Penny Lewandowski Second Stage Development and Growth
1373_ 4/8/13 - We're here with keynote speaker, at the ACG Denver's April Luncheon, Penny Lewandowski director of entrepreneurship development for the Edward Lowe Foundation. Lewandowski works with entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) as they develop creative ways to grow their communities by serving second-stage businesses. She is a frequent speaker on the topics of building an entrepreneurial culture, as well as the importance of working with growth companies. She also directs the foundation’s Entrepreneurship Team and manages the technology services for the organization. It's been six months since Lewandowski was in Denver, Larry asked for an update on what's happening with Colorado Companies to Watch. Penny said, "Tomorrow evening we will be at the Governor's Residence with all of the finalists - and I think we have 184 finalists. We had a record number of nominations this year. Colorado is always out front when it comes to nominations. Then on Thursday we're going to be judging those companies, and they go through a pretty intensive process with that. We'll probably make an announcement in the next several weeks after we do the judging."

ACG Denver’s David Sloan Scholarship Program. Set your goal to become an ACG Scholar! Each year the Denver Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) awards one scholarship to a promising 1st or 2ndyear student at each of five area graduate business programs, in the amount of $2,500 annually. The scholarship is renewable for a second year based on both the academic performance and the career ambition of the student. To be eligible for the award, the recipient must be currently enrolled in one of five programs with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better...Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS: ACG Denver || M&A Channel || ACG Denver's David Sloan Scholarship Program || Colorado Companies to Watch || ACG Photo || KEYWORDS: Penny Lewandowski, Entrepreneurship, Second Stage Companies, Edward Lowe Foundation, Colorado Companies to Watch, ACG Denver, David Sloan Scholarship, University of Denver, bytes=2751741
LISTEN TO: Penny Lewandowski, Director of Entrepreneurship, Edward Lowe Foundation

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Autism incidence increasing, you can make a difference
1375_ 4/8/13 - A few weeks ago Kevin Custer spoke to us about his work with the Colorado Autism Society and their new CEO, James Buckles. This is a topic we need to be much more aware of. When we refer to autism, we refer to it as Autism Spectrum Disorder, because there is a wide range of developmental disabilities that cause impairment in the areas of social interaction and communication and behavior. So for that reason we may have somebody that is very high functioning and capable of doing really incredible things and maybe socially awkward - but you may have someone on the spectrum that is non-verbal and can't really communicate. So you have those two variations and everything between. It really is very challenging to understand autism. The autism rates have gone up. The CDC says it basically comes down to two things. We have a better educated, better informed population of medical providers, doctors, people who know and can recognize it. The other is there is just more autism - the incidence rate has increased. Autism is one of the few disorders that is not race specific, it has nothing to do with geography. The only unique element of autism is that it is four times more likely to occur in boys than girls. The incidence rates are the same in the U.S. as they are in all countries, developed and undeveloped. Kevin said, "For businesses wanting to get involved and support, the website, AutismColorado.org is the place to start. The biggest thing we see is to train your employees to understand what's going on. If you have more than seven employees, one of them has a family member with autism. If that is the case, you're going to want to understand how you can better support that employee. With our Autism 101 program, we'll come into your business and explain about it. Then contacting James to figure out how we can help your business give support back to the community as far as being an autism friendly business." The ASC has a 'Walk' coming up June 9th, and James said, "We'd love companies to think about getting involved in the Walk Program. What we find is once their employees get involved, they'll come forward and be excited about this opportunity, create a team around supporting the disorder of autism. It's just a valuable way for a company to give back and at the same time will see benefits from being involved." Listen for more information....
RELATED LINKS: Autism Society of Colorado || Walk || ASC Programs || Donate || Arc Capital Development || KEYWORDS: Walk for Autism, Kevin Custer, James Buckles, Autism Society of Colorado, autism spectrum disorder, autism friendly business. sensory friendly films, CDC, Beau Jo's, autism friendly environment, bytes=7426615
LISTEN TO: Kevin Custer & James Buckles, CEO, Autism Society of Colorado

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Kevin Custer, 15-20 million people who need product and services
1371_ 4/1/13 - Kevin Custer serves as the president of the board for the Autism Society of Colorado, he also works on the national board of directors. and Kevin is the founding partner of Arc Capital Development, a strategic equity firm that focuses on education and healthcare. Strategic equity is different than private equity or venture capital in that we invest from $150,000 up to $1 million at a strategic time in a company, when it's time for them to get to the next inflection point. Different from venture capital - it's later stage than that, earlier than private equity. Larry asked, "Why education and why healthcare?" Kevin replied, "We see a convergence of those two. We look at the healthcare space and we specialize a lot in the development of the schools. We see that as an emerging market. When you look at a healthcare market, you look at the different service providers, be it hospitals, clinics, professionals prescribing or non-prescribing, even the consumers now are starting to look at that. One of the largest providers of healthcare services in the U.S., specifically for children is the U.S. School System, because every child starting at the age of three is eligible for services through the school system. What we've seen happen is that market really starting to emerge. Larry asked Kevin what he meant when he said 'emerging market'. Kevin said, "There has always been a need for products and services in the development of the school area. What we have seen happen, specifically with Autism, is fifteen years ago there were a couple hundred thousand people with Autism in the United States - now there's close to two million. Just our school system alone has had a 10X increase and they need services, they need products, they need adapting equipment, things like that. On top of that the CDC believes one in six people need some type of adaptive or assistive help in their daily life. That is people with developmental disabilities, they've had a stroke, traumatic brain injury, whatever it is, we see that as the emerging market. That's 15-20 million people, just in the U.S. who need product and services. Products and services have been around for a long time, but they've been very expensive and complicated to use." ...there's more...
RELATED LINKS: Arc Capital Development || Autism Society of Colorado || Autism Society National || Walk Page || ASC Programs || Donate || KEYWORDS: Kevin Custer, Arc Capital Development, Autism Society of Colorado, ASC Programs, Strategic Equity, Emerging Market, Social Express, Capital, bytes=5287082
LISTEN TO: Kevin Custer, Founding Partner, Arc Capital Development

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John Mackey Culture, Strategy and Conscious Capitalism
1368_ 3/25/13 - Larry and Patricia Nelson are here at the ACG Denver's 11th Annual, Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference 2013 speaking with John Mackey, CEO and Cofounder of WholeFoods and co-author of Conscious Capitalism. At this year's conference we heard a lot of speakers talking about strategy - we asked John Mackey to give us his take on strategy. He responded, "My theory is that you have to first find your purpose for the business, why you exist. After that you have to ask, How do I create value for our customers? Ultimately it is value creation for the customers that leads the business to flourish. Then we ask the strategy questions. What strategy do we implement that allows us to follow purpose and allow us to create value for our customers and other stakeholders? READ MORE
RELATED LINKS: Conscious Capitalism || ACG Denver || RM Corporate Growth Conference || M&A Channel || Amazon || KEYWORDS: ACG Denver, Rocky Mtn Corporate Growth Conference, John Mackey, WholeFoods Market, Association for Corporate Growth, Keynote speaker, John Mackey, Conscious Capitalism, M&A, Entrepreneurs, RMCGC, BYTES=10372809
LISTEN TO: John Mackey CoFounder/CEO, WholeFoods Markets, Author, Conscious Capitalism

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Developing Colorado's Science and Technology
                  Leaders of Tomorrow 1372_ 4/8/13 -

Watch this short but important video. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter. FIRST was founded on partnerships with businesses, educational institutions and government. Many Fortune 500 companies provide funding, in-kind donations and volunteers to support the program. The key to FIRST's success is the work of thousands of volunteer mentors, professional engineers, teachers, and other adults working with youth across the country. In addition to the volunteer team mentors, FIRST competitions and other events were organized and staffed by over 5000 event and committee volunteers. FIRST programs are growing rapidly in the United States and Canada, and demand is accelerating in other countries...VIDEO to watch...
RELATED LINKS: Colorado FIRST Home || FIRST Impact || ColoradoFIRST Robotics Competition Photos 2013 || Channel: University of Denver on w3w3.com || PodCast Directory || KEYWORDS: Colorado FIRST, Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, Student Competition, Volunteers, Mentors

Enlightened Empowerment, a term Fitzgerald got from a favorite client
1370_ 4/1/13 - Laurie Fitzgerald, PhD and senior practitioner for The Consultancy, Inc. has been providing guidance for business leaders in their efforts to navigate the hyper competitive and increasingly turbulent market place. Larry asked, "Although you have a long list of American organizations, I've noticed that it's been almost a decade since you've worked with U.S. clients. Where have you been and what have you been up to in the interim?" Well, Fitzgerald's been out of the country. A number of years ago she published some articles on the Transformation of Dynamical Complex Systems, [that's organizations]. That captured the attention of business executives in Australia, India, South Africa and also in Europe. When Laurie was invited to join them in implementing and facilitating a change process within their organizations, she leaped at the opportunity. Laurie's background is in the social sciences. In particular sociology and psychology. That's her life's work, getting into the minds of people and the minds of organizations, and organizations do have minds. And helping them to change the way they think and the way that they see the world. Enlightened Empowerment? A term Fitzgerald got from one of her favorite clients, the Marel Company. they are a combined Dutch and Icelandic firm that is the world's largest producer of poultry, meat and fish processing equipment, their machines are located all over the world. In 1999, Laurie met Theo Hoen, CEO of that company. He had been working for a long time trying to bring about profound change in the company by the old outside-in approach. When we talked about inside-out transformation, he jumped on the bandwagon. He said," this is the way we're going to have to do it. What I want to do is to enlighten empowerment." Which means he wanted everyone in the company to be empowered to make decisions, to take action within the company. In order to do that he knew they needed to be enlightened. Their minds needed to be evolved to a higher level so they could see the organization as a whole. And that would be everyone, secretaries as well as managers and executives. Larry said, "You deal with organizations worldwide, and I hope you'll be doing more in the U.S. What do you think are the biggest business challenges today?" The biggest business challenge in Laurie's mind is the fact that organizations are built on the hierarchical model. In that model, as you rise through the hierarchy you are vested with power. The problem comes when a person who is not enlightened, who does not look at things as whole but only looks from their own perspective, is given power. And as Lord Acton, a famous British historian said, "Power corrupts!". That is true and in order to avoid that problem...
RELATED LINKS: Lessons from Jurassic Park || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || Blog || KEYWORDS: Enlightened Empowerment, Laurie Fitzgerald, The Consultancy, Guidance for Business Leaders, Global, Turbulent Market Place, Inside-Out Transformation, bytes=6744088
LISTEN TO: Laurie Fitzgerald, PhD, Senior Practitioner, The Consultancy, Inc.

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Michael Hamers, logo design, branding, excellence
1370_ 4/1/13 - We're talking with Michael Hamers, a long time associate in the Colorado business community and founder of Lightspeed Design & Branding Group. Larry asked, "How did you get your start?" Mike replied, "I Went to commercial arts school and was hired by Harley Davidson based on the strength of my line art. They taught me how to read blueprints. I spent many years as a technical illustrator doing cutaways and exploded views of engines and transmissions. When I moved to Colorado I went to work at Ball Aerospace and moved up to laser communication devices and infrared telescopes and the space station. After working there for about six years, I started my own company, LightSpeed Commercial Arts." Larry said, "It's an interesting name why did you pick that name and what was your business like back then?" Besides thinking it was a cool name, Mike said, "people kept telling me how fast I was compared to the other illustrators and designers working whatever projects I was working on. Back then I was still primarily an illustrator doing work for Xerox, Metronics, working on cold laser and heart catheters, a lot of technical manuals for Mobil Oil, their emergency management plan - how to deal with a terrorist attack or helicopter safety... so very technical back then." Larry asked, "When did you start creating logos and branding?" Mike replied, "Pretty much from the start. My first logo was for a company Calling All Cars, some of the first cell phones for the car - it was about the size of a shoe, had a little antenna on the back window." Then Mike did a logo for Larry - the Institute for Change Research and Mike received his first 'award for excellence', he's been hooked ever since. "What do like most about logo design and branding?" "I just love the story telling aspect. I just love bridging the company name and tag line and the mark [the logo] into a homogenous whole - giving it a stable base. People love stories. So if you're able to get the branding story out, you're more apt to be remembered." So Mike really enjoys helping to do the telling and the selling of the branding message for these companies. Mike also produces a wonderful newsletter - extremely informational, easy to read and it can help you to build your business - the name of it is 'Good Design is Good Business: The business builder update'. Mike said, "It's just a great way for me to express myself, share my opinions about design and marketing." Topics covered in Mike's newsletter to this point, and available on his website newsletter archives are ...listen for more great ideas...
RELATED LINKS: Lightspeed || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || Institute for Change Research || KEYWORDS: Michael Hamers, Branding, Design, Commercial Arts, Logos, 'Good Design is Good Business, Harley Davidson, Ball Aerospace, Xerox, Metronics, Calling All Cars, Institute for Change Research, bytes=6461965
LISTEN TO: Michael Hamers, Lightspeed Design & Branding Group

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Economic predictions for 2013, 2014 and beyond
1337_ 1/14/13 - This is the fourth year running here as ACG Denver starts the new year out with a look into the future featuring keynote speaker Alan Beaulieu, economist with Institute Trend Research. This is a very popular program at ACG, everyone makes it a point to be here in January. Check back in the w3w3.com Archives and you can listen to Alan's past previews into the coming year. Today Alan points out a lot has happened since we last spoke - "the fiscal cliff, we've got Europe going on... I mean there is no lack of things to ponder." Today Alan is talking about what the semi-resolution of the fiscal cliff means for the economy in 2013. Whether Europe is going to implode or not? The answer is not. Whether the Chinese economy is going to sink or expand? It's going to expand. Whether the U.S. economy is going to see more opportunities for businesses in 13? The answer is yes. And the reason for all of that is what we're going to be discussing here at ACG Denver today. But the reality is, this economy is in a real recovery. It's a sustainable recovery and, it's not going to end for another three maybe three-and-a-half quarters." LN: What are some of the other things you'd like to highlight?
Alan, "Well there's a recession coming in 2014. And, we need to start thinking now about how we're going to get ready for that. And I think more importantly, Larry, because that's pretty short cycle, we should realize that 15, 16, 17 - they're really good years coming! - And business leaders should ask themselves, What do I need to do now to get ready to be busy again? Because, we've had a hunker-down, no-spend, watch-the-cash mentality for so long that we're going to walk right into a great recovery and we're going to be ill prepared for it. Being ill prepared for a recovery is as bad as being ill prepared for a recession." Larry recaps for clarity: Fourteen is going to be a little tough and challenging. But then 15, 16 and 17 they're going to be coming back. "Right" said Alan, "You're absolutely right Larry! We're going to be happy! We're not going to be retiring but it'll be a good time in the country." ...listen for more ...
RELATED LINKS: ITR Economics || ACG Denver || Event Photos || M&A Channel || KEYWORDS: Alan Beaulieu, ITR Economics, Institute for Trend Research, Financial Trends, ACG Denver, Association for Corporate Growth, Trends, Economic Recovery, M&A, Entrepreneurs, Europe, China, Canada, Latin America, BYTES=2926448
LISTEN TO: Alan Beaulieu, Economist, Institute Trend Research

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

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

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

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