Maker or Hacker spaces are springing up
1445_ 9/30/13 - The Maker Movement is sweeping the United States and the world. Maker or Hacker spaces are springing up for innovators and entrepreneurs across Colorado – several in Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Longmont and more. Schools are setting up Maker spaces and Maker Faires are springing up to celebrate making. Come and learn about what this movement is about and how it affects everything from schools to businesses. (See examples on our home page)… Larry interviewed Elizabeth Weiland, Executive Director of Making Progress, L3c producer for Colorado's first Maker Faire, the NoCo Mini Maker Faire, to be held October 5th. Larry asked, "What can we expect from the NoCo Maker Faire? Elizabeth replied, "Oh so many things. We’ve filled over 100,000 sq feet with all kinds of Maker creations. From a statewide youth robotics scrimmage to an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Exhibition, a 29 second film festival to a Nerdy Derby, an atomic clock made out of pinball machines to a sound puddle. Advances in 3D printing, arduino electronics and other technologies have removed the “valley of death” between creativity to production. Kids, artists and innovators can bring their designs to life. Maker Faires bring together all the elements of creativity, design, prototyping and production to make those AHA, I can DO THIS moments that make innovation possible." Listen for more and check out the links...
RELATED LINKS: NoCo Mini Maker Faire || Makers || In the News || Entrepreneurs || KEYWORDS: Elizabeth Weiland, NoCo Mini Maker Faire, Entrepreneurs, Inventors, Rocky Mountain Center for Innovation, Grants Specialist, State of Colorado OEDIT, > bytes=5374856
LISTEN TO: Elizabeth Weiland, Executive Director of Making Progress

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We leverage the organization to support your business growth
1447_ 9/30/13 - Larry's talking with long-time friends Ray Hutchins and Vic Ahmed, president and chairman of TiE Rockies, a chapter of TiE Global. That's one of 64 chapters in 18 countries with over 13,000 members, and its primary mission is to support the entrepreneur, and that's what they do. Ray says they do this through mentoring, networking, education, making introductions for people, helping them find money, helping them to gain access to other organizations in the area and creating job growth right here in Colorado. In the beginning Larry attended the first TiE Rockies meeting, back then they were held monthly, a lot has changed. A very exciting thing for Vic, he recently joined the TiE Board of Trustees, and they are looking at launching some new programs like an education program with Stanford and other universities, a special program around TiE doctors and also looking at a TiE incubator. The organization has grown so large and complex and they are helping so many people accomplish their business objectives and dreams, that it takes the efforts of both Ray as President and Vic as Chairman working together more like co-presidents. They've worked together for some years - both are volunteers and the organization has one paid staff member, their executive director. Vic tells us they have a stellar board with Balan Nair - CTO, Liberty Global; Sureel Choksi is currently Managing Partner of BC Consulting, John Kelley previously CEO, McData which he sold for $1 Billion; Dr. Arlen Meyers is a professor of otolaryngology, dentistry, and engineering at the University of Colorado Denver; Carol Kline served as Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of Teletech; Sam Kumar, founder and Owner of Microtech-Tel... TiE has an interesting two level membership, Charter Members and General Members. The Charter Membership...
RELATED LINKS: TiE Rockies Network || Innovation Pavilion || Denver Web Directory || Blog || Entrepreneurs || KEYWORDS: Vic Ahmed, Ray Hutchins, TiE Rockies, Denver, Innovation Pavilion, Balan Nair, Sureel Choksi, John Kelley, Dr. Arlen Meyers, Carol Kline, Sam Kumar, Entrepreneurs, > bytes=6395510
LISTEN TO: Vic Ahmed, Chairman & Ray Hutchins, President, TiE Rockies

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From ideas to implementation to Apex awards
1441_ 9/23/13 - Designed for creative encounter and collaboration, APEX is the Colorado technology industry’s annual conference to celebrate accomplishment and set the direction for the coming year by gathering the community, recognizing excellence, sparking innovation, introducing disruption and proposing opportunity. In 2012, the Colorado Technology Association paired two of its most important and longest-running events — The Apex Awards and DEMOgala — back-to-back for an exciting two days of celebrating the greatest people, companies and accomplishments of the state’s tech industry and looking ahead to the critical issues facing the industry in the years ahead. This year, they were pleased to launch APEX, the evolution of more than ten years of innovative thinking, engaging speakers, phenomenal energy and industry focus. APEX is more than an awards ceremony, conference and tech challenge. APEX is your opportunity to be a part of the conversations driving innovation and technology in the state. The leaders in 2014 will be the people and companies that show up and participate fully.
RELATED LINKS: APEX Awards || APEX Sessions || Colorado Technology Association || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Apex Awards, Apex sessions, Colorado Technology Association
See Apex Conference Photos HERE

Change of course creates need and need creates opportunity
1437_ 9/16/13 - Larry is here at the ACG Denver's monthly luncheon and is talking with keynote speaker Charles Fred the group president of Xerox Hospital Provider Solutions (Breakaway Group). In this role, he leads the organization that serves their hospital and physician clients through a comprehensive portfolio of solutions that help healthcare providers apply, manage and use technology that simplifies caregiver workloads. They help doctors and nurses learn software faster and safely. Biggest opportunity in healthcare is change. "Change, of course creates need, and creates opportunity. As a nation we are woefully out of step with technology today in healthcare. We're behind, so technology companies should be able to be born almost instantly to address some of those needs. Our population is ageing quite quickly. Ten thousand people a day turn 65 in the U.S. and that will continue for the next 18 years! That population is living a lot longer than we ever expected and so there are long term care needs." Fred joined Xerox in 2011, when the company acquired The Breakaway Group. During his first 18 months with Xerox, his organization’s revenue grew by 300 percent, while at the same time expanding his operating profit margin to more than 30 percent. Before The Breakaway Group, Fred was CEO of Omega Performance, culminating in a successful sale to IIR, Inc., in 1998. The publication of his best-selling book, Breakaway, in 2002 initiated a 'movement' from the thousands that have read it. Today, many leading universities use the text...
RELATED LINKS: Xerox || ACG Denver || M&A Channel || Breakaway at Amazon || KEYWORDS: Charles Fred, Xerox, Hospital Provider Solutions, The Breakaway Group, Healthcare, ACG Denver, Association for Corporate Growth, Breakaway Book > bytes=2807330
LISTEN TO: Charles Fred, President, Breakaway Group, Xerox

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The biggest problem for companies is between the keyboard and the chair
1438_ 9/16/13 - Larry talked with Ray Hutchins, a serial entrepreneur, president of TiE Rockies and has several companies, including Denver Cyber Security, involved in web site development, SEO, and cyber security. Ray Hutchins said, "If you want to be a criminal, be a cyber criminal - because you won't get caught. And the guys running the business are asleep at the wheel, I'm sorry to say. They don't understand cyber security, they don't understand the process of defending their corporate crown jewels. They don't know how to manage their IT people to get the job done - It is a big problem for the country and for the world. So what to do? Coming from Def Con again, The biggest problem for any company is between the keyboard and the chair. It's your people and these people can be tricked very easily to let the 'enemy' into your network. A hacker can easily attack your network with a fishing attack, with a fake email from the CEO, CFO, CIO... it's going to come from one of the leaders in the company and it's going to go to company personnel. When that email comes in the employees are going to open it up to see what their leaders are saying. But, they're not going to be trained to check and see if it is indeed an authentic email. Once they open that email up and click on the link they've been directed to, BING, the hacker is in and started the journey inside your network." This is Part 2 of 2...
RELATED LINKS: Denver Cyber Security || TiE Rockies Network || Denver Web Services || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Cyber Security, Denver SEO, Ray Hutchins, Corporate Espionage, Hackers, Def Con 2013, Web Site, Internet, Def Con, > bytes=4860345
LISTEN TO: Ray Hutchins, Denver Cyber Security Part 2 of 2

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Billions of dollars to help higher education
1444_ 9/30/13 - Larry and Pat were invited to an up-scale event at the Innovation Pavilion by Christopher Pelley, CEO and Private Wealth Advisor of CIMCO Cares. After the eye-opening meeting, they had a chance to interview the keynote speaker, Karan Khemka, Partner, The Parthenon Group, which is a management consultancy - but a big part of their work is in the education sector. Education institutions, whether it's Harvard University or a private school, in the end they function like companies. Larry asked about the U.S. comparison to other countries. Karan tells us, in the U.S. 4% of college/university students are international students, compared to the U.K. which is at 17% and Australia at 28%. This begs the question, why would the U.S. say that this is the correct or acceptable penetration of international students when the U.K. and Australia have maintained very high quality higher education systems with far higher levels of international student penetration. If the U.S. were to double the international student population to 8% that would be an additional 700,000 students, and not all of these would be full fee paying, but let's say half-a-million were full fee paying, and they were coming in at $25-$30,000 a student - that is an incredible amount of revenue - billions of dollars to help balance the books of higher education. To put money into research, funding and scholarships. So there is an incredible opportunity to do good while serving international demand for one of the most desirable products the U.S. has. Your higher education is really the crown jewel amongst the products you can sell to the rest of the world. Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS: the Parthenon Group || Karan || Innovation Pavilion || CIMCO Cares || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Karan Khemka, The Parthenon Group, Roisin Pelley, Transnational Education, Boston, London, Mumbai, San Francisco, Shanghai, Southeast Asia, Middle East, China, India, Australia, UK, Western Europe, Latin America, Christopher Pelley, CIMCO Cares, > bytes=6735310
LISTEN TO: Karan Khemka, Partner, The Parthenon Grp.

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... steps to take and things to know PART 2 of 2
1446_ 9/30/13 - Larry is back with Bill Van Orsdel and discussing ePublishing. Bill and his company WaveCloud, talk to a lot of authors, and if you are thinking of writing a book, it's helpful if you have a sense for ... steps to take and things to know. (Check Out Part 1) Larry has published a few books and the last is available digitally - still we learned there are more changes and a lot to be aware of, to have a successful release. Bill explains, before you actually write the first word on your book, there are a couple of things you should do or know before you get there. The first thing is you need to understand who is your target audience. Who are you writing this book for? Target; you need to understand, is my book for people who play tennis? Is my book for people who play tennis left handed? Is my book for people who play tennis left handed on grass? You've got to understand, before you start writing, who your target audience is. The second thing you have to know is the genre or the subject area that you're going to write? Are you writing a science fiction or a how to? The point is you need to understand where in the bookstore your book should appear when it's taken out of the box and put up on the shelf. The next thing Bill would ask you is, to go to the bookstore and go to that genre, that subject area and look at that shelf. And step three is know your competition. There's much more advice, listen now...
RELATED LINKS: WaveCloud || Innovation Pavilion || Blog || Mastering Change || eBook Formats || KEYWORDS: Bill Van Orsdel, WaveCloud, Authors, Publishing World, eBook, ePub, Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Publishers, Kindel, iPhone/iPad, Android, Sony, Nook. MOBI, > bytes=7889745 Part 2
LISTEN TO: Bill Van Orsdel, CMO, WaveCloud

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Publishing World Turned Upside-down
1440_ 9/23/13 - Larry had a discussion with Bill Van Orsdel, Co-Founder & CMO of WaveCloud, tells us that they started WaveCloud with the idea that now there are only two parties left that are important in the publishing world. They are the people that write the books, the content generators and the people that read the books, the consumers. All the other people in the value chain [editors to publishers, book buyers, marketing and PR people] all of those people, they still have a role to play but maybe not in as organized way as they used to. There's been a big separation between authors and readers. That separation is this idea in the past, if you wanted to publish your own book, you had to find an agent that would take a chance on you. You had to find a publisher willing to risk their money to bring your book to market and then that publisher had to help you finish your book - produce it into a saleable product and then they had to convince book buyers at book stores to buy your book who would then stock your book for maybe 90 days. That's the old way. The new way, to write your book, get it formatted, get it into an electronic format in an electronic bookstore like Amazon or Barnes & Nobel and your book has much longer than 90 days to prove itself on the shelf. It can sit there virtually forever. So in this turmoil, it's completely turning the publishing world upside down and...
RELATED LINKS: WaveCloud || Innovation Pavilion || Blog || Mastering Change || eBook Formats || KEYWORDS: Bill Van Orsdel, WaveCloud, Authors, Publishing World, eBook, ePub, Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Publishers, Kindel, iPhone/iPad, Android, Sony, Nook. MOBI, bytes=4860345
LISTEN TO: Bill Van Orsdel, Co-Founder & CMO, WaveCloud

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The Cloud, the future, education.... wil.i.am
1442_ 9/23/13 - PART 2 OF 2 ...with Keynote Speaker, Jack Dangermond, president and founder of ESRI . The CDOT was their customer No. 9 - Colorado was always an early leader here in the state for government, but also for business, and utilities. Telephone companies would buy our tools and then develop 'computational geography' as Jack calls it, to help them make maps of their assets and then guide them in their business, and this saves a huge amount of money. Jack said, "What's occurring now is this is going to the Cloud and in that mode is allowing our users in public sector to share with other users, their maps. So they're building shared services and using each others' information - doing integration of these maps, like overlaying but they're digital and they're analytical. So I can do quantitative analysis to bring information together from the private sector and the public sector and make better decisions. This web GIS Cloud is really transformational." Larry asked Jack what he saw as the biggest opportunities and challenges coming in the next few years.  Jack said, "That's the recurring question. I think we as a society need to invest in education of the kids, K thru 12." Jack told us about his friend, will-i-am, a wonderful, successful musician who is investing into East LA, the high school where he grew up, building STEM Education Centers in the schools and Jack has been helping him with that. Building the future workforce so instead of investing in basketball courts or football stadiums in high schools, but not really allowing kids to have an opportunity - a few make it into the NBA or the National Football. He has the vision of building geek centers where they could actually learn programming because kids in the inner city and the suburbs, they want to have a future, and to have a future they have to have skills. That's one answer to the daunting question of the haves and have-not's.  It's also an answer to the 'we don't have enough technical people, we have to go to India or China or outsource stuff'. Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS: ESRI || CTA || Software Channel || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Jack Dangermond, Esri, The Cloud, Software, Maps, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Geographic Information System, GIS, Colorado Department of Transportation, bytes=6178589
LISTEN TO: Jack Dangermond, President, Esri

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The world's sixth largest privately held software company
1436_ 9/16/13 - Larry Nelson is here at the CTA APEX Conference, where he caught up with Keynote Speaker, Jack Dangermond, president and founder of ESRI (originally Environmental Systems Research Institute) a startup back in the '60s. Jack had acquainted himself with a few ways to do selling, so he sold what he was doing which was making computer maps for people. His business really started out as a service for hire - computerizing maps, overlaying maps, analyzing the information and helping to determine where to buy property, or place a retail store, or what areas ought to go into conservation zones, or support land use planning, and people loved that idea. So over those years Jack grew his company from basically nothing up to about 100 people. Well, people not only loved the idea, they wanted to do it themselves so they asked Jack to sell them his software. So he did, it was open source software at the time. "But," Jack says, "it wasn't very good, frankly." They went on to develop the first Geographic Information System, GIS. It morphed over the decades and today Esri has about 350,000 customers, all over the world, that use this to make their maps or manage their geographic information. These are not consumer maps but enterprise focused where people and companies use the graphic information to make decisions in their company. ...Listen for more details...This is Part 1 of 2.
RELATED LINKS: ESRI || CTA || Software Channel || w3w3 Blog || KEYWORDS: Jack Dangermond, Esri, Software, Maps, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Geographic Information System, GIS, Enterprise Focused > bytes=3933312
LISTEN TO: Jack Dangermond, President, Esri

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Colorado disaster… Rainfall records swamped
1439_ 9/16/13 - Thank you to all those volunteers, rescuers, the police, fire departments, National Guard, and thousands of other volunteers.
...continuing heavy rains expected through Tuesday 9/17! Many cities, counties and towns are still in initial rescue mode and have not specifically asked for help. While volunteer efforts are appreciated, at this point we would like to direct everyone to donate cash to the United Way, Red Cross and Salvation Army.
     Four days of rainfall across Colorado’s Front Range produced massive flooding that’s marooned thousands of people, inundated many key roads, and damaged countless homes and businesses. The immense amount of water that fell arrived at upper levels via a plume of deep moisture that surged northward from the tropics. At lower levels, the pattern drove moist air from the Great Plains toward the foothills, where it was forced up slope. Together, these features blanketed the Front Range with the soggiest air mass ever recorded at Denver in September. Between Thursday 9/12 and Friday 9/13, a total of 9.08” was measured at the official Boulder site. From 6 PM Monday 9/9 through 6 PM Friday 9/13, the grand total was a whopping 21+” in SE Boulder. At the time of this writing, the atmosphere produced near-constant rain in large amounts for three-plus days across most of the semiarid High Plains and adjoining foothills of the Front Range.      Boulder has the greatest potential for flash flooding of any community in Colorado. If you live, work or play in Boulder, you are at risk. The flood that swept down Boulder Creek was a 1-in-100 year event, The terms "10 year", "50 year", "100 year" and "500 year" floods are used to describe the estimated probability of a flood, meaning this storm was a proverbial 100-year flood.
      Before reaching the City of Boulder, the flash floods claimed highways and homes and towns all through the canyons including Jamestown, Estes Park, Lyons, Loveland, and so many others. Marching on it carried the destruction downstream through Longmont, Loveland, Erie,Evans and Weld county. Simultaneously Commerce City and Aurora were slammed - Castle Rock and Colorado Springs - in fact from the state's southern border straight up to the northern border and beyond. Future forecasts... continuing heavy rains through Tuesday 9/17! Many cities, counties and towns are still in initial rescue mode and have not specifically asked for help. While volunteer efforts are appreciated, at this point we would like to direct everyone to donate cash to the United Way, Red Cross and Salvation Army. The National Guard is amazing and rescued at least 1,200 people on Saturday. More rain is expected, flood danger continues. Be sure to sign up for Emergency Alerts, more information and links below... RELATED LINKS: Emergency Alerts || More Flood Information – City of Boulder || United Way 'Foothills Flood Relief Fund' || Red Cross/Colorado Flood || The City of Longmont is seeking volunteers for various efforts. Call 303-651-8595 to add your name to the list. Volunteers will be contacted as needed.

Mastering Change in the Midst of Chaos™1307_ 11/12/12 -

Here’s what you’ll learn in this 200 page book!
     - Apply the Principles of A-to-Z Planning to
        Build a Winning Team
     - Tap into Your Team’s Mental DNA to
        Increase Performance
     - Understand Your Sector’s
        History, Trends & Ground Swell

Regardless of the economy, application of these 3 initiatives will help you achieve your goals, meet your bottom-line metrics and accomplish incredible results. These 3 initiatives are Powerful, Proven and People-Oriented. Larry predicts there will be more significant changes in 2013 than in the last 10 years combined…across all sectors. Read More at Mastering Change .

Order now… It’s yours for $10.00 and we’ll pay the shipping in the US… (last chance - free shipping)