This week I will be doing some demos of Voxable, my system that combines VoIP, presence and all sorts of cool stuff I won't be writing about in the public blog to create a new user interface for the phone that is both as modern and internet as it can get while also being a reflection of the ancient interface for the phone that was lost.

This project underwent development a couple of years ago, but was put on hold after investment in telecom became a dirty word. Suddenly, with the $3 billion purchase of Skype, the excitement about a Vonage IPO and other hot deals, new tech in telecom is attracting investor attention. I have the software (not shippable) but to get funding I need to expand the team. I'm seeking hotshot programmers. (the current work is in Java, the web interfaces will be in javascript/ajax, and the windows client is in C++/win32 but truth is, if you're the type of programmer I like, the language isn't crucial.) Later I'll be seeking other folks in marketing and bizdev when there is significant work for them to do.

Anyway, if this space interests you, contact me (btm@templetons.com) to try to attend one of the demos. They will be Wednesday the 11th in Sunnyvale, CA at 1:30 pm and Thursday the 12th in the financial district of San Francisco, 1pm. For the right folks, and for potential investors, demos can be arranged at other times, even remotely. (Though I tend to reserve telecommuting to those I've worked with and know have the discipline for it.) This is pre-funding startup mode -- which means working or moonlighting for lottery tickets (options) with at most survival salary -- until the funding arrives. People I know are Ok with frieNDA, for strangers a two paragraph written NDA will be appreciated. Coders should send me an ASCII resume in advance.

While most of the action in new telephony up to now has been in the "how" and "what" -- infrastructure and PSTN replacements, I believe the user experience is where the value will truly lie. And he who owns the user experience will own the user, something a lot of companies are very keen to do in the telecom world. That's why I've invested and coded in this area and why you might be too.

As blog readers will know, I've been in the innovation seat before, beginning as the first employee of the first major PC applications software company (VisiCorp), then creating many innovative and award winning programming tools, then founding the world's first dot-com (ClariNet) and next there will be Voxable.