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

586_ The Opportunities for Innovation Have Never Been Better
Jay Walker, Founder of Priceline.com and chairman of Walker Digital, a private R&D laboratory based in Stamford, CT was a featured speaker at the DaVinci Institute Colorado Inventor Showcase. He also founded Synapse, which became the world’s largest seller of magazine subscriptions and is now a unit of Time Warner. Larry asked jay, "What's coming down the pike for entrepreneurs in these tough times?" Jay replied, "Tough times are ‘good times’ for entrepreneurs and innovators. When times are good, people tend to be coasting along and changing the way they do things is not high on most peoples’ lists because things are doing pretty well. But when things aren’t going so well, people say – Wow, I better figure out how to grow this business or reduce my expenses, or how to do both. So, in times of economic difficulty, those that are truly innovative often create opportunities and inventions and businesses and great fortunes. If you look back in history, many great fortunes were created over the ‘Depression’ simply because people were open for the first time to all kinds of new ways of doing things. I expect that’s what we’re going to see in the next few years, but not a great depression." Jay offered some very good advice for entrepreneurs and voiced his opinion about innovation. "Ultimately people who can innovate literally pick an area where they feel they have some degree of expertise or some degree of competitive advantage. One of the big advantages we have today is the leaders of innovation are no longer dominated by large corporations or by government; they’re really often dominated by individuals." ...listen now.
Related Links: Walker Didgital || Colorado Inventor Showcase || Inventors' Roundtable || Entrepreneur Channel || Keywords: Jay Walker, Walker Didgital, Inventors Showcase, Priceline.com, DaVinci Institute, Innovation, Entrepreneurs > Channels: Entrepreneur Bytes: 4885841 > 11/17/08 LISTEN

584_ Murphy Beds Came First, Then Wall Beds, and Now Flying Beds
To date, Ron McKey, President and Founder, FlyingBeds, has done 204 trade shows and is known as 'The' Murphy Bed Manufacturer in the world. He started in 1981 and there weren’t many choices for companies to reach customers if they weren’t using newspaper advertising. Ron went onto say, "I had to convince people of my validity and they also had to see how the operation worked. The best testimonial is visual." About nine years ago somebody challenged Ron, 'Put up a website'. Ah sure, and you know about two years later somebody called me. So, maybe this website is something. As you know it’s been very effective. I took that visualization from my trade show, where people could actually see the bed going up and down – I put it on the web site – now I don’t do trade shows anymore. I’ve gone international with my sales, we’re selling in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, to England and you know, it’s all over the place. I manufacture unique Murphy beds right here in Denver, CO. Those are the beds that fold up into the wall. Hollywood loves those beds, they make lots of jokes about them. We have different designers. They aren’t hired or on staff. They are our clients. We take their desire for functional change and design theme, and come up with a rendering and cost of manufacture that makes their Flyingbed a signature system. By signature, I don’t mean ‘expensive’, I mean we make the bed ‘fit’ the room perfectly instead of plugging in some cabinet that is made at a workbench by unskilled labors and finished in a tinted lacquer. Flying Beds has gone from attending trade shows, to doing it all on the Web...and he's selling worldwide. They will make your bed disappear. There's more, listen now...
Related Links: Flying Beds Home || Murphy Beds FAQs || Entrepreneur Channel || Find It || Keywords: Ron McKey, Flying Beds, Murphy Beds, Entrepreneur, Wall Beds, Channels: Entrepreneurs > Bytes: 10079402 - 11/10/08 LISTEN

582_ Archbishop Desmond Tutu, World Renowned Human Rights Activist
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a world renowned human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Beginning with his opposition to apartheid in South Africa, Tutu has worked tirelessly to spread peace, justice, and democracy, and to end racial divisions throughout the world. Tutu was the keynote speaker at the October 2008 Insight Speaker Series. The day before the event, Larry and Pat attended a press conference along with some other reporters. He was introduced by the Founder and President of the Insight Speaker Series, Elizabeth Weiland. A reporter from the Denver Post, Mike Cote of the Colorado Biz magazine, Larry and Pat along with others asked Tutu some deep questions. Talking about the generosity of the American people, Desmond Tutu recalls, as a child, picking up a tattered copy of Ebony Magazine and reading an article about Jackie Robinson’s triumphant baseball career. Being inspired by things like Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address – Desmond Tutu said, "It energizes us, it makes us believe we can have a better world – a world where people are more friendly with one another, people are more caring and compassionate". Inevitably, Tutu became heavily embroiled in controversy as he spoke out against the injustices of the apartheid system. For several years he was denied a passport to travel abroad. In recent years, Tutu has turned his attention to a different cause: the campaign against HIV/AIDS. We had a chance to chat with Lloyd Lewan who has often shared the podium with Tutu..listen now...
Related Links: Insight Speaker Series || Lloyd Lewan on Ethics || Evergreen Communication || Podcast Directory || Keywords: Archbishop, Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize, Apartheid, South Africa, Lloyd Lewan, Insight Speaker Series, Elizabeth Weiland > Channels: News > Bytes: 14009890 - 11/10/08 LISTEN

589_
Guy Kawasaki Talks About Innovation, Change and Entrepreneurs
Larry cornered Guy Kawasaki at the BioWest conference after his keynote address. Guy, author of the best selling book, The Art of the Start and Reality Check is also cofounder Alltop.com as well as Garage.com. Larry asked, "We are going through some tougher times, how do you see this playing out?" Guy, a champion for entrepreneurs replied, "Well, I’m not a visionary or an oracle, I’ll tell you what I would tell an entrepreneur, which is, ‘plug your ears and keep going!’ Of all the tech startups one out of 5000 go public so what difference does it make what the DOW Jones Industrial Average, especially tomorrows DJIA, maybe 5 years from now it’ll matter, but not tomorrow. If you just try to build a great business, hopefully that great business will make a ton of money. If you make a ton of money, maybe you’ll go public – still unlikely, but you might; and you might get acquired, also unlikely but we go from one out of 5000 to one out 500, something like that, so that helps. But even if none of those sort of dream things happen, you have a good business! If you only start businesses in good times, you may have to wait a few years – I really don’t see why it truly matters. You either believe or you don’t believe. If you’re an entrepreneur who says, ‘well, I’m not going to start a company because the stock market is too low and unemployment is too high’, I’ve got to tell you I would put those two items right at the bottom. You have to develop a good product, you have to make it, you have to sell it, collect the money and service your customers, pretty much the fundamentals." Listen for more insights...
Related Links: Alltop.com || Garage Technology Ventures || BioWest 2008 || Guy Kawasaki Blog || w3w3.com Blog || Keywords: Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures, Alltop.com, BioWest, DOW Jones, Art of the Start, Reality Check, Entrepreneurs, Blog - Channels: Bio, VC, Bytes: 9134814 - 11/17/08 LISTEN

587_ Colorado Company Taps Into the Best and Brightest the State has to Offer
Here's an interesting switch. Doug Kittelsen, CTO and Chief Product Officer of FTEN and Gary LaFever, FTEN In-house General Counsel, explained that, "FTEN provides global technology solutions that process millions of securities transactions, including over 20% of the entire US Equities daily volume." However the company decides to buck the trends as it related to their workforce. "A lot of publicity has surrounded the decision by many companies to outsource development to Asia – and with that the corresponding loss of domestic jobs, etc. Like many other companies, we previously had a development team in India. What we learned was that because our industry was moving so quickly - it was not possible to properly utilize the strength of the Indian team - they worked best with detailed requirement documents and longer delivery schedules than our industry allowed. The Indian team cost less for more staff - but we have found that it is better to have fewer stronger resources that have the creativity and insights to solve problems in new and unique ways. We saw a market opportunity in the ultra fast market and made the strategic decision to shut down our office in India and start our new product line in Colorado with a team of hand picked elite developers. Mark Weakley, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen - Boulder, works with many startups, but pointed out that the success and amazing story about FTEN raising capital took an unusual route. Listen now we can all learn from this...
Related Links: FTEN Home || It's the Law || Holme Roberts & Owen || Podcast Directory || Keywords: FTEN, Doug Kittelsen, Gary LaFever, Mark Weakley, Wall Street, Holme Roberts & Owen, Investments, Security Transactions - Channels: It's the Law Bytes:10003333- 11/17/08 LISTEN

585_ Helping Wisdom Entrepreneurs Create Stunning Results and Sustainability
Listen and learn the power and feasibility of using a bottom-up approach to create change in the world, by attracting a community of like-minded souls. Here's a model for transforming an idea into a movement, including critical factors in engaging others at a more meaningful level. Terry Morreale, producer and director of the Women in IT Channel talked with Carol Ross, Founder of A Bigger Voice. Terry asked Carol a number of fascinating questions. What is a wisdom entrepreneur? What do you mean by stunning results and sustainability? What was the catalyst for starting this work? How does this work take advantage of trends in demographics, technology, and culture? What advice would you give to someone who wants to have a bigger voice? She had some interesting insights to digital immigrants vs. digital natives and that has a great impact on all of us...both ways. Carol points out, "Imagine where want your bigger voice project to go. Imagine your community 5 years from now: What types of people are there? What are they doing? What kind of impact is your community making? What will be the stunning result? Will you make money? How? How much? How big will your work and your impact be? Dream! Dream Big! Dream so big that it scares you and thrills you all at once. There's more great advice...
Related Links: A Bigger Voice || Carol Ross Home Page || Women in IT || Applied Trust || w3w3.com Blog || Keywords: Carol Ross, A Bigger Voice, Wisdom Entrepreneurs, Blog, Terry Morreale, Women in IT, Applied Trust Engineering, Digital Immigrants, Entrepreneurs, Channels: WiIT Bytes: 11848623 - 11/10/08 LISTEN

583_ Some of the Greatest Successes Started During the Downturns
At the October TiE Rockies meeting, the keynote speaker was Dinesh Patel, PhD, Managing Director, vSpring Capital. Dinesh said, "I believe personalized medicine has finally arrived and it’s going to revolutionize how we practice medicine and health care in this country.” vSpring Capital started in the year 2000, Dinesh is one of the founding partners. About 75% of their fund’s investments are in the technology sector and 25% in the life sciences sector, and they are early stage investors, generally the first institutional investor in a company. They are managing roughly $360 million today. They are always looking for deal flow, like to make investments in the $500K to $2 Mil investment range. "Times are very interesting now. I think times are more uncertain today than they were in 2000. Right now we are trying to figure out how to proceed in this climate. But every time there is a major problem of this kind you also find major opportunities, so we are very optimistic about this cycle. Startups happen all the time, you can never time that. In fact some of the greatest successes started during the down turns. Google is an example of that. So I think it is not the timing but the key today is to have enough money to take you 18 to 25 months, because you don’t know if you can raise the money in 6 months or 12 months. Cash is king, you’ve got to preserve the money, spend it wisely, stretch it out a little bit." Dinesh also talked about the Human Genome Project - fascinating....
Related Links: vSpring Capital || TiE Rockies Home || Venture Capital || Biosciences || Keywords: Dinesh Patel, vSpring Capital, Venture Capital, Human Genome Project, TiE Rockies, Bioscience - Channels: News > Bytes: 9398546 - 11/10/08 LISTEN