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Ted Turner: Entrepreneur Unplugged

745_ Ted Turner: From CNN, to Bison, to the United Nations and Beyond 
This is part 1 of a 4-part series. It's engaging, funny and loaded with learning points. The special guest on this Silicon Flatirons 'Entrepreneurs Unplugged' is Ted Turner. David H. Getches, Dean, University of Colorado Law School introduced Ted and shared some historical information that will open many eyes. Ted Turner lives his 21st Century life of giving and advocating to make things right and it is for that reason the University of Colorado Law School and the Silicon Flatirons Center for Entrepreneurship has created 'the Entrepreneur for Good Prize' and today we are presenting the 'Inaugural Prize' to Ted Turner. Then the Entrepreneurs Unplugged discussion was led by Brad Bernthal, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, CU Law School, and Entrepreneurship Initiative Director, Silicon Flatirons Center. Brad said, "Let's start out with the early days, 1963 and the bill board business. You're 24 years old, pressed into running the business under the most difficult circumstances I can imagine as your father passed away. Can you talk about growing Turner Advertising and your first entrepreneurial venture?" Turner is co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; chairman of the Turner Foundation, Inc., which supports efforts for improving air and water quality, developing a sustainable energy future to protect the earth's climate, safeguarding environmental health, maintaining wildlife habitat protection, and developing practices and policies to curb population growth rates; chairman of the United Nations Foundation, which promotes a more peaceful, prosperous and just world; and a partner in the Ted's Montana Grill restaurant chain, which operates more than 55 locations nationwide. Listen for more...
Related Links: SFC Entrepreneurs Unplugged || SFC Photo Album || 'Call Me Ted' Amazon || Economy Builders || Podcast Directory || Keywords: Ted Turner, CNN, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, David Getches, Brad Bernthal, Silicon Flatirons, Entrepreneur, Channel: Entrepreneurs 22984253 bytes 11/23/09 LISTEN

Feld's Suit Ends Up In Supreme Court!

Mr. Feld Goes to Washington
- Leaving Boulder in State of Shock! Bewildered...

Brad Feld had an incredible experience November 9, 2009. His friend Phil Weiser, who is now the Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the US Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (I prefer to call him America’s Top Cop on Agriculture) invited Brad, his partner Jason Mendelson, and Brad’s wife Amy Batchelor to attend the Supreme Court Oral Arguments for re Bilski. A rare tie sighting ensued as a jacket and tie is required to attend.
Related Links: My Field Trip to the Supreme Court || More on that... ||

Oil Field Engineer to Web 2.0 CEO

738_ Going from Oil field engineer to IT executive to Web 2.0 CEO
 Going from Oil field engineer to IT executive to Web 2.0 CEO is only an overview of Dave DuPont, Chief Executive Officer of TeamSnap Inc. Dave has twenty years of experience in technology leadership positions. He was previously CEO of SANRAD, a venture-funded storage networking company that he joined in 2006. Before that he was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Plasmon. Dave first moved to Colorado in 2000, when he helped found LeftHand Networks, a Boulder-based company recently sold to Hewlett Packard. The tech titan acquired LeftHand for $360 million to help round out its storage and virtualization portfolio, and target midsize businesses. Prior to that, he was in charge of Dell Computer Corporation's North American Precision Workstation business. Dave's newest venture, TeamSnap is for the overworked person who's in charge of your recreational adult sports team or youth sports team. Coaches, managers, parents, and anybody else who's been tapped to keep track of your sports team. TeamSnap gives this person their life back. But most of all, TeamSnap is for the team because it enables your teammates to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate in ways that are both fun and time-saving. Bottom line, TeamSnap puts the enjoyment back into team sports. currently they have the following kinds of teams using TeamSnap: Baseball, Basketball, Cheerleading, Cricket, Cycling, Field Hockey, Football, Hockey, Ice Hockey, Indoor Soccer, Inline Hockey, Kickball, Lacrosse, Running, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Ultimate, Volleyball and many more — pretty much any kind of sport you can imagine. Dave has some very good advice for entrepreneurs that he shares with Larry during this interview. There's much more...
Related Links: TeamSnap Home || RVC Events || Angel Capital Summit || Find It || Keywords: David Du Pont, TeamSnap, Teams, Web 2.0, RVC, Angel Capital Summit, LeftHand Networks, Hewlett Packard, Entrepreneurs - Channel: Entrepreneurs 10572918 bytes 11/16/09 LISTEN

Assistant Treasurer to Chairman & CEO

 739_ Assistant to the Treasurer becomes the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer 
Recently David Hoover was the keynote speaker at an ACG Denver luncheon. Dave is Chairman and CEO of the Ball Corporation. Larry asked, "When you started with Ball in 1970, did you have any information or feeling that you would become the CEO and Chairman?" Dave's reply, "No, not really. When I started with the company I was young, fresh out of business school, ambitious, but it wasn't in my mind. When I started, the company was still privately owned, it went public in 1972, so it's hard to believe it's been almost 40 years, but it’s been a great ride and I've been very fortunate to do the things that I have with Ball." Larry pointed out that many people in the geographic area think of it as Ball Aerospace, and we know that is only part of the business today? "Actually it's about 10% of our business today, and you're right a lot of the people in Colorado know us best for Aerospace. It is our oldest business; it's been around over 50 years and the next oldest business, we acquired and got started over in Golden in the beverage can business in 1969. But aerospace is still a favorite of mine. It's actually grown well over the last decade or so, sales last year were close to $800 million. But the company is close to $8 Billion now, so we've grown the rest of the company faster, primarily through acquisition but also organically." Larry asked, "What advice would you give to businesses that are addressing the changes they are today?" Dave shared some great advice, "I think the first thing you have to do is have a real good grasp on who you are, what you're good at, what your capabilities may be, and then take a look at the environment you operate in. You know, in our case now, it's a global market. Make sure you've got the people, the capabilities and the resources to go after what it is you think you want to."...listen for more...
Related Links: Ball Corporation || ACG Denver Website || M & A Channel || Event Photos || Keywords: David Hoover, Ball Corp, Ball Aerospace, Beverage Cans, ACG Denver, Acquisition, Change, Global Market > Channel: ACG 5408684 bytes 11/16/09 LISTEN

From financial disaster to a multi-million dollar winner

740_ From the depths of a financial disaster to a multi-million dollar winner
 Caterina Fake, Co-Founder, Hunch, a collective intelligence decision making system was interviewed by Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and Lee Kennedy, NCWIT Director, serial entrepreneur and founder of Boldersearch, along with Larry Nelson, from w3w3.com for the NCWIT Hero series. Before Hunch, Caterina was the co-founder of Flicker. Flicker was one of those companies that really opened up the eyes of people to the power of Web 2.0 and really taking together those features such as social networking and community and things people want to share. Caterina was a cofounder of Flicker, before it was sold to Yahoo. Initially they were trying to develop an online game. The company was dying, ready to collapse. Caterina took no salary for a year, others went without salary for 6 months only one guy, with three kids, was paid. "It was horrible but also the most growth oriented experience I ever had. We managed to grab victory from the jaws of defeat. We had enough to keep going for three months, not enough time to finish this game, but we could finish this photo sharing idea that we came up with. We'd applied to the Canadian government for a grant two years earlier and had forgotten about it. On December 23, we received a letter saying we got the grant - $150K I think, 50K for production, $50K for marketing - we only ended up collecting a fraction of it... but $50K at the time was enough to keep us afloat, to build this new thing which we'd christened 'Flicker'. It was very much a Phoenix from the ashes and a story that ended happily."
Related Links: Caterina Website || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Practice || Hunch || Heroes Channel || Keywords: Caterina Fake, Hunch, Flicker, Lucy Sanders, Lee Kennedy, National Center for Women and Information Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurs, > Channel: NCWIT 23761397 bytes 11/16/09 LISTEN

Business Agility with the Cloud

741_ Business Agility with the Cloud: Do you need an IT department/CIO?
 Defrag 2009 - what an education! - it was the place to be. We corralled Matthew Taylor, Vice President of Managed Services and IT & IS Operations, ViaWest, covering seven states and 16 data centers. Matt was a keynote speaker at the Defrag 2009 Conference. Matt said, "I have a long title because we wear a lot of hats at ViaWest, there's a real value to that for organizations." Topic Matt delivered: Business Agility with the Cloud. We wanted to know, what is the cloud? Matthew replied, "Well, there isn't a definition for 'the cloud' and depending on who you're talking to they have a different definition of the cloud. What we have to take this back to is, the user, customer or CIO, whoever you are, what is it you're trying to get out of a solution overall? So to a business person how do you get agility out of a cloud? You get agility out of a cloud ... and for some this is a painful answer... through your CIO. There are people out there, the press, organizations that have said, 'now the cloud is out there and you don't need your IT department/CIO' -- That's absolutely not the case. The customer needs to make sure they have flexibility to be able to scale up or scale down; pay for what they have to pay for but not overpay. At the same time they need to make sure they have a high level of security. So when you combine all these things, you start to say, I really need to understand each portion of my company from an application standpoint. What do I need to do with it and make sure I'm managing the data and the way those applications work together. What is your best approach and to me that is a CIO and why today, the CIO is more important than ever." Listen for some additional suggestions. Larry asked about SAAS (software as a Service) "...in the last couple of years, I'd heard that was the cloud." Matt agrees it was one of the first offerings from the cloud, there are load testing applications etc., watch the smoke and mirrors - do your homework. He also provides...
Related Links: ViaWest || Defrag || Economy Builders || Event Photos || Keywords: Matthew Taylor, ViaWest, Defrag, Business Agility, Cloud, CIO, Hosting, IT Department, SaaS, Change - Channel: News 12195439 bytes - 11/16/09 LISTEN

Entrepreneurs Unplugged - Nir Barkat, Mayor Jerusalem

In track 2 of 2 we have the highly acclaimed, familiar, information packed  'Entrepreneurs Unplugged' moderated discussion led by Brad Bernthal, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, CU Law School, and Entrepreneurship Initiative Director, Silicon Flatirons Center along with Robert Reich, Founder of OneRiot; Host and Moderator, New Tech Meetup, with guest of honor, Nir Barkat, 9th Mayor of Jerusalem and successful global entrepreneur. This was an engaging discussion loaded with a great deal of information for entrepreneurs as well as everyone in Colorado. Track 2 of 2: Bernthal; Reich; Barkat

Channel: Entrepreneurs - 31749416 bytes 11/9/09
Related Links: Entrepreneurs Unplugged || Gov. Bill Ritter || Jerusalem Website || BD New Tech Meetup || Economy Builders || Event Photos ||

Critical thinking, emotional intelligence, Consultative Selling Skills

737_ Critical thinking, emotional intelligence,
and consultative selling skills 
Building Leaders and redefining Sales was the focus of an interview with Colleen Stanley, CEO and Founder of Sales Leadership, Inc. Colleen points out on her website, "The perfect storm…the recession, impact of the Internet and a global economy has created a new selling environment. The profile for successful sales professionals is changing. The sales force of the future must be equipped with critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence skills, and consultative selling skills." She shares a great deal of helpful information including: How to create high performance sales cultures/ high performance cultures; Learn the reason some sales producers can’t make the leap to sales management/leadership; The leadership qualities of great sales managers. In addition she answered some tough questions from Larry. "What are some things a sales manager can do to insure consistent growth year after year? Sales managers often complain about poor forecasting from the sales team? Is there any fix?" There is so much more...When you listen to Colleen's interview you'll, Learn the value of having a sales process/methodology/systems; Reinforce the importance of hiring the right people – getting the right people on the sales bus!; Learn the real reason some sales producers can’t make the leap to leadership; be ready to take notes. Colleen has a great book out, "Growing Great Sales Teams - Lessons from the Cornfield." Larry recommends you read it if you really want to grow and improve your sales team.
Related Links: Sales Leadership || Sales Webinar || Growing Great Sales Teams || Economy Builders || ACG Denver || Keywords: Colleen Stanley, Sales Leadership, Development, Critical Thinking Skills, Emotional Intelligence Skills, Consultative Selling Skills, Association for Corporate Growth, ACG > Channel: ACG 9474355 bytes - 11/9/09 LISTEN

International multi-jurisdictional trademark filing options

734_ International multi-jurisdictional trademark filing options
 (Listen: Part 2 of 2 - International) Melody Harris and Samantha Sturgis, attorneys at Holme Roberts & Owen LLP (HRO), just conducted a program that had to do with 'Multi-Jurisdiction Filing Options' (The Madrid System), Community Trademarks (CTMs - European Union, 27 countries) and Registered Community Design (RCDs - Euro union, only for last 12 months). If you're thinking of expanding your business beyond the U.S., doing manufacturing in China or maybe trading goods in Europe, that's when you really need to think about trademark protection and that's frankly when you need to engage good council to help you through that process. Today Melody and Samantha are talking about some of the strategies to help you contain the costs involved and how you protect your brand out in a global market. (Listen: Part 1 of 2)Samantha pointed out, "In the US you gain Trademark rights by using Trademarks. You don't have to register a mark because it can be protected under the common law. However we recommend that our clients using trademarks, register the trademark, and register it at the federal level." Melodie added, "The first thing we want to do in thinking about filing a United States Trademark Application is whether or not somebody else might be out there already using that brand. So we recommend doing a trademark search before spending money to file an application which they may not have the ability to prosecute through to the end because someone else might be in line ahead of you. So it's really important to do at least, what we call a 'knockout' or quick search. Once we have the actual search process done, then we want to look at the application process. There are two different ways of filing applications in the U.S. You can file it on what's called a 'use base', which means you're already using the mark. Otherwise you file on what's called 'an intent to use' basis." Watch out for trademark trolls. There's much more...
Related Links: Holme Roberts & Owen LLP || US Patent and Trademark Office || US Copyright Office || It's the Law Channel || Keywords: Melody Harris, Samantha Sturgis, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP (HRO), Trademark, Copyright, Multi-Jurisdiction, Madrid System, European Union > Channel: Law 10104151 bytes - 11/9/09 LISTEN

Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem with CO Gov. Ritter

736_ Entrepreneurs Unplugged with Governor Ritter and Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem (Track 1 of 2) 
Governor Bill Ritter, Jr., the Colorado BioScience Association, CSIA, Colorado's Technology Association; the Mizel Family Foundations, and the Silicon Flatirons Center worked together to bring this special edition of Entrepreneur's Unplugged featuring Governor Bill Ritter and Jerusalem's Mayor Nir Barkat. (Track 1 of 2) This interesting program started out with an introduction of Governor Bill Ritter, Jr. by Larry A. Mizel, Chairman & CEO, M.D.C.Holding. The Governor shared the five pillars that are the foundation of progress in Colorado. Even in these challenging times they have served Coloradoans well. The he introduced Nir Barkat, the 9th Mayor of Jerusalem. Mayor Barkat's early success as Mayor, significantly, is rooted in the business methods and entrepreneurial approach which he brings to City Hall. Mayor Barkat's roots are firmly in entrepreneurship. In 1988, Mayor Barkat co-founded BRM Technologies, a pioneering software house and later venture cap9ital firm that developed and marketed ground-breaking anti-virus software now standard on personal computers throughout the world. His leadership and business acumen brought him to the position of global chairman of one of BRMs largest venture projects. Mayor Barkat's early success as Mayor, significantly, is rooted in the business methods and entrepreneurial approach which he brings to City Hall. Mayor Barkat's roots are firmly in entrepreneurship. In 1988, Mayor Barkat co-founded BRM Technologies, a pioneering software house and later venture capital firm that developed and marketed ground-breaking anti-virus software now standard on personal computers throughout the world. His leadership and business acumen brought him to the position of global chairman of one of BRMs largest venture projects.
Related Links: Entrepreneurs Unplugged || Gov. Bill Ritter || Jerusalem Website || BD New Tech Meetup || Economy Builders || Event Photos || Keywords: Gov. Bill Ritter,Jr.; Mayor Nir Barkat, Jerusalem, Silicon Flatirons, Brad Bernthal, Robert Reich, Entrepreneurs, >
Channel: Entrepreneurs - 20943044 bytes 11/9/09 Track 1: LISTEN