668_ Entrepreneurs are people who would just be dreadful employees
When Ellen Siminoff was asked, "What is it about you that makes the entrepreneur part tick?" Ellen, who was a founding executive at Yahoo said, "When I started Yahoo, we were a small group of folks and thought we were changing the world! For me, it's about the idea and the people and the excitement of creating it." Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interviewed Ellen, CEO and president - their mission,. "Shmoop wants to make you a better lover (of literature, history, poetry and writing)." About 18 years ago, Ellen and her husband started a different company, they were distributing television programming in Eastern Europe and she fell in love with the media industry. In 1994, at the Los Angeles Times, Ellen started running their online classifieds (this was really early), and she realized technology could be used to deliver media in a really interesting way. Today she's a great fan of the Kindle. Lucy asked what's next for Shmoop? Ellen's reply, "Well, I think we've done a really great job on Lit, history and poetry. We're going to do more in Civics, and get some of the maths and sciences up there because I think it's really important to be able to read, write and do arithmetic." There's more...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || Shmoop University || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || PodCast Directory || Keywords: Ellen Siminoff, Shmoop University, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes 6/1/09 > Bytes: 18852679 - 6/1/09 LISTEN

This is NCWIT week at the w3w3.com! April 27, 2009...
The National Center for Women and Information Technology, located right here in Boulder, Colorado, and Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder will be celebrating their 5th anniversary. On May 11, 2009 they will hold the NCWIT Symons Award (In Memory of Jeannette Symons) honoring Anousheh Ansari. Background here. Next is the NCWIT "Global Status of Women in Technology" event which will be held May 12-14 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

655_ Reaching more than 14 million women each month with blogs and more
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interviewed Elisa Camahort Page the co-founder and COO of BlogHer for the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Hero Series. BlogHer is the leading community and media network for women who blog. BlogHer reaches more than 14 million women each month via annual conferences, a Web hub, and a publishing network. She is a blogging pioneer and marketing executive with 18 years of experience in Silicon Valley. Elisa was at the vanguard of professional and business blogging. Among the seven blogs she writes are blogs with personal, professional and political focus areas. Elisa opened her own high-tech marketing consultancy, Worker Bees, after a successful career as a marketing executive in the cable broadband sector. Founded in February 2005 as a labor of love by three bloggers, BlogHer's mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment...listen for more entrepreneurial ideas...
Related Links: BlogHer Home || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || w3w3® Media Network Blog || Keywords: Elisa Camahort, BlogHer, Lucy Sanders, Blogs, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information, Silicon ValleyTechnology, NCWIT Heroes > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 28647552 > 4.27.09 LISTEN

656_ Everything You want to know about working with non-profits and technology
Confluence is an information technology services firm dedicated to supporting the culture, mission and budgets of the nonprofit sector, and select local government clients. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interview Lisa Rau, Chief Executive Officer of Confluence for the Entrepreneurial Tool Box series. Lisa is also on the faculty of the Center for Nonprofit Advancement's Learning and Leadership Institute. She shared some great ideas about partnerships, social networking and strategic strategy assessments. Lisa said, "Non-profits are all about building community, outreach, advocacy, education and these are all things that social networking can be very instrumental in. It's better to have one or two widgets you can work with than a whole group of them. Even with a blog, the technology is the easy part. It's the organization part where someone has to work with the blog, post it and review comments in order to make it fresh and worthwhile." Listen for more...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Confluence Corp || Find It Archives || Keywords: Lisa Rau, Confluence Corporation, Non-profits, Lucy Sanders, Entrepreneurial Tool Box, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 19066883 > 4.27.09 LISTEN

653_ The reinvented web is a more social, more connected place
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interview Mena Trott, Co-Founder, President, Six Apart. Mena has been involved in the weblogging space since she began publishing to her own weblog, dollarshort.org, in early 2001. She speaks regularly at industry conferences. Mena can be found writing about weblogging and Six Apart at Mena's Corner. Mena pointed out, "At Six Apart, we provide the tools that have helped reinvent the web as a more social, more connected place full of distinct voices and lively conversations. In just a few years, millions of bloggers have dramatically changed the face of media, communications and society. We believe in the power of blogging, and that's why we make the most powerful and expressive platforms and services available: Movable Type, TypePad, Vox, Blogs.com and TypePad AntiSpam." Six Apart and its famous products Movable Type and TypePad helped pioneer the blog category and move blogging into the mainstream. Since 2001, it has enabled millions of individuals, media companies and enterprises to create blogs and form rich, interactive communities. Six Apart powers conversations among passionate people and leading organizations around the globe. Listen for more...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Six Apart || PodCasting Directory || Keywords: Mena Trott, Six Apart, Lucy Sanders, Movable Type, TypePad, Vox, Blogs, AntiSpam, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 21183323 > 4.20.09 LISTEN

633_ Realini named one of 50 Top Women in Technology by Corporate Board Member
In 2005 Carol Realini founded Obopay after traveling in Africa and recognizing that while mobile phones were ubiquitous, many people didn’t have access to even the most basic banking services. Recognizing the need and opportunity in both industrialized and developing nations, Carol designed Obopay’s business model to promote social and economic development throughout the world, by providing mobile savings, money transfer, and payments to people everywhere. In 2008, Carol was named one of the 50 Top Women in Technology by Corporate Board Member magazine. If you’ve not heard of Obopay, here’s a quick rundown; Obopay is simple, convenient, instant, secure, easy-to-use and available to everyone, working on any mobile phone with any carrier. Obopay does not run credit checks and transfers money in seconds. Obopay customers can use their existing bank accounts—at any American bank—to send and receive money via their mobile phone. Users send and receive money through mobile application, text message (SMS), mobile Web browser, secure Web site, widget or AOL Instant Messenger. Anyone can pick up money received by having it deposited directly into their existing bank account or by requesting a check, without having to sign up with Obopay. Obopay takes the time and hassle out of costly wire transfers, and lets businesses, banks and carriers connect with and deliver real value to America’s 200 million mobile consumers. Listen to Carol in her own words.
Related Links: Obopay || NCWIT Channel || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2007 || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2008 || Keywords: Carol Realini, NCWIT, Women in IT, Obopay, secure mobile money transfer, Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 23834856 > 3.16.09 LISTEN

603_ Receiving a $100,000 Grant from the US Government for Research
Every federal program with a large R&D budget has to use a percentage of their budget to fund small businesses with these SBIR Grants. That was the topic of discussion with Krista Marks, founder of Kerpoof. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson continue with the NCWIT series the Entrepreneurial Toolbox Series. This is a new interview series designed to promote fundamental skills of entrepreneurship. The series interviews both men and women about a range of topics critical to entrepreneurial success, such as networking, how to procure funding, writing a business plan, raising money and the importance of failure. The series is sponsored by the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Alliance with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Qualcomm. Krista said, " The NSF (National Science Foundation) has many different programs aimed at advancing the cause of research and science in the United States and even internationally in some cases. SBIR stands for small business innovation research, so to qualify for an SBIR Grant you have to be a small business (fewer than 500 employees), and the grant has to be used specifically for funding research. A phase one grant is $100K and this funds the first part of that research, typically a feasibility type of analysis. The SBIR Grant is not unique to the NSF. Every federal program with a large R&D budget has to use a percentage of their budget to fund small businesses with these SBIR Grants. At the time Kerpoof wanted to do research on delivering an activity, entirely in a browser that would introduce kids to basic programming constructs and to do that in a way that is as responsive as traditional software. So we submitted an SBIR proposal and received a SBIR Phase I grant for $100,000.00 to complete that research." Krista shares a number of 'must knows'.
Related Links: Kerpoof English || Kerpoof Spanish || NCWIT Channel || SBIR Information || Entrepreneurial Toolbox || Keywords: Krista Marks, Kerpoof, Lucinda Sanders, NCWIT, SBIR Grants, Larry Nelson, Entrepreneurial Toolbox
Channels:NCWIT Bytes: 15353023 - 1/12/09 LISTEN

598_ David Cohen says, "We invest a small amount of money in about 10 companies."
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson had a great conversation with David Cohen about the learning experiences of a new entrepreneur for the new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. David is a serial entrepreneur and investor in other startups with his company aptly named, Colorado Startups. David started 3 software companies here, two worked out pretty well, one didn’t. The first was a public safety software company started in ’93, still going in Broomfield, CO with a couple hundred employees now. The 2nd was a startup around mobile social networking – "We were a little early on that one." The 3rd was around music and RSS, we sold to a Silicon Valley company two years back. The subject of the 'Tool Box' interview is 'Business Planning Competitions. David gave an overview of TechStars and at the same time shared some insights every entrepreneur should listen to. "It is mentorship driven. We invest a small amount of money in about 10 companies that come to Boulder every summer for three months. We surround them with some of the best and brightest mentors and at the end of the summer they pitch their ideas to investors and hopefully keep going. We started with my own experiences and what I wished I had known back when starting my first company. The value of TechStars is the mentorship. The reason for that is because they are surrounded by expertise, people who’ve been there and done that, made those mistakes and had those successes and can really give them some critical feedback in a very compacted time frame. Then he detailed the quaities they are looking for. BTW, applications open January 19, 2009.
Related Links: TechStars || TechStars Scedule || Colorado Startups || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || Keywords: David Cohen, TechStars, Colorado Startups, Lucy Sanders, NCWIT, Mentors, Entrepreneurial Tool Box, Blog, Investors >> Channels: NCWIT, VC, Bytes: 16188293 > 1.5.09 LISTEN

575_ From Venture Capitalist to Entrepreneur Music Producer
(Part 1 of 2) Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Heidi Roizen, CEO of Skinny Songs. Heidi Roizen has achieved success as an entrepreneur, a corporate executive, a corporate director and venture capitalist. She has held positions of leadership within a number of industry organizations, and is a recognized and popular spokesperson for the technology industry and entrepreneurial community. Currently, Roizen is CEO of SkinnySongs, which she launched in January of 2008. SkinnySongs introduced the first-ever collection of radio-hit-quality music in which the lyrics are specifically designed to motivate people to reach their weight and fitness goals. This is the first in this new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. Each interview will have a particular focus this interview addresses the best way to network. Many listeners will be very surprised at some of her comments, but remember Heidi is royalty when it comes to networking...ask Bill Gates. Lucy asks her to define Networking and references a comment made by Heidi that it isn't stalking. Lee wanted to know what entrepreneurs need to do to be prepared. Larry asked, "What types of people are in your network and how do you avoid compromising them?" Heidi has some great advice about the best way to reach out to venture capitalists and what not to do. This is a great series, listen now...
Related Links: Heidi Roizen Website || SkinnySongs || USA Today || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Home || Keywords: Heidi Roizen, Networking, Venture Capital, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Lucy Sanders - Channels: NCWIT on w3w3 & Social Entrepreneurship Bytes: 14773919 > LISTEN - 10/27/08

581_ Networking 2.0 from a Venture Capitalist and Entrepreneur
(Part 2 of 2) "Networking is not an event driven thing. It’s not something you go out and do and then you’re done. It’s sort of a lifelong component of building your career. Frankly so many of the people in my network are my personal friends, I think it’s a lifelong component of building an interesting life", said Heidi Roizen during an interview with Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson. The long-term strength and stability of an organization is dependent on networking. Lucy is always intersted in looking into all the aspects of a topic asked Heidi, "Do you have examples of bad networking or the right way to act?" Heidi replied, "There are a number of trade associations in any industry, and that has always been part of my (I don’t want to call it networking) but building relationships and learning more about your industry. First of all it is a way to give back to the industry and a way to do some constructive things and you build relationships outside of what your immediate needs might be, but ultimately come in very handy for you as well. And I definitely would credit my affiliations with the trade associations within my industry as things that really helped me build out my network. Pitfalls – When you’re going out to meet someone, you have to think, ‘what do I have to offer?’ I think that people have more to offer than they think they do. Every other person you meet out there is a human being and they have interests, children, and hobbies and passions and causes they support. I think you can build relationships with people by looking more deeply at the whole person." There's more great advice...
Related Links: Heidi Roizen Website || SkinnySongs || USA Today || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Home || Keywords: Heidi Roizen, Networking, Skinny Songs, Venture Capital, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT, Lee Kennedy, Lucy Sanders > Channels: NCWIT Bytes: 14773919 > LISTEN 11/3/08

549_ Building a Successful Online Business for a Female Entrepreneur
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) and Larry turned the table on NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy. Lucy, Larry and Lee (the 3 L's) interview successful female entrepreneurs. Lucy and Larry decided to turn the table on Lee, and put the spotlight on this CEO/Founder of TriCalyx, a consulting business focused on helping people build an online business. She has worked with Brad Feld, and had been the CIO at Webroot Software. Lee has been on a number of other startup teams and moved to Boulder from the Silicon Valley. Like so many others, she quickly saw and experienced the entrepreneurial excitement and supportive cluster. She has an interesting makeup of strengths and interests. Lee is very technically inclined and has a marketing background. Her two partners really carry the ball in in the software development and other techie areas...that's building a well-balanced team. TriCalyx does a great deal in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Lee pointed out that 85% of the world’s online population, purchase online! And that’s up 40% over the past two years. Then for people in the 75K and higher income bracket it’s more like 90+%. She has some great advice for parents of young people that can help in supporting their children’s move into IT. In fact, you might want your children to listen to this interview also.
Related Links: Tricalyx || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Practice || Find It ||
Keywords: Lee Kennedy, TriCalyx, Lucy Sanders, NCWIT, Search Engine Optimization, Online Business, Entrepreneur > Bytes: 13755771 > LISTEN 9/8/08

530_ Entrepreneurship and Ethics Lead to an Extreme Sport
Today Audrey MacLean is focused on working with the new generation of entrepreneurs. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology with NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy and Larry Nelson, president of w3w3.com, interviewed Audrey, Co-Founder & CEO, Network Equipment Technologies. Professor MacLean has a unique track record for entrepreneurial success as a founder, CEO, seed investor, and board member. She has been on the Forbes 'Midas Touch' list and listed by Business Week as one of the 50 most influential business women in America. She was also featured by Forbes in a cover article on Angel Investing. MacLean has over three decades of combined experience in the computer and communications industries. She was a founder of Network Equipment Technologies which went public in 1987 and later co-founded and was CEO of Adaptive which merged with NET in 1993. Building on her own entrepreneurial success, MacLean has been instrumental in helping to launch and grow successful companies through her work as a mentor, capitalist and as a professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford University. She is also an affiliate and advisor to a number of leading Venture Funds. Audrey points out it takes a team, a team you can trust and has a strong leaning toward ethics, entrepreneurship and clean tech...listen now.
Related Links: Audrey MacLean || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| Keywords: Audrey MacLean, Stanford, Network Equipment Technologies, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, NCWIT - Bytes: 17844248 LISTEN 7/28/08

667_ Only 12% of graduates are women - we need a huge segment of the population to be involved.
The first annual NCWIT Symons Innovator Award was presented to Anousheh Ansari this past Monday, May 11th, and it was a remarkable event. We stood 100 strong in the foyer of Heidi Roizen's home as Jennie Symons, the orphaned 9 year old daughter of Jeanette Symons presented the award to Anousheh Ansari, the first woman private explorer in space, the first astronaut of Iranian descent and with her family, title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. She is Chair, CEO and Co-founder of Prodea Systems, and formerly Chair, CEO and Co-Founder of Telecom Technologies, Inc. a technology company sold for $750 million. These men and women, gathered here, are outstanding examples of the promise and the future for 'women and information technology'. We begin this story in Atherton, CA, to celebrate one woman's success and to work on preparing the road for future young women and for the competitive advantage of our country... Statistics show that better than 50% of new entrepreneurs are female. They receive 3% of the VC investments and only 5% of the Federal funds set aside for new businesses. It is a gender issue to be sure. While many women of varying ages and interests are taking the entrepreneurial plunge, Lucy Sanders points out another big issue, not so readily recognized, is the Global competitiveness of our country so adversely affected by a subtle gender bias. Today the numbers of students going into computer science studies are plummeting. As this workforce dwindles, the best job opportunities grow. While attending the NCWIT Conference hosted by Google, Jeff Huber, Sr. VP of Engineering at Google said, "It's a critical problem! A crisis for the industry, for Google." Only 12% of graduates are women at a time when we need a huge segment of the population to be involved. Is the study of math and science important to our collective future? We certainly believe so and the National Center for Women and Information Technology is making the difference.
Related Links: NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| NCWIT Channel || PHOTOS Reception || Google Campus || Keywords: NCWIT, Lucy Sanders, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes, NCWIT Toolbox Series, Google, Jeff Huber, Anousheh Ansari, Jeanette Symons, First NCWIT Symons Innovator Award > Channels: NCWIT Bytes: 6525913 > 5/18/09

658_ Social Media: You have to accept that we live in public today
Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interviewed Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President of BabyCenter for the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box Series. Prior to joining BabyCenter, Tina was co-founder and chief community architect of iVillage.com. BabyCenter is the Web’s #1 global interactive parenting brand, reaching 78% of new and expecting moms online in the United States, and reaching 15 million parents monthly across 18 markets worldwide. When Tina was asked about the social media she replied, "I can tell you that social media is not an empire unto itself. Social media is really a facilitating and enabling platform about the tools, the services and applications that allow people to connect, communicate and share with each other. Social media is really a collection of things that enable conversations and sharing, that enable discovery. It's the media that's created by people and you have to figure out who are the people you trust and who is in your circle of friends, whose opinion do you trust?" She goes onto share some practical online insights...listen now...
Related Links: NCWIT Home || BabyCenter Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || PodCast Directory || Keywords: Tina Sharkey, BabyCenter, Lucy Sanders, Blogs, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information, Social Media, Expecting Moms, Entrepreneurial Tool Box; Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 29381070 > 5.4.09 LISTEN

657_ Good software comes from a collaboration between developers and designers
Rashmi Sinha is a designer, researcher and entrepreneur. She is confounder & CEO for SlideShare. Rashmi believes that good software comes from a true collaboration between developers and designers. Her background is social software & interface design. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson interview her for the NCWIT Hero Series. How and why she became an entrepreneur is very interesting and many entrepreneurs will be able to relate to her story. Rashmi has a PhD in Cognitive NeuroPsychology from Brown University in 1998. After moving to UC Berkeley for a PostDoc, she fell in love with the Web, and realized that many issues that Web technologists think about are problems of human psychology. She worked on search interfaces & recommender systems. SlideShare is a great way to get your slides out there on the Web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. Do you want to get the word out about your product or service? Do you want your slides to reach people who could not make it to your talk? Let your slides do the talking! This takes PowerPoint to a new level. Listen for more...
Related Links: http://www.slideshare.net/ SlideShare NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Rashmi's Blog || PodCasting Directory || Keywords: Rashmi Sinha, SlideShare, Lucy Sanders, PowerPoint, Entrepreneurs, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 22030213 > 4.27.09 LISTEN

641_ Ann Winblad, ...one of the foremost experts on navigating Silicon Valley
Lucy Sanders, NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, w3w3®.com spoke with Ann Winblad, co-founder and a Managing Director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. When Ann Winblad got started in the software industry she was based in Minneapolis, "It's a very entrepreneurial state, but there's not density in one entrepreneurial area - there's a little bit of software, a little media, a little of medical devices". Lucy, asked about Silicon Valley reputation. Ann said, "The Silicon Valley is still like Mesopotamia. It is said innovation is happening everywhere, and it is. Looking at the numbers, in 2008 there were about 1400 deals done outside of the US (Europe, Israel, China, India) about $13.4 Billion; compared to the US with about 2600 deals and about $29 billion invested. But relative to Silicon Valley, over 30% was invested in companies in the Bay area". The contemporary software industry started back in the late 1970s, Ann started her software company in Minneapolis in 1976, the same year that Microsoft started, within the next year Apple started and within two years Oracle started. There was enough of an infrastructure in Silicon Valley from the birth of the semi-conductor industry, and then we started to get these real anchor tenants, and so a high density of young companies..." Well, you can see, there is a wealth of information in this single interview with a woman who was and is part of the creation of the history and the future in Silicon Valley, your tour guide, today.
Related Links: Hummer Winblad Venture Partners || Hummer Winblad Team || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || Entrepreneurial Toolbox || Keywords: Ann Winblad, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, NCWIT Toolbox, Lucy Sanders, Silicon Valley, Software, Venture Capital, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle > Channel:NCWIT Bytes= 27298484 > 3.30.09 LISTEN

607_ Emmy Award winning reporter becomes founder of a tech company
Blip.TV is a very interesting site and provides an infrastructure for the video blogging community and it's much more than that. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member, along with Larry Nelson continue with the NCWIT Hero Series and talked with Dina Kaplan, COO and one of five co-founders of BLIP.TV. Dina says, "We definitely consider ourselves a media company, and I think that’s very important. If you go back a few decades, NBC and CBS and all those broadcast networks that we now think of as media companies, back in their early days, they were considered technology companies. So I think we’ll see that same transition happen with the new media companies. It’s incredibly rewarding to be a new media company that’s not betting on hits and not banking on hits, and essentially having the authority to giving the ‘green light’ or the ‘red light’ to a project. So what BLIP is, is a very democratic network where anyone can upload a show and if it’s good the show will amass hundreds of thousands or even millions of viewers and can also have the opportunity to make money as well. You’ll never have that kind of democratic platform with a traditional TV network because just by their nature they have to invest in hits and bank on that and hope that something is really huge, because there’s a limited amount of bandwidth over those airways. So part of the reason that I jumped over to the new media is that it met my values and my beliefs that anyone who is talented should have a chance to succeed. It shouldn’t be up to one programming chief, what gets the green light and what does not." There's more...
Related Links: BLIP TV || NCWIT Channel || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2007 || Entrepreneurial Heroes 2008 || Keywords: Dina Kaplan, Blip TV, Lucinda Sanders, NCWIT, Hero Series, Larry Nelson, Entrepreneurs, Media, New Media Channels:NCWIT Bytes=20910396 > - 1/19/09 LISTEN

592_ Brad Feld and the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box (Part 1 of 2)
Brad Feld was being drilled by Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson, about the learning experiences of a new entrepreneur for the new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. And as Brad said, "Dave Jilk was a college friend. In 1987 we launched a company which we then grew, with no financing into a couple million dollar business and sold in 1993. So that was the first real success I had, after a couple of companies that went absolutely no where." When addressing the failures Brad said, "Well you go through this cycle of believing, sort of the optimism of the creation at inception of the company, some progress, whatever progress there is and then ultimately you start to have some problems and you either push through the problems or you don’t. I mean Feld Technologies had all kinds of things that could have caused us to fail. In fact, one of the first things we did was hire a half dozen college friends and part time people, and spent money we didn’t have and all of a sudden we were upside down $20,000 and we had no money, and we realized we couldn’t do that anymore because we didn’t have the money to pay the people and we had to get to a place where we’d make money. In the case of the other failures, I think it was pretty clear at some point we were not making real progress." said Brad Feld, Chairman of the NCWIT – also co-chair of the Governor’s Innovation Council. Listen for more insights...Brad also talks about what it takes to create winners.
Bytes: 12940750 > 12/1/08 LISTEN

Related Links: Foundry Group || Brad's Blog || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || TriCalyx || Keywords: Brad Feld, Foundry Group, NCWIT, Entrepreneurial Tool Box, Dealing with Failing, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, Leadership, Blog - Channels: NCWIT, VC,

594_ Brad Feld and the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Tool Box: Part 2 of 2
In this part 2 of 2 Brad Feld said, "My favorite entrepreneurs to work with and invest in their future companies are ones that have had a success, at least one success and one failure. If you’ve had three successes in a row and no failures, you think you’re invincible. Once you’ve had the first failure you realize that success is not a given – you have to work hard for success and there are lots of things that, some under your control, some not under your control that are going to impact your success or failure." Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson had a great conversation with Brad about the learning experiences of a new entrepreneur for the new NCWIT series, The Entrepreneurial Tool Box. Brad went onto say, "There are very clear values that drive leaders. And I think if you want to be a successful as an entrepreneur, studying great leaders, thinking about what makes those leaders great, and thinking about what attributes of that leader you share, or that are comfortable for you to emulate, is an important driver. I think entrepreneurs that don’t think about leadership and don’t understand how they relate to it – because not every entrepreneur is the same kind of leader. Another thing that is really important on either side of the equation is to understand what fear does. Essentially fear freezes you completely from being able to make good decisions. When you’re acting out of fear, you’re not able to step back and figure what’s going on." Brad continues...
Bytes: 14156954 - 12/8/08 LISTEN

588_ Changing Career Choice From an Attorney to High-Tech Entrepreneur
Lena West, CEO, Founder and Chief Strategist of xynoMedia Technology. This New York based firm helps high growth companies leverage the power of social media, blogs, podcasts and online communities. This interview is one of a continuing series of interviews for the NCWIT Heroes Channel. These entrepreneurial women are great examples that are inspiring to young women and girls who might consider an IT career and is also informational for parents and business leaders. Lena strongly believes that social media is a catalyst to uniting the world’s people and will continue to lead businesses and individuals toward greater levels of environmental accountability, social responsibility and corporate transparency - hence her passion for the medium. She went onto say, "And, that's how I really, truly feel. It's the main reason why I do what I do. With all that's going on in the world, I still believe in the goodness of people. I believe in the power of positivity and higher levels of energy to trump negativity." As a first year college student, Lena was going to be an attorney. That idea was short lived, just not her cup of tea. Eventually she took a job as a secretary with IBM, getting closer to the technology, and learned what she needed to learn and where she could learn about computer technology. She went from help desk work to consulting and eventually to business owner. There's more, listen now...
Related Links: xynoMedia Technology || Lip-Sticking || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Fact Sheet || Find It || Keywords: Lena West,xynoMedia, NCWIT, Social Media, Blogs, Podcasts, Online Communities, Lee Kennedy, Entrepreneur - Channels: NCWIT Bytes: 16498419 - 11/17/08 LISTEN

562_ Social Entrepreneurism and Microfinancing Goes Global
Social entrepreneur, Jessica Jackley Flannery is a co-founder of Kiva with her husband Matt. Kiva is the first peer-to-peer microloan website, demonstrates how the Internet can facilitate meaningful, positive connections between lenders and entrepreneurs in the developing world and even help us all become micro-financiers. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Jessica. She first saw the power and beauty of microfinance while working in rural Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda with Village Enterprise Fund and Project Baobab on impact evaluation and program development. Jessica has worked in the Stanford Center for Social Innovation to launch the inaugural Global Philanthropy Forum, and at Amazon.com, Potentia Media, the International Foundation and World Vision. Jessica has spoken widely on microfinance and social entrepreneurship, and has seen microfinance at work in a variety of communities in more than 30 countries. Jessica is an Ashoka Fellow and has built the Kiva budget from a small startup amount to $45 million. She was asked, "What does a $20 donation do for Kiva?" "Any donation helps us cover our basic operational costs--paying salaries, keeping the lights on, etc. In 2007, for every $1 Kiva receives in donations, we raised another $10 online in loans for the poor." Jessica shares some incredible success stories. Listen for more...
Related Links: KIVA || NCWIT Heros || ASHOKA || NCWIT Practice || Keywords: Jessica Flannery, Kiva, NCWIT, Ashoka Fellow, Microfinance, Social Entrepreneurship > Bytes: 24043836 > - LISTEN 9/29/08

Female Serial Entrepreneur Raises Millions of Dollars
536_ Here's a story about a female serial entrepreneur who literally fell into becoming a co-founder of a couple companies. Jean Kovacs has raised tons of money and in 2006 her company was bought by Sterling Commerce, an AT&T company. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Jean who had some very interesting replies to their questions. When they were discussing some of her best learning experiences Jean replied," I learned the most from bad managers." That's another way of learning vicariously. Today Jean Kovacs is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategic Alliances for Sterling Commerce, responsible for driving global strategic alliances, including the AT&T strategic relationship, and all corporate marketing and communications. Kovacs has over 25 years experience directing technology companies and a track record of using her strategic business skills and background to deliver exceptional results with growing enterprises. Jean also is Chair of the board of BUILD, a non-profit that gives entrepreneurial experiences to under-served communities - she believes that all students have the same potential and drive to succeed. The reality, however, is that students in under served neighborhoods begin with limited, and sometimes no, motivation or role models. Listen now.
Related Links: Sterling Commerce || E-Business Article || NCWIT Channel || NCWIT Practice || Keywords: Jean Kovac, Sterling Commerce, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Practice, National Center for Women & Information Technology, BUILD - Bytes: 16801857 LISTEN 8/11/08

523_ Women Will Drive Media Revenue Once it is Mainstreamed
The mobile consumer software industry is a multi-billion dollar market that is slated to grow three-fold to $50 billion worldwide by 2009. Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT board member, Lee Kennedy along with Larry Nelson interviewed Kristin Asleson McDonnell, CEO of LimeLife and serious serial entrepreneur. LimeLife, a company that delivers “fun” right to your mobile device, making women’s lives easier. And, LimeLife is the only publisher of wireless content exclusively focused on the women’s market. The company’s products are forging innovations in the mobile industry based on unique insights about what women seek in mobile entertainment. They entered the market with games. The games include 'Girls Night Out Solitaire', 'Girls Night Out blackjack', 'Hollywood Hangman' and and Lucy's favorite 'Law and Order'. Products include lifestyle tools, entertaining mobile games, Sleek & Chic™ fashion wallpapers and original Daily Dose™ text messages. Lucy, Lee and Larry (the 3 L's) asked Kristen what was on the horizon for LimeLife? She replied, "We are creating 'Lifestyle tools like ‘People Magazine on the phone’. Launching this summer is a web and mobile' community for women centered around shopping, fashion, music – our tagline = “Everything I like, wherever I am.” Kristen has some great ideas for entrepreneurs as well as some motivating thoughts for girls and young people considering high tech. Listen and pass this along to others.
Related Links: Lime Life || Kristin at Stanford|| Heidi Roizen || NCWIT Heroes || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| Red Herring || Keywords: Kristin McDonnell, Lime Life, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, NCWIT, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology, NCWIT Heroes > - Bytes: Bytes: 19930282 LISTEN 7/14/08