Appearances

We recall that in corporate America, when you invent, create or improve something on company time or with company assets, then the company owns the product or copyright. The most famous example is the guy who invented Post-It Notes for 3M. He got little or no recognition (or compensation) for inventing something that probably has generated untold billions for 3M - it was his job and he was paid a salary, but 3M owned the product.

We bring it up because someone was kind enough to forward us this little gem of a website:

• Welcome to ForceStrategy, a full service information technology consulting group providing best-in-class solutions to your public safety agency’s challenges. Our focus is on leveraging our experience to deliver cost-effective results to allow you to meet your objectives.

  The principal members of ForceStrategy have successfully implemented these solutions in one of the largest public safety agencies in the country. In many cases, they designed leading systems from scratch. By leveraging their expertise and cutting edges techniques, they can help you make the critical choices necessary to improve the efficiency of your agency. When you engage ForceStrategy, their technique uses the most current national best practices. These solutions have been demonstrated to hundreds of local, state, federal, and international law enforcement agencies around the world and have been showcased at national conferences from coast to coast. ForceStrategy will assess your problems and provide a custom solution—and manage the successful implementation of the project from start to finish, on time and within budget. We can say this because we’ve done it before, hundreds of times.

And who is ForceStrategy?

• Jonathan Lewin serves as the Chief Information Officer for one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. When this agency adopted its community policing strategy in 1993, he played a pioneering role in developing automated solutions to support the initiative. In his current role, Lewin oversees an innovative portfolio of technology projects that together won Harvard University’s prestigious Innovations in American Government Award from the Kennedy School of Government. Lewin holds an M.A. in Public Policy from Northwestern University and a B.S. in Criminal Justice from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He has served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago and chairs the technology committee of a statewide criminal justice information integration board.

  Brett Goldstein was an early employee of OpenTable (NASDAQ: OPEN) and was responsible for designing much of the architecture of this multi-national company. As the Director of Information Technology, he played a critical role in ensuring design optimality, uptime, security and performance. After OpenTable, Goldstein joined a major law enforcement agency and was the founder of the Predictive Analytics and Data Mining initiative. In addition, he was a patrol officer in one of the busiest districts of the city receiving multiple awards for his service. Goldstein holds a M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Chicago, a M.S. in Criminal Justice from Suffolk University and a B.A. in Government from Connecticut College. He is currently working on his PhD.

Golly. An exempt and a connected PO working full time jobs with the City of Chicago have time to run a company? We certainly hope that it doesn't utilize knowledge and intellectual property developed at taxpayer expense. And that in-progress PhD, while working a full time job AND a start-up company, that isn't a reimbursement opportunities funded by the taxpayer?

Questions questions questions. Anyone have any answers answers answers? Better get to that website quick before it disappears. Save copies or print them up like we did just so you can remind yourself how legit everything is.