Teach for America or a Peace Corps for Geeks
1135_ 1/2/2012 - The National Center for Women In Technology (NCWIT) is very proud to bring the stories of incredible you women to your attention. We are talking with Jennifer Pahlka, founder of Code for America. She recently described Code for America, "It's like a Teach for America or a Peace Corps for Geeks". People in government, senior managers with projects they think could benefit from web based solutions can make an appeal to Code for America to get volunteer help to build these projects out. This is not the first thing Jennifer has done, she's a serial entrepreneur and has extensive experience in gaming and media. Jennifer says they're a new organization having just finished up their first fellowship year. They had 19 fellows work with them all year long and work with the cities doing great projects. An example of one project is the "Adopt a Fire Hydrant App", which came out of the fact that fellows go visit their cities for five weeks. Their Boston team was treated to a massive 'snowpocalypse' and they saw the city struggling to clear the streets. They never really get to digging out the fire hydrants, but the citizens were right in front of them and they could dig them out. So the 'fellows' created a little web app that allowed the citizen to clean the fire hydrant and agree to dig it out when it snows. Jennifer's advice to a budding entrepreneur: You have to really care, deeply care about the problem you're trying to solve and think it's an important problem. And care about your people. If you don't deeply care about your work others won't either and you won't be successful. Jennifer didn't feel like an entrepreneur until she came up with the idea for Code for America. She suddenly felt she could be incredibly useful to the world and she could make a difference and it was the power of the idea and the notion that no one else was going to do it that made her start this organization. Listen for more... Related Links: Code for America || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || || Keywords: Jennifer Pahlka, Code for America, National Center for Women In Technology, NCWIT, Lucinda Sanders, Geeks, Entrepreneurs, People in Government, Apps - Bytes: 16827353
LISTEN to - Jennifer Pahlka, Founder/CEO, Code for America

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Steve Forbes: Colorado and the national economy
998_ 4/25/11 - While he is not going to run for president, Steve has some very strong beliefs. Steve Forbes, Chairman of Forbes Media and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Magazine was the Day 2 keynote speaker at the 2011 ACG Corporate Growth Conference. After his address and book signing Larry attended a very open press conference with Mr. Forbes. Larry asked, "During your speech you talked about the national economy, what do you see as Colorado's strengths and where you see growth here in our state?" While he was nice enough to say, "Good to see you again, Lord Nelson." he went onto reply, "Colorado has an enormous advantage as we get our economy back on track in the next few years, and that is quality of life. One of the things technology enables you to do is literally put the world at your fingertips. Geography doesn't much matter anymore. So Colorado needs to preserve what it has but I think you're going to see more in the way of technology, you have a business friendly environment. You get a little bit of it now in aviation and aeronautics, you see it in finance. A note of caution in the area of energy, Colorado has a huge future but there will be turbulence in the industry. I think the amount of natural gas will help cushion any fluctuations when the dollar is stabilized again. The good news is the U.S. is going to be a major exporter of natural gas in the next decade. We are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and the nice thing is you're going to see more and more utilities using natural gas to generate electricity." Larry asked, "Do you think the government, state or local, or business should be responsible for attracting more business to Colorado?" Mr. Forbes replied, "The key thing to remember in attracting business is to put yourself on the other side, and say, 'what would stand in the way of someone moving a business here'? People are looking for a very friendly environment. By contrast California's been very hostile to business which is why a lot of businesses have moved out of California. So put yourself on the other side. What are all the steps to get permits? Are there a lot of things that drag the process out? Try to streamline them so people know if they want to do something here it can be done with dispatch. They can focus on getting it done instead of how many months, how many years, as it does in other parts of the country, before you can get moving." Listen for much more...
Related Links: Forbes || Book by Steve Forbes || ACG: Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference || M&A Channel || ACG Denver Home || Keywords: Steve Forbes, ACG, Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference, ACG Denver, Capitalism, Natural Gas, National Economy - 5/9/11 bytes=11060770 LISTEN TO: Steve Forbes, CEO Forbes Media

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Discussing the benefits of social business enterprise
1136_ 1/2/2012 - Behind the scene with a candid moment, Kim Jordan, CEO/Founder, New Belgium Brewing, Chris Pelley, Managing Director/Founder, CIMCO and Larry Nelson of w3w3.com discuss the benefits of social business enterprise. We get an update on Roisin Pelley's work in India and much to Kim's delight, Larry confesses to his love for Fat Tire. We're off to a good start. Of course, Chris Pelley is the leader in our region, in fact, our state in the area of social enterprise/entrepreneurship and we're grateful he's brought Kim Jordan's company New Belgium Brewing Company to our attention. How could you not want to work there? When you hear Kim talk about her people, the teams and the culture - it's a great lesson for new entrepreneurs, but also for established older companies. Kim's response was, "I'm always impressed by my 'co-workers'. Sometimes they make me cry because they're so dedicated, creative and playful. I still have many pinch me moments." Twice a year New Belgium Brewing has their 'New Owner Induction" that's when you've passed the mark for being one year vested for the employee stock ownership plan, they have a ceremony and Kim makes a Mojo for every person who is in that six month time frame. People say it's their favorite day of the year because of the enthusiasm from the new owners about why this is important to them. First year anniversary, employees are presented with a bicycle and at the fifth year, Kim, takes them to Belgium for a week, traveling around and learning about beer culture. Their annual retreat has been very powerful because it creates a level of trust and transparency and also an expectation that people be involved. There's much more detail about tapping into your people's strengths... Watch and Listen Now.
Related Links: New Belgium Brewing || CIMCO || Community Reach || Social Entrepreneurship || M&A Channel || ACG Denver || Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference || Keywords: Kim Jordan, New Belgium Brewing, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Enterprise, Association for Corporate Growth, Denver, ACG, Chris Pelley, CIMCO, Community Reach
WATCH VIDEO, Kim Jordan Founder/CEO, New Belgium Brewing Co & Chris Pelley, CIMCO

Success and sustainability through good and bad times
1073_ 9/06/11 - The path to success isn't always flash, bang, big cash and lots of noise. In the long run it is knowing your customer, getting close, staying close, and understanding your customers needs. That's what Roy Dimoff attributes ViaWest’s ‘good luck' to. It was 1999, when we met Roy Dimoff and Nancy Philips as they started Via West here in Denver. "Back in the day", money was practically being thrown at companies. Here in Denver we had a number of very large startups going back to '99, a little pre '99. Local competitors had the advantage with 100's of millions in investments.... ViaWest took a different path, kind of low key. If you were watching from a distance. But up close it was action packed, prudent and practical. Back then ViaWest had one office which still exists. Today they have 22 data centers in five states and six major markets. Roy has a habit of checking in with his HR department and they keep adding employees, which is a good thing, especially in today's market, and they're well over 300 people now in those five states. "Knock on wood, Larry. For all the things that happened and we've seen in the 12 years that ViaWest has been around. And certainly living through two recessions is one of them. Things are going extremely well. We are part of a great industry. It's nice to be in this position today. To be able to reflect back at those difficult times, knowing that you survived and succeeded in some fashion." Roy said. In fact ViaWest is in a leadership position today. Looking back we remember favorite words guiding their strategic path, prudence and pragmatism. Larry asked about challenges facing business today. Roy said, "You know, I think similar to the stock market, there are a lot of ups and downs and you have to be prepared to alter your business plan if there's dramatic changes in the economy. We really reflect on our capital investment and our cash conservation and really want to reflect on all the touch points there. And, do we want to be a little less aggressive if we see a double dip recession. I think companies should definitely, definitely understand their debt position, their cash position, their growth... and really understand their expense level extremely well - knowing where they can alter if they have to." ViaWest supports the community, sponsors many non-profits and has won many awards...listen for more great advice...
Related Links: ViaWest || Green Solutions || Profile of a Leader || KidsTek || Podcasting Directory || Keywords: Roy Dimoff, ViaWest, Data Centers, Leaders, Team, Management, Green Grid, Computers, Telecom, Canada, Software 9/6/11 bytes=14158265
LISTEN to Roy Dimoff, President/CEO, ViaWest

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