Cloud-based contact management system
1466_ 11/18/13 - We're at DefragCon 2013, catching up with Bart Lorang, CEO and Co-founder of FullContact a Colorado company, which is a cloud-based contact management system. If you can imagine your address book in the cloud, updated instantly and automatically. Really, FullContact works to bring all of your contacts, from all of your services together, into one place, merges and de-duplicates them, keeps them all up to date and accessible on any service and any device. In short, they're making an address book that just works for you. Bart says they're rolling out their web address book, in production - only opened the beta to about 10,000 users so far - and will be rolling it out publicly to 100's of thousands of people on the waiting list. In addition they have Apps for the iPhone, iPad and Mac and a really intriguing business contra-inscription - 100% accuracy; email signature extraction which is extracting the contents of people's email signatures and updating your address book automatically. Bart said, "We have a lot of cool things rolling out and ultimately ...." Listen for more
RELATED LINKS: FullContact || Foundry Group || Defrag || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Bart Lorang, FullContact, Cloud-Based, Contact Management, Apps, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Defrag, Foundry Group, Colorado Company, Entrepreneurs, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, bytes=7539882
LISTEN TO: Bart Lorang, CEO/CoFounder, FullContact

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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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Specializing in Unified Communications and speech recognition technology
1429_ 9/3/13 - Larry got some exciting information from Gold Systems CEO Terry Gold. Gold Systems, a Microsoft Corp. Gold Certified Partner specializing in Unified Communications and speech recognition technology, has delivered its Vonetix 7 Voice platform to Microsoft IT. Vonetix 7 Voice will serve as the new platform for Microsoft to develop many of its voice self-service applications, which serve Microsoft customers calling for support on a wide array of Microsoft products and services. Vonetix 7 Voice makes it easy for customers to contact Microsoft, and provides the same great experience customers expect from Microsoft products. By deploying Vonetix 7 Voice as the UC application and IVR platform for these applications, Microsoft now takes advantage of faster application deployment lifecycle on a voice self-service platform running on its Microsoft Lync product line. Terry said, “We have been working for Microsoft IT, the company’s internal information technology organization, for many years creating software that makes it easier for Microsoft customers, partners and employees to get support by calling 1-800-Microsoft and other support numbers. We are thrilled to now be delivering the Vonetix 7 Voice platform alongside the existing Unified Communications applications.” Listen and check their link for more info...
RELATED LINKS: Gold Systems || Vonetix 7 Voice || Gold Systems Blog || Terry Gold Blog || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Terry Gold, Gold Systems, Vonetix 7 Voice Platform, Microsoft, Unified Communications, Speech Recognition Technology, Gold Certified Partner, UC Application, IVR Platform, bytes=5374853
LISTEN TO: Terry Gold, CEO/Founder, Gold Systems

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Provision and integrate services within specific environments
1415_ 8/5/13 - Larry interviewed Gary Gaessler, VP Sales & Marketing of Cloud Elements about their new developer tool and an exciting announcement. Gary said, "We can scale up applications in 1/4th of the time and at a 1/4th of the cost. So we're really a picks and shovels play for companies that are building applications into the cloud." Cloud Elements also has a consulting services component of the business and do quite a large amount of consulting for companies. With Cloud Elements, developers and enterprises leverage reusable ‘Elements’ to build cloud applications faster by dramatically reducing the time required to integrate, monitor and maintain leading PaaS and SaaS cloud services. Cloud Elements works with vendors including Twilio, SendGrid, Box, Authorize.net and salesforce.com to accelerate the integration, management and monitoring of popular services used in building cloud applications. Cloud Elements is a tool built by developers for developers and is based on the highly scalable Cloud Foundry PaaS platform. The company provides a unique blend of technology with cloud application integration consultants available to assist companies in accelerating the build and deployment of their applications. Customers focus on building unique business functionality while Cloud Elements integrates and maintains the third-party services needed to build applications in a fraction of the time. Listen for more detail...
RELATED LINKS: Cloud Elements || 1 Million Cups || Innovation Pavilion || Galvanize || TiE Rockies || Software Channel || KEYWORDS: Gary Gaessler, Cloud Elements, Developers, Enterprises, PaaS, SaaS, Cloud Foundry PaaS, Twilio, SendGrid, Box, Authorize.net, salesforce.com > bytes=6779614
LISTEN TO: Gary Gaessler, VP Sales & Marketing, Cloud Elements

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Products, training and support for Apps
1403_ 7/1/13 - Back at the Glue Conference with 500 people in attendance, the booths and companies represented are fabulous. We're talking with Matt Pardee, Chief Evangelist for StrongLoop. Started five months ago, born out of the desire to have a commercial vendor to back Node.js, which is a burgeoning language that's growing in popularity - its javaScript on the server. Up until now there wasn't a company that commercially backed it for companies that were going into production with Node.js. Matt said, "We love Node.js, guys in our company helped build Node.js and so we thought let's put this together, let's provide some support avenues for companies that are going into production and let's ask them what they need and then build products round that - so that's what we do." StrongLoop creates products, training and support for Node.js, a relatively young coding language, about four years old. A lot of the companies that have adopted it have been more of the avant-garde companies that were willing to make the investment and had the developers to do that. Now you see traditional ecommerce companies and companies like GM and CBS Interactive, etc . starting to look at Node.js as a solution to the problem of connecting a lot of people to their servers at once to either power their games or mobile devices. It's really the language that's becoming backend to a lot of the new experiences that are happening in the 2000 apps. When we're talking about what the benefits are for companies moving into this mobile era, this is a really natural fit for companies that have this experience with java script on the client side...there's more...
RELATED LINKS: StrongLoop || Glue 2012 || Defrag || Software Channel || w3w3 Blog || KEYWORDS: Matt Pardee, StrongLoop, Node.js, JavaScript, Glue conference, Developers, Apps, bytes=3974690
LISTEN TO: Matt Pardee, Chief Evangelist, StrongLoop

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High tech conference and raising money
1388_ 6/3/13 - It's been a year since we spoke with Seth Levine, managing director, Foundry Group, it was here at the Glue Con. This year the conference is bigger and better than ever. Seth said, "This year is the largest, we have about 500 attendees this year. I really feel that Glue as a conference is growing into its own. One thing I've noticed there are more large companies here this year - HP is here, Disney a whole bunch of different companies have sent folks here to understand what's going on. You know the history of Glue, which started as a developer conference for a lot of startup developers. The first couple of years that was the group that came together, and that was great and still the foundation of Glue. It's really nice to see some of these larger companies looking to Glue as the place to go to see what new and interesting companies are innovating on. And of course, a number of what were startup companies a few years ago have turned into really big businesses. I just sat through the New Relic presentation - that's a great example. They've been here for a couple of years and that's a large, large company. We've had a few companies acquired that were involved early on in Glue and are now part of large organizations and it's really nice to see. At its core Glue is a technical conference and Defrag, which is another conference that we help run is more of the kind of C-Level conversation. But Lew Cirne is a great example, from New Relic, a CEO that still codes. The event attracts CEOs that have a slight technical bent that want to surround themselves with developers and ops people and technical folks. Larry asked, "What else is the Foundry Group focusing its attention on?" Seth replied, "We continue to invest across a handful of themes, long term technology trends that we believe drive innovation over 10+ years. We've been very active. We see more business ideas now than I think we've ever seen, we stopped counting, it got to be too many. We'll probably see 5000 business plans this year, probably spend time with maybe 10% of those. At least a little bit of time with maybe 500 of those companies and our investment pace has continued to be seven to maybe ten on the high end, investments a year. We raised our third fund, all of our funds are the same size, $225 Million each. And we started investing that fund here in 2013. We do..." Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Glue 2012 || Defrag Conference 2013 || Defrag || Foundry Group || Software Channel || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Seth Levine, Gluecon, Foundry Group, Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Ryan McIntyre, Marketplace, Defrag, Business Plans, > bytes=6599056
LISTEN TO: Seth Levine, Managing Director, Foundry Group

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Companies are starting to do more dynamic pricing
1390_ 6/3/13 - At the Glue conference, Larry corralled Thomas Grassl, the Director of Developer Relations at SAP Global Marketing, Inc. - he is looking after all of their developer outreach programs and Glue was the perfect conference for Thomas because there are tons of developers here. SAP, as most people know, is big enterprise and process software for the enterprise, and has over 200,000 customers. They're keeping an eye on new technologies and how they can help their customers to enhance the business processes, putting these new technologies into the customer's hands. SAP is globally focused, in fact Thomas said, "I don't know which country SAP isn't in, and we really do work from the small business up to the giant companies out there. This can be a developer from the system integrator to an individual who does their own consulting practice or a mobile developer who starts their own business around developing mobile apps for the enterprise business space. So, basically we are looking at all types of developers and helping them to get kick-started on these things and also helping them to learn about the enterprise and what to build for the enterprise. It's a little bit different than if you are building mobile apps for example, in the consumer space. Larry asks, "With all the different changes we've been through, what are the biggest challenges for businesses today?" Thomas said, "Businesses definitely need to be very agile. It's no longer like you've figured out a product, and you know how to produce it and sell it. There are always new challenges coming up. It's like new economies are coming up and they're eating into your market. So these companies are constantly looking at what new technologies, the latest technologies will help them improve their business processes. A good example is we have this new memory data base, it's called SAP HANA and it allows..." There's more...
RELATED LINKS: SAP Global Marketing, Inc. || Glue 2012 || Defrag Conference 2013 || Defrag || Software Channel || Economy Builders || KEYWORDS: Thomas Grassl, SAP, Eric Norlin, Gluecon, Defrag, Cloud Computing, Mobile Development, SAP HANN, Enterprise, Globally Focused Brad Feld, Seth Levine, Jason Mendelson, Ryan McIntyre > bytes=4670174
LISTEN TO: Thomas Grassl, SAP Global Marketing

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Terry Gold, CoFounder of Gold Systems
Microsoft goes live on the Gold System...
1344_ 2/4/13 - His first day at work was July 4th, 1991, speaking of Independence day. Terry Gold, CoFounder of Gold Systems said, "It was the first time I worked on a holiday too, so welcome to the life of the entrepreneur." Gold Systems helps big companies communicate better with their customers, partners and employees. They are a software company. Originally, they built their software on other people's platforms, like AT&T and Avaya and such, even Microsoft - they're a big Microsoft partner now. Most recently they've built their own platform and Terry was happy to tell us that yesterday, Microsoft went live on their platform, that's a big win for Gold Systems. Larry asked how that evolved and Terry told us, about seven years ago, Microsoft called Terry and said, we're going into the communications business. They told Terry what they were going to do and Terry decided, "we've got to be a part of this." So they were a services partner building software on the Microsoft speech recognition platform. A few years ago Microsoft decided to fold that into an even bigger thing that could replace phone systems, replace PBXs... - it's called Microsoft Link, But they weren't going forward with the speech recognition part of it as a stand alone platform. Gold Systems decided to build their own and just launched it late last year. We've got a handful of customers, a couple of the biggest banks in the world, a big aerospace company and then yesterday, [Ta dah!] Microsoft went live with it, so we're excited. Gold Systems got started before the web, with everything Terry's seen and been a part of, Larry wanted to know what he sees coming down the road. "Wow. Everything is changing for people. We're all mobile.. Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Gold Systems || Microsoft Vonetix 7 Voice || Feld Thoughts || Podcast Directory || Terry Gold Blog || KEYWORDS: Terry Gold, Gold Systems, Vonetix 7 Voice, Microsoft, Brad Feld, PBXs, Microsoft Link, Mobile, bytes=5993851
LISTEN TO: Terry Gold, CoFounder & CEO, Gold Systems

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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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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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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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Jason Mendelson, VC Investments, Glue and Community
1221_ 6/11/12 - Sometimes, a person can really surprise you. We're talking with the very serious, local business mogul, JD, part-time professor, volunteer, and very busy telephone personality, Jason Mendelson, founder of the Foundry Group here in Boulder, Colorado. You will have to listen to this interview to understand that opening and it will be worth your time. We're at the Glue conference and Jason said, "You know it's just such a great conference. It's all these companies that the average person is never going to know exists - but if they didn't exist their entire Internet world would fall apart. It's just amazing looking at all these things; they're making other people's lives easier. In fact, most of these companies are making developer's lives easier. There are companies like Cloudabilty, for instance. Today you've got a developer with a dozen spread sheets just trying to manage their web architecture across the cloud. So one service does it all. You can see everything, how much your paying, what the loads are, and from one dashboard, see everything that's going on in your company. Or other companies, one of our new investments, a company called SendGrid, a very gluey company in our world. Jason puts a lot of time into volunteering with CU and other organizations; we asked what he was looking at today. "Well from a volunteer standpoint he is still very much into the Silicon Flatirons and what they're doing at the University of Colorado. Our buddies Phil Weiser, Brad Bernthal and Paul Ohm who has now taken a temporary position with the FTC - 'privacy god', these guys are just unbelievable. It's not just what they're doing for the students, but what they're doing for the community. Jason and his partner Brad Feld are coming out with a second edition of their book, Venture Deals which will be geared toward students. Starting even earlier in the process to help students have a view into what entrepreneurism and venture capital looks like. Then on the other hand, TechStars, that is one of the hubs of our community here and rapidly spreading across the nation. Spending time with these young, awesome entrepreneurs and really trying to help them accelerate their business. Don't miss Jason Mendelson and partner Ryan McIntyre at the Fox Theatre, August 25th, for their Album Release Party
Related Links: Foundry Group || Mendelson's Musings || TechStars || Glue 2012 || Defrag and Blur || Photos GlueCon 2012 || Software Channel || || Keywords: Jason Mendelson, Foundry Group, Venture Capital, GlueCon, Brad Feld, Ryan McIntyre, Cloudabilty, SendGrid, Picasso, Photobucket, Facebook, Cloud, bytes=4498393
LISTEN TO: Jason Mendelson, Managing Director, Foundry Group

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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...

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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Exciting work underway for TBI, Alzheimer's...
1481_ 12/16/13 - We last interviewed Rick Fort, at TiE Rockies following a presentation by John Kelley about CereScan, that was about a year ago. CereScan is a brain imaging company that uses advanced technologies to provide evaluative information for a variety of different neurological disorders and neuro-psychiatric disorders. For example when CereScan does a scan of a person's brain; the scan will show things like evidence of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other kinds of dementia. The scan will show evidence of traumatic brain injuries and toxic brain injuries. On the neuro-psychiatric side they can see evidence of ADHD and ADD, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, a variety of different disorders that people experience, and when you think about it, all of these disorders begin in the brain, and that is what CereScan does. Larry asked Rick who is now the President and COO of CereScan about who might use this technology and Rick told us, elderly people having memory problems or feel like they're not solving problems as well as they used to may want to come in to see if there is anything going on. CereScan is in the middle of launching a study to work with veterans who have been exposed to numerous concussive events. The study will look at a specific treatment for TBI, [Traumatic Brain Injury]. The symptoms of TBI are varied. We are also looking at a study of Alzheimer's patients. CereScan will do a pre-treatment scan and then a post treatment scan. What our scans are measuring are organic changes in the brain, following treatment. Essentially... listen for more.
RELATED LINKS: CereScan || Communication Technologies || TiE Rockies || Innovation Pavilion || Software || KEYWORDS: Rick Fort, CereScan, Tug McGraw Foundation, Traumatic Brain Injury, TBI, ADHD, ADD, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Veterans > bytes=3652025
LISTEN TO: Rick Fort, President and COO, CereScan

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The key is making your application more functional
1476_ 12/9/13 - Recently we spoke to Mark Geene, CEO and co-founder of Cloud-Elements. He said, "We are very excited about the big opportunity, integrating cloud services together, allowing companies to focus on building their core unique functionalities - something they were excited about building vs. all the plumbing and connecting cloud services together. We are an API [Application Programming Interfaces] management services company. API's are used to stitch application interfaces together and essentially Cloud-Elements provide a unique way of integrating lots of cloud services into our client's applications. So if they need to connect to document services they could write to one API and connect to all those leading document services. Same thing for CRM, customer service, payment services, etc., and do that at a fraction of the cost and time that it would take to custom develop." Their primary customers are startups and S&B services although they do have some larger enterprises working with them, (Dropbox, ViaWest, Photobucket...) but the main target is...
RELATED LINKS: Cloud-Elements || Galvanize || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Mark Geene, Cloud-Elements, API, Application Programming Interfaces, Startups, S&B services, Dropbox, ViaWest, Photobucket, Galvanize, Entrepreneurs, > bytes=4908411
LISTEN TO: Mark Geene, CEO / CoFounder, Cloud-Elements

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Colorado company growing rapidly and spreading globally
1467_ 11/25/13 - It has been a busy time, but we are back at DefragCon 2013 with Tim Falls, director of developer relations at SendGrid, a Colorado company growing rapidly and spreading globally, that enables companies to more effectively communicate with their customers via email. They do that by providing tools for both developers and marketers to send emails to their customers. So they have both a technical and non technical audience - providing tools to both. And they do this on a very large scale, closing in on 200 billion emails sent - just in this past October they sent 10 billion emails. Interestingly, the majority of their customers are startups - anywhere from one or two developers building out a prototype of an application to companies of 5 or 10 all the way up to big companies with thousands of employees, and they work with companies across all sectors, tech web companies are probably the biggest, but they have political campaigns, universities, non-profits. Tim came to Boulder five years ago - he knew he wanted to get involved with entrepreneurship - startups, and TechStars was his introduction to that. He worked as an intern there and met SendGrid ...listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: SendGrid || Defrag || Techstars || Communication Technologies || Software || Podcast Directory || KEYWORDS: Tim Falls, SendGrid, Email, Marketing, Techstars, Defrag, Pinterest, Tumbler, Spot 5, Foursquare, , bytes=6151421
LISTEN TO: Tim Falls, Dir., Developer Relations, SendGrid

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Search Engine Optimization continues to morph
1453_ 10/14/2013 - Ray Hutchins, founder of Denver Web Services, goes onto say, "Now days, everyone is trying to get themselves ranked higher - everybody! It used to be just a small number of businesses but now, it's just crazy. Your choices are to get yourself ranked high in the search engines for certain key words in the organic or free search results - or you can play Google's game and buy ads which they are putting on the same page, in positions more prominent than the organic free results. So your options are you can pay money for Search Engine Optimization or you can pay money for pay-for-click ads. The advantage to pay-for-click ads [if you can figure that campaign out] is the results are instantaneous. You can put your ads up today and , conceivably get results today. Although it's pretty complicated and a lot of people don't want to take on the mental challenge, but it's doable. With Search Engine Optimization, it takes time to get ranked. Depending on the keywords and depending on the market you're after it takes, two months best case, to six months to get ranked up there. Search engine optimization is a cross between a science and an art. Ray finds it fascinating as a practitioner and he tries to transmit to his clients, how the web works when you're trying to manipulate the results." Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS: Denver Web Services || Denver Cyber Security || TiE Rockies Network || Innovation Pavilion || Blog KEYWORDS: Ray Hutchins, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Web Development company, Denver Web Services, TiE Rockies, Denver, Innovation Pavilion, Entrepreneurs, bytes=5722595
LISTEN TO: Ray Hutchins, Denver Web Services

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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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The acquisition price was nearly $125 million
1419_ 8/12/13 - A decade ago, John Giacomoni was working as a professional research assistant in the Software Engineering Research Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder when the group took on a problem they couldn’t afford to solve. The affordable solution he envisioned as a CU-Boulder research assistant became a reality with the help of former CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Manish Vachharajani. Convincing others would turn out to be the real problem. "Funding agencies and investors, except for a handful of Boulder angels, universally said, ‘No way; no how. You guys are crazy,’" Giacomoni remembered. The work finally began to pay off in late 2009, when LineRate got its first angel investor, a Boulder local, whose interest attracted other angel investors. Ultimately, they raised $575,000 in angel financing for the company, allowing Giacomoni and Vachharajani to hire seasoned networking developer Mark Terrel, create a production-ready product, and recruit experienced startup leader Steve Georgis to serve as chief executive officer, which in turn, attracted a second round of funding totaling $4.75 million. The pair went on to co-found a company based on the technology, LineRate Systems, which they sold earlier this year to F5 Networks. The acquisition price — nearly $125 million according to filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission — was the largest exit of a networking infrastructure company in the Boulder area in years. "John and Manish were incredibly persistent in going after their vision," CU-Boulder’s Tallman said. "They met with dozens of...Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: LineRate Systems || F5 Networks || CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || CU TTO || Software Channel || KEYWORDS: John Giacomoni, Manish Vachharajani, LineRate Systems, F5 Networks, Software, Alexander L. Wolf, Research Funding, Angel Investors, CU Technology Transfer, CUTTO, bytes=13770817
LISTEN TO: John Giacomoni & Manish Vachharajani

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Building better products and faster software with higher quality
1405_ 7/8/13 - For the past six weeks we've introduced you to some of the interesting folks we met at GlueCon 2013. Here now, meet Navin Thadani, SVP of products for Ravello Systems, an organization based in Palo Alto, California and Israel. This is their first time at Glue and it's been very good for them because they've been able to get the full, broad exposure to a variety of developers working on really interesting projects and technologies. From Ravello's perspective, that's really good because they try to provide the very best kind of development and test lab infrastructure possible. The idea being, developers replicate their applications into the Ravello system where they can create as many problems as they want for rapid development, prototyping and testing. Ravello is a company that is at the intersection of two fields of technology one being virtualization and the other cloud computing. They've built a set of infrastructure that allows them to enable enterprise developers to take their applications exactly as they are, and run that in any cloud - replicate their entire environment, make as many copies as they want and rapidly develop their features and test. Essentially it's about building better products, better software faster and with higher quality.
RELATED LINKS: Ravello Systems || Glue 2013 || Defrag Conference 2013 || Software Channel || w3w3 Blog || KEYWORDS: Ravello Systems, GlueCon, Navin Thadani, cloud, APIs, Software, Developers, Applications, > bytes=4626706
LISTEN TO: Navin Thadani, SVP, Products, Ravello Systems

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Working with developers all over the world
1401_ 6/24/13 - We're talking with Ian Spinelli, marketing coordinator for Canopy, an innovative technology company based out of Minneapolis. We spoke with Ian last year at the Glue conference, and Ian tells us that Canopy's latest flagship product is called Sensus. This is a really exciting product, it is an app enhancing, touch sensitive case that allows you to interact with the back and sides of your phone on applications that integrate Canopy's SDK without having to obscure your view of the screen. Ian said, "It's interesting. There isn't anything in the market quite as disruptive as our product in the mobile phone accessory products. You see a lot of things that are handheld and separate, but not a lot of things that take the benefits of the case that's already going to go into your pocket - and combining it with enhanced technologies." Larry notes that Canopy seems to continually come out with a string of new ideas, products and applications... "Is there anything they were focusing on in the future." Ian tells us, "We're focusing on Sensus and branching out not only on building the hardware and getting that out to market, but also on building the software for it too! Making sure all that infrastructure is built. And then working with third party developers to make sure that the adoption is there and consumers are going to love what they can do with the product. Canopy works with developers all over the world, they're signed up with the SDK and excited about Sensus. If this sounds interesting to you, you can go to Developer.GetSensus.com there is a free private signup for our portal and you can request an SDK as well as our developer kit."
RELATED LINKS: Canopy || Glue 2012 || Defrag || Software Channel || w3w3 Blog || KEYWORDS: Ian Spinelli, Canopy, Sensus, App, Glue Conference, Touch Sensitive, SDK, Hardware, Software, Infrastructure, Developers, bytes=2590409
LISTEN TO: LISTEN TO: Ian Spinelli, Marketing coordinator, Canopy

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The most popular database in the world
1399_ 6/17/13 - Larry is talking with Cary Breese, CEO of GenieDB at the Glue conference. GenieDB makes My SQL [which is the most popular database in the world] ready for the cloud. Cary tells us they do that by making MySQL a fully geographically distributed database that is also self-healing. One of the challenges that people face when they go into the cloud and use applications in the cloud, is that cloud infrastructure is very distributed. It's not localized regionally and in addition the cloud has on occasion, had some outages and failures. So companies are concerned about moving applications into the cloud because of the concern that their application may one time, go down and be off-line. What GenieDB does, is to allow the MySQL database to replicate so there are copies of the database spread out through other geographies, other data centers - even other cloud service providers - all around the world. So, if there ever is a failure of a server, network connection, data center, or even a call service provider, you application can remain up and online serving its users without interruption. Beyond that, after the failure, GenieDB re synchronizes the database automatically, without any intervention or configuration. Completely hands-free. This makes the migration to the cloud much, much easier for the enterprise. Cary does business all over the world, Larry asked him, from his vantage, what is the greatest challenge facing companies today. Cary said, "I think enterprises always face the challenge of reducing costs, reducing overhead, and that continues to this day. And especially in difficult economic times. Productivity, efficiencies are always paramount. I think that is a big driver for why companies are looking to cloud computing."...Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: GenieDB || Glue 2012 || Glue Conference Photos Defrag Conference 2013 || Defrag || Software Channel || w3w3 Blog || KEYWORDS: Cary Breese, GenieDB, SQL, MySQL, Glue conference, The Cloud, Cloud computing, Accelerate Businesses, bytes=4233407
LISTEN TO: Cary Breese, CEO, GenieDB

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Working in the Cloud, Mobil and Big Data spaces, and APIs
1386_ 5/28/13 - Larry and Pat were interviewing Eric Norlin, Founder of the Glue Conference. Eric gave an overview. "Glue is an event focused on developers that are working in the Cloud, Mobil and Big Data spaces, and that often includes APIs, so if there's one overarching technical theme, it's the API. But you'll find a lot of mobile developers here, a lot of cloud and big data folks here as well. From an attendees side, we set out to make Glue the most technically deep conference, we think in the country. There are other conferences that are pretty technical, but our goal has always been to go as deep as possible. So for instance Wednesday, Adrian Cockcroft, who is the chief cloud architect for all of Netflix did a four hour and 15 min. workshop on their architecture. I talked to him last night and he said, 'The funny thing is I ran over by 15 minutes but I only got through 40 of 89 slides.' I think next year we're going to have him do an eight hour workshop. There's no limit to how deep we want to go, and I think the people that come here are very technically adept and hungry for that type of interaction." They discussed a number of other aspects. Larry asked about the upcoming Defrag Conference (11/4-6/13). "We're running Defrag here at the Omni Interlocken from November 4th to the 6th. It'll be three days long which is a little bit different for us. We're wrapping in a whole bunch of new content this year. We already have Chris Anderson who is the ex-executive editor of Wired Magazine, and is now running a drone startup company. He's coming to talk drone technology. Paul Kedrosky (of Bloomberg, Kauffman Foundation and SKV) who is with us every year will be back. We have a guy named David Soloff, CEO of Premise Data Corporation, which is working in creating real time macro economic data on a global scale. So, you know, Defrag is always, kind of out of left field, off the wall, high-end kind of topics. You know, we'll talk everything from 3-D Printers to drones to enterprise software and clouds to the quantified self in the next year.
RELATED LINKS: Photos Gluecon 2013 || Glue 2012 || Defrag Conference 2013 || Defrag || Software Channel || w3w3 Blog || KEYWORDS: Eric Norlin, Gluecon, Defrag, Cloud Computing, Mobile Development, Big Data, APIs, CIO, CTO, Techno Babble, Renaissance Enterprise Developer, Drone Technology, Foundry Group, Brad Feld, Seth Levine, Jason Mendelson, Ryan McIntyre > bytes=5096074
LISTEN TO: Eric Norlin, Founder, Gleucon

Powered by Podbean.com Employees are being called upon to become caregivers
1379_ 4/22/13 - One of the biggest challenges for companies today is that employees are increasingly being called upon to become caregivers for elderly and/or ill relatives. Almost 66 million Americans, or one in every four, is a caregiver and it is estimated that over 16 million people in the U.S. who serve as primary caregivers are also employed full time. The cost to their employers in terms of absenteeism, lost productivity and turnover is estimated at over $30 billion annually. We are speaking with Debby Henkens, director of business development for IngeniumCare, a health IT company that develops advanced technology solutions to help individuals with health concerns living at home or in facilities to be as safe and independent as possible. Many Americans with health issues, whether they are elderly, have a chronic illness, disability, or other condition, need help staying connected to their family and caregivers. The impact on businesses is likely to increase as several population and health trends converge. Every day, approximately 10,000 Baby Boomers are turning 65, with a total cohort of 75 million people. The incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease increases with age and as many as 50% of individuals over age 85 may develop the disease. People are living longer with more chronic illnesses and due to the healthcare funding crisis, there is more pressure to provide healthcare services in the home. All of this adds up to more employees being actively involved with care giving, which can be physically and emotionally exhausting. Long-distance care giving, a situation many adult children find themselves in, can be extremely stressful and take a great deal of time away from work. One of the biggest opportunities for companies today is to support their employees who are care givers so that they maintain their productivity, energy, and creativity. Companies that do this will build employee loyalty, reduce healthcare costs if they are self-insured, and attract talented new employees who appreciate these benefits...there is more great advice...
RELATED LINKS: Ingeniumcare Info || TiE Rockies || Innovation Pavilion || Software Channel || KEYWORDS: Debby Henkens, IngeniumCare, Health IT Company, CareGivers, CareGo Connected Care, TiE Rockies, Innovation Pavilion, Software bytes=7022866
LISTEN TO: Debby Henkens, IngeniumCare

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Jim Franklin, it's a great idea to use free web services
1363_ 3/11/13 - Larry sat down with Jim Franklin, CEO, SendGrid at their new office in Denver to get an update. SendGrid is a cloud based email service. So they move email from an application to an application's user. The best way to describe it is by example. Pinterest is one of our best customers. When you pin somebody on Pinterest and it gets repined, the application sends you an email letting you know that your content has been repined. With that application generated email we send to the users of that application. We do that for clients like Pinterest; Foursquare; Carbonmade; Spotify; GetSatisfaction that amounts to over 135,000 customers around the world. "Almost all of our business starts with brand new startups." To people starting something, using lean startup principles, it's a great idea to use free web services to help you start faster and cheaper. SendGrid is just one of those services that many startups choose to use. Jim went onto say, "Biggest challenges facing businesses today is hiring people. As we in the technology community recognize there is virtually zero unemployment in technology, especially for people who are coders and are building things. It's just a very, very hot sector. We have offices in Boulder, Denver, Anaheim, we're just opening in San Francisco. We're looking actually on the west coast, Vancouver, Seattle, San Diego, trying to have a development team in the same time zone if not in the same city. We have people in Romania and Ireland and other places. It's challenging to manage across time zones. But, clearly the number one issue is recruiting people especially technical people. The opportunities are many and vast. With SendGrid the big opportunities we see are around cloud computing. We think it's early days for cloud computing. It's a very large strong trend that in the U.S. has very good momentum. Thanks to companies like Sales Force and Net Suite, they've really pioneered the way to show people they can put enterprise applications in the cloud and have it be trustworthy. Amazon has also paved the way for startups to use web services to very cheaply and quickly ..."
Jim offers some great business advice ...Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: SendGrid || TechStars || Software Channel || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Jim Franklin, SendGrid, Software, TechStars, eMail, Pinterest; Foursquare; Carbonmade; Spotify; GetSatisfaction, Entrepreneurship, Brad Feld, bytes=6031885
LISTEN TO: Jim Franklin, CEO, SendGrid

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Venture capitalists looking into the newest
1340_ 1/21/13 - The line between the digital and physical worlds has blurred. We are talking with two of the young men who watch that line, understand and encourage development and bet their futures on what it all means. We're here at the Defrag / blur 2012 Conferences talking with Seth Levine and Ryan McIntyre from Foundry Group. The two conferences are really loaded with some high powered stuff everything from devices that enable [non-invasive] brain-computer interaction to 3D printers and gaming with helicopters that are controlled wirelessly and nearly intuitively, by wrist action. We're looking for an overview and we think Ryan and Seth can help us with that in terms of what the Foundry Group is looking at today. Ryan tells us they have a handful of investment themes they like to explore in the investing process. Here at Defrag and blur Foundry Group has had a number of their portfolio companies represented within those themes. Defrag came out of conversations around how technology was evolving in the enterprise and the inter-connection of computers, glue applications, protocol applications - these are some of the themes we talked about. And blur really came out of our interest in the evolution of human-computer interaction. So the notion that the ways we interact with computers and computer systems is undergoing a massive, seismic shift right now. So your keyboard and mouse, windows gooey - is behind us. You know, we have new touch screen interaction with our pads and our tablets, just the way we interact with and even what we recognize with computers is undergoing this seismic shift and changes. The exhibits and companies that are here really represent that. That's why we're here and deeply interested in what's going on in the world of human-computer interaction. Seth explained that last year's blur [2011] was exactly that. Ryan said, "That's the evolution of the core idea, that it's expanded the footprint. It’s the notion of how we interact with the computer in the real world. It really allows us to take the digital world and push it out into the physical world. That is a fascinating development that really expands the kind of things we can talk about in computer interaction and digital life and blur..." ...listen for more ...
RELATED LINKS: Foundry Group || Defrag 1 Site, 2 Shows 3 Days || Defrag/blur Info || Blur Conference Photos || Defrag Conference Photos || KEYWORDS: Ryan McIntyre, Seth Levine, Foundry Group, Venture Capitalist, DefragCon 2012, blur, Software, Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces, Glue Applications, Protocol Applications > bytes=3783265
LISTEN TO: Seth Levine & Ryan McIntyre, Foundry Group

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Learning how to build healthier brain habits
1334_ 1/7/13 - We've enlisted Kirsten Nelson to help us cover the blur conference with so much cutting edge technology and business to check out here. We're talking with Ariel Garten, CEO and cofounder of InteraXon, specializing in non-invasive brain-computer interfaces - thought controlled computing products and applications... It's just what it sounds like, it is the ability to interact with content directly with your mind. The 'Muse' is a sensor that sits on your forehead and uses your brain waves and then lets you play games with your brain, interact with lighting systems, control music, or allow you to see inside your own mind, and see your own brain activity. You can use that information to improve your cognitive fitness, improve your emotional regulation and see what your brain is doing at different times of the day. Kirsten asked Ariel if there were specific groups that could benefit from this kind of technology. Ariel said, "...everyone can benefit from learning how to build healthier brain habits, how to improve their own mental functioning and, the way they interact in the world. In particular kids with ADD can benefit from it. Kids with ADD have lowered levels of beta waves and actually playing games with their brain - specifically with their beta waves can decrease their ADD symptoms as effectively as Ritalin." Where is this technology going in the future? Ariel explains, "In the far future it will be as ubiquitous as voice or gesture technology is now. Using your mind to interact with technology is going to be a really basic way to interact with the world." InteraXon was formed in 2007 when Ariel Garten decided to commercialize the thought controlled computing technology initially developed by world-renowned cyberneticist Dr. Steve Mann and his colleague, Dr. James Fung...There's more...
RELATED LINKS: InteraXon || C3 Writing || Defrag 1 Site, 2 Shows 3 Days || Defrag/blur Info || Blur Conference Photos || Defrag Conference Photos || KEYWORDS: Ariel Garten, CEO, InteraXon, Kirsten Nelson DefragCon 2012, blur, Software, Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces, Muse, ADD, Brain Waves, bytes=3091542
LISTEN TO: Ariel Garten, CEO/Founder Interaxon

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Games on, and the helicopters are up
1335_ 1/14/13 - Games on, and the copters are up! At Blur 2012 we were dodging palm sized helicopters as well as the crowds of folks. We stopped to talk with John Condon, CTO and Jim Fairman, COO at QFO Labs to see what all the commotion was about. So what they've done is design a tilt-a-fly, nano sized, quad-rotor helicopter. Here we are witnessing QFO Labs first product in their Real-LIfe, 3-D Gaming Series. Launching on Kickstarter, the NanoQ Copter with Mimix Tilt-to-Fly Controller is an innovative system that takes the gaming experience off a flat video screen and into the physical world. NanoQ - a palm-sized, quad-rotor helicopter is flown wirelessly with the Mimix controller by simply tilting your wrist. The experience is so intuitive and engaging that users fly by feeling, allowing them to control the craft while competing with others in team-based aerial games.The Kickstarter project for the Mimix controller and NanoQ copter can be found at Kickstartmimix.com. Supporters on the crowdfunding site can be the first to obtain the products. On the second afternoon of Defrag (November 15, 2012), they kicked off Blur. Blur (which ran the 15th and 16th) is the event that focuses on next-generation human computer interaction (think robots, augmented reality, “minority report” interfaces, etc). In other words, for several hours at the end of day 2 of Defrag, the events did overlap, as Blur keynoters took the stage. Blur continued on for the rest of that evening and the following day...There's more...
RELATED LINKS: QFO Labs || Defrag 1 Site, 2 Shows 3 Days Defrag/blur Info || Blur Conference Photos || Defrag Conference Photos || KEYWORDS: QFO Labs, John Condon, Jim Fairman, DefragCon 2012, blur, Software, 3-D Gaming Series. Launching on Kickstarter, NanoQ Copter with Mimix Tilt-to-Fly Controller > BYTES= 3280460
LISTEN TO: QFO Labs, Jim Fairman, Pres & John Condon

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Feld-Weiser One-on-One: Feld on Work-Life Balance
1229_ 6/25/12 [Pub. 6-15-2009] - For entrepreneurs, lawyers and other professionals, work-life balance is often a topic that individuals plan on thinking about when they have time. Phil Weiser, Dean of the Law School, University of Colorado - Boulder, engages in a discussion with Brad Feld, Managing Partner, Foundry Group, about a topic that is very elusive for many entrepreneurs. Brad said, "This topic took me 15 years, a failed first marriage, and my current wife (Amy Batchelor) almost calling it quits for me to realize that I had to figure out what 'work-life balance' meant to me." This recognition lead to Brad's commitment to a series of rules, which evolved into a set of habits that include: 1. Spend time away; 2. Life dinner; 3. Segment space; 4. Be present; 5. Meditate. Notably, Brad's view on life-work balance is not that working hard is not important; it's that "balance improves the quality/quantity of work that you can get done and you become more effective at accomplishing stuff." Listen to the entire Feld & Weiser, One-on-One on Work-Life Balance.
Related Links: Photos || Silicon Flatirons Passing Baton Ceremony || Feld Blog || Foundry Group || Venture Deals - Feld & Mendelson || Keywords: Brad Feld, Phil Weiser, Work-Life Balance, Entrepreneurs, Work-Life Balance, Amy Batchelor - Bytes: 44730621
LISTEN TO: One-on-One Brad Feld, Phil Weiser

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Contents: Entrepreneurs 2010; 2009; 2008; 2007

2013 Software Channel Interviews
Cary Breese, CEO, GenieDB's Globally Distributed...
Jack Dangermond, Founder/Pres, ESRI
Jack Dangermond, The Future with wil.i.am
Tim Falls, SendGrid, Director Developer Relations
Jim Franklin, CEO, SendGrid - Great idea to...
Gary Gaessler, Cloud Elements
John Giacomoni & Manish Vachharajani,
F5 Networks, Inc.
Ariel Garten, InteraXon, Brain-Computer Interfaces
Mark Geene, CoFounder/CEO, Cloud-Elements
Terry Gold, Microsoft goes live on the Gold System
Terry Gold, Unified Communications & Speech Recognition
Thomas Grassl, Director, Developer Relations, SAP Global
Debby Henkens, Employees as Caregivers - Costly
Ray Hutchins, Founder, Denver Cyber Security
Ray Hutchins, Founder, Denver Web Services (SEO)
Matt Ingenthron, Director, Developer Solutioons, Coucbase
Seth Levine, Managing Director, Foundry Group, Glue
Seth Levine & Ryan McIntyre, Foundry Group, Looking at Newest Investment Themes
Richard Liner, KidsTek
Bart Lorang,CEO/Co-founder, FullContact
Eric Norlin, Glue Conference 2013
Matt Pardee, Chief Evangelist, StrongLoop
QFO Labs, John Condon, CTO & Jim Fairman, COO
Ian Spinelli, Canopy's touch sensitive phone case...
Navin Thadani, SVP Products, Ravello Systems

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
Steve Dine, Relationship of Business Intelligence & Big Data
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?

When you are querying the system, you want a really fast response
1391_ 6/3/13 - We're here at Gluecon 2013 with Matt Ingenthron, director of Developer Solutions at Couchbase a No SQL database company. No SQL database is a term thrown around in the industry these days. Matt said, "What it really means for us is we are a document oriented database and we are focused on interactive applications. So think of situations like Orbitz, one of our deployments. For example, where you are querying the system - you want a really fast response because you want to be able to browse these hotels very quickly. So we are really designed for easy scale, for a flexible data model, you don't have to force yourself into a relational database kind of structure. And, we're also very good at high availability and really good response time. Couchbase works with all different size companies and we're open source, by the way. So that also means we have a number of companies and people that just write projects on the side, and they just want to use a database that's easy to use." But going back to the big deployments, AOL uses Couchbase for ad targeting, Orbitz uses Couchbase for content behind their travel system, everyone from Starbucks to BMW USA. We're also very big in the social gaming space because those are situations where people really need a high through-put and low response times. Matt asked, "Have you heard of a game called Draw Something or Pictionary - those guys when they started with Couchbase had six nodes of catch space and in about 45 days they grew - because their game became very popular, very quickly. So in about 45 days they needed to grow that to just under 100 nodes. Games usually measure things as daily active users, they went from 60,000 daily active users to 25 million in 45 days." When asked what challenges companies are facing today, Matt said, "I would say we continue to see unprecedented opportunity to take a lot of the data we see in an organizations, a lot of the way companies touch their users, and do that in a more meaningful way. ...listen for more.
RELATED LINKS: Couchbase || Glue 2012 || Defrag Conference 2013 || Defrag || Software Channel || w3w3 Blog || KEYWORDS: Matt Ingenthron, Couchbase, No SQL database company, SAP, AOL, Orbitz, Starbucks, BMW USA, Eric Norlin, Gluecon, Defrag, > bytes=5121988
LISTEN TO: Matt Ingenthron, Couchbase

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Come have dinner with Richard Liner, Executive Director & CoFounder of KidsTek
1345_ 2/4/13 - KidsTek is 13 years old now, founded out of the Colorado Technology Assoc. They work with the highest needs schools in Colorado, right from kindergarten through high school, providing technology education in after school programs - and now in
in-school programs in the high schools, leading to certifications for Cisco. As an example, in the middle school realm they're teaching primarily Internet research and Microsoft Office skills. So they're giving these kids the tools they need to use technology, not specific programming. Richard Liner, Executive Director and co-founder of KidsTek said, "We're not asking that they go into technology careers, if they want to do that, we do have those programs in high schools. We really want them to get familiar with the business tools that they need and don't have access to, as under-privileged kids, at home, and even in school. These kids don't have computers at home. They don't get enough time in school on them - so KidsTek provide the after school enrichment to get them up to speed for what they need for the workforce and for college." Over the years KidsTek has been expanding, doing more and new things. Rich explained, "In the high school arena we've hooked up with Cisco and we are a Cisco Training Academy, one of the few non-profits that is." The program starts with IT Essentials which leads to the A+ certification [the generalized PC maintenance and installation type people] right into networking skills for Cisco expertise that can earn them up to a CCNA certification, which is what all the employers that have big networks look for in their workforce. Larry asked, "There are also opportunities for businesses to be involved. But how do you support KidsTek?" Rich said, "Well obviously it's a non-profit. We have a combination of ways to get money, foundations that support us. The schools that we work with make a contribution towards what we are doing. We have corporate sponsors and we have events. We have two major events every year. Coming up on February 20th, our annual dinner and that can be accessed for registration through their web site. Then they do a golf tournament in June...
RELATED LINKS: KidsTek || Colorado Technology Association || Liner Group || Blog || KEYWORDS: Rich Liner, KidsTek, Colorado Technology Association, Cisco Training Academy, Schools, PC Maintenance and Installation, CC&A certification, Denver School System > bytes=5147483
LISTEN TO: Rich Liner, Executive director, KidsTek

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2012 Big Data

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

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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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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