779_ The fall of the record industry in the digital age.
How would you like to have a crystal ball that may predict success in your industry? Even better what if you had a way of knowing when you were heading in the wrong direction? Chris Carosella, principle of Carosella & Company and the programming chair for TiE Rockies speaks with TiE Rockies guest speaker, Steve Knopper, author of 'An Appetite for Self-Destruction: The spectacular crash of the record industry in the digital age.' Steve is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone Magazine, he writes the stories at the beginning of the magazine, about the music business, ticket scalpers, concert promoters, basically how people make money in the industry, he tends to write the behind the scenes stories. The shortened version of how Steve came to write this book begins with a piece he did for Wired Magazine about how to kill your computer with viruses. A literary agent from New York called Steve and said he liked the story, did he have any book ideas? Originally it was going to be about the entire history of the music business going back to Thomas Edison, but he narrowed the scope to digital music beginning with the adoption of the CD and that led to a prolonged boom in the music industry where everyone got filthy rich for a long time. Then there was this technological disruption, the Internet, Napster, mp3s, basically people pirating music files illegally, by people in their own homes, and the music industry responded to that in all the wrong ways. Steve is speaking at a special TiE Rockies event at the Liberty Media, Starz building in the Meridian Office Park on the NE corner of C-470 and I-225, January 28 beginning at 5:30pm - 8:00. Listen for more...
Related Links: Steve Knopper Home || Special Event || TiE Rockies Home || Mastering Change || Keywords: Steve Knopper, Appetite for Self-Destruction: The spectacular crash of the record industry in the digital age, Chris Carosella, TiE Rockies, Change > Channel: Entrepreneurs 10948546 bytes - 1/25/10 LISTEN to Steve Knopper, author Appetite for Self-Destruction

777_ Raising money and building a team; Crash Course
This CU New Venture Challenge Crash Course addresses core elements of building a business: including a discussion of how to build a team, how to identify and use mentors, and selecting and refining an idea. Brad Bernthal, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, CU Law School, and Entrepreneurship Initiative Director, Silicon Flatirons Center introduced Jason Mendelson a co-founder and Managing Director with the Foundry Group, a Boulder-based venture capital fund with over $225 million under management. In this Crash Course, Jason went onto emphasize, "Build a great team. Great teams succeed, poor teams always fail. Find mentors and advisors,Boulder is a great town, it's mentor town USA. Engage these mentors, if you have an interesting idea and you're cool to work with we'll keep engaged and most of us aren't looking for anything in return, it's just the right thing to do. But that goes to another point, don't get taken advantage of. Being confident is important but being self-aware and being trainable is one of the most sexy things for a mentor to see. If you know all the answers, know everything, are super confident, you're always right and don't listen, you'll quickly burn out your mentor very, very quickly. Learn to keep people engaged and you can do that in a number of ways... maybe a weekly email that isn't too long. It's closing the loop every time you get feedback from them. You don't always have to agree with them but at least show that you are listening - keep them engaged." Jason then talked about raising money. You'll be surprised what he had to say. Listen, there's more...
Related Links: Foundry Group || Mendelson's Musings || Ask the VC || Silicon Flatirons || Pogoplug || Mastering Change || Keywords: Jason Mendelson, Foundry Group, CU New Venture Challenge, Crash Course, Entrepreneurs, Brad Bernthal, Silicon Flatirons, Teams, Venture Capital > Channel: Entrepreneurs bytes: 35173425 1/25/10 LISTEN to Jason Mendelson, Foundry Group

Change Is Not an Event, It Is an Ongoing Process
as it is with Chaos - Check out the Mastering Change Blog

775_ An opportunity for angel investors and startups
Part 2 of 2 Tim said, "There are two elements of the financial picture. One is how do we get funded and the second one is what do we do to help the companies we work with get funded." Kate Tallman, Director of Tech Transfer for CU Boulder and Tim Bour, Executive Director, Boulder Innovation Center continued their discussion about commercialization of innovative ideas and inventions. He continued, "Our operating budget is around $350k a year, I'm happy to report we are in the black for 2009 and we project we'll be in the black for 2010. It's been a very difficult year, we've been able to inspire the people who sponsor us to continue to do so, because of the work we're doing trying to create more jobs and start new companies. Of the $350k we get about $150k from CU, different sections of CU that have an interest in clean tech, the Tech Transfer Office, bioscience, but all together $150k. The City of Boulder is also a funder of the BIC, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce and the Boulder Economic Council. Now with public sector, the University has a very clear goal which is to commercialize research. Kate continued with the 'angel investors'. Tim explained, "We've taken on investment into our companies as a strategic goal for 2010. We started our effort back in November. We have about 100 investor types, mostly angels, some others, in our network right now. We took a look at them and realized a lot of the investors had an affinity to one of our segments. So in November we put together what we called an Angel Showcase where we had about 20 angel investors in clean tech, we brought them into a showcase with three companies two of which were from CU and happy to report that those companies are in talks with some of the investors." Listen for more...
7979034 bytes 1/18/10 LISTEN to Tim Bour

770_ A valuable resource for commercializing - Part 1 of 2
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 Transfer 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

January Event Photo Albums - Check 'em out...
ACG Denver: Alan Beaulieu Institute for TrendResearch
Rockies Venture Club: A Conversation with Colorado's Inc. 500
CU New Venture Challenge: Crash Course with Jason Mendelson
CU 8th Annual Tech Transfer Awards

780_ Questions and answers about ARRA and HIPPA
The 'Dear Ned' series has gotten a number of questions recently about the 'American Reinvestment and Recovery Act' or ARRA, and how it impacts IT.
Applied Trust cofounders Trent Hein and Ned McClain continue with the Dear Ned Series providing invaluable answers to your most pressing IT questions. Trent started out with, "What can Ned tell us about ARRA and how it will affect your IT department and especially healthcare? Ned was quick to reply, "Good timing on this question because on September 23rd, 2009, these new ARRA regulations came into effect. As Trent mentioned this definitely affects healthcare, and certainly if you are a hospital or healthcare provider of any kind, or insurance company of almost any kind, you are obviously covered by these healthcare requirements. But what's particularly interesting is that most companies handle some health information. A recent survey showed that 57% of companies believed they were HIPPA covered, that they had to follow these federal regulations for healthcare, so this is particularly important to most of us. If you are administering a benefits plan where we get to see health information of any kind, if we're transmitting health information electronically, in any fashion, you likely are covered by these regulations. They have become significantly more stringent with the ARRA Act. Before they covered security and privacy but now there is a lot more to think about. There are three new things to think about in addition to the HIPPA requirements of a year ago. 1.) Particularly, there are new requirements for having a business associate agreement or some kind of contract with each company that you share health information with. So if you're a service provider dealing with mail lists, for example, you may have clients asking you to sign a business agreement contract for HIPPA, and you need to be prepared to do that." Listen for more and ask your questions.
Related Links: Ask Your Own Questions || Dear Ned Channel || Women in IT Channel || Applied Trust Engineering || ATE is Hiring || Find It || Keywords: Ned McClain, Trent Hein, Dear Ned, Applied Trust Engineering, IT Department, American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, ARRA, HIPPA > Channel: Dear Ned 6507194 bytes 1/25/10 LISTEN to Trent Hein & Ned McClain, Applied Trust Engineering

778_ Entrepreurial impact on the gaming industry
The medical field, the gaming industry and the pet accessories market have seemingly little in common, but Beth Marcus has built a name in all three. Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) along with Larry Nelson from w3w3.com interviewed Beth Marcus for the NCWIT Heros series. Beth has been Founder and CEO of several successful startups, most notably EXOS, Inc., which was launched in 1988, venture capital backed and sold to Microsoft in 1996. Since then she has been involved in 20 start-ups in a variety of fields as a founder, investor, or advisor. She has raised equity numerous times and has also done angel investments herself. Several of these ventures have been acquired by public companies. Beth has worked as a consultant providing patent strategy, litigation support and other strategic technology related consulting services. Beth is an acknowledged expert in the hand-device interface space and has been an expert for several of the major players in the industry in support of prior patents litigations. Recently Beth became founding CEO of Playsmrt, Playsmrt allows parents to create a safe, interactive environment in which children 1 to 8 years old can play media, communicate with family members, and learn. Parents set limits, kids explore! Beth shares some great entrepreneurial advice. There's much more...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || NCWIT Channel || Playsmrt || Engineering Pathway || Keywords: Beth Marcus, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, EXOS, Microsoft, Zeemote, Digital Gaming, Playsmrt, Entrepreneurs > Channel: NCWIT bytes:22899343, 1/25/10 LISTEN to Beth Marcus

776_ Biggest social and cultural change on the Internet
Part 2 of 2 "What the Internet has done at a very fundamental level and it's doing this in so many areas, including of course for society and democracy, is it creates transparency and it fundamentally makes more information available to more people. In enabling those forces it gives more power to the end user for whatever purpose that might be," said Liberty Media, Sr. Vice President, Michael Zeisser. Sue Wyman joins Larry in this interview with Michael Zeisser. He continuous, "So the Internet is, I believe, fundamentally important for democracy, I think it's changing nations, it's giving people more power because they have more information. I am really excited to live right now because I equate what's happening with the Internet to the invention of the printing press." Larry asked, "Many have concerns about transparency, with your background at Mackenzie, what are some of the things the Internet has changed fundamentally as it relates to business?' Michael points out, "The Internet creates markets where there were no markets. If you have a business that is built on scarcity or inefficiencies then the Internet is very bad news for you because the Internet is going to create efficiency where there was none or transparency where there was none. The music industry, for a long time, music companies were able to force the buyer to buy 12 songs at a time on this format called a DVD. If you only liked three of the twelve songs, too bad. The Internet created the opportunity for single songs, the Internet created the opportunity for people to buy the one song that they wanted, that's been a transformational change for the music industry. The biggest threat in my mind is that the Internet becomes a cesspool as we've already experienced, there is a lot of bad stuff on the Internet. For some people it brings out really bad human traits." 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 13960028 bytes
Bytes: 13960028 - 1/18/10 LISTEN to Michael Zeisser

772_ Internet change is dramatic - Part 1 of 2
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...
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

763_ Talking to Benjamin Franklin about History
Benjamin Franklin, one of the most important people in American history has a My 21st Century guide, Christopher Lowell is acting as his agent and he has booked him to speak all over the country and even, indeed, Europe. In this Profile of a Leader Series, Larry asked Ben, "What was the turning point in your life?" Ben replied, "A major influence in my younger life was an author I read when I was 16 years old - the famed Puritan and theologian and former judge of Salem Witch Trials, Cotton Mather, with whom I'd had some theological differences later. But when I was a lad, he wrote a series of essays on doing good. In that book I learned, for the first time, and considered the importance of collaboration, and working together collaboratively to get things done effectively. When I was a young 21 year old businessman, I took these lessons to heart and formed my first networking group, I called it the Junta. A group of young businessmen and I met weekly. We wanted to get ahead and make our businesses profitable in an aggressive but ethical way. We learned a lot from each other." Another lesson came from his half brother James, to whom Ben was apprenticed. James treated Benjamin ill, in fact he beat him regularly. He was actually teaching Ben a love of liberty and a hatred of arbitrary power improperly or unjustly applied. "This certainly affected me much later as I worked with young Tom Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and still further on the Constitution." His advice continued as he references Poor Richard's Almanac...
Related Links: Ben Franklin Live || Profile of a Leader Channel || Angel Capital Summit || Blog || Find It || Keywords: Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Lowell, Thomas Jefferson, Poor Richard's Almanac, Constitution, > Channel: Profiles 13343912 bytes - 1/18/10 LISTEN to Benjamin Franklin / Christopher Lowell