Sarah Schupp, aggregating resources so that they're easy to find
1367_ 3/18/13 - We are speaking with Sarah Schupp, founder and CEO of UniversityParent. As fate would have it, we first heard of Sarah when we were on the Parents Board at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Sarah was a bright young student who came to the University with a very good idea and that was the beginning of a successful bootstrapping startup. We've asked Sarah to give our listeners an overview. Basically UniversityParent is the number one destination for college parents to find everything they need to help their students. So it's everything from safe, off-campus student housing to nearby moving and storage facilities, to information on how they can help their student if they're dealing with a challenge on campus. The idea came up because Sarah was an out-of-state student here in Boulder and her parents had all kinds of questions about the local area as well as the university. Not surprisingly their questions were different than those of Sarah's as a student. Almost all of the information the university provided really was directed at the student population and not the parent population. This was crazy - parents are such big stakeholders in the student's education that they really need to be constructively involved and have the right resources available. So Sarah approached the university with "the idea" for a parent guide. They were supportive of the idea the problem was a lack of funding. Sarah's response? "I said, that's great, I'm glad you don't have any money, I'm going to make this into a business." Sarah walked downtown Boulder knocking on doors and asking people to advertise. Parents want to know about the local businesses almost as much as they want to know about the local content. Larry asked, "What resources do you offer to both parents and students?" Sarah replied, "Basically we are aggregating resources so that they're easy to find for families. That's everything from where is the academic advising center on campus; when is tuition due; when is spring break. Some of these questions don't seem to be serious, like when is spring break, but they're important because parents have to book flights and arrange travel." Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: UniversityParent.com || Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Sarah Schupp, UniversityParent, Crash Course Series for Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, New Tech Meetup, Entrepreneurship, Silicon Flatiron Center, bytes=6915451
LISTEN TO: Sarah Schupp, CEO, UniversityParent

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Dave Leonard the first ever in North America
1313_ 3/18/13 - As the senior vice president of data center operations, Dave Leonard directs all of ViaWest's day-to-day facility operations and procedures, as well as expansion projects and future data center builds. We're at ViaWest headquarters, to get the skinny on the expansion at this dynamic Colorado icon. Very unique and, another company that launched in 1999 (like w3w3.com and Defrag...) We are talking with Dave Leonard, ViaWest Senior Vice President of Data Center Operations - well known to Frontier, United and Southwest Airlines - as he visits all the ViaWest Data Centers so often. Dave has two separate teams, one that operates the data centers (there are 23 data centers). The second team builds data centers and they are building a new, very large data center in north Las Vegas to compliment their two existing data centers in Las Vegas. So, the expansion is very aggressive and keeps happening throughout our service territory - and coming soon, outside of our service territory. But, Las Vegas is a great example where we are very successful in Las Vegas filling up the existing data centers that we had and demand led us to build a large new data center which will be going online at the end of December. Larry wondered what challenges ViaWest faces in this expansion? "You read about organizations like Facebook and Google building data centers out in the middle of nowhere, where there is very cheap power and very good conditions for free cooling, for instance. We don't site data centers that way. We put data centers where we believe our customers are going to be. There are two things happening in the data center industry, if Dave were wearing his construction hat, that building new data centers have been a good opportunity for ViaWest in two aspects, the green aspect, and the other is the quality of the data centers... Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: ViaWest || Uptime Institute || Software Channel || Data Center Communities || 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. VP, Data Center Operations, ViaWest

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Tom Smerdon, success in marketing new ideas
1364_ 3/11/13 - From a business person's point of view, the Technology Transfer Office is one of the most important things that the university provides, for business, individual professors and students, with everything from awards and recognition but most importantly really helping them along when they come up with an idea. Larry is with Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President of the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office in Boulder. Tom said, "There are a couple of the things I'd like to bring to the listeners attention. One, which we're really excited about, is the recent acquisition of a CU startup. F5 Networks has acquired LineRate Systems, a Colorado startup that’s developing technologies around what’s called software define networking. F5 noted that the networking technologies will help bring superior service agility, application intelligence, and programmability to software defined data centers. The thing that is exciting about this is, not only was this a startup basically out of Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering here on the CU Boulder campus, but the company was also an early recipient of the Proof-of-Concept investment from the Tech Transfer Office. This was the first money into the company which really helped it acquire some critical equipment early on and facilitated the development of the technology that was later further developed in its Louisville office and ultimately the subject of the sale to F5. This is one of the success stories for Tech Transfer and we're really excited for the company and the founders. A couple of events that are coming up; we are doing our Tech Transfer Awards a little differently this year. Previously there had been a single awards event covering the system campuses held in Denver. This year we're going to have campus focused events, so we have the Boulder Awards event which is scheduled for April 1st. This is in conjunction with the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. The program, Entrepreneurship Under the Microscope, is an evening event with a keynote speaker and we will be awarding the Inventor of the Year, New Inventor of the Year, and Company of the Year during a fun networking event with CU-Boulder faculty and students, and members of the Boulder entrepreneurial community. We have the second awards event planned... there's more...
RELATED LINKS: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || LineRate Systems || TTO Blog || KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office, University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, LineRate Systems, F5, Awards, bytes=4401426
LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President. Tech Transfer, University of Colorado

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

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Kourtney Nelson - Alandi Ayurveda, solutions to healthcare crisis
1366_ 3/18/13 - We've been discussing some of the issues with our healthcare system, one of which is the shortage of doctors, and ballooning healthcare costs. We are talking with Kourtney Nelson, Dean of Alandi Ayurveda, a school in Boulder. In a brief overview Kourtney tells us, Ayurveda, "is a holistic medicine developed in India 5000 years ago. It's a full medical practice. Ayurveda looks at the root cause of disease and imbalance in the body instead of just treating conditions. That's a different mind-set. Western medicine doesn't look at a disease until it's in a pathological state. Holistic medicine looks at it as you're coming out of balance, several stages before it comes into a pathological range. So we're looking for optimal wellness - vs. being below a pathological marker. We'll interpret blood tests differently and catch things at an earlier stage and help to work on them - or help to reverse or minimize the damage of a chronic condition. Alandi Ayurveda is the first school in the U.S. that offers a four year advanced level training. Once the national standards have been established for practice level and the national exams for practitioners ar established, the graduates of our program will qualify to be Ayurvedic Doctors - so they'll be the first Ayurvedic Doctors in the U.S. that have been trained here. It is really exciting, to be able to build our school and to increase the number of well trained Ayurvedic physicians out there. That way we can also expand our offering such as clinic in the community and some of the modalities. Currently we do have a clinic at our school and we offer a sliding scale. So we're able to see lots of different people from all ends of the economic spectrum - which is one way we can give back to the community. We'd like to expand that and give more and also be able to provide other classes to the community like cooking classes, simple kitchen herbs and other things people can use to take care of their health. Kourtney believes that western / allopathic medicine and alternative medicine, such as Ayurveda work well together and believes this will be the future of medicine for our country. It's a matter of having a bigger tool box and knowing when you need the hammer or the chisel - they both operate very differently. Having more access and more well trained Ayurvedic physicians, and other modalities, providing more preventative care options, will help decrease the shortage of doctors we're seeing now and also decrease the national cost of healthcare. The Alandi Ayurveda Gurukula is raising money to expand the school, looking for a new location and to establish a larger presence in the community.
RELATED LINKS: Alandi Ayurveda || Donate || Course Descriptions || PodCast Directory || KEYWORDS: Kourtney Nelson, Ayurveda, Ayurvedic Medicine, Doctors, Physicians, Practitioners, Holistic Medicine, India, Allopathic Medicine, Boulder, Doctors, Physicians, Practitioners, Healthcare, Alandi Ayurveda Gurukula, bytes=11796984
LISTEN TO: Kourtney Nelson, Dean, Alandi Ayurveda

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Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek come to Colorado
832_ 4/26/10 - At the 26th National Space Symposium, Larry and Pat had an opportunity to have a discussion with Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame. But Nimoy is so much more than that. They decided to talk about other topics that help us learn more about him and what has shaped his character over the past 79 years as well as understanding his hot buttons. We started out by reflecting on some poetry Leonard read as 'whale song' was heard in the background...that was decades ago but it opened up insights to his current interests and concerns. When asked, Is there something businesses can do to motivate children?" His reply was an ouch. "I'm not a sociologist, I'm not a businessman, I can't speak intelligently about that. I'll tell you what I am concerned about; I'm concerned about how much television kids watch that is not uplifting, or educational or inspiring in any way. It's all about celebrity, and if you're celebrity, come and tell us about your celebrity. What have you accomplished? I'm a celebrity - I'm famous for having a lot of children, so I want a TV show - It's crazy. What we have descended to in our education, it's crazy! It's really sad, I could go on about that, I'm not going to." He had a great deal to say about advice he would give to someone following his career path. "The biggest fantasy, myth about my work, about being an actor is people who think a look will get you somewhere, be at the right place and time, that kind of thing - luck plays a big role, but I never believed that, not even as a teenager ...Education, it's all about education. Learn, learn, learn and devote yourself to a profession. Be professional about it." Larry asked, "Do you feel the U.S. is losing its position in terms of space?" Leonard replied, "Yes, I don't know to what degree this is true. I don't want to be an alarmist about this, but I do think we've got some work to do." We did end with a Vulcan salute. Listen for much, much more...
Related Links: Space Technology Hall of Fame® || National Space Symposium || Space Foundation || More About Nimoy || Keywords: Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek, Spock, Vulcan, National Space Symposium, Space Foundation, Education, Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award 4/26/10 Chnl: News bytes: 5458968
LISTEN to Leonard Nimoy, aka Mr. Spock

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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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Ed von Bleichert, it's time to get rid of the pests
1365_ 3/11/13 - We are back with Edward von Bleichert, Manager Environmental Operations, for the Department of Facilities Management at the University of Colorado Boulder, a demanding responsibility where Ed almost plays different roles to accomplish these varied and important services, from capturing Brown Bears and Mountain Lions that wander onto campus, to solving the huge issues of providing solutions and recycling options. Today we're going to talk about Integrated Pest Management [IPM]. First an overview of what that means. IPM similar to Zero Waste [ZW] has many definitions but for our purposes, it is essentially a focus on safe and effective long-term control and prevention of pests. Whatever you want to determine as a pest. The point is, pesticides are a part of that tool kit we use, but they're not the first tool that we reach for. Any time we use pesticides, we're very careful, specifically speaking to indoor structures, not to impact indoor air quality, not to expose people to pesticides. Which essentially means the majority of our pesticide applications are in the form of a gel base or granulers or some type of pheromone. We do not do aerosol sprays, liquid sprays, crack and crevice treatments, perimeter treatments, we don't fog or the bombs. The point is you really need to know a lot about your pests. The biology, the physiology, its behaviors and patterns. And if you can answer a few questions about what is attracting that pest in the first place, you can likely eliminate that attraction. It could be a leaky pipe, it could be poor sanitation, a broken screen, a missing door sweep. A lot of it is relying on the other shops and trades we have here at Facilities to do the structural work needed to seal up the building and roof. That's a really a big part of it. Ed answered a number of interesting questions such as, "What are some of the pests you deal with here at CU? You don't use pesticides etc. What is the alternative that you use? What could an average person or a business learn that would have to do with pests? ...Listen for more helpful ideas...
RELATED LINKS: CU wins EPA Challenge || Ralphie’s Green Stampede || Single Stream in Housing || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Ed von Bleichert, CU, Environmental Operations, Integrated Pest Management, IPM, Department of Facilities Management, University of Colorado Boulder, Pesticides, bytes=6589861
LISTEN TO: Ed Von Bleichert, Manager, Environmental Operations, CU

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