Solving problems often require a multiple disciplinary approach
1158_ 2/6/12 - Larry is up at the University of Colorado, in the Wolf Law building, to meet with long time favorites Phil Weiser (Dean of the Law School) and the enigmatic Dale Hatfield. We're talking about some acknowledgement coming up for Mr. Hatfield. It's all about the spirit of giving. That philosophy is what Phil Weiser associates with Dale Hatfield. And, one he feels he has learned a lot about from Dale who is, as Phil tells us, incredibly generous. Being such a humble man, it took cunning and skill to bring Dale here to share with us what motivates him and how he operates. To begin with Dale says, "It makes me feel good... when you're helping people - especially when there are challenges and people are dealing with difficult policy issues." The second thing Phil associates with Dale, after his spirit of generosity and giving is inter disciplinary analysis. Earlier Larry jokingly referred to Dale as a lawyer, and Phil points out, Dale knows more about telecom than the lawyers he work with... "Your career as an engineer and telecom technologist have added a lot to the world of telecommunication policy and business. When did you get this appreciation for inter disciplinary problem solving and what would you share with people about why that matters so much." (If you know Dr. Weiser, you recognize how he pulls information to help teach the rest of us, from the wise and experienced souls he regularly brings to his students and community, people like Dale Hatfield.) Dale said, "I began to learn fairly early in life that solving problems often required a multiple disciplinary approach. Decisions are just better when you have people from different backgrounds contributing to it. Especially in today's world where so many issues are not just technical but they have privacy implications, all these other things, economic implications for our economy..." Phil pointed out, "We are now receiving a very generous gift from Dale - the Hatfield Professorship, to someone who will teach, in the spirit that you embody of public service. This is going to be another legacy of what Dale has helped us build here at the University of Colorado. We also have a Hatfield Scholars and Research program that helps students do stints in public service as an intern. That is a program that Dale has shaped and just underscores his spirit of generosity. In the process of making this very generous gift Dale has alluded to what his next gift is going to be in supporting international education and engagement." There's more...
Related Links: About Silicon Flatirons || Dale Hatfield Profile || Phil Weiser Profile || Communication Technology Channel || Digital Broadband Migration conference || Mini-roast while Passing the Baton || In the News Channel || Keywords: Dale Hatfield, Phillip Weiser, Silicon Flatirons, Executive Director, Interdisciplinary, Law School, Internet's Ecosystem, Passing the Baton, Multiple Disciplinary Approach - bytes=7460888
LISTEN TO: Phil Weiser & Dale Hatfield, Silicon Flatirons Center, Law School, University of Colorado

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Women and Leadership: How the Soft Stuff Can Lead to Hard Results
1160/RR_ 2/6/12 - ACG Denver 2012 Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference is right around the corner - March 13 and 14th. Keynote Speaker - Carly Fiorina.
Her unparalleled record of hard work and success includes more than two decades at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where she led the largest-of-its-time IPO of Lucent and became President of its largest business. In 1998, she was first named as Fortune magazine's most powerful female American executive and continued to top this list throughout her tenure at HP. Carly has led profound change and transition within her companies, and she will share her insights on how she was able to lead organizations that could capitalize on opportunities and always stay adaptable.
      This conference offers an opportunity to learn from some of our cultures great leaders. It certainly is exciting so at w3w3.com, we looked to past ACG Conferences and decided to share our experience of 2008 with the conference and speaker Colleen Abdoulah. Titled BUILD, BUY or SELL... The ACG Corporate Growth Conference exhibited a culture of innovation from the start... I loved the registration process; In a private room, spacey, organized, friendly and efficient! From there we ran the gauntlet of booths and industry leaders to a fine sit-down breakfast and the first morning keynote Colleen Abdoulah - WOW - blew our socks off! Energetic - enthusiastic - fun and funny, she approached her presentation with zeal and enthusiasm. Colleen asked, “What is leadership? It is bringing out the best in ourselves and others. Don’t tolerate bad behaviors from anyone, male or female.” The day continued with excellent panels, sparking creative, innovative, enthusiasm and a desire to get back into the action – glad the conference was interactive. Tidbit: How to determine the value of your business to others: Colleen says, 1) Consistent Improvement of Cash Flows; 2) Your Growth Story; 3) Capable Management Team; and 4) Solid performance history.
Related Links: 2012 Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference || WOW Home Page || ACG Denver || M&A ACG Channel || Keywords: ACG Rocky Mountain Capital Growth Conference, Carly Fiorina, WOW, Colleen Abdoulah - bytes=25719016
LISTEN to Colleen Abdoulah, CEO/Chairman, WOW

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It is time to change the 100 year old power grid
1154_ 1/30/12 - Larry had a chance to interview Peter Gregory, Founder and CTO, Green Energy Corp which is a winner of the 50 Colorado Companies to Watch 2011 series. Larry said, "I understand Green Energy Corp addresses the many challenges that face the electric utilities and power grid today. What are some of those challenges?" Peter replied, "Basically – It’s OLD and it needs to be NEW. The power grid was designed over 100 years ago by Thomas Edison and it hasn’t changed much since. Its built around big central power plants and big transmission systems. That has served us very well over the years, but is not adequate for today’s needs and certainly not for the needs of the future. We have to support renewable technologies - like wind and solar, we have to deal with electric vehicles and an abundance of distributed small scale power generation systems as opposed to large central power plants - and in addition to all that we have to support greater customer control of their own energy usage that’s made possible by smart meters. The biggest challenge here is not the installation of all this new hardware – solar panels are going up, wind mills are going up, meters are being deployed by the millions, electric vehicles are being built - and so forth. The real challenge is the software infrastructure that’s needed to support that hardware – it doesn’t exist today and it’s a limiting factor in building the grid of the future. Its being worked on – its called the Smart Grid – and Green Energy Corp is a leading player in the implementation of the Smart Grid." What does his company do to address those challenges? "We address the challenges of the Smart Grid with our product … It’s called the GreenBus. It’s a software system that provides a foundation for the Smart Grid. In common vernacular – we’re creating a plug-n-play environment for the grid where the Green Bus is the grid operating system … and new and old systems that need to connect to the grid can plug in and ride on the Green Bus. This is very different than how it works today. Today it’s a quagmire... Peter's mantra, "Do Well and Do Good." There's much more...
Related Links: Green Energy Corp || Colorado Companies to Watch || Colorado Companies to Watch Channel || PodCast Directory || Gala Event || Keywords: Peter Gregory, Green Energy Corp, GreenBus, Lowe Foundation, Colorado Companies to Watch, Gala Event, COCTW, Second Stage Companies, Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade - bytes=7460470
Listen To: Peter J. Gregory, Founder and CTO, Green Energy Corp

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Deciding they want to try their entrepreneurial feet
1156_ 1/30/12 - We're at the 10th Annual University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office Awards program at the historic Tivoli Turnhalle. This is truly a gathering of the greatest scientific minds who are creating and influencing the future. The venue is packed but early on we ran into an old friend, Jerry Donahue. When we first met Jerry back in the early days, he was running the Boulder Incubator - right through the days of Esprit Entrepreneur. Jerry tells us he's continued to do things, "It's addictive... Of late, strictly through faculty at CU, could be any campus. "Some of them over time, decide they want to try their entrepreneurial feet. Working with partners that often include guys like Dave Allen, Merc Mercure, Jerry tells us, the most fun he's having today is working with some of these little companies that they help start up. These folks have come to be really good business people as well as award winning faculty. Jerry and people like him often go on their boards, help them with the management aspect, sometime finding money, often just being a sounding board. "A delightful trip", said Jerry.
Related Links: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || CU TTO Awards || Award Photos || CTEK Board Member of Distinction || Keywords: Jerry Donahue, CU TTO, Colorado Technology Transfer Office, Awards, Entrepreneurs, David Allen, Merc Mercure - bytes=4054102
Listen To: Jerry Donahue, Valued Business Advisor

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Making sure the ecosystem is growing
1157_ 2/6/12 - For the many years that Larry Nelson aka, w3w3.com has been talking and working together, Jim Franklin says the ecosystem for Boulder/Denver has been awesome for startups, and continues to be. It's from that ecosystem that companies like SendGrid come from. And, they are very involved in that ecosystem and making sure that it's growing. There are a number of great things happening, in particular with the Founder Institute, which Jim has been a part of for the past three years. They'll be hosting another class this spring starting March 19th, applications are open for that. Also, TechStars is now a 24/7 operation, TechStars Cloud in San Antonio, and Boulder TechStar for a Day coming up in the first week of March, and we'll have other events as well. If you're interested in TechStars Boulder, there are a lot of ways to get involved with a mentor. SendGrid came out of the '09 Class of Boulder TechStars. There are tremendous happenings with the Silicon Flatirons group out of the CU Law School. SFC puts on a variety of events that help entrepreneurs and they're also supporting the Startup America / Startup Colorado Initiative that SendGrid and others are working on to host interns over the summer. We'll have a drawing for interns. They will have meaningful experiences shadowing executives and founders in leading tech companies like Simple Energy and Tendril and Team Staff here in the Front Range, like TechStars, with events in the evenings. It will be an awesome experience for them and we hope to host a couple of those interns here at SendGrid. Silicon Flatirons also puts on the Entrepreneurs Series [Jim is the featured entrepreneur on March 5th]...there's much more, listen now...
Related Links: SendGrid || TechStars || Foundry Group || Startup Colorado || Boulder Beta || Founder Institute || 500 Startups || Highway 12 Ventures || SoftTech VC || Angel Capital Summit || Venture Capital in the Rockies || Open Angel Forum Boulder || SF Entrepreneurs Unplugged || Entrepreneurs Channel || Keywords: Jim Franklin, SendGrid, Founder Institute, TechStars, Startups, Colorado, Startup Colorado, Foundry Group, TechStars, Boulder Beta, Founder Institute, Open Angel Forum Boulder, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, Boulder Beta, Venture Capital in the Rockies, Ecosystem, Boulder, Denver - bytes=5520303
LISTEN TO: Jim Franklin, SendGrid

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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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Tech transfer and the Black Box
1153_ 1/30/12 - To some, tech transfer seems like a “black box” – investigators conduct research and report inventions, a percentage of the inventions are protected through the patent process, some of the protected assets are licensed, some products are developed, some are sold commercially and sometimes the University receives royalties and other economic consideration. During this session we looked into the black box to see how policies, procedures and practices at CU and the Technology Transfer office (TTO) addresses the throughput of inventions to royalties, and how various internal and external groups play a role in making this happen. Participants were better informed about technology transfer and made able to devise ways to engage in and/or advise on the process. Dr. David Allen has led the University of Colorado's technology transfer enterprise to a position of global leadership and pioneered many of the best practices academic technology transfer and technology-based economic development organizations used in proof-of-concept investing and incubation of university spinouts. In this short video excerpt David talks about the distinctiveness of the CU facility…
Related Links: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || CU TTO Awards || Award Photos || Tech Transfer at CU|| Keywords: David Allen, University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, Rick Silva, Kate Tallman, Tom Smerdon, CU TTO, Black Box, Royalties, Proof-of-Concept
Watch Video Excerpt from the CU TTO Black Box

Does it have commercial viability and commercial applications?
1155_ 1/30/12 - It's interesting to see how the different departments at CU work together. Larry interviewed Paul Jerde who has been with the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship for 15+ years, and he says he was pretty naive. "I had come to have some strong ideas about the positioning of the value of entrepreneurship education in the university setting. What I found was people lit up at the mention, something exciting about an entrepreneur, I guess. But the tendency is to very narrowly define it. To some people it means just small business. To some it means bleeding edge technology and to some it means insane risk taking. To others, it's only about startups. So, at the core of our philosophy is the belief and the positioning of the way that our faculty work, and we work with faculty and students. The value of entrepreneurship education, at the core, has fundamental value for the students in almost any particular discipline." Paul is often challenged... can you teach someone to be an entrepreneur? Can you teach someone entrepreneurship? Paul says no to the first. I don't believe, nor should you try to teach someone to be an entrepreneur. Other things cause that to come about. But you can absolutely teach the skills. And at the core of entrepreneurship education is teaching our students to answer the question when someone says, 'I have an idea, what do I do with it?' Here's what you do - 'That's an interesting idea. Does it have commercial viability? Does it have commercial applications?' Well, most people in the world don't really know. And that's what we want our students to have. They know what feasibility, analysis and market assessment is all about. They know about doing due diligence, how to go through a really rigorous and in-depth process in determining whether an idea can translatable into a commercial opportunity. The business planning part of this has to do with the integrating of different disciplines...finance, marketing, operations, strategy management, and so forth - bringing those all together. More broadly in our cross campus entrepreneurship program it's getting teams of students to work together to appreciate the ideas may come from the creative departments or from the engineers who can actually build something, or from the scientists who can actually discover something - but often times they don't know what to do with their new invention or new discovery. We try to make these 'productive collisions' of teams of students and in general find people of different expertise's come together around the idea of how do you allow an idea to flourish. There's much more...
Related Links: Deming Center for Entrepreneurship || CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || CU TTO Awards || CU TTO Award Photos || Keywords: Paul Jerde, Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, Leeds School of Business, Robert H. & Beverly A. Deming, Entrepreneurs, Teams, Productive Collisions - bytes=6117567
Listen To: Paul Jerde, Exec. Dir., Deming Center

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Achieving Your Personal and Professional Goals
933_ 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