Life of the Entrepreneur: Controlling Your Destiny - an NCWIT Hero
421_ 9/06/11 [12/10/2007] Nancy Phillips, NCWIT Hero, offers a few keys for being a successful entrepreneur: Maintain a good sense of humor; Overcome the nay-sayers; and Practice real-world economics. Nancy is the Co-Founder, Director, COO of ViaWest and shared her story and poignant points about building and growing a business even in the toughest of times to Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson. Nancy loves technology and people and has a long history with the Telecom industry. She enjoys the challenges of being an entrepreneur for many reasons including her passion to control her destiny. Nancy says her husband claims, "Because I'm a control freak." Phillips has also been a principal, executive and consultant for numerous successful telecommunications companies including France Telecom, MCI and Qwest. Over 15 years ago, she began her career with Teleconferencing Systems Canada as Vice President of Sales and it was in this role that she met Roy Dimoff - the two have been loyal business partners ever since. Nancy shares some excellent advice for managers, leaders and entrepreneurs. Related Links: ViaWest Home || ViaWest Joins NCWIT's Workforce Alliances || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Nancy Phillips, ViaWest, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes > 12/10/07 Bytes: 48124972
LISTEN to Nancy Phillips, ViaWest

Powered by Podbean.com

Data Centers Consume 2% of the World’s Total Energy Supply
596_ 9/06/11 [12/8/08]- "If data centers don’t or have not yet adopted a ‘green strategy’ they’ll be left behind by customers are demanding it, left behind in the market place simply because of profit and loss expectations. Adopting an energy efficiency strategy helps drive bottom line performance. So ViaWest benefits both ways, socially our impact is that we are watching out for the well being of the environment through these strategies that we will adopt," emphasizes Don Poulter. In 2007, Don joined Viawest, Inc. as its first Vice-President, Service Delivery. In this role, Poulter has oversight for all data center operations, service provisioning, purchasing, project and product management. Don shared with Larry a number of 'how to's' for employing a green strategy. As an example, "Cold aisle management… air is where we think there are opportunities for improvement. Every piece of new equipment we buy must have a variable frequency drive. That allows us to operate the unit at less than 100% output. Depending on needs that unit can wind up or wind down based on requirements. Lastly we are launching our ‘server virtualization’ which allows us to reduce the number of servers in our data center by putting more applications on to a server and running them at a greater output." Don also talks about the Green Grid which is a consortium of companies dedicated to advancing energy efficiency – ViaWest is a member of that consortium. Listen, there's more...
Related Links: ViaWest || Green Solutions || Conscious Economy Channel || CORE || Keywords: Don Poulter, ViaWest, Data Centers, Green Strategy, Cold Aisle Management, Green Grid, Energy Supply Bytes: 11020228 > LISTEN

Powered by Podbean.com

Nothing less than a pioneer in the mobile space
1070_ 8/29/11 - The average US household currently watches 8.4 hours of television daily. 59% of Americans use TV & Internet simultaneously. 80% of under -25's use a second screen to communicate with friends while watching TV. TV Tune-In is a social platform for the 2nd screen TV audience. Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network joins Lucy Sanders, CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and they are working hard to make sure that more girls and young women are introduced to the exciting potential of computing education and career paths. Part of what NCWIT is doing is this exciting interview series with women who have started IT companies. They are fabulous entrepreneurs. They all have interesting stories to tell. Lucy says Stephanie Boyle is nothing less than a pioneer in the mobile space, having first shaped the area as a founding member of Ericsson's digital media innovation center - big brain thinking going on in this center, and really helped to shape the whole mobile area. Now she is the founder of Rogue Paper where she and her team deliver integrated mobile experiences to users. Stephanie Boyle is a Founder at Rogue Paper, Inc. Rogue Paper provides television and media properties increased engagement opportunities with their viewers via mobile applications, such as category leading co-viewing applications VH1 Co-Star and MTV WatchWith. Stephanie has been in the mobile industry her entire career working at the intersection between mobile, entertainment, user experience, design and media since the birth of the mobile Internet in the US (early 2000). She was a founding member of Ericsson's digital media innovation center, Ericsson Mobility World (née Ericsson Cyberlab) a joint venture between the NYC Investment Fund & Ericsson that ultimately had 30 centers covering 140 countries driving mobile services using content and applications in both mature and emerging markets. Keep up to date and listen for more...
Related Links: Rogue Paper || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Stephanie Boyle, Rogue Paper, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, television, Media Properties, Mobile Applications, VH1 Co-Star, MTV WatchWith, TV 2.0 for Mobile, Internet, IPTV, Ericsson 8/29/11 Bytes: 21225537
LISTEN to Stephanie Boyle, Founder, Rogue Paperx

Powered by Podbean.com

Talent Pipeline: Awards for Aspirations in Computing
1072_ 8/29/11 - Being the father of four daughters, Larry has a high interest in the National Center for Women in Information Technology. Ruthe Farmer, is the Director of Strategic Initiatives with NCWIT, which is a coalition of well over 250 organizations (corporations, K-12 organizations, universities) working together to increase women's participation in computing and IT. The program that Ruthe is talking about, NCWIT's 'talent pipeline program' called the Awards for Aspirations in Computing. "Which is an effort to find and recognize high school girls that are active in computing technology right now and have the greatest potential to go on and major in that field in college. Ruthe said they started the award program in 2007 with twelve girls. In 2008 they went national and today the national event serves 35 national winners and those come from the top one percent of all applicants. They get about 3000 applications from approximately 35 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. In 2011 NCWIT recognized 355 girls, and in the 2011-12 round they expect to recognize between 500 to 700 girls. Ruthe's long term goal is to have a thousand girls per year recognized in approximately 70 affiliates that would cover all 50 U.S. states, and then a pool of 10,000 girls." Larry asked, "Who are these young women, how do we recognize them, what would we be looking for?" Ruthe said, "They could be your daughter, niece, granddaughter, your neighbor's kid, your babysitter - it could be any girl... What we're looking for is any girl with aspirations and interest in computing. We're not looking for the rock star, top of her class, valedictorian.. We are looking for that little bit of interest and how we can foster it from here." At the national level, the prize is $500 cash, a laptop and a trip for two [the girl and a parent] to the Bank of America 'Technology Stars of the Future Gala' which is comparable to the Oscars. The NCWIT Academic Alliance is committed to 100 schools offering scholarships by this next year. The opportunities really are there, this is a beginning point for these girls. A quick note to teachers. We want all of your girls, not just your top students. Often with the word competition, teachers think I'll send someone who has a shot at winning. Really everyone has a shot because we're looking for aspirations. So ask all of them to apply." Pass this interview along to others you know would be interested...
Related Links: Aspirations Award || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Ruthe Farmer, NCWIT, Aspirations in Computing Award, High School Girls, Bank of America, Technology Channel, National Center for Women & Information Technology 8/29/11 Bytes: 7869652
LISTEN to Ruthe Farmer, NCWIT, Director of Strategic Initiatives

Powered by Podbean.com

White House, Selling Spectrum, Feld and Weiser
1066_ 8/22/11 - Well, we're here at the Law School, and I want you to know there's no problem, nothing criminal going on here, it's strictly an interview with Phil Weiser, Dean of the University of Colorado Law School and the Founder and Executive Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center. You have a very interesting program coming up on September 7th, "Reflections On Serving in the White House, Brad Feld and Phil Weiser, one-on-one". Serving in the White House is very hard for the average person to imagine. Phil said he couldn't imagine it either, "...my image of White House was people, kind of like chickens with their heads cut off. That was my image and I was surprised. The quality of people I worked with, the ability to help influence public policy, it was an experience of a lifetime!" Brad Feld will be interviewing Phil after his presentation. There were a lot of issues Phil worked on ranging from patent reform to wireless, to broadband to upgrading the smart grid. "It was like drinking from a fire hose experience." Earlier in the day when Larry spoke with Brad Feld, who is in Italy at the moment, Brad said he was looking forward to this program. Larry expects some curve balls - Phil said they could be high, hard ones, knuckle balls, but it promises to be entertaining, exciting and filled with great information. Of all the issues Phil dealt with in Washington, the one that stands out is Broadband Spectrum. About three years ago Phil wrote a paper talking about the amount of spectrum we had that the broadcast TV folks were holding onto. We as a country have the challenge of how do we transition to wireless broadband. We need to get more spectrum for that purpose, and we need to frame laws that would allow that. So Phil worked on an idea called the "Incentive Auction" allowing a TV Broadcast company to sell spectrum. That proposal is now being seriously talked about in the super committee and debt limit negotiations because spectrum is one of the few things that you could raise money for the treasury and you help the economy. Most things that have been talked about, cutting spending or raising taxes are not going to be good for the economy. Listen for more exciting ideas...
Related Links: About Silicon Flatirons || Silicon Flatirons Events || Feld-Weiser One-on-One || Silicon Flatirons Conferences || Communications Technology Professionals || CTP Channel || Keywords: Silicon Flatirons, Phil Weiser, Entrepreneurs, Technology, Law, University of Colorado, Dean CU Law School, Brad Feld, White House, Incentive Auction, TV Broadcast Company, Sell Spectrum 8/22/11 Bytes: 392101
LISTEN to Phil Weiser, Founder, Silicon Flatirons Center; Dean Law School at CU

Powered by Podbean.com

Get your copy of Larry Nelson's popular book...

Change Is Not an Event,
It Is an Ongoing Process
as it is with Chaos

Check out the Mastering Change Blog
Get your Copy at Amazon

Supercharge Your Business!
Seminars / Keynotes

w3w3.com can help you...
Support the Community - Grow Your Business and
Increase Your Profits! CHECK OUT this link

Success and sustainability through good and bad times
1073_ 9/06/11 - The path to success isn't always flash, bang, big cash and lots of noise. In the long run it is knowing your customer, getting close, staying close, and understanding your customers needs. That's what Roy Dimoff attributes ViaWest’s ‘good luck' to. It was 1999, when we met Roy Dimoff and Nancy Philips as they started Via West here in Denver. "Back in the day", money was practically being thrown at companies. Here in Denver we had a number of very large startups going back to '99, a little pre '99. Local competitors had the advantage with 100's of millions in investments.... ViaWest took a different path, kind of low key. If you were watching from a distance. But up close it was action packed, prudent and practical. Back then ViaWest had one office which still exists. Today they have 22 data centers in five states and six major markets. Roy has a habit of checking in with his HR department and they keep adding employees, which is a good thing, especially in today's market, and they're well over 300 people now in those five states. "For all the things that happened and that we've seen in the 12 years that ViaWest has been around... And, certainly living through two recessions is one of them. Knock on wood, Larry.... Things are going extremely well. We are part of a great industry. It's nice to be in this position today. To be able to reflect back at those difficult times, knowing that you survived and succeeded in some fashion." Roy said. In fact ViaWest is in a leadership position today. Looking back we remember favorite words guiding their strategic path, prudence and pragmatism. Larry asked about challenges facing business today. Roy said, "You know, I think similar to the stock market, there are a lot of ups and downs and you have to be prepared to alter your business plan if there's dramatic changes in the economy. We really reflect on our capital investment and our cash conservation and really want to reflect on all the touch points there. And, do we want to be a little less aggressive if we see a double dip recession. I think companies should definitely, definitely understand their debt position, their cash position, their growth... and really understand their expense level extremely well - knowing where they can alter if they have to." ViaWest supports the community, sponsors many non-profits and has won many awards...listen for more great advice...
Related Links: ViaWest || Green Solutions || Profile of a Leader || KidsTek || Podcasting Directory || Keywords: Roy Dimoff, ViaWest, Data Centers, Leaders, Team, Management, Green Grid, Computers, Telecom, Canada, Software 9/6/11 bytes=14158265
LISTEN to Roy Dimoff, President/CEO, ViaWest

Powered by Podbean.com

Business Agility with the Cloud: Do you need an IT department/CIO?
741 9/06/11 [11/16/09]- Defrag 2009 - what an education - it was the place to be. We corralled Matthew Taylor, Vice President of Managed Services and IT & IS Operations, ViaWest, covering seven states and 16 data centers. Matt was a keynote speaker at the Defrag 2009 Conference. Matt said, "I have a long title because we wear a lot of hats at ViaWest, there's a real value to that for organizations." Topic Matt delivered: Business Agility with the Cloud. We wanted to know, what is the cloud? Matthew replied, "Well, there isn't a definition for 'the cloud' and depending on who you're talking to they have a different definition of the cloud. What we have to take this back to is, the user, customer or CIO, whoever you are, what is it you're trying to get out of a solution overall? So to a business person how do you get agility out of a cloud? You get agility out of a cloud ... and for some this is a painful answer... through your CIO. There are people out there, the press, organizations that have said, 'now the cloud is out there and you don't need your IT department/CIO' -- That's absolutely not the case. The customer needs to make sure they have flexibility to be able to scale up or scale down; pay for what they have to pay for but not overpay. At the same time they need to make sure they have a high level of security. So when you combine all these things, you start to say, I really need to understand each portion of my company from an application standpoint. What do I need to do with it and make sure I'm managing the data and the way those applications work together. What is your best approach and to me that is a CIO and why today, the CIO is more important than ever." Listen for some additional suggestions. Larry asked about SAAS (software as a Service) "...in the last couple of years, I'd heard that was the cloud." Matt agrees it was one of the first offerings from the cloud, there are load testing applications etc., watch the smoke and mirrors - do your homework. He also provides...
Related Links: ViaWest || Defrag || Economy Builders || Blog || Keywords: Matthew Taylor, ViaWest, Defrag, Business Agility, Cloud, CIO, Hosting, IT Department, SaaS, Change bytes=12195439 - 11/16/09 LISTEN To: Matthew Taylor, ViaWest

Powered by Podbean.com

Feld and Mendelson - How venture capital deals work
1069_ 8/29/11 - When Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson sat down to write their book the goal was to aim it at every entrepreneur, to really help them understand how venture capital deals work. Brad Feld in Tuscany, Italy talks with Larry Nelson via Skype to tell us about his newest book, "Venture Deals...Be smarter than your lawyer and venture capitalist". The inspiration for the book came from the Term Sheet Series that Jason and Brad wrote about five-six years ago. This is a particularly valuable book for entrepreneurs looking for money... You'll get an insider's view of the venture deal process, the different players involved on the deal side including how venture firms are setup. And, they talk about how an entrepreneur should think about the fund raising process. The term sheet is a very complicated document and there are a lot of things that people negotiate. But there are essentially only two things that matter which are economics and control. Here they've spent a lot of time helping the reader understand which terms related to economics and which terms were related to control and how and what that meant. It's meant to be a guide not a text book with material that can be very dry and boring. They've made fun of lawyers, venture capitalists and themselves along the way, but there goal was to write something significant and enduring. Comments from readers include..."For a first time entrepreneur, it's a completely enlightening book." Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO wrote a very nice forward to the book where he talks about how useful it would have been to have this book at the beginning of his career, and throughout his career, to look back and reflect on all the deals he's been involved in. Brad tells us how his blog, Ask the VC works with this book. Number one piece of advice for a new entrepreneur from Brad is, "Pick something that you're incredibly passionate about. The thing you want to create, the business you want to start should be something that you're in love with. It's going to be hard. You're going to have lots of ups and downs, there will be lots of things that don't work. If the thing you're working on 18-20 hours a day isn't something you're incredibly passionate about, what's the point?" Second is surround yourself with mentors." ...don't miss the rest of Brad's advice, listen now!
Related Links: Venture Deals - Amazon || Ask the VC || Feld Thoughts || Mendel'sMusings || Foundry Group || Feld-Weiser One-on-One || VC Channel || Keywords: Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Venture Deals, Venture Capitalist, Foundry Group, Entrepreneur, Mentors, Dick Costolo, Twitter, Tuscany, Italy, Foundry Group’s Series A Documents - 8/29/11 Bytes: 13588587
LISTEN to Brad Feld, Author, Venture Deals

Powered by Podbean.com

The key is that there is a very strong return on investment
1071_ 8/29/11 - They offer what they call managed video as a service which is a capability that they sell to retailers primarily, that allows them to manage their business more effectively. Envysion is an up and coming company in a new space of Software as a Service companies [SaaS]. Larry sat down with Robert Hagens, CTO, Envysion to discuss their new and growing technologies. Robert pointed out, "As an example, one of Envysion's biggest customers and most long-standing customers is Chipotle Restaurants. They use the Envysion service to improve their operations. That means anything from, what we would call 'loss prevention', which is where they are able to discover situations where employees may be taking advantage of the companies resources, and are able to define that and stop that. They also use our system for many other functions like marketing - market research demographics as well as other operational improvements to their restaurants. The key to Envysion is that there is a very strong return on investment. Customers are able to save money for their companies, that shows on the bottom-line. They're able to increase their revenue and profits by using our system." Larry asked, "As a CTO, with this new kind of idea, are there challenges along the way?" He replied, "The challenge has been trying to bring all the things we've learned in the telecom world to the video world. I learned a lot about service provider companies and offering services from my experience at Level 3 Communications and prior to that MCI. What I bring to Envysion and my team brings is that service provider point of view. That is we're focused not only on selling our service but keeping it up and running for customers." "Do you see anything on the horizon?" Robert replied, "Well yes, there are lots of things coming. Certainly one exciting thing is all the new customers we're signing up. That's on the horizon and getting very close. The other is utilizing mobile technology, figuring out the best way to use an iPhone, iPad or a droid device to be able to offer the same kind of capabilities that we offer today through a web browser. Video analytics is a process where using a program or capability, the system can automatically detect things. There's more...
Related Links: Envysion Home || Zayo || Software Channel || Podcasting Directory || Keywords: Robert Hagens, CTO, Envysion, Chipotle Restaurants, Zayo, Software as a Service, SaaS, Level 3 Communications, MCI, iPhone, iPad, Droid Device, Envysion Market Place, Insight Marketplace 8/29/11 Bytes: 5293351
LISTEN to Robert Hagens, CTO, Envysion

Powered by Podbean.com

$4 million in royalties and 11 startups
1065_ 8/22/11 - We're here to check on the temperature at the CU Tech Transfer Office with Dave Allen, Associate Vice President of Technology Transfer at the University of Colorado. We check in with Dave every year to get a sense of what their fiscal year was like. This year? "We had a solid year!" said Dave, "For us the emphasis is inventions and faculty - we had 250 inventions and that's good." About 60% of these are [bio medical] related and then the other 30% being spread out across energy and chemical materials, software outfits, electronics, those kinds of things. In the bio most of what we get are in the therapeutics really. So we have a lot of good technology to work with. We see about a thousand inventions a year and our job is to figure out what in those are patentable, feasible and commercially viable and last year we filed almost the same number of patent applications as the year before. The core of our realm is exclusive licenses - those are assets that people can build on and develop. We had 37 last year and that's comparable to other years. It's not a big secret here, the technology economy has been in the doldrums for a couple of years. And we're glad that we can put 37 technologies exclusively in the hands of companies - and the vast majority of those are Colorado companies. Another thing people are interested in are startups - we've had eleven and that tracks, last year we had nine. The other thing to raise is our royalty income - last year we had $4 million in royalties. So it's been a solid year. We are looking forward to better. And one of the things we are doing that's different, and I think a lot of people will be interested in this. I don't believe there's anyone else in the country doing this. We're starting a program called the Technologies Transfer Office Fellows program. It's a trial this year. If it works we're going to scale it up. We'll extend our reach beyond by multiplying the numbers of bright, motivated people who want to add importance to their career. It is a bold plan with great promise! There's much more....
Related Links: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || CU TTO Awards || Award Photos || Keywords: CU Tech Transfer Office with David Allen, University of Colorado, Inventions, Energy, Chemical Materials, Software Outfits, Electronics, Bio Medical, Fellows Program, 8/22/11 - bytes=11280199
LISTEN to David Allen, Associate Vice President, Technology Transfer Office at CU

Achieving Your Personal and Professional Goals
933_ 11/29/10- Don't Let Another Year Go By - The Ultimate Win is Yours - Larry Nelson has taught this material in seminars in over a dozen countries, from China to Canada, from Norway to Australia, from Germany to Japan as well as throughout the USA. He shares the results of his international research about the Characteristics of an Achiever and then goes on to help you lay out your "personalized blueprint" to personal and professional success. Larry is an internationally published author, has been a consultant to many Fortune 1000 companies and is best known for his train-the-trainer programs. ...listen now a complete step-by-step program including a downloadable manual and resource guide...this is an in-depth strategic planning and goal setting system for achievers...Read More about how to Supercharge Your Business... The links below are valuable and extremely helpful to setting your course for the next year! And they're free. Related Links: Ultimate Win Resources || Training Trends || 3-Filters Technology™ || Podcasting Directory || Your Goal || Keywords: Ultimate Win, Your Goal, Training Trends, 3-Filters TechnologyTM, Setting Goals, Larry Nelson; 11/29/10 Chnl: Entrepreneurs