First Ever in North America!
1313_ 11/19/12 - Recently announced - ViaWest is the first ever in North America, of a co-location data center company to receive a Tier I4 Rating from the Uptime Institute. Understandably Dave Leonard and ViaWest are very proud of this distinction. The Uptime Institute with the Tier Ratings, 1 through 4, is all about the quality of the data center, Tier I4 being the highest quality. So in response to an increasing customer requirement for quality of data center, ViaWest has now designed the latest data center in Las Vegas to be fault tolerant. It's been certified by the Uptime Institute to be Tier IV Quality. That's the first co-location data center in North America. Dave said the ViaWest customers are really helping by increasing their expectations. It's all about the customers peace of mind - they don't have to worry about their most valued applications. The Northwest Vegas project is ViaWest's current largest build that's going on - augmenting their existing Las Vegas data centers. It's going to be a 74,000 square foot raised floor in a 108,000 sq. ft. building and it's going to be the greenest co-location data center ever built! And as mentioned the highest quality data center in North America. Dave went onto say, "We are building this data center to be Leed Certified, to be Green Globe certified, to be Energy Star certified, but most importantly it's going to be extraordinarily energy efficient, with a power usage effectiveness of 1.2." Lone Mountain Las Vegas data center earns first-ever Tier IV design certification for a collocation facility in North America...listen for more exciting details...
RELATED LINKS: ViaWest || Uptime Institute || Media Center || Software Channel || Data Center Communities || Blog || KEYWORDS: Dave Leonard, ViaWest, Uptime Institute, Tier IV, Las Vegas, Data Centers, Green, Lone Mountain, Marketplace, Data Center Operations, Local Partner, Service Territory, bytes=4014814
LISTEN TO: Dave Leonard, Sr Vice President, Data Center Operations, ViaWest

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Building and expanding a business in the West
1308_ 11/12/12 - As the senior vice president of data center operations, Dave Leonard directs all of ViaWest's day-to-day facility operations and procedures, as well as expansion projects and future data center builds. We're at ViaWest headquarters, to get the skinny on the expansion at this dynamic Colorado icon. Very unique and, another company that launched in 1999 (like w3w3.com and Defrag...) We are talking with Dave Leonard, ViaWest Senior Vice President of Data Center Operations - well known to Frontier, United and Southwest Airlines - as he visits all the ViaWest Data Centers so often. Dave has two separate teams, one that operates the data centers (there are 23 data centers). The second team builds data centers and they are building a new, very large data center in north Las Vegas to compliment their two existing data centers in Las Vegas. So, the expansion is very aggressive and keeps happening throughout our service territory - and coming soon, outside of our service territory. But, Las Vegas is a great example where we are very successful in Las Vegas filling up the existing data centers that we had and demand led us to build a large new data center which will be going online at the end of December. Larry wondered what challenges ViaWest faces in this expansion? "You read about organizations like Facebook and Google building data centers out in the middle of nowhere, where there is very cheap power and very good conditions for free cooling, for instance. We don't site data centers that way. We put data centers where we believe our customers are going to be. There are two things happening in the data center industry, if Dave were wearing his construction hat, that building new data centers have been a good opportunity for ViaWest in two aspects, the green aspect, and the other is the quality of the data centers... Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: ViaWest || Uptime Institute || Software Channel || Data Center Communities || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Dave Leonard, ViaWest, Uptime Institute, Las Vegas, Data Centers, Green, Marketplace, Data Center Operations, Local Partner, Service Territory, bytes=5214775
LISTEN TO: Dave Leonard, Sr. VP of Data Center Operations, ViaWest

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It's about the next generation-edge of human computer interaction
1304_ 11/05/12 - Always looking for the connection... Back in 1999 w3w3.com was launched; that same year Eric Norlin launched his business 'organizing great technology conferences'. We're familiar with Defrag but this year we're treated to an overlap and peak preview of the Blur Conference. While some of you are familiar with Blur, we were not and we asked for an overview and how the two differ. "Defrag is a little bit different beast. When people say technology conference, they think we're going to be focusing in on really hard core technology - but what Defrag tries to do is be a strategic conversation that's looking out at a time horizon of 18-24 months. And then, through the prism of technology, looking at different issues. You might get everything at Defrag from about how social business technology or big data technology will impact corporate IT in the next two years - to a talk about how technology is disrupting community management or financial services sector, or healthcare, all the way down to what it means to be a woman in an emerging IT field and the kinds of challenges associated with that. It really tends to be a pretty far reaching discussion tied together by this future looking focus. Someone described Defrag to Eric as the 'poor man's Ted'. One site, Two shows, Three days. Blur, another conference Eric runs, is about the next generation edge of human computer interaction. Think any interaction with a computer that doesn't involve a keyboard or mouse. That could be anything from robotics, 3D printing, to augmented reality - a wide range of truly futuristic technology that people are working on. For the first time ever, we're running Defrag and Blur in conjunction with each other. Practically, that means Defrag runs on the 14th & 15th and Blur runs on the 15th & 16th, where the last three or so hours of the day on the 15th, the two shows overlap. So if you're registered for Defrag only, for those three hours you'll see some Blur keynotes. Which you'll find incredibly interesting... Join w3w3® at Defrag and Blur - Save BIG - Use the 25% Discount Code!
RELATED LINKS: 25% Defrag Discount Code: www123 || BLUR Discount Code: bifr12 ($477.00) || Defrag 1 Site, 2 Shows 3 Days || Foundry Group || TechStars || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Eric Norlin, Defrag, BLUR, Brad Feld, Technology Conferences, Social Business Technology, Big Data, Social Business Technology, Financial Services Sector, > bytes=6544303
LISTEN TO: Eric Norlin, DeFrag and Blur Conference 2012

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Train, provide feedback and deliver services remotely
1278_ 9/17/12 - ViaWest operates in 5 states around the country with offices in Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Utah, and Oregon and their ability to virtually manage their teams and deliver their services is something they're proud of. With a wealth of experience in high-level operations management and team development, Bob Newman leads ViaWest’s service delivery group. Newman joined ViaWest’s senior management group in the fall of 2010. He said, "We do have a structure on training that enables us to train remotely, to provide feedback remotely and to deliver our services across those states. Our customers expect that the technology will deliver and is capable of delivering the technical service that they expect. But when you overlay the Culture of Service on top of that, which Bob believes is, 'feelings first and facts second' - which has worked for Bob in his career and he sees it here at ViaWest. What that is, you look through the customer's lens and see what are the implications to their business when technology goes awry, and that happens with every customer. When it does go awry how quickly can you assess, isolate and bring that back up - that culture emanates from our senior management team all the way down to the individual contributor. The entrepreneurs roots of Roy Dimoff and Nancy Phillips permeates throughout the organization as well and that is, we know who our customers are. And we don't pull out the contract and beat our customers over the head to deliver on services. We want our customers to be successful." Listen for more…
RELATED LINKS: ViaWest || Software Channel 2012 || Software Channel 2011 || Blog || KEYWORDS: Bob Newman, ViaWest, Hosting, Service Delivery, Roy Dimoff, Nancy Phillips, Entrepreneurs, Training, Feedback, Post Action Auto Review Board bytes=6552662
LISTEN TO: Bob Newman, V.P. of Service Delivery, ViaWest

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The mission is to assist the highest needs schools of Colorado
1260_ 8/13/12 - Founded back in August of 2000, KidsTek and Richard Liner, the founder and Executive Director are beginning their 13th year. Rich is full time and he says, "It's just been a terrific ride for the whole time. The KidsTek mission is to assist the highest needs schools of Colorado and students in the K-12 space, in learning technology skills." So they have, at the schools, enrichment programs for the middle and elementary age kids. And, they have in school certification tracts for the high schools. Currently they are serving about 900 students in 18 programs - and they're now growing to as many as 23 programs in this new school year. Over the years KidsTek has grown exponentially since they first started as an off-shoot of the Colorado Technology Association [they are now back and tightly woven in with CTA again, which is just fantastic]. But, KidsTek has been able to move from the after school drop-in model, where they just helped kids on an ad hoc basis, to working exclusively with these schools where they can have these kids from elementary to middle and then into high school. In the last couple of years they've added the certification tracts in high school where the kids learn A+ certification and Cisco Network certification. KidsTek is actually a Cisco Academy training facility - one of the few non-profits. Get involved and listen for more...
Related Links: KidsTek || CTA || KidsTek Charity Golf Classic || ViaWest || Keywords: Richard Liner, KidsTek, K-12, Colorado Technology Association, CTA, Cisco Network, Soar Elementary, Green Valley Ranch, University Prep, > bytes=5672022
LISTEN TO: Rich Liner, Founder/Executive Director, KidsTek

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Eric Norlin, it's moving away from the CIO/CTO level
1220_ 6/4/12 - Finally we actually corralled Eric Norlin, the founder of GlueCon as well as Defrag and Blur - who is, as you can imagine, a study in constant motion - plus he understands all of this techno babble. First we asked Eric for an overview of Glue. "So, Glue is a conference focused on developers (hence the techno babble). Thematically it is organized around the ideas of Cloud Computing, mobile development, big data and APIs." Glue's future? Eric sees a lot more growth. The strange phenomenon when you're talking about cloud computing, mobile development, big data or APIs, is that you run into the idea that this department level developer inside the enterprise is where the power is migrating to. It's moving away from the CIO/CTO level and going downstream. The research is needed to build applications or to move legacy applications on to mobile platforms or to analyze huge amounts of data. But this no longer requires seven figure budgets that need approval and nine month time frames. It's something a person or a two member team can do with ten grand, a proto type and bust it out in three days. There is this trend of the renaissance enterprise developer, something akin to what we saw when Borland and Visual Studio ruled the day, and it involved lots of development vs. suites. Eric said it feels like we are entering a phase similar to that. Now you might be wondering what is Defrag and how do the conferences compare - so we asked Eric. "It's an idea driven conference where we're trying to put 20 of the smartest people we can find on stage to talk about interesting ideas related to technology. That doesn't mean they're CEOs of big companies, they may be working on something interesting that would make us want to put them on stage. Defrag is capped at 325 people, it's a very intimate and exclusive audience, tends to be more a C-level type person.
Related Links: Glue 2012 || Defrag and Blur || GlueCon Event Photos || Software Channel || Blog || Keywords: Eric Norlin, GlueCon, Defrag, Blur, Cloud Computing, Mobile Development, Big Data, APIs, CIO, CTO, Techno Babble, Renaissance Enterprise Developer, bytes=4051176
LISTEN TO: Eric Norlin, Founder, GlueCon

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Adam Wilson, these events are populating developers creating apps
1213_ 5/28/12 - It's been about two years since we talked with Adam Wilson, a Boulder TechStar 2010 alum - their name was GearBox at that time and has since been changed to Orbotix. We talked to Adam at the Glue Conference. And Orbotix makes Sphero, the robotic ball that you control with your smart phone or tablet device. At first glance, Sphero appears to be a glowing orb you can drive around. But what is really interesting is the sensors inside allow you to pick Sphero up in your hands and allow you to control objects on the screen, or games on the screen, while moving the Sphero around in three dimensions, in your hand. Adam tells us they've done a lot of work in 'augmented reality'. "Sphero is a universally unique ball. It's a circle you can identify from anywhere - we have this moving fiducial, a recognizable object in our screen that we can do a lot of interesting game play with. The fact that we have an SDK really speaks to the techies, so for iOS, Android or Windows.net you can write an application for the ball that does what you want it to. Down the road 'augmented reality' we see as the big play that a lot of companies are going towards. Orbotix has an edge on that just because they have something in the real world that they can control. Not only that, with the SDK, Orbotix is having a 'Hack Tour' going around the country (NYC, Seattle, Boston, Austin, San Francisco - here in Boulder where 100 people show up. They give all of them a Spheros, and the winner in two different categories gets $5,000. for writing the best application for Sphero. So these events are populating developers, people creating apps." Now there are hundreds of apps that they don't even create themselves...
Related Links: Orbotix (sphero) || GlueCon Event Photos || Glue 2012 || Entrepreneurs || Podcasting Directory || TechStars || Defrag and Blur || Keywords: Adam Wilson, Orbotix, Sphero, Gear Box, GlueCon, TechStars, Developers, Apps, Augmented Reality, Fiducial, SDK, iOS, Android, Windows, Smart Phone, Tablet Device - bytes=3655369
LISTEN TO: Adam Wilson, Founder, Orbotix

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Allows you to build your own private version of a cloud
1223_ 6/11/12 - We hope you're getting a good bit of a sense of the Glue Conference. We are learning and seeing so much - exciting new API's and mobile apps and trying to Glue it all together. Here we're talking with Greg DeKoenigsberg who is the VP of Community at Eucalyptus Systems. We asked Greg to tell us about his organization. Eucalyptus Systems is based out of Santa Barbara, California and they do private cloud. What that means is, if you're familiar with the Amazon Web Services Cloud, which is pretty much the biggest cloud out there. Eucalyptus provides software that allows you to build your own private version of a cloud that looks very similar to Amazon AWS. Talk about exciting and this is open source software. You can go to Eucalyptus.com and download it for yourself. It takes a minimum of two systems at the very most basic configuration and then you can just add systems and it manages all of the virtual machines just as if you were managing an Amazon cloud. The promise of the cloud is that it allows you to self-administer your own boxes. Greg has a favorite story called the Sys Admin's Lament. In large organizations the sys admin traditionally has lots of power. Whenever someone inside a large organization needed a new computer, they would always go to the sys admin and say, 'hey, I need a box or two.' Being a sys admin is a hard job... managing all these assets and requests, they developed processes. There came a point where Amazon Web Services came to be a big deal - where the frustrated developer inside the organization, who just needed a resource for a skunk works project. It became easier for that developer to take out their credit card and put it down and pay Amazon $50 a month for their own system and then they didn't need to deal with the IT folks. Once this became really popular...
Related Links: Eucalyptus || Glue 2012 || Defrag and Blur || Photos GlueCon 2012 || Software Channel || Blog || Keywords: Greg De Koenigsberg, Eucalyptus, GlueCon, Cloud Computing, Amazon, Web Services Cloud, Sys Admin's Lament, IT Folks, > bytes=3882739
LISTEN TO: Greg DeKoenigsberg, VP Community, Eucalyptus Systems

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The mobile web and many opportunities to partner
1232_ 6/25/12 - Here, again at the Glue Conference in Broomfield, Colorado. This is a very exciting conference and the only one of its kind in the country. There are so many interesting companies and so much to learn about. We're talking with Steve Willmott, CEO of 3scale networks. We asked Steve for an overview of what 3scale networks does. "Right now, many people have websites and that's how they engage with their customers. Now with the mobile web there are many opportunities to partner. For instance, if you have content or a service and you'd like to spread it around to different places not just your own website, 3 scale enables you to put those technical channels in place so that mobile applications and partners can get your data or service directly without having to go via your web site. It's a little bit like having your database and sharing that with partners. You might charge them for that data or allow them to use it but to put your brand on their website for example. Steven explains more. Larry pointed out that a lot of people are concerned with security in the cloud. Steve thinks that is a number one concern. It's very important to keep data secure, especially if it's personal data of your customers - or your own. Cloud has advantages and disadvantages. One of these is obviously, the data in the cloud is a little bit out of your control...listen for more...
Related Links: 3Scale || Glue 2012 || GlueCon Event Photos || Entrepreneurs Channel || Keywords: Steven Willmott, 3scale networks, Glue Conference, Cloud, Technical Channels, GlueCon, bytes=3449733
LISTEN TO: Steven Willmott, CEO, 3scale networks

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Eric Bloch says Search engine technology has been proven to scale
1215_ 5/28/12 - We're talking with Eric Bloch, Director of Community at MarkLogic here at the Glue Conference, and it is exciting, so many interesting people and companies here.... Larry asked Eric to give us an overview of what MarkLogic does. They make database software, but it's a unique, non-relational database. It's a database that's built from the ground up on search engine technology and search engine indexing techniques - enough so that sometimes people think of MarkLogic as a search engine instead of a database. Search engine technology has been proven to scale the way Google does, and so often customers come to MarkLogic to solve complicated big data problems. The bulk of their customers today are medium size to large, as well as a number of organizations in the government. They actually have people who use the software who aren't formally their customers, because they give away a copy of their software to developers to do things with. So those are often individuals and sometimes very small companies. Eric tells us they've seen some interesting use cases for big data technologies and big data problems where people have more and more data that they have to manage quickly and make smart decisions. They're working with a top five bank to help them. There's been news about banks and the problem of understanding where they are and what their positions are. It turns out, while you might think managing a trade is a pretty simple thing, but in fact banks trade these complicated things that are hard to model. They get all sorts of financial instruments that get described as ...listen for more...
Related Links: MarkLogic || GlueCon Event Photos || Glue 2012 || Defrag and Blur || Software Channel || Keywords: Eric Bloch, MarkLogic, Glue Conference, Database Software, Search Engine Technology, Government, Banks, Big Data, Publishing, Google, bytes=4589508
LISTEN TO: Eric Bloch, Director, Community, MarkLogic

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Critical to serving the small - mid sized business segment
1203_ 4/30/12 - Quite a milestone in the company's history! Here at the ViaWest new offices in Greenwood Village, with Governor Hickenlooper and his Secretary of Technology and CIO of the State, Kristin Russell, coming down to mark the special occasion and help with the ribbon cutting. Nancy Philips, COO and Cofounder, said, "We were very honored to have them join us in celebration of what is obviously a great milestone for ViaWest." As we've all witnessed, ViaWest has been growing - right out of the spaces they had downtown [in various locations]. Nancy said, the Greenwood Village offices have given them the opportunity to consolidate their staff, kind of bring them together. ViaWest started business back in 1999 and w3w3 attended the ViaWest Grand opening downtown Denver. Today ViaWest is at 22 data centers, in 5 states / 6 major markets, so they've been busy since that ribbon cutting we attended June 5th, 2002. Nancy said it a testament to being in a great industry and they give a lot of credit to the employees they've attracted who've really helped grow this organization to where it is today. As a matter of fact, they are now recognized as the largest privately held company in the collocation and cloud services space. Nancy and Roy are very proud of their long tenured staff, very like-minded in terms of the vision for the organization, people that are really committed to the community and the customers that they serve. But they've also been bringing on a lot of new talent from all over the country. Back in November of 2011, at the DefragCon, w3w3 introduced you, the listeners, to Jason Carolan, ViaWest's new CTO who is leading a lot of the cloud initiatives. ViaWest carries a continuum of technology whether it is pure collocation requirements all the way to fully out sourced managed capabilities which is critical to serving the small - mid sized business segment they focus on. Nancy said, "We are very in tune with our customer base and therefore they become the best basis for where we should be developing our technology and product sets. With such an expansion around IT, web presence, the capabilities for flexibility and expansion within not weeks or months, but minutes, the cloud serves the purpose..." Larry asked about the new product offers from ViaWest. Nancy explained, "As we've moved into the virtualized space we're seeing storage and data replication as critical components in terms of what companies are looking for - greater availability, looking for ways to protect their data and being sure it is always available. That's been driven by...There's much more, listen now...
Related Links: ViaWest Home || Cloud with Confidence Webinar 5/1/2012 1:00-2:00 pm || NCWIT Home || Photos Ribbon Cutting || Software Channel || Keywords: Nancy Phillips, Via West, Cloud, Hosting, Governor Hickenlooper, Kristin Russell, Jason Carolan, NetApp, VMware, VW Talk Cloud, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Technology - bytes=12414598
LISTEN to Nancy Phillips, COO, ViaWest

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The answer for the growing shortage of coders
1202_ 4/23/12 - It's been a while, but we are back with Tom Frey, founder of the DaVinci Institute. Tom has a number of different programs that the DaVinci Institute puts on and they have a very special program coming up. As the 'futurist' Tom and the DaVinci Institute has recognized there are many technical challenges that we're facing. In the face of these challenges, DaVinci is now offering a beginner based training program for computer programmers and it is oriented around the language 'Ruby-on-Rails', which is one of the hot new languages. Tom said, "We're seeing there is such a demand for computer programmers - it's just growing by leaps and bounds." He told us the demand is coming from two directions, the old code that's out there buried deep in the mainframe computers with the operating systems that run the day to day operations of major corporations. A lot of this code is written in the old languages like Fortran and Cobalt. The people that have been maintaining this code are nearing retirement age. So the corporations are being faced with a major decision, do we scrap all this old stuff and start over from scratch or do we hand it off to a big company like IBM to manage all this? The fact is there are not a lot of new Cobalt programmers coming out of colleges today. IBM is trying to get colleges to continue training cobalt programmers - but students are looking for the newest programming languages like Ruby-on-Rails, Python, JavaScript, the newer hot languages. So people going to college would rather be writing apps for mobile devices than they would be working on mainframe computers. What's unique and different about the DaVinci approach is that it is beginner based. There are a lot of programs out there that are 3 days to a week long, but they're for experienced programmers. So, getting into the field is very tough, unless you're going to college. At DaVinci, they're offering an eleven week program so you can go from zero to programmer in less than 90 days...listen for more...
Related Links: DaVinci Coders || DaVinci Institute || Entrepreneurs Channel || Inventors Showcase || Podcasting Directory || Keywords: Tom Frey, DaVinci Institute, Ruby-on-Rails, Computer Programmers, Fortran, Cobalt, Futurist, Mainframe Computers, Python, JavaScript - bytes=4029443
LISTEN TO: Tom Frey, DaVinci Coders

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The opportunity lies in the technology itself
1176_ 3/12/12 - We caught up with Steve Foster, President/CEO of the Colorado Technology Association, aka CTA. Steve is new to a number of people in the community, Larry asked Steve for a little overview. Steve said he came into the technology world about 11 years ago. Prior to that Steve was a police officer and prior to that he was a security expert in the USAF. He started a small company called Business Controls, a SaaS model software company and services behind it that helps organizations manage employee misconduct through the use of technology. "The company's been very successful. We're very happy. It's grown dramatically over the years. We now manage about 23,000 locations in 130 countries." They were a Global Microsoft Award winner in 2006 at the Worldwide Web Conference in Boston. Larry asked about C-Level at Mile High, coming up this Thursday (online registration closes at noon, Tuesday, March 13th). "This is a unique event and an opportunity to connect some very high level CIO's, CTO's and those very high level decision makers in those organizations that need help getting projects completed. They need to connect with vendors and vendors need to connect with them. So we built C-Level at Mile High to do just that. It's evolved to an event for everyone to connect." Steve gives more details. Larry asked, "What are opportunities and challenges facing business owners today?" Steve replied, "I think the challenge is the economy itself, and over regulation of the business community. I tend to be someone who wants to allow the business community to grow and prosper without too much dabbling into it from the government. I think that's a bit of challenge, but I think you have to be able to strike a balance there. One of the things I've said, I know I'm successful if I'm paying taxes. I like paying taxes because I know I'm making money, I'm doing well. And that's the way we should think. But I think the opportunity lies in technology itself, innovation, entrepreneurial ism, and Colorado is positioned very well..." listen for more...
Related Links: Colorado Technology Association || C-Level @ A Mile High || Business Controls || Software Channel || Podcast Directory || Keywords: Steve Foster, Colorado Technology Association, CTA, C-Level @ A Mile High, Software, Innovation, Technology, Business Controls, Entrepreneurs - bytes=4792636
LISTEN TO: Steve Foster, President/CEO, Colorado Technology Association

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Exploring the enterprise social networking space
1317_ 11/26/12 - Based in downtown Denver, this company is eight years old, with about 150 folks at this point, highly profitable and growing quickly, Newsgator is in the enterprise social networking space, and we are talking with JB Holston, founder and Chairman of the Board, here at Defrag 2012. Think of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter - but think of it as a private, for a company's employees and external constituents, based primarily on the Microsoft stack, but not entirely. About half of their business is outside of the U.S. and JB says, "It's been a great ride!" Larry asked JB, with all of his experience, over these past few years, "What do you think are the biggest challenges for businesses today?" JB said, "I really think of two as the primary challenges. One is talent. both finding and retaining, training, motivating, managing talent. If you're a software company in particular, the demand for software engineers is so great and so competitive, that you've got to be a wonderful company to work for. Challenge number two is aggregate demand. When I think about all the macroeconomic and political issues going on. Anything that slows down aggregate demand, uncertainty about the fiscal cliff, that sort of thing, tends to effect the pace of demand. And as long as that pace is allowed to grow unfettered than the business is continued to be terrific." JB sees so many opportunities for business today, particularly in the front range. JB has been very involved in the Denver Startup scene here in the last few months. They had over 1000 startup companies in the Denver area alone, who were associated with that event. He said, "I think the message from that is, it is incredibly easy to start a great firm today...listen for more exciting ideas...
RELATED LINKS: Newsgator || Foundry Group || TechStars || Defrag/blur Info || Software Channel || Blog || KEYWORDS: B Holston, NewsGator, Software, Enterprise Social Networking Space, DefragCon 2012, Software, Collaboration, Entrepreneurs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Microsoft Stack, > bytes=4116796
LISTEN TO: JB Holston, Chairman of Board, NewsGator

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2011 Software & the Cloud

Software, it makes reliable diagnostics possible. It impacts every appliance in your home. It guides airplanes and coordinates virtually all actions in your automobile. It controls the national grid and monitors all financial transactions. It is a key to our national security. It is the power behind every computer. It = software... this Media Vault is dedicated to it. In 2011 it's all about the cloud...

Multi Touch computing in real time
1326_ 12/10/12 - We've corralled the CEO of Gestureworks here at the Blur Conference, Jim Spadaccini. Gestureworks is a multi touch, authoring SDK or Software Development Kit. It processes up to 300 gestures, it works in a variety of different platforms. We've had a version that works with the Action Script language for a number of years and now we're branching out and we have new versions that are going to be across multiple programming platforms. With this software you can create new experiences that take advantage of some of the multi touch hardware and devices that are coming out. So everything from multi touch tables to tablets, all-in-ones, to ultra books, a lot of authoring possibilities with our very powerful multi touch sdk. Larry saw a demonstration at the Gestureworks booth and was fascinated. Jim said, "One of the things that got us excited about multi touch tables in particular, is there is a social dynamic that goes on, that there is more than one person interacting at the same time on these devices. So it's a shared experience and if you think about it, things like the personal computer and our own personal devices are just that, things that we use as individuals. So it is unusual that you have computing experiences where you're sharing those experiences with other people in real time. Larry then asked, "What are the biggest challenges that entrepreneurs face today?" "Certainly when the crisis hit, capital is the biggest issue. Our company has gone through issues like that as well. It's a small company and self-funded. My best advice is to be lean and think lean and just be really focused and really tenacious. That's what we did, we're a very flexible organization. Along with our Gestureworks framework, our larger company which is Ideum, develops multi touch tables..." Jim goes onto talk about the biggest opportunities...listen for more ...
RELATED LINKS: gestureworks || Defrag/blur Info || Software Channel || Blur Conference Photos || Defrag Conference Photos || PodCast Directory || KEYWORDS: Jim Spadaccini, Gestureworks, DefragCon 2012, Software, Entrepreneurs, Emerging Tech, Software Development Kit, Action Script Language, Touch Tables, Tablets, Ideum > bytes=5114883
LISTEN TO: Jim Spadaccini, CEO, Gestureworks

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Big Data Evolution and Social Business...
         Written by Kirsten Nelson
          1321_ 12/3/12 - Defrag, a tech conference held each fall at the Omni Interlocken Resort in Broomfield, Colorado recently met for its sixth annual event. Bringing keynote speakers, CxOs, entrepreneurs and the tech minded, data driven together, what big ideas arose in 2012? Big Data and Social Business, of course.
        Far from surprising, given that Defrag organizers Eric Norlin, Brad Feld, and Phil Becker began Defrag from their collective desire to discuss the innovative software and technological tools needed to sift through and analyze the mounting avalanche of information. The very nature of data, as evidenced by the descriptions and discussions of notable keynote presenters such as Kevin Kelly and Paul Kedrosky, has evolved, and continues to evolve, at an exponential pace. In similar fashion, so has the imperative for businesses, from the gargantuan to small start up, to utilize that data.
        In the past, utilization prompted faint images or ideas of algorithms designed to sort, classify, and analyze data for application in finite areas such as product design and consumer relations – something the IT guys (and gals) could worry about. As evidenced by many of the keynote speakers, data utilization and our conception of it must undergo an evolution as well. An evolution that transforms not only how we think about data, but how we think about the role of data within business. True, meaningful utilization takes companies through the growing pains of becoming authentically social – not just in finite pockets of the infrastructure, but across all inter and intrapersonal relationships and interactions within the organization. READ More...
RELATED LINKS: C3 Writing || TechStars || Foundry Group || Defrag/blur Info || C3 Writing Channel || KEYWORDS: Defrag 2012, Big Data Evolution, big data, Brad Feld, Phil Becker, Eric Norlin, algorithms, analyze, Kirsten Nelson, Paul Kedrosky, Kevin Kelly, data utilization

It is like taking a step into the future
1322_ 12/3/12 - We're at the Blur Conference speaking with Nick Brewer of MakerBot, and we're learning how to print a cup holder for our car . The existing cup holder just isn't big enough to hold the coffee mug I'm using - So Nick can print a new one for me, with his 3 dimensional MakerBot Printer. He'll print a larger holder that will extend the size of the existing cup holder to handle my mug. See, it is like taking a step into the future, with a reality feature that takes your breath away. Step back for some clarification, MakerBot is a company that makes 3-D printers, like the Replicator-2 which is a desktop 3-D printer. What that does? It takes a virtual file and actually creates a physical object out of it, using a plastic. Really, anything you can imagine, you can print! It is limited only by your imagination. Now when we say print, we're not talking about a piece of paper. The Replicator-2 takes a plastic filament, pulls it through an extruder - think of a hot glue gun - and it lays down, layer by layer, an object. So it prints / draws a picture, layer by layer. It actually builds up a 'thing'. So if you need an extended cup holder... or learning aids for school - or you want to prototype parts for a business... It is really mind boggling what people can do. Larry asked, "Nick, If we were talking just a few years back, we couldn't be talking about an affordable, desktop 3-D printer. What do you see for the future?" Nick replied, "It's kind of a 'wild west' out there. You have companies taking this technology and just running with it." Nick told us that their largest customer is NASA! He said, "It just blows my mind. The things we're doing in Brooklyn, my world is so small. But they're taking this technology and..." ...listen for more ...
RELATED LINKS: MakerBot || TechStars || Foundry Group || Defrag/blur Info || PodCast Directory || KEYWORDS: Nick Brewer, MakerBot, 3-D printer, 3 Dimensional, Replicator-2, DefragCon 2012, Software, Entrepreneurs, Foundry Group, TechStars, NASA, Emerging Tech > bytes=4116796
LISTEN TO: Nick Brewer, MakerBot...

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It is easy to deploy software on top of cloud servers
1316_ 11/26/12 - Welcome to the Cloud where you can rent a server by the hour! Now you've got a machine with a command line interface - but it doesn't have anything installed or running on it that is useful to a business person or even a developer... We're here at Defrag 2012 talking with Dave Jilk, founder and CEO of Standing Cloud - "The simple story is we make it really easy to deploy software on top of cloud servers like the application software, so that you can use it for something functional like Drupal for a website or a customer relationship management application" he said. Dave also told us that Standing Cloud has released some white labels with cloud providers. So, they work with the folks who actually do the renting of the infrastructure and provide their layer on top of them. The two that Standing Cloud has done since we last spoke to Dave... are VPS.net a share hosting company that has moved into the cloud and offer applications for their shared hosting companies. So you don't see Standing Cloud's name but when you go to their home page, that's how you launch applications. The other is also interesting, a company in Iceland called GreenQloud[.com], and they are in the only data center in the world that is 100% renewable energy - actually being sourced for the power, not energy credits. It's actually geothermal powered, because that's where all the power in Iceland comes from. Larry asked, "What advice do you offer to an entrepreneur now?" Dave replied, "The advice I'd give right now is meta-advice. There are so many organizations and sources for mentorship to entrepreneurs today. They're not all exclusive, TechStars and some of the other organizations out there - you've got to be selected. But there are also other opportunities for mentorship that are less structured. Back when Dave started his career nobody talked about mentorship, there was nothing formal available. Now, you're really doing yourself a disservice - you are much more likely to fail if you don't go find yourself some mentors..." Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Standing Cloud || Defrag/blur Info || Foundry Group || TechStars || GreenQloud || Software Channel || KEYWORDS: Keywords: Dave Jilk, Defrag/Blur 2012, Standing Cloud, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, IssA, Amazon, Customer Relation Management, Cloud, Software Providers, Foundry Group, TechStars, GreenQloud, Independent Software Vendors > bytes=3982213
LISTEN TO: Dave Jilk, CEO/Founder, Standing Cloud

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The app is free - it's a really special piece of technology
1315_ 11/19/12 - Spending a day at Blur is like taking a step into the future, with a reality feature that takes your breath away!
We spoke with Paul Berberian, CEO of Orbotix. As an overview, Paul told us Orbotix is the creator of Sphero, a little robotic ball that you control with your smart phone. What is special about Sphero is it is a robot gaming system. So think of a Wii or an Xbox except it rolls around on the ground, and there are over 20 different apps and games for it - and more coming out every month. Now, Paul was a keynote speaker at ‘Blur’, a very interesting conference here in Colorado, and today they just announced their new augmented reality application or game called Sharky the Beaver. It's a crazed little beaver that thinks he's a shark and he runs around your house eating cupcakes that you toss to him electronically. What's really special about this new application and game is it's the first time that you can take a 3-dimensional character and have it actually move around your house or office and interact with real world objects as well as virtual objects, without any setup, without any preparation it just works, it works in a bunch of different environments. The app is free - it's a really special piece of technology that just disappears into the end user - it's magical - they look at the ground and they see a robot ball, they look at their screen and they see a little crazy, whacked out beaver running around the house, and the technology disappears into the background. It just becomes really immersive and fun. Paul is a serial entrepreneur and goes onto offering some great advice for business owners and aspirating entrepreneurs. BTW, you might want to consider buying a Sphero for a year-end holiday present ...listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Sphero Home || TechStars || Paul Berberian 10 years ago || Foundry Group || Defrag/blur Info || KEYWORDS: Paul Berberian, Orbotix, Sphero, Defrag, blur, Sharky the Beaver, Game, Electronically, Robot Ball, Colorado, Entrepreneurs, > bytes=4832760
LISTEN TO: Paul Berberian, CEO, Sphero coming to you from the Blur Conference

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The ecosystem and how this company was put together
1312_ 11/19/12 - We're talking about the ecosystem and how this company, Cloud Elements, was put together. "Cloud Elements is based in the Innovation Pavilion down in the DTC, and it's been a great entire Internet ecosystem that we've been a part of." Mark Geene, Founder and CEO, is really pleased with the startup ecosystem that is building up around Boulder, Denver and the Tech Center - and here's an organization, The Founders Institute that is now a local chapter in Denver. It was initially based out of the Bay Area. Gary Gaessler, VP Sales & Marketing, is a key member of driving that. Jim Franklin, a friend of Mark's suggested, "Hey you're transitioning out of the company you were with, looking for something new, why don't you engage with the Founders Institute", which Mark did. It was a great opportunity to mentor companies that are starting up and developing. That led to connections to Gary, which lead us to the Innovation Pavilion, a tremendous incubator like Galvanize, bringing startups together. "So we go there now, meeting with other people that we've added to our organization, meeting through this community." Gary Gaessler and Mark Geene are co-founders and EIR’s (Executives/Entrepreneurs in Residence) at IP (Innovation Pavilion) and also mentors at Founders Institute. Mark said, "Channel Insight, really was a cloud company before there was a cloud. We built a large scale software as a service multi tenant platform. We built this from scratch because there weren't the infrastructure service providers and platform distributor providers built at the time we started to build that company. So when we left there we looked at the opportunity to help other companies build their applications faster. We swore we would never do it again in terms of building our own platform and our own technology because it was so difficult to do. So that's where we really became big believers of platform as a service." Listen for more......
RELATED LINKS: Cloud Elements || Founders Institute Colorado || Innovation Pavilion || Defrag || Foundry Group || TechStars || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Mark Geene, Gary Gaessler, Cloud Elements, TiE Rockies, Executives/Entrepreneurs in Residence, Innovation Pavilion, Jim Franklin, Jon Nordmark, Defrag, blur, The Cloud > bytes=4257648
LISTEN TO: Mark Geene & Gary Gaessler, Cloud Elements

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Advice for an aspiring entrepreneur
1309_ 11/12/12 - As anticipation grows, we're quickly closing in on the start of DefrageCon 2012. Getting a few minutes for this interview with Eric Norlin is an accomplishment in itself. And, it is our last chance because he immerses himself and his team in the detailed, constant activity of putting on a conference that continues to live up to and supersede its reputation. While talking with Eric, he did say, "When you work on anything for twelve years you kind of figure it out eventually - or you go broke. One of the two, right?" We are talking with a guy that has tremendous contacts with all kinds and sizes of organizations and we wondered what are the biggest challenges, today in our environment, for technical companies. Eric said he thinks we're leaving the phase where consumer facing companies are all the rage, and entering a phase where enterprise tech companies are becoming hot again. But you still have to do the normal blocking and tackling of landing customers - and then somehow find a way to rise above the noise. Because, throughout the recession we've seen in the last few years where there has been some slow down, it really has been a lot less severe than any other sector. Greatest opportunities? Eric points to some fairly big technical trends everyone is familiar with - Cloud computing, big data and even the mobile wave. What advice do you give an aspiring entrepreneur? "First of all if you've got an idea and you've got a team and you've got some prototype built, the first piece of advice is, if it's something you really want to do - Go do it. Don't let anyone tell you not to do it. Because being an entrepreneur is one of the most exciting decisions you can make in life. It's a terrifying decision to make - there's a lot of fear associated with it, but at the end of the day, it is so fulfilling that whether your company succeeds or not, it's entirely worth it...Eric has more to say... ***Join w3w3® at Defrag and Blur
    - Save BIG - Use the 25% Discount Code!
RELATED LINKS: 25% Defrag Discount Code: www123 || BLUR Discount Code: bifr12 ($477.00) || Defrag 1 Site, 2 Shows 3 Days || Foundry Group || TechStars || Blog || KEYWORDS: Eric Norlin, Defrag, BLUR, Brad Feld, Entrepreneurs, Technology Conferences, Social Business Technology, Big Data, Social Business Technology, bytes=5403274
LISTEN TO: Eric Norlin, Defrag - blur Conference 2012

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Contents: Entrepreneurs 2010; 2009; 2008; 2007

2012 Software Channel
Christian Beedgen, Founder/CTO, Sumo Logic
John K. Bennett, Institute Director, (ATLAS)
Paul Berberian, CEO, Orbotix - Augmented Reality
Eric Bloch, Director, Community at MarkLogic
Nick Brewer, MakerBot - 3D Printer
Joe Burton, Plantronics, Defrag/Blur Conferences
Jason Carolan, CTO, ViaWest
Cloud Elements, Mark Geene & Gary Gaessler
Ben Deda, Full Contact
Greg DeKoeningsberg, Eucalyptus Systems
Brad Feld & Phil Weiser, One-on-One
Steve Foster CTA., C-Level @ Mile High
Jim Franklin SendGrid: Raising $6M in Series B Round
Tom Frey Become a DaVinci Coder
Nicole Glaros, Managing Director, TechStars Boulder
Terry Gold Gold Systems, Microsoft, Partner/Customer
JB Holston Founder/Chairman, Newsgator @ Defrag/Blur
Ray Hutchins Denver SEO Services dot com
Ray Hutchins Denver Cyber Security
Mike Ihbe, Application Platform Engineer, Yammer
Dave Jilk, Founder/CEO, Standing Cloud @ Defrag/Blur
Dave Jilk, Standing Cloud - You don't have to be a geek
Dave Leonard, ViaWest Tier4 Data Center - First...
Dave Leonard, Sr. V.P., Data Ops, ViaWest
Jason Mendelson, VC Investments, Glue & Community
John Minnihan, Founder, Freepository @ Defrag 2012
Kirsten Nelson, Big Data Evolution and Social Business
Eric Norlin, Founder, Defrag & Blur - 2012 Colorado
Eric Norlin, What would you say to aspiring entrepreneur?
Eric Norlin, Founder GlueCon
Monte Robertson, Cloud Computing Consulting
Jim Spadacinni, CEO, Gestureworks, Multi Touch Computing
Bill Soards Chairman of the Board, CTA
Theresa Szczurek CoFounder/CEO, Radish Systems
Steven Willmott 3Scale - Mobile Web opportunities..
Adam Wilson, Orbotix [Sphero]

2011 Software Channel
Bass, Richard, Pres., Boulder & Denver Software Clubs
Becker, Phil, PBL Ventures and CoFounder Defrag
Brown, Ian, Dir., Demand Gen., Mashery @ Defrag 2011
Burns, Thomas, Green House Data: The Cloud 6/11
Carolan, Jason , VP New Product Dev, ViaWest
Cheek, Lori, NYC Architect - Glued to TechStars
Dimoff, Roy, ViaWest 9/6/11
Feld, Brad, Entrepreneurs Unplugged (4 part series)
Franklin, Jim, SendGrid: Viral marketing approach
Gaessler, Gary, Capitalizing on your niche 6/6/11
Hagens, Robert, Envysion: Video as a Service 8/29/11
Hawk, Su, Colorado Technology Assoc 9/12/11
Heuston, Bill, ViaWest, Building a phenomenal culture
Holston, JB, Newsgator 12/20/10
Levine, Seth, Foundry Group: Glue Conference 6/6/11
Richard Liner, Exec. Director, KidsTek
Lorang, Bart, CEO/Founder, FullContact @ Defrag 2011
Norlin, Eric, Founder, Defrag Con 11/9-10/11
Ogdon, Bob CEO SwiftPage - Global Presence Nov 14
Peters, Carrie, BigDoor: Healthier Internet ecosystem
Phillips, Nancy, COO/CoFounder, ViaWest, Entrepreneurs Unplugged
Phillips, Nancy, ViaWest (NCWIT Hero)
Poulter, Don, ViaWest (12/08) Data ctr energy usage
Sanderson, John, Microsoft, Windows Azure 6/6/11
Kevin Menzie & Daniel Feld, Slice of Lime 10/17/11
Szczurek, Theresa, Radish Systems 2, Boulder Startup
Taylor, Matthew ViaWest: Cloud... Do I need an IT Department now?

The biggest challenge for business is to be ever more efficient
1327_ 12/10/12 - Here at Defrag/Blur Conference 2012, we are talking with Joe Burton, Sr. VP Engineering & Dev & CTO, Plantronics. Plantronics is the world leader in the manufacture of headsets. Everything from end user Bluetooth to business, to contact centers to every headset that's been on an astronaut and in his face, has come from Plantronics over the last 50 years. Larry asked Joe, "With everything we've been through, economically and globally, since you do business all over the world, what is the biggest challenge facing business today?" Joe feels that everyone really understands that the biggest challenge for business is to be ever more efficient while at the same time having a more intimate relationship with their business partners and their customers. When asked about the opportunities, Joe said, "I actually think the challenges and opportunities go hand-in-hand. So many of the things we're hearing about here at the Defrag/blur 2012 conference is the ability to actually use the cloud. To use business analytics, to use unified communication systems in such a way that you can get that leaner, faster business that has that superior relationship with your partners and with your customers, really at a fraction of the price in the past. And then further to actually change a challenge into an opportunity." And Joe has some advice for the aspiring entrepreneur. It's actually very similar to the opportunity and the challenge we've discussed. I tell entrepreneurs, people coming into our company, and that is to really identify a customer need. Find something that is driving people crazy. Something that is slowing down their business, slowing down their entertainment. Really understand it and then go solve that need. And they will indeed beat a path to your door."
RELATED LINKS: Plantronics || Defrag/blur Info || Blur Conference Photos || Defrag Conference Photos || w3w3.com Blog || KEYWORDS: Joe Burton, Plantronics, Headsets, Bluetooth, Entrepreneurs, Business, DefragCon 2012, blur, Software, Cloud, Bluetooth, Unified Communication Systems \, bytes=3372829
LISTEN TO: Joe Burton, Sr.VP Eng.&Dev & CTO, Plantronics

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Communicate more effectively with smart mobile device users
1320_ 11/26/12 - How many times have you called a company and gotten a long frustrating phone tree? Press one for this, press two for that. Just imagine if you could get a visual menu that would instantly show you, which was then tap-able... so you could get visual responses. Radish Systems is a software company that helps enterprises communicate more effectively with smart mobile device users. They share visual content, in call, while texting or talking with mobile users. Businesses find great value in improving the mobile user experience. They save money and make money in the process. It's not constrained to an automated self service system - it also works with live people in call centers who can communicate with you, send you visuals and complete the transaction much more efficiently. Theresa Szczurek, co-founder and CEO of Radish Systems attended the Defrag and Blur conferences and we asked her, a serial entrepreneur, what she thought were the greatest challenges businesses face today. "It's a really important question because businesses are looking for solutions that solve their biggest pain. Otherwise they're not willing to separate from their cash or spend their time. So, the biggest challenge in this economic environment is to get the attention and time of the enterprises and to identify really what their pain points are and bring a solution that's going to solve their problems." Switching gears to the greatest opportunities for businesses today, Theresa said, "We are in a global environment." The biggest opportunity is to take advantage of the world going mobile. What is the future of mobility within a business? "It's a great opportunity because there are about one billion people around the world who now have smart mobile devices." ...listen for more, Theresa has some advice to aspiring entrepreneurs...
RELATED LINKS: Radish Systems || Defrag/blur Info || TMS World || Radish Sprouts || Software Channel || KEYWORDS: Theresa Szczurek, Radish Systems, Visual Content, Entrepreneurs, Mobile Communications, Apps, Smart Phone, Mobile Devices, Radish Communications Systems, > bytes=5520303
LISTEN TO: Theresa Szczurek, CoFounder/CEO, Radish Systems

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You don't have to be a geek to use the cloud. But...
1239_ 7/9/12 - It's been two years since we last interviewed David Jiilk, Founder and CEO of Standing Cloud a Boulder based company. Standing Cloud offers a service that helps people manage applications on top of this new thing called Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Amazon didn't invent the idea but they were the first to successfully promote the idea of renting computer servers on the Internet by the hour. This is at least one definition of 'cloud computing'. And, this is one of the things that created this idea of cloud where you can actually rent servers. The thing is if you do rent servers from Amazon or one of the many other providers out there, all you get is a computer server and most people don't really know what to do with that. What most people want is an application, a piece of software running on that server that they can actually use for some business or personal purposes. So, anything from storing photos to a Customer Relation Management system to a blog, to a web site. Those kinds of things are what you want to put on computer servers and use them for. What Standing Cloud does is make it really easy for anyone, including end users to manage their infrastructure as a service... cloud servers, but with an application on top of it. Standing Cloud initially tried to be a consumer web site where they would sell this online service to everyone - and they have a fair number of customers using it that way. But, they found that they didn't understand their various markets that well and were not particularly skilled at selling that way. So, Standing Cloud changed their business model to be one of selling through resellers. These resellers understand their individual markets very well. Now Standing Cloud's service is used by people in a wide range of company sizes and types - but Standing Cloud interacts with the companies selling services to them. You won't see Standing Cloud's name on these web sites but that's what is driving it behind the scenes. Standing Cloud has grown since the last time we spoke when Dave had 8 to 10 people, about 50/50 gender ratio. There's more here from Boulder...
Related Links: Standing Cloud || Foundry Group || TechStars || FeldThoughts || Entrepreneur Channel || Keywords: Dave Jilk, Standing Cloud, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, IaaS, Amazon, Customer Relation Management, Cloud, Software Providers, Independent Software Vendors - bytes= 5741403
LISTEN to Dave Jilk, Founder/CEO, Standing Cloud

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Phishing. Will you be a victim?
1241_ 7/16/12 - A stunning statistic, "Last year, the cost to the global economy of cyber crime exceeded that of the global cost of the illegal drug trade" said John Bennett, Ph.D., P.E., the Institute Director of the Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society (ATLAS) Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Archuleta Professor of Computer Science. The number, including lost time, is $334 Billion, so it's not an insignificant figure. You know we all receive the spam which is just irritating by virtue of the volume. Some of what we get is phishing, trying to get your personal information... your name, social security number, your birth date, credit card numbers - those kinds of things. That kind of information is used to steal your identity, your digital identity. When that's done someone can go get credit cards in your name, loans, basically spend money they don't have.” John has actually had his identity stolen by some person in Florida. He got a call from a credit card company asking why he'd made all these charges in Florida. John hadn't been there and it turned out that someone had obtained John's credit card number and used that to obtain other information. These people are pretty good at this. The odds of this happening, of having your identity stolen in your lifetime, in the U.S. are about 1 in 100, and about 1 in 10,000 this year. Larry asked, “Logging in, is that a dangerous thing?” John says it can be. "I think we've all learned not to enter your user name and password on the internet if you don't see that URL beginning with https, which indicates it is a secure link between the browser [the software running on your machine and the server that is serving up this page ." Listen for much more...
Related Links: ATLAS Institute, CU || Software Channel || NCWIT Heroes || PodCast Directory || National Cyber Security Partnership || FBI Cyber Crime || Keywords: John Bennett, ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, Cyber Crime, Phishing, Credit Cards, Social Security Number, User Name, Password, > bytes=5176741
LISTEN TO: John K. Bennett, Institute Director, ATLAS Institute

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Mission is to solve the world's contact information problem
1224_ 6/11/12 - Here at GlueCon, we've corralled another TechStars alum - class of 2011. Full Contact's mission is to solve the world's contact information problem. Ben Deda, Vice President, Business Development at Full Contact said, "We all have this pain point of having these partial contacts in your phone, address books and all your different applications. It's never complete, accurate or up to date." Ben said they saw that pain point and wanted to create a solution. "I think if we'd realized how big of a problem it was at the start, we might not have taken that on. But, you know, we just got into it..." Larry asked, “What do you see on the horizon?” Ben replied, “Full Contact actually started out as an API. It's an API that has the ability to take a partial contact and turn it into a full contact. So you send us just an email address and we'll bring back a profile picture, first name, last name a full social profile and any other publicly available information we can find. One thing that came out of that was so many of their customers were requesting Full Contact to push updates when they found them. So Full Contact actually developed a 'cloud address book'. It has the ability to take all these contacts from all these different places put it into one place. We cleanse it, normalize it, de-duplicate and merge all the contacts into a consolidated contact. Then they do an enhancement portion on it - even offer validation, verification on emails and phone numbers and allow you to sync all that information back to all the different places they came from. We're offering that as an API but also as a Web App. that's going to a private beta and then a public beta the of June or July. Listeners interested in that public beta, Ben said they will have a page up at FullContact.com where you can sign up and get on the public beta list for the cloud address book.
Related Links: Full Contact || TechStars || Glue 2012 || Defrag and Blur || Software Channel || PodCasting Directory || Photos GlueCon 2012 || Keywords: Ben Deda, Full Contact, TechStars, Gluecon, API, Cloud Address Book, Web App, Public Beta, bytes=2918925
LISTEN TO: Ben Deda, VP Business Development, Full Contact

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Nicole Glaros says we have over 150 companies in our portfolio
1218_ 6/4/12 - We've run into an 'old friend', she's not old but a long time friend and familiar to nearly everyone in Boulder and Denver. We're talking with Nicole Glaros, the Managing Director of Boulder TechStars. Nicole says as the managing director she has the wonderful opportunity of working with 10-12 teams a year, giving them a little bit of seed capital and a whole bunch of mentorship to take them to the next level. Of course, w3w3® has met and interviewed a number of TechStar alumnus here at GlueCon. TechStar teams are here from Boulder, but also TechStars Cloud, which is their first thematic program. Larry recalled interviewing David Cohen just a few months before TechStar One. He asked Nicole what has changed over the years? "Oh Wow!" said Nicole. "We started off in Boulder, the first program was in 2007. Since then we've launched four more programs, Boston, Seattle, New York and now TechStar-Cloud which is based in San Antonio. We also have a book and there was a TV show last year. We've got our web series and it has been going great!" Larry asked what she thought we might see in the future with TechStars. Nicole said, "We are committed to helping entrepreneurs get to the next level of growth and being a value add for investors as well. Continuing to focus on that any number of things can happen." Nicole has been with TechStars since almost the beginning. She was there when it was just one office in Boulder and, she said, "It's been really fun to see the program grow and mature. Now we have over 150 companies in our portfolio now. So we've just created a massive network of entrepreneurs across the country and the world as well - it's been a lot of fun!" Nicole said...listen for more...
Related Links: TechStars || Glue 2012 || Defrag and Blur || GlueCon Event Photos || Software Channel || Keywords: Nicole Glaros, TechStars, Portfolio, Boulder, Boston, Seattle, New York, TechStar-Cloud, Glue Conference, Entrepreneurs, bytes=3632799
LISTEN to Nicole Glaros, Managing Director, Boulder TechStars

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Raising $21.6 million in a Series B financing round
1149_ 1/23/12 - Larry talked with Jim Franklin, CEO of SendGrid, a Foundry-backed infrastructure applications company about a very exciting announcement. SendGrid a Boulder-based startup and TechStars Class of 2009 graduate, announced it has raised $21.6 million in a Series B financing round. SendGrid previously had raised $5.76 million in capital through seed money and a Series A round. Jim said, "While we're very happy to have 37,000 customers now, we think there are millions of people around the globe that can benefit from this service. We also announced a partnership with Microsoft and their Azure project, and in building the Azure environment, we'll be the email solution for that entire platform. We see that as a future direction of wherever you are on the globe and whatever language or platform you're developing in, we want SendGrid to be right there as the easy, simple choice to take care of the mail so you can focus on building your web application. We've had a lot of success in having major partners to really help us grow so far." SendGrid has about 70 employees in Boulder and Anaheim, California, and is hiring in its sales, marketing, operations and engineering departments. SendGrid has developed a cloud-based platform that helps users improve email deliverability. Invoices, shipping confirmation and product updates are among the types of messages. Below are links to the organizations that were part of the $21.6 million investment...
Related Links: SendGrid || Podcasting Directory || Bessemer Venture Partners || Foundry Group || Highway 12 Ventures || TechStars || SoftTech VC || 500 Startups || Keywords: Jim Franklin, SendGrid, Venture Capital, Seed Money, Isaac Saldana, Microsoft, Azure, Cloud-based Platform, Email, Bessemer Venture Partners, Foundry Group, Highway 12 Ventures, TechStars, SoftTech VC, 500 Startups - bytes=4357959
LISTEN TO: Jim Franklin, CEO, Sendgrid

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Mike Ihbe advises, Piggy back on trends and the social
1214_ 5/28/12 - As the "cloud" becomes a common platform, web applications still live in a "stovepipe" world. At the Glue Conference, we met folks who are exploring the new technologies that are forming around web applications in a post-cloud world. We caught up with Mike Ihbe, Application Platform Engineer with Yammer. Yammer is the social intranet, providing social collaboration tools for people to get work done on their intranet and leverage the social mechanisms that are so popular in today's world. We are talking intranet, Yammer is for inside your company so you can collaborate with your coworkers on projects or anything you do during your normal job, you can do online with Yammer. Larry asked Mike what he sees down the road for Yammer. Mike said, "We're adding features all the time. We started as kind of a Twitter for the enterprise and we worked our way up to a fully featured intranet suite. We've just acquired this company called 'One Drum" they do a lot of file sync. So we'll have a lot of "DropBox" type features now. We're integrating more and more of your offline work with Excel documents and whatnot into the Yammer experience. Larry asked if Yammer works with large, medium or small companies and Mike told us they work with every size. In fact they have accounts with 85% of the Fortune 500, and small and medium size businesses are a huge part of our business too. Larry asked Mike what advice he would give entrepreneurs today. Mike said, "Piggy back on trends actually. We're piggy-backing on social and the other trend we found is enterprise tools basically. So, enterprise tools are very old and we're capitalizing on the cloud to deliver high quality, consumerized, enterprise products...listen for more...
Related Links: Yammer || GlueCon Event Photos || Glue 2012 || Defrag and Blur || Software Channel || Keywords: Mike Ihbe, Yammer, Software, Social Intranet, Glue Conference, Social Mechanisms, DropBox, Twitter, Cloud, Enterprise Tools bytes=2983709
LISTEN to Mike Ihbe, Application Platform Engineer, Yammer

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Sticking to it is going to be the entrepreneurs challenge
1319_ 11/26/12 - Here at Defrag 2012, we are talking with John Minnihan, founder of Freepository. Freepository provides hosted source control to developers who are geographically dispersed. "We've been doing this since 1999 and were the first source code hosting site that was broadly used and we've been growing ever since" said John. He thinks the biggest challenge facing businesses today is pretty straightforward - sticking to it is going to be a challenge. Smart people have world changing ideas. Having the capacity to stick with their ideas through maybe some tougher challenging times. Normal stuff that you go through when you start a business, might seem more difficult. But you stick with it. In discussing the greatest opportunity John said, "By far it is the sheer cost of starting a business. It is incredibly low cost today as compared to ten years ago. A tremendous and broader way of either free or very low cost tools that provide immediate value to your business. Things like Freepository, hosted source control. You've got marketing solutions that are completely web based. You've got ways to broadcast your message - to get people excited about what you're doing through Twitter, through Facebook, Tumbler and other large, yet broadly seen media sites like that. So the low cost aspect of going from zero to something today is probably the single greatest opportunity for an entrepreneur." John's advice to an aspiring entrepreneur - "Go for it, just do it. You know, don't wait. Don't put off. Don't find yourself five years from today saying I wish I'd done this. Oh that great idea I had... Three other parties are doing it and they're just kicking butt." Your mantra should be, Do it! Do it! Do it! Listen now...
RELATED LINKS: Freepository || Defrag/blur Info || In the News || w3w3.com Blog || KEYWORDS: John Minnihan, Freepository, Defrag, blur, Source Code Repositories, Open Source Project Hosting Sites, Eclipse, TortoiseCVS, WinCVS, CLI, Entrepreneurs, > bytes=3502814
LISTEN TO: John Minnihan, Founder, FreePository

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From a $10,000 investment to millions in business
1159_ 2/6/12 - It's been a couple of years since interviewing the CEO and co founder of Gold Systems, Terry Gold. They're celebrating their 21st year in business - Terry said, “We had no idea when we started this company that we would go 20 years. Plus, and we're still going, even better!" In fact, they've launched some new things and that's what we want Terry to tell us about. Two years ago Terry was working on a new product, Vonetix 7 Voice, a product that they licensed and sold to Avaya and Cisco. Gold Systems uses Vonetix 7 Voice to create enterprise class interactive voice response (IVR) and speech recognition applications and incorporate them with an organization's unified communications (UC) environment. Vonetix 7 UC includes a development environment to create Communication-Enabled Business Process (CEBP) applications that add value to an enterprise's UC tools and infrastructure. But this is a brand new product and it's targeted at Microsoft, a partner that we've been working with for seven-eight years now. We realized there was a piece missing in their product line that we could fill with our product. Not only are we a partner, but now they are a customer of ours as well. So if you call 1-800 Microsoft or Xbox, the Gold System software is underneath all of that. "In fact", Terry says, "they tell us that we handle about 95% of all the inbound calls to Microsoft in the U.S. and about 50% worldwide. Now as a result of working with Microsoft Gold Systems are also able to work with some smaller organizations. "We started out working with the big phone companies. These were pieces of hardware that enterprises would buy and they'd spend millions of dollars on their phone systems. That's changing radically... In the beginning Terry and Jim Fudge, co-founders and good friends, had $10,000 between them, and they bootstrapped for the first nine or ten years. Brad Feld invested in Gold Systems during the dot com boom. Terry says he wants to go on record, "I think Brad probably holds the world record for most patience. Now here we are in another upswing." Larry asked what Terry saw for Gold Systems in the coming year. The prognosis is good - after a tough year. "Last year started out not so good, in fact pretty badly. The year before.." .listen for more...
Related Links: Gold Systems || Vonetix 7 Voice || Microsoft || Feld Thoughts || Communication Technology Channel || Keywords: Terry Gold, Gold Systems, Vonetix 7 Voice, Microsoft, Xbox, Skype, Communication-Enabled Business Process, CEBP, Brad Feld, Phone Companies - bytes=5435039
LISTEN TO: Terry Gold, CEO/CoFounder, Gold Systems

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