My business partner Jon Greenlee and I would strap ourselves to the wing to save money. When we travel, we rarely sleep because we have to book these bizarre trips. It’s crazy.

Our first international business trip was pretty terrible. We needed to get to Asia and our first thought was that we couldn’t afford it. But then we got online and found a way to get there without going completely broke.

We drove from our headquarters in Pittsburgh to Washington, where we caught a morning flight to South Korea. From there, we went to China, Japan and Indonesia. The entire trip was five days long, and we got maybe five hours of sleep the whole time.

In China, we had translators, but we were still used to conducting business American style, where you can get a deal done in two hours and everybody leaves happy. But in Asia, every meeting was about 10 hours long and everyone wanted to serve us food. We were so stuffed and jet-lagged, it was ridiculous.

When we got to Jakarta, we went through complete culture shock. The traffic was crazy and our hotel was on high alert because of a bomb scare. But we managed to do some business. The plan was to fly out of Jakarta at midnight, land in Korea and then fly home.

By this time, both of us were completely exhausted, but my partner was having the worst of it. When we landed in Washington, he bolted off the plane, so we wound up going through customs separately.

Finally, he showed up and when he realized we still had to spend several hours in a car to get home, he threw his bag against a wall. Security immediately came over to question him. He started mumbling about how tired he was and I think they felt sorry for him so they let him go.

Our chief financial officer picked us up and we motioned for Jon to get in the back of the car. He slept the whole way home.

The trip was actually worth it since we eventually opened two offices in China and one in Indonesia.

But sometimes you don’t get the deal.

We had a meeting in England, and we had to get there and then back to Pittsburgh all within one day. We flew out early in the morning and right after landing, we went to our meeting in this beautiful older building. We had a nice presentation lined up. Since we’re a tech company, everything is supposed to go smoothly.

We had a converter and Jon plugged in the computer. The electricity immediately went out. We stood there looking at each other, with the clients looking at us, with that “who are these losers?” expression on their faces. We didn’t even know if it was our fault.

I tried to salvage the meeting by just talking about our technology, and told them to imagine what it would be like. They looked at me like I was insane. I think a few yawned. Of course, we didn’t get the deal.

Our friend who lined up the meeting for us felt so bad about everything that he bought us two first-class tickets home. I would love to tell you we enjoyed first class, but I can’t. All we did was sleep.

Pittsburgh-based digital media company Songwhale LLC is expanding of its operations in Milwaukee after forming a partnership with Christopher Morgan Fulfillment Services and its owners.

Songwhale LLC, a digital media company headquartered in Pittsburgh, is moving its direct-response department to Christopher Morgan’s New Berlin office, and co-founder Ty Morse will split his time between Milwaukee and Pittsburgh.

Though the company is growing its presence in Milwaukee its Pittsburgh office is remaining unchanged, said Morse. In fact, he said the company is continuing to add people in Pittsburgh. The growth in Milwaukee comes more than a year after the company launched its Television direct response business.

The company creates mobile content to help clients interact with customers. Direct response is its fastest-growing area, offering payment processing by Internet, mobile phone, tablet or text messaging, Morse said. Customers include Pizza Hut Inc., Panera Bread, the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston College.

“In terms of our direct-response business, which is a huge part of our business, Milwaukee is going to be the main location for our growth,” he said.

The company plans to open its New Berlin, Wisc., office Jan. 1 with six employees, but the office could grow to 20 employees in the next year, he said.

Because of the company’s technology focus, it can grow quickly without adding a lot of employees, he said. It has at least doubled in size every year since its founding in 2007 and employs more than 100 at offices in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, China and Indonesia. Morse declined to name specific revenue figures.

Christopher Morgan, a New Berlin company offering logistics and distribution services, has been working with Songwhale for several years, said Chris Rebholz, Christopher Morgan president and co-owner. It makes sense to work together as Songwhale processes orders and Christopher Morgan ships them. In 2010, Rebholz and his business partner, Eric Nelson, bought a minority stake in Songwhale.

The move gives Christopher Morgan better technology offerings and Songwhale better infrastructure and an expanded client base, Rebholz said.

“The collaboration possibilities are great,” he said.

Milwaukee is becoming an attractive place for small business, said Morse, a Fox Point native. It’s centrally located with a wealth of young talent from local schools such as Marquette University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and University of Wisconsin-Madison. It offers cultural amenities such as sports teams and hip neighborhoods like the 3rd Ward yet has a low cost of living.

“It’s really neat for Milwaukee that it’s become very attractive for us to continue to grow a fast-growing start-up,” he said.

The company is taking advantage of state tax credits that offer a 10 percent rebate for wages of qualified new employees. The credit wasn’t the only factor in opening the New Berlin office, but it was important, Rebholz said.

“(The credit) is a huge incentive obviously,” he said. “These aren’t minimum-wage jobs.”

In the coming weeks, Lawrenceville-based Songwhale LLC is set to launch a mobile payment processing platform that builds off the company’s core mobile marketing business.

Dubbed Paywhale, the platform ties a user’s cell phone to their credit card and allows for easy purchasing of products or donations to a nonprofit through SMS, or text messaging. The company decided to use SMS for the platform as opposed to an app format because SMS is universal to all cell phones no matter the brand and regardless of whether it’s a smartphone, said CEO Ty Morse.

“The only thing everyone has is text,” he said.

Because Songwhale already is in the SMS marketing space, the company has a huge database of cell phone information and users receiving text messages from the company’s more than 250 clients.

Using text for payments isn’t a new idea, said Aaron McPherson, practice director for IDC Financial Insights, but with all the focus on apps for payments, near field communication payments and quick response codes for payments, SMS may seem passe. (Near field communications is technology that allows for one touch payments by tapping a device or a card on a reader.)

“There is a certain amount of prejudice to apps,” he said. “A certain amount of tech folks (are) living in a bubble; they all have iPhones, iPads and Droids, and not really living in the same world as the regular folks. To them, having an app on the iPhone is all you need, and there is no reason to do SMS.”

But, he said, that is not the case in countries outside the U.S. and particularly in developing countries. However, even in the U.S., where Songwhale’s initial rollout will occur and 83 percent of adults own cell phones, only 42 percent of them own a smartphone, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Paywhale is headed into three months of beta testing with one client in each of Songwhale’s customer segments — academia, nonprofit, direct response and retail, quick-service restaurants and sports teams.

The company generates revenue on the platform by taking a 2 percent cut of the purchase price or donation. Existing text-to-donate programs run through cell phone carriers take a larger percentage and take longer to process, Morse said.

“We wanted to provide a better, more cost-effective solution out of the gate,” he said.

One of the beta testers is California University of Pennsylvania, which is planning to use Paywhale as part of the school’s Senior Gift Drive program this year and allow students to text in donations for endowed scholarships.

“People do this already for donations, but when you do that, the split between the funds and the carrier is 50-50, but, with Paywhale, it’s 98 percent to the charity and the 2 percent to the university and Songwhale,” said Charles Mance, vice president for university technology services.

“It’s a better model for us; it works real nice for small donations.”

The school has been working with Songwhale for about a year on various mobile projects and this one seemed like a good fit, Mance said.

Once the platform, which is compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards, rolls out into a wider launch, Morse estimates that payment processing could become as much as 20 percent of his business by the end of the year. The remaining business would continue to be the standard marketing alerts and messages that the company pushes for clients.

The company’s Pittsburgh employment has remained flat at about 20 to 25, with about six people hired directly for the Paywhale project.

Morse understands that building out this product will take time, “but I do think with the resources we have, two years from now, we will have a significant amount of users nationwide.”

TowerCare Technologies, makers of DonorPro fundraising software has partnered with Songwhale, the leading mobile solutions provider to offer an integrated mobile marketing platform called DonorPro Connect for non-profits around the country.

"The mobile marketing capabilities created from this partnership will provide non-profits with the ability to reach constituents immediately and creatively - with a greater rate of event registrants, volunteer participation, and overall giving," says Donna Myers, President of TowerCare Technologies. "As more of the donating public communicates with smart phones, the opportunity for non-profits to capture attention and awareness has increased. We are happy to offer our current and future clients these new marketing capabilities."

Ty Morse, Songwhale CEO explains, "We are extremely excited to launch this cutting edge platform with DonorPro, as it expands upon the amazing offering DonorPro has already created for their clients. Songwhale’s proprietary technology has been tailored and integrated into the DonorPro platform to provide a unique solution that offers an unmatched feature set combined with unprecedented message delivery speed."

DonorPro Connect Overview

DonorPro Connect will provide non-profits with the ability to use low-cost text messaging (SMS) services to increase awareness of constituents and ultimately raise more money. Messages will link to a mobile website as well as donation and registration pages, request participation in a survey, announce events, and enlist supporters to action. DonorPro Connect is attractively priced and is an affordable direct marketing option for non-profits of all sizes. This Mobile Marketing Platform will release on September 15, 2011.

The Pittsburgh Technology Council recognized 50 of the area's most creative emerging tech businesses this morning as it announced its 2011 Tech 50 finalists.

Finalists will compete in seven categories, in addition to a separate category for CEO of the year. Winners will be announced during an awards ceremony at Consol Energy Center on Sept. 20.

FINALISTS

Advanced Manufacturer of the Year: Industrial Scientific Corp., Kennametal, RE2., US Liner Co.

Information Technology Company of the Year: Confluence, Eyeflow LLC., M*Modal, Vivisimo

Innovator of the Year: Allpoint Systems LLC., Body Media, Bossa Nova Robotics, Dynamics, Ex One, Modcloth, Omnyx, Thorley Industries dba 4moms, Voci Technologies

Life Sciences Company of the Year: CardiacAssist, Cohera Medical, Complexa, Foundation Radiology Group, invivodata, McKesson Automation, Net Health Systems, Precision Therapeutics

Startup of the Year: Aquion Energy, Carmell Therapeutics Corp., C-leveled, Deeplocal, Evil Genius Designs, Intimate Bridge to Conception, Metis Secure Solutions, SnapRetail, Songwhale, Thermal Therapeutics Systems, Wombat Security Technologies

Tech Titan of the Year: Ansaldo STS USA, ANSYS, Concurrent Technologies Corp., FedEx Ground, TeleTracking Technologies

Technology Accelerator of the Year: AEC Group, Data Science Automation, SDLC Partners, Sierra w/o Wires, Summa Technologies

CEO of the Year: Patrick Daly of Cohera Medical; Jeff Kendall of Liberty Tire Recycling; Justin McElhattan of Industrial Scientific Corp.; Chris Robbins of Body Media

The region’s tech innovators took center stage on the evening of June 20th when journalists from The Daily Beast, Popular Science, Federal Times, iPad news source TheDaily.com and NBC’s Atlanta affiliate traveled to Pittsburgh to learn firsthand about some of the city’s unique IT and digital technology companies. Held at the headquarters of Net Health Systems in the Strip District, the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance’s Information Technology & Digital Innovation Mixer provided these national journalists — in town for Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) annual InfoTech Media Fellowship — with an opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the enormous tech talent in our region.

Sometimes called the “Silicon Valley of the East,” Pittsburgh increasingly is turning heads with its innovation in digital information and communications technology – and its commercialization of those advances. Fueled in significant ways by our world-class universities, Pittsburgh’s tech-based innovations have the potential to change daily interactions around the world. The region has become home to such globally established IT companies as Google and Smith Micro Software, as well as to numerous start-up firms. These entrepreneurs say they find a friendly, robust economic development infrastructure — and ample IT talent emerging from our regional universities — to help them prosper.

Mixer host Net Health Systems created the “WoundExpert” software, which allows healthcare providers to more simply and effectively manage wound care. The heads of other start-up companies also made informal presentations. Among them was Ty Morse, co-founder of Songwhale, an interactive media firm that helps companies reach consumers with information and advertising via cell phone and other hand-held mobile devices. The former Manhattan-based entrepreneur explained why he opted to move to Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville in order to better grow his business.

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PITTSBURGH – Duquesne Light customers now can receive a variety of useful information via text message through the new Duquesne Light Mobile Network. By texting DUQLIGHT to 94253, customers will receive storm updates, energy saving tips from the company's Watt Choices program, and other relevant messages.

"Text messaging is one of the most commonly used communication vehicles today, so this is the next logical step in communicating with our customers" said Joseph Vallarian, Duquesne Light's Manager of Customer and Media Relations. "This free service will be especially useful during major storms, as many times, a customer's cell phone is the only device not dependent on a constant source of power. We'll be able to provide Duquesne Light Mobile Network members the same restoration updates we make available via the media, our interactive voice response system, and on our website."

Duquesne Light's Mobile Network, which is administered by Pittsburgh-based Songwhale, also will offer a variety of energy- and money-saving tips from the company's Watt Choices program. By partnering with Songwhale, Duquesne Light will expand their overall digital presence in the market.

"The network will enable us to help link customers to a number of beneficial options, from major CFL bulb discounts and free refrigerator recycling to an extensive list of rebates and free online energy audits," Vallarian added.

Duquesne Light also recently added a live chat feature on its website for customers who need to start, stop or transfer their service.

About Duquesne Light Company

Duquesne Light Company is a leader in the transmission and distribution of electric energy, offering superior customer service and reliability to more than half a million customers throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.

About Songwhale

Songwhale is the leading interactive digital media company that enables companies to reach consumers across multiple touch points, providing flexible access and content across Web, WAP and SMS technologies.