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397_Making Business Sense with Diverse Diversity
What does diversity mean? Terry Morreale, Senior Engineer, Applied Trust and producer of the Women in IT Channel explored that question with Susan Kunz, CEO and Co-Founder of Solidware Technologies. In addition to how 'diversity' is traditionally defined such as differences in gender, ethnicity, nationality, Sue and Terry went outside of the box and looked at other areas and discussed the business benefits of really being diverse. Sue points out that, "It comes in lots of flavors. Socio-economic background, age, family placement (I love having interns as well as folks who have been in their careers for a long time). This brings a great balance of new ideas, energy, and experience to a team. Char, Co-founder of Solidware is Afro-American but her real diversity has to do with family placement; as oldest of 12, Char can manage anything, experience base, gender, education, and style. And how about team dynamics? "Diverse teams tend to be much more creative and innovative than those who think alike. Sometimes they can be more challenging to manage, but I'll take this challenge before striving for uniformity." Then they talked about the growing IT shortage.  LISTEN

Related Links:  Solidware || Women in IT Channel || Applied Trust Engineering || Wikipedia || Keywords: Susan Kunz, Terry Morreale, Diversity, Solidware Technologies, Applied Trust, IT > Bytes: 14895963> 10/22/07 LISTEN

396_ Effective Sales: People, Processes and Tools
Jerry Comer, an experienced sales and marketing trainer and consultant discusses with Larry Nelson, w3w3® the necessary elements of an 'effective sales system'. Jerry, Co-Founder of the popular Comer & Associates, LLC., also gave a clean and clear definition of the differences between sales and marketing. He shares the 'Big 5" pitfalls to avoid. 1) Not being prepared 2) Talking about features and not benefits 3) Asking questions but not listening 4) Not knowing how to handle objections 5) Not asking for the order.
Jerry laid the groundwork by pointing out how 'sales' has changed and how the sales dynamic has changed in favor of the buyer. His advice can really help sales managers put together the best 'system' for managing the effort of both small and large sales forces. New and experienced sales people will benefit from his 5 Steps of Selling - from Awareness to Commitment. Remember, selling is a highly professional activity that is frequently not done well and is often confused with marketing.. LISTEN

Related Links:  Comer & Associates || Training Trends || Find It || PodCast Directory || Keywords: Jerry Comer, Comer & Associates, Sales, Marketing, Pitfalls to Avoid, Benefits, Training > 10/22/07 Bytes: 13003862 LISTEN

395_ Going from Chief Technology Officer to Entrepreneur
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy talked to Jeanette Symons is the founder, CEO of Industrious Kid, and mother of two. ut she doesn't stop there. Prior to founding Industrious Kid, Jeanette co-founded Zhone Technologies, a telecommunications company that builds "last mile" access solutions, where she served as the company's Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Engineering. Prior to Zhone, Ms. Symons was Chief Technical Officer and Executive Vice President of Ascend Communications, Inc., which Ms. Symons co-founded, from January 1989 until June 1999 when the company was purchased by Lucent Technologies. In addition, Jeanette was a software engineer at Hayes Microcomputer, a modem manufacturer, where she developed and managed its ISDN program. How does she do it? She has a number of suggestions for success but for Jeanette Symons, motherhood has proved to be good for business. Her kids helped her come up with the idea for her award-winning social networking site, imbee.com. LISTEN

Related Links:  Industrious Kid || Imbee || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| NCWIT Channel || Keywords: Jeanette Symons, Imbee, Industrious Kid, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes 10/22/07 Bytes: 16577413 > LISTEN

393_ There is an Ever-Growing IT Shortage in Colorado
Changing roles of CIOs has added new challenges and has opened doors to those who are 'people savvy' as well as technically competent. Larry talks with Rina Delmonico, a retired Corporate Fortune 500 CIO and since 1997 is CEO and Founder REN, Inc an IT consulting firm specializing in IT project and systems maintenance management. There is a growing shortage of IT professionals just when things are getting better. CIOs are now an important part of the management and leadership teams. New and changing skills are required which includes globalization requirements, organizational change expertise and an Agile approach to development. This new environment requires CIOs to become 'change agents' as well as 'turn around agents'. Multiple dimensions and security challenges are requiring many companies to employ a Chief Security Information Officer (CSIO) and it wasn't that many years ago that most business people didn't even know what a CIO was. Rina tells it the way it is explains what we will be facing down the road.
Related Links:   Ren Consulting || CITI Business Leaders || PodCast Directory || Find It || Keywords:Rina Delmonico, REN Consulting, CIO, CSIO, Change Agent, Globalization Requirements
10/15/07 Bytes: 12654866 LISTEN

392_ Identity, Security and Privacy are Going Head to Head
Your fingerprint doesn’t change significantly over your lifetime. So now you have a problem. If I’m using that fingerprint as a way of paying (and now you have 3.5 – 4 million registered shoppers) – Or if I’m using it for high security, once that data is compromised, what do I do? Terry Boult, co-founder and CEO of Securics and El Pomar Professor Innovation and Security at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs brought up a number dicey issues concerning security and the unseen challenges of biometrics. If I’m the one holding the data base, what’s my company’s liability? What happens once that data gets out, either to the person whose data it was or the company who is the storehouse of all that. Traditional biometrics is a big problem waiting to happen. When that data is compromised, there’s no cancelling them. Terry has tapped into SBIR and STTR grants since 2004, receiving $1.5M so far. He feels that the CU System has good foresight in that they’re looking forward. ”So our company competed and won $100,000 proof of concept investment in our company." CU TTO comes through again.
Related Links:   Vision And Security Technology Lab || Securics || Tech Transfer Channel || CU TTO Offices || CU Innovation Alliance Breakfast || Keywords: Terry Boult, Securics, University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, CU TTO, Security, Biometrics >10/15/07 Bytes: 11249270> 10/15/07 LISTEN

391_ Discover and Invent Your Own Disruptive Technology (DT) Part 2 of 2
Today part of the entrepreneurial process is ‘disruptive technology’. It disrupts businesses, processes and industries, or the way in which people or businesses interact with each other. Mark Richtermeyer & Kimberly Lucas, co-founders of the Spitfire Group and producers of the new "Disruptive Technology" Channel on w3w3.com point out various examples of Disruptive Technology such as Google and Yahoo. They have impacted ways that marketing is executed, have wide reaching impacts in several industries such as news print and television. How do companies accomplish this? Managers have to do a few key things right. First, they have to provide an innovative environment and culture. They need to create businesses where the idea is to come up with new ideas where people won’t be afraid to take risks, and to find new ways to do things. They also have to stay close to their customers – understand what they want and how they want to get it. Pay attention to your competitors and to market trends. We’ve also developed these ‘Agile Methodologies’ into our business that allows us to reprioritize the business requirements on a regular basis. The lengths of time in which we do that, are getting shorter and shorter all the time.
LISTEN  Part 2 of 2  Published 10/15/2007  ( LISTEN  Part 1 of 2  Published 10/8/2007 story on the Disruptive Technology Channel)
Related Links:  Spitfire Group || Creative Destruction || Disruptive Technology || Software Channel || PodCast Directory || Find It || Keywords:Disruptive Technology, Spitfire Group, Mark Richtermeyer, Kimberly Lucas, Bottom-line > Bytes: 11034021> LISTEN Part 2 of 2