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

385_ Delivering High Performance - The Challenges and the Choices
David Walker (not pictured), Software Division President for the American Society for Quality (ASQ) along with Linda Westfall and Granville Jones, co-chairs of the International Conference on Software Quality (ICSQ) share some insights why users, developers and organizations of all sizes are feeling the software-pinch in our ever-changing environment with a focus on the sometimes elusive topic, software quality. On October 16 & 17 the 2007 conference is being held in Denver. It provides a forum for individuals and organizations seeking technologies, concepts, and techniques to improve the quality of their software products, processes, and services, and looking to enjoy networking and learning opportunities. Ken Schwaber, co-developer of Scrum and Dr. Richard Turner, Fellow, Systems and Software Consortium are keynote speakers. Introducing Agile Methods into Traditional Environments with a top-notch Agile panel is also part of the conference. There are other extras available during that week. LISTEN
Related Links:  ICSQ || Agile Panel || American Society for Quality || Associations || Keywords: Software Quality, ICSQ, ASQ, David Walker, Linda Westfall, Granville Jones, Scrum, Agile Channel: In the News > Bytes: 12196365 > 10/1/07 LISTEN

385_ Colorado BioBusiness Ecosystem is Breaking New Ground
Rick Silva, acting Director of the Fitzsimons BioBusiness Partners (FBBp) says, "It takes broad and incredibly specialized skills to build a biomedical product. Ours is the most regulated industry on Earth, our products are among the most complex to develop, and the least likely to have a customer. Getting it right takes a village." Larry asked Rick, "How can entrepreneurs hedge their bets? "Build an experienced and capable team that has a record of getting things done. Ask for help! Find advisors (many willing to help a little for free) with relevant experience in your industry and product area. They will have the contacts and experience to help you with your commercial roadmap. If you have a credible plan, have talked to your customers and partners, you will be prepared to answer questions VCs will have. FBBp is central in this ecosystem and can bring domain advisors." 5. Is FBBp an incubator? "Not really, we are a venture development organization. Let me explain." LISTEN
Related Links:   Fitz BioBusiness Partners || Colorado Life Science Blog || BioScience Channel || Find It || Keywords: Fitzsimons BioBusiness Partners, FBBp, Rick Silva, Entrepreneurs, Venture Capital, CUTTO, BioScience > Channel: In the News > Bytes: 14716241 > 10/1/07 LISTEN

382_ Business and Economics: Integrating the Human Dimension
Mark Wilding is the Director at the Marpa Center for Business and Economics at Naropa University.  The Marpa Center was founded about 6 years ago at Naropa. Mark believes what is valuable and important in business is how our behavior in society impacts the community around us – things like ethics. Larry asked Mark if he had an example of a sustainable company that walks its talk. One of Mark’s favorites is White Wave and Steve Demos. One of the things Steve talks about is that they had a “founding purpose” when they started the company. Their founding purpose was to create food that was sustainable for the planet. That’s how they got into Tofu. They worked for many years as a very small company in Boulder – and then along came this notion of Silk, this incredible product that really launched their company into the stratosphere. But even after that they didn’t change their principles. They kept the basic foundations and purpose of creating a food that’s very sustainable for the planet. Mark offers some great advice. LISTEN
Related Links:  Marpa Center || Authentic Leadership || Money and Values Project || Find It || Keywords: Mark Wilding, Marpa Center, Business and Economics, Naropa University, Human Dimension Channel: In the News > Bytes: 13284313 > 9/24/07 LISTEN

361_  Interactive Media - Bridging Saskatchewan and Colorado
During the week of October 9, 2007 Deborah Black, President of the Saskatchewan Interactive Media Association will be joining a number of other Canadian organizations in a trade mission to Colorado. Deborah's organization is looking for partners on this two-way bridge between Canada and Colorado. They are looking for Colorado partner companies in addition to individuals who could be speakers at their events and developers in joint programs. Interactive communication, enabled by the application of new technologies and techniques is a rapidly evolving field. Saskatchewan Interactive started in 1995 and is in the leading edge of computer gaming in the traditional sense, moving into online games, advergaming, serious games, and games for health...education is also an important issue for them.

Related Links:  Deborah's email || Doing Biz with Canada || Canadian Channel on w3w3.com || David Smith: Denver Canadian Consulate || Building a Win/Win Bridge for Canada & the US || Keywords: Interactive Media, Saskatchewan, Deborah Black, Canada, Saskatchewan Interactive Media Association> Bytes: 7304780> 8/20/07 LISTEN

358_  Jon Went to Dinner with Friends and said, "I quit my job today"
"It was hard to attract someone because the Internet had gone into its dive; you know we’d entered into the ‘dot bomb’. Companies were failing every day, every business paper you picked up had on its front page 'this company went belly up, that one went belly up'..., We made it out of that;" reflects Jon Nordmark, co-founder and CEO of eBags. It was August 2001 and eBags came within $50K of making a profit that month and September we thought we were going to hit it – September 11 hit instead and it just blew the luggage market out of the water. The lessons we can learn by looking back can be invaluable. Starting in 1997, Jon was working at Samsonite, in charge of all the distribution channels there, from the marketing perspective, creating new products for them... And at the time Jon could see that the Internet could be what looked like, a major distribution channel. Most people didn't think it was possible to sell luggage to individual consumers on this thing called the Internet.   LISTEN  Part 1 of 2

Related Links:  eBags || Profile of a Leader || In the News || Entrepreneurs || Keywords: Jon Nordmark, eBags, Luggage, Hand Bags, Samsonite, Entrepreneur, Leader, Online, Dot Bomb, Transparency Management> Bytes: 6863833 >8/13/07

359_  eBags Expanding While Deleting Its 50% Brain Drain
When we started eBags our goal was to create a billion dollar company. It takes a lot of capital; we ended up raising $30 million dollars (prior to 9/11) – that ended up being a great thing for eBags explains Jon Nordmark, co-founder and CEO of eBags. When I was trying to do eBags, I knew, from all the research I’d done, that 10% of all bag sales came from catalog sales. I was confident that at least that many would purchase online as they’d already bought without seeing and touching. Then we got into the shoe business – we sold that recently. It was very successful, quadrupled the size of the site in 3 years. It grew rapidly, but it only grew to be 11% of eBags total sales, but it was taking 50% of our heads! So what we’ve done is refocused back on bags. Larry and Pat also got some great entrepreneurial and networking advice from Jon. LISTEN  Part 2 of 2 Bytes: 138326 >8/20/07

The Challenges of Running A Start-UP
342_ John Sifonis is a noted author and strategist on the topics of Business and IT strategy formulation. John has 35 years of business and technology management consulting experience with Global 500 corporations in Europe, South America, Japan, and Africa. He was also a regular guest on Larry & Pat's terrestrial radio show on KTLK. John discusses the biggest challenges faced when running a start-up. He also gives some excellent solutions with his lessons learned. These are the challenges: the founders, the investors, funding and how they structured the company. John also gives some great advice about going public.
Related Links:  Nexiasoft Pressroom || Entrepreneur Channel || Find It || w3w3.com Blog || Keywords: John Sifonis, Entrepreneur, Cisco, Net Ready, Start-Up, IT, Founders, Investors > Channel: Entrepreneurs Bytes: 9763007 LISTEN 7/16/07

338_ iPhone - Hyperbole, Hoopla, Hooray or Horrific

Do you have your iPhone yet? Brad Feld, Managing Director of The Foundry Group writes in his Blog, “I’ve had an entertaining series of problems. I’m still amused, but getting closer to annoyed. I picked up my phone last night at the Flatiron Apple Store on the way home from the airport. It took me 45 seconds to purchase it (no line.) I tried to activate it when I got home. iTunes went through its upgrade cycle to 7.3 and then gave me errors that I didn’t have the right version to work with the iPhone so I had to deinstall / install iTunes 7.3. I did that and tried to activate. It got hung up trying to check my credit and told me I had to go to an AT&T store to get a pre-authorization code.”

Related Links: Brad's Blog || The Foundry Group || iBrick = iPhone || Apple iPhone  (in all fairness) || iLaunch || Keywords: Brad Feld, The Foundry Group, Mobius Venture Capital, iPhone, AT&T, Apple > Brad's Blog - Read More ||
LISTEN to 2007 Predictions by Brad Feld and Jared Polis: Interview 1/8/07

336_ See It - Link to It - Enjoy It - w3w3.com Chronicles

The upgraded w3w3.com Photo Chronicles can help you find just about anyone who has attended a high-tech business event in the Front Range. On the Events page, In the left column, you'll see dozens of 'cover pages' for photo albums that are dated and titled and linked, according to the top events. You can then see the full range of photos and you can see them as a slideshow set up by our partners LifePics. BTW, you can also see albums from years gone by. In addition you can also find the heavy-hitters who have been interviewed on w3w3.com. You might be there too.

Related Links: Photo Albums || Find It || Web Community Calendar || 2003 Photos || Keywords:Event Photos, High-Tech, Business, Interviews, Photo Chronicles, Pat and Larry Nelson
>See More 7/2/07

325_ Open Source, a pathway to innovation and much, much more

Imagine you buy a software company. The transaction is completed. There’s a knock on your door. A stranger is here to confirm that you are not in breach of his ‘open source software license’. You call your attorney for help. That’s where Jason Haislmaier, HRO, enters the scene. He is recognized by many as the “Open Source Legal Guru” in Colorado. When we asked how he got into this field? his reply was direct and to the point. "Simply put, I was driven by client need."

Having earned an engineering degree prior to law school, Jason has a natural affinity and appreciation for the technical issues he handles today.  "As a software vendor, it's not uncommon to have your software product comprised of software that you've developed in-house, that you would consider proprietary, perhaps third party software that you've licensed in, and from open source software, and it's all working together. It is that co mingling or interaction of the softwares that, from a legal standpoint, creates some of the stickier areas under the open source license. Even if you're not a vendor, if you're a data center, it's the same thing.

"Open source software, at its core, is licensed. Licenses can be breached and that can create liability; and in come the lawyers. And that’s where a lot of the legal aspects of open source come about. It’s very difficult to talk about open source software without talking about the legal aspects of open source software.

Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen || GPLv3 || It's the Law Interviews || Find It || Keywords: Open Source Software, HRO, Holme Roberts & Owen, Jason Haislmaier, Lucky Vidmar> Channels: Software Bytes: 7984172 LISTEN 6/11/07

328_ The Trend is Changing for Start-up Entrepreneurs

Statistics show that better than 50% of new entrepreneurs are female. Many business people are surprised to hear that there is a growing number (contrary to popular belief) of women getting into and making a very productive and rewarding career in Information Technology (IT). As a result, many women of varying ages and interests are taking the entrepreneurial plunge. In walks Lucy Sanders, CEO and Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), headquartered at CU Boulder. Lucy is a Bell Fellow and points out (proves) there are many female entrepreneur success stories or as she and her team states it, they are “NCWIT Heroes”. If you have any interest in this burgeoning growth phase of Women and IT, check out the first in this series of amazing true-life stories.

Related Links: NCWIT Heroes || Nat. Academies Report || NCWIT Blog || CO Coalition for Gender and IT || NCWIT Practice|| Keywords: NCWIT, Lucy Sanders, Women in IT, National Center for Women & Information Technology NCWIT Heroes > Channels: NCWIT Bytes: 6525913 LISTEN 6/18/07

Revolutionizing IT as We Know It

329_ It sounds technical, but what isn’t today? Here’s a technical best-seller, written by 3 key experts: Evi Nemeth; Garth Snyder; Trent Hein along with 10 key contributors…all experts. This 1000-page book, "LINUX Administration Handbook" (Second Edition), has a cartoon on the cover (and drawings throughout), easy to understand with readable information and a special section for non IT managers so they understand what is going on and how to be an effective manager in this arena. IT loves this second edition because of the critical contents that are easy to reference and are now getting support from management rather than pushback. It started in 1988. Setting the standard of excellence, translated into 20 languages, and is revolutionizing IT as we know it.   Related Links: Applied Trust || Book Press Release || Amazon || Blog || Channels: Software > Keywords: Evi Nemeth; Garth Snyder; Trent Hein, LINUX, IT managers, LINUX Administration Handbook  > Bytes: 6199696 LISTEN 6/18/07

330_ Integration of Technology Impacting TV User Experience
What would you like to ask a top-level executive in a large and growing company? Sue Wyman, Chairman of the Communication Technologies Professionals (CTP) and Larry Nelson went to John Suranyi's office to ask some very pointed questions about his development and where he is heading. John is the President of Sales and Services for Direct TV. Sue asked John to rewind a little and talk about the past and what he went through in his development, the challenges he faced, the turning point in his career as well as a number of other topic areas.   Related Links: CTP Channel || Communication Technology Professionals Home || Jivaro Group || Find It || Channels: CTP> Keywords: John Suranyi, Direct TV, Sue Wyman, Communication Technologies Professionals, CTP  > Bytes: 5910259 LISTEN 6/181/07