa, Texas, next week -- but he could just as easily be in Australia or Singapore marketing his latest endeavour, interactive virtual agent technology that guides people through corporate websites and answers specific questions.

Go to the U.S. army website, and Sgt. Star will be your guide after parachuting in from who knows where. At the Shaw site, a charming lady named Amy will soon answer questions on products, and direct you to the right information pages. Other Next IT characters can be found at Continental Airline, Alaska Airline, TD Ameritrade, Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America) and some large health care and pharmaceutical companies Brown can't name.

"I'm a serial entrepreneur really," says Brown, who now lives on a ranch near Spokane, where he went to Gonzaga University. "This is my seventh company, and it came out of a lifelong goal of having the computer react to you rather than you learning the computer." The software simplifies the interaction between people and computers, using natural-language communications to retrieve information and even ask followup questions, Brown says. "It makes it easier to navigate the site, and gives you the specific information you're looking for. It's like having a virtual person sitting on your shoulder." The companies improve customer relations by eliminating the frustration of navigating websites, and save money on outsourced chat services, Brown says. The technology currently depends on typed questions to elicit oral responses, but you'll soon be able to text questions, and two-way voice connection is on the radar. The characters even have a personality. Ask Amy her favourite colour and she'll reply: "That beautiful Shaw blue." Adding personalities was the idea of Brown's daughter Molly, and it has been a key marketing tool, he says.

Next IT was launched in 2002 after Brown sold a company called Linesoft for $42 million. It used sophisticated technology to help utility companies design their lines and pick optimum sites for poles and transformers. It took four years to perfect the Next IT technology, and it's still evolving. Telling your appliances what to do, and storing your memoirs so your descendants can have a conversion with you are just a couple of the potential applications, and Brown sees huge potential in the education field.

Meanwhile, he continues to raise quarter horses and rope stock at his Spokane ranch, and indulges his passion for the rodeo culture. He mentors, and his company sponsors, Tyson Durfey, calf roping champ at the Canadian Finals Rodeo in Edmonton in 2006 and 2008.

The same drive keeps Brown searching for new challenges in business.

"You do it, or someone else will do it."

dfinlayson@thejournal.canwest.com
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