771_ Put money into advertising your product, your position
The keynote speaker at the January ACG Denver meeting was Alan Beaulieu, president of the Institute for TrendReseasrch. Larry was anxious to hear Alan's opinions regarding the economic recovery and asked about some of the business trends coming. Alan replied, "Let's start out with the largest 'sustainable recovery', two words that everyone wants to hear. This is not a sugar high, this is a sustainable, cyclical recovery. But it will be mild. It will be a slow turn. Unemployment is problematic; the banking crisis isn't going away over night." Larry went on, "What are some of the things organizations can do to deal with the recovery?" Alan emphasized, "The first thing I would do is to make sure they know what their competitive advantages are. They have to be sharp, clear, known throughout the company and then spend money promoting them so that the few customers that are out there have a compelling reason to buy your service or buy your product. So that you're not lost in the herd. Start spending money promoting yourself and what you do. Get ready for an improvement. A lot of firms have been hunkered down for so long that they're slow to start thinking. Get over yesterday, start thinking about what we're going to need to bring people in; the competitive advantages; and how we're going to meet the need; quick delivery, quality delivery, well trained people. Put money into advertising the product, the position; put money into everything you need to do get ready for even marginally busier times because that will flow right to your bottom line." They went onto discuss challenges, the timing of M&As and advice for entrepreneurs...
Related Links: Institute for TrendReseasrch || ACG Denver || M&A Channel || Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference || Keywords: Alan Beaulieu, Institute for TrendReseasrch, ACG Denver, Association for Corporate Growth, Trends, Economic Recovery, M&A, Entrepreneurs > Channel: ACG 4910140 bytes 1/11/10 LISTEN to Alan Beaulieu

769_ When you're looking to create and build a business
Currently, Brian Tsuchiya known as the Startup Guru, has a Founders and Startup Meetup, and has 800+ people involved. He also has a Social Meetup where they focus more on the giving back component, that's a new Meetup and growing as well. In addition Brian also does webinars on funding... for the people who participate, it's really about, are you fundable, what's the ecosystem of funding. Larry had heard about a new project Brian is launching 4/1/10 called, 'Startup Factory'. Larry went to the new 'incubator' to interview Brian and he detailed his ideas, "When you're looking to create and build a business there are some people, will call this an incubator, that have been very successful. If you look at TechStars they have a very specific model with a focus on technology, that's mentor driven. If you look at Boulder Innovation Center, you know, theirs is more advisors driven. Those are excellent programs for the types of clients they're attracting. What we've done is taken on their great ideas and we've added but we have more of an integrated 12 month program, we also do coaching and help them understand how their lives impact their businesses. So there is this very specific process that we use based on this eQuest process. We give them resources and the ability to work on their strengths. Entrepreneurs have a hard time doing what they really do well because they're bogged down by minutia - we try to free them up by designing this incubator in a way to support them." Brian talked about funding also. Listen, there's more...
Related Links: Startup Guru || Startup Factory || Startup and Founder Meetup || Entrepreneurs Channel || Keywords: Brian Tsuchiya, Entrepreneurs, Startup Factory, Startup Guru, Incubator, Startup and Founder Meetup, Funding > Channel: Entrepreneurs 9208756 bytes 1/11/10 LISTEN to Brian Tsuchiya

766_ Being happy, enjoying life and making money
PBC began in 1988 and continues to grow. In 2010 PBC will be merging with Grow LLC. This is part 2 of 2 of a Profile of a Leader interview with Russ Farmer, founder of PBC. The merger will allow Russ to spend more time with ADA Technologies (PBC's first client). Russ describes himself as a bootstrapper and that's what ADA does. Russ attended a program at DU put on by the Positive Life Foundation. So many people Russ met were unhappy and complaining, he felt somewhat out of step because he was happy and enjoyed life. Regardless of the work he was doing, he was happy with his life. When he went to this program with Art Linkletter, and other top notch speakers, he learned that he wasn't strange, it was those folks who couldn't be happy. From that moment on he became more comfortable being positive and happy. He still meets people who say 'you can't always be happy'. Russ's advice to a young person, "Do what you love to do and you can almost always figure out a way to do it successfully. If you're not having fun - change it. Life is too short and sweet not to really enjoy life. People that don't enjoy their job spend 5/7ths of their life in misery - that's a crazy way to live! You can always find something that you enjoy doing. Learn to play the game. Life is a beautiful and fantastic game."
Related Links: PBC, Inc Home || Grow, LLC || ADA Technologies || SBIR Info || Looking for Money Channel || Commercialization || Profile of a Leader || Keywords: Russ Farmer, PBC, Inc, SBIR, ADA Technologies, Entrepreneurs, Funding, Grow Your Business, Amended Silicates, Meeting the Challenge > Channel: Profiles 9499391 bytes - 1/4/10 LISTEN to Russ Farmer, SBIR Expert

765_ Here there are service providers and funding sources
This is part 2 of 2 of a Profile of a Leader interview with David Allen, Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer at the University of Colorado
The turning point in Dave's career was coming to Colorado. The thing that continually amazes Dave is the nature of the business community here in Colorado compared to where he was in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Dave continued, "Here the entrepreneurial climate, the DNA of the community, whatever you want to call it, it's not a difference in degree, it's a difference in kind. Here there are service providers and funding sources, but more than anything else there are people who understand it - that's different than most other places. They are willing to put in the time to support to younger people (TechStars), or what we do at the Boulder Innovation Center." Dave describes much more and he also gives some great advice to young people, "Constantly put yourself in situations where you are surrounded by smart people and figure out ways you can provide value, be prepared for those interactions, it can relate to school, your business community, friends, but challenge yourself." Listen, there's more...
Related Links: CU TTO Home || CU TTO Channel || Available Technologies || CU TTO Blog || Boulder Innovation Center || TechStars || Keywords: David Allen, Technology Transfer, University of Colorado, Profile of a Leader, Boulder Innovation Center, TechStars, Entrepreneurs Channel: Profiles 14638810 bytes - 1/4/10
LISTEN to Dave Allen, Associate Vice President, CU TTO

772_ Internet change is dramatic
Sue Wyman joins Larry in this interview with Liberty Media, Sr. Vice President, Michael Zeisser. Michael is European, half French and half German. He has spent the last 23 years here in the US, most of his professional career. He came to Liberty Media six years ago and is responsible for Liberty's Internet, digital media, ecommerce companies and initiatives. Michael was asked, "What do you consider the most far reaching technological innovation today?" He has much to point out, but here is part of it. "I think the biggest innovation is the Internet itself. I think is very important for people building businesses on the Internet to recognize that in spite of its frankly short life, it has gone through three or four dramatic shifts itself, and I think it is very important to be mindful of the degree and the ferociousness with which these innovation shifts occur on the Internet because they have tended to destroy businesses that haven't been able to adapt to them. And they've created opportunities for others to come into the market. There is a lot of discussion about what the Internet companies are doing to newspapers or the music industry - yet one that is discussed less frequently is the change that occurs within the Internet industry itself. The second shift occurs a few years later when we went from directory based navigation to search based navigation. If you recall, big portals like Excite and Yahoo were primarily directory based. Then Google emerged. The rate of change in the Internet environment is so much higher and for this reason Internet companies need to be organized differently." There's much more...
Related Links: Liberty Media || Communications Technology Professionals || CTP Channel || Mastering Change || Silicon Flatirons || Keywords: Michael Zeisser, Liberty Media, CTP, Communications Technology Professionals, Sue Wyman, Digital Media, Ecommerce Companies, Internet, Innovation > Channel: CTP 13283932 bytes 1/11/10 LISTEN to Michael Zeisser

770_ A valuable resource for commercializing
Kate Tallman, Director of Tech Transfer for CU Boulder and Tim Bour, Executive Director, Boulder Innovation Center discussed commercialization of innovative ideas and inventions as well as support offered entrepreneurs. Kate introduced him, "Tim's been with the Boulder Innovation Center for a little over 3 years, and he has built the program from one focus mainly on software and organics and natural into one that now works with all kinds and sectors of technology including clean tech and the biosciences space. So the BIC has become a valuable resource for commercializing university technology. Can you give us some background on what the BIC is?" Time replied, "First of all, most traditionally, people think of the BIC as an incubator, but with some important differences. We're structured as a nonprofit, as a 501c6 nonprofit. We don't have any incubator space, we don't take any equity in our clients and we don't charge any success fees. This is different than many incubators you'd find around the country. But we find that it's really dealt well in terms of working with universities and it also does well in terms of growing jobs in the community, and that's one of our key outcomes. We currently have six market segments; we work in the area of clean tech which includes bio fuels, solar, software, building materials, anything that has a reduction in energy and efficiency in energy. Currently we have 750 advisors in our network and they're pretty evenly divided in those six segments. We currently have 35 outside clients and we work with between 70 and 100 companies a year that become BIC clients. Now of those 35, today right now, 24 of the 35 are based on CU research." Listen for more entrepreneurial support systems...
Related Links: Boulder Innovation Center || Tech Tranfer Channel || CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO News || Keywords: Tim Bour, Kate Tallman, Boulder Innovation Center, CU TTO, Tech Transfer, Commercializing, Clean Tech, BioScience, Engineering, IT, Natural, Organic, Space. Channel: CU TTO 8969899 bytes 1/11/10 LISTEN to Tim Bour & Kate Tallman

768_ Reform legislation,
reform the way people think
National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT is a non-profit coalition of corporations, other non-profits and universities from all around the country who believe women's participation in technology and computer sciences needs to be increased. They work together from the K-12 through the IT workforce to run programs that increase, promote and advance women's participation in IT. Larry interviewed Jenny Slade, Communication Director of NCWIT about an important project they are working on. Jenny pointed out, "Women represent 50% of the workforce and in part because technology is inherently a creative venture. If you're not including 50% of the population in the creation of technology, then you're losing a lot of innovative ideas. Women comprise about 24% of the professional IT workforce and at universities women bring home between 12-14% of computer science and information degrees and in the K-12 space, girls comprise 17% of ACT computer science test takers and that's given that young women take more than half of ACT tests. We've launched our first fundraising campaign. We've been very successful in the past raising funding from our constituents, to perform our work. If you donate $25 to NCWIT for our work in DC, what you're doing is putting statistics and important data into the hands of policy makers...people who make decisions about whether, and how computer science is taught in our schools. One of the ways we're going to recruit more women into IT is to reform legislation, reform the way people think about computer science both in our schools and in our workplaces." More info... NOTE: Google incentive: Random Drawing for Trip to Sydney, Australia - for two! Learn More...
NOTE: Google incentive: Random Drawing for Trip to Sydney, Australia - for two! Learn More... Related Links: NCWIT Share || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Keywords: NCWIT, Jenny Slade, Lucy Sanders, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology NCWIT Heroes, Google > Channel: NCWIT 7547432 bytes - 1/4/10 LISTEN to Jenny Slade, Communications Director, NCWIT

767_ Even if you're not 'the' IT department, backups are important
Applied Trust cofounders Trent Hein and Ned McClain continue with the Dear Ned Series dishing out valuable answers to your most pressing IT questions. Trent started out with, "This time we're looking at 'end of year activities' - what should IT be doing at the end of the year or maybe the start of the year, just to make sure they're on top of stuff?" Ned replied, "It's a great and obviously timely question. With our IT hats on there are several important things to think about, and even if we're not an IT department, many of us are responsible for a blog or a website out there. One really important thing, and easy to do, is to update the copyright dates on the bottom of your website or blog. We all try really hard to keep our websites/blog looking fresh and up to date, and we look like idiots if we have last year's date on there. 2. Get your corporate holidays lined up, certainly they won't fall on the same dates, you may have to set your phone switch, setting door lock and unlocking schedules. 3. The last thing to ponder is backups and archiving. It's really important to have at least one point where you make archival backups of your most important data. Hopefully we're doing nightly backups of our important data. But it is certainly a good opportunity at the end of the year to make DVDs or Tapes or whatever hardcopy or offline copy of our data so that we know we have that really important 2009 data saved forever. Got more questions? Check out the Barking Seal Blog, Ned's looking for more questions to answer...
Related Links: Barking Seal Blog || Dear Ned Channel || Women in IT Channel || Applied Trust Engineering || ATE is Hiring || Keywords: Ned McClain, Trent Hein, Dear Ned, Applied Trust Engineering, IT Department, Website, Blog, Backups, DvDs, Tapes, Important Data > Channel: Dear Ned 3690179 bytes - 1/4/10 LISTEN to Trent Hein & Ned McClain, Applied Trust Engineering

764_ Google ranks Colorado’s w3w3.com number one for the “Business Internet Talk Radio” show (Google has over 25,000,000 listings).
We were ranked higher than many big names including Voice America, etc. Check it at… The same is true for the category “Entrepreneurs Internet Talk Radio” show… see at…
In January 2010 w3w3.com is celebrating our 11th year as an all-business Internet talk radio show. We have a very active Podcast Directory and our Blog . A very popular section is our Web Community Calendar that supports, Business, Government and Education. Also check out our very popular Business Event Photos as many years are archived there. We also have numerous Channels that are focused on specific topic areas and they are on our home page. If you don’t see what you want there, check out our Find It page where you can search by name, topic, company or industry as we have 1000s of pages archived. We have many other pages and we would like your opinion and input, tell us what you like, or don't like, and what you'd like to see. Send us an email to radio@w3w3.com or give us a call at 303.860.9393 and please feel free to post your comments on our Blog. Everyone at w3w3® would like to, Thank You! Have a SUPER 2010!!! (Can you believe how fast this year has gone by?) ... 2010 is nearly here! Reach out for new opportunities and Celebrate the New Year! - 12/28/09