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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Winner of the Outstanding Corporate Growth Award
1165_ 2/20/12 - Today we're talking about Leading Resilient Growth. We are here with a winner whose being honored at the upcoming Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference. Schomp Automotive is receiving the Outstanding Corporate Growth Award at the conference, that is over $100M in annual sales. We here with Aaron Wallace, Owner of Schomp Automotive. We asked Aaron to tell us about their business. Aaron replied, "We are a family business, in the automotive industry - sales, service and parts. In May it will be our 71st year in business and we are fourth generation Colorado business, my great-grandfather, grandfather, mother and me and my siblings. Schomp is a Honda, BMW and Mini dealership. They also have nine lines of motorcycles - and that's who we are. When asked about corporate growth strategies for the next year, Aaron told us that they are focusing on the changes their customers have experienced in their lives. The customers behavior is different, they don't have as much time, they're busy and in between things. And people have more information, they're shopping online, when they come to the dealership we have to adjust to the changes the customer has made. Change is difficult." Larry asked, "With the turbulent economy we've experienced the past number of years, how do you prosper in times of uncertainty?" He said, "During the good times or bad times you have to know what you're doing is right. In the good times you can't do a bad job or make stupid decisions just because they're good times. You have to run during the good times knowing that..." Watch and listen for more...
Related Links: Schomp Automotive || ACG Denver || M&A || Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference || CoBiz Article Schomp || Keywords: Aaron Wallace, Schomp Automotive, ACG, Denver, Leading Resilient Growth, Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference, Association for Corporate Growth, Outstanding Corporate Growth Award,
Video Watch: Aaron Wallace, Owner, Schomp Automotive

Understanding the State of the Markets
1163_ 2/20/12 - We're here at the offices of Capital Investment Management Company, or CIMCO as many of us know them, with Chris Pelley, Managing Director and Chad Williams, Managing Partner because they have some really important information to share. Chris and Chad are going to give us the State of the Markets. Chad says their goal is to educate us on some of the factors they've been watching lately. Larry said, "It has been a real roller-coaster ride for equities." Chad commented, " While we're still down 11.8% from the peak of the market in 2007' it makes us wonder if we're finished advancing, or if there is more to come. If we look at the factors affecting the stock market and the economy, we will break them up into two categorizes: headwinds and tailwinds. It goes without saying that Europe's debt crisis created significant headwinds last year, and it is unlikely that this problem is going away quickly. There has been no definitive solution to the crisis, and it is one we will be monitoring, though we do expect Europe to muddle through without creating major drag on the U.S. Economy." Chris added, "Employment is one factor that could be a headwind or tailwind, depending on how you look at it. Moody's Analytics expects the U.S, unemployment rate to remain above 8% through 2012. In its latest report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated the unemployment rate dropped to 8.5% in December, continuing the downward trend started in September. We truly hope this positive trend will continue. We do believe home prices have stabilized and that we have probably seen the worst of it, and will continue to monitor this situation going forward. The national deficit is projected to increase. The White House's own numbers show the national debt exceeding $26 trillion 10 years from now. Obviously, this is something that concerns us. Larry said, "Hopefully, it's not all bad news out there!" Chris pointed out, "There are some positive tailwinds propelling us forward. Our first tailwind is Optimism. In fact, nearly half of the investors are bullish on the stock market. That's well above the historical average. Americans have stronger household balance sheets. Right now, corporations are more profitable than they have been in over 40 years, which we believe will translate to increases in hiring and strong equity valuations. Analysis shows there is a favorable indication that this bull market is not out of steam yet and there is still potential for further economic expansion." Larry asked, "What are the experts predicting?" Chad replied, "Wall Street's top strategists forecast calls range from bold to conservative. Most" ...there's much more, listen now...
Related Links: 2012 State of the Markets PowerPoint || CIMCO || ACG Denver || Community Reach Channel || Social Entrepreneurship || Keywords: Chris Pelley, Chad Williams, Capital Investment Management Company, CIMCO, State of the Markets, Economy, Europe's Debt Crisis, S&P 500, Moody's Analytics, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Headwinds, Tailwinds, bytes=6980234
LISTEN TO: Chris Pelley & Chad Williams, State of the Markets

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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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When writing be Clear, Concise and Compelling
1160_ 2/13/12 - With the ubiquitous blog and posts on Facebook etc. Larry wondered about our writing skills. After all, we're sending and receiving important messages. We contacted Kirsten Nelson, founder of C3 Writing. Larry loves her tag line, Clear, Concise and Compelling. First thing he wanted to know was what were the most common mistakes made when people are trying to write their blogs, brochures, websites and whatever. What are the biggest mistakes? Kirsten said, the biggest and most common mistakes we make when we set out to write something regardless of what it is, internally we know what we want, we know that we want it to look good and we want it to say something. But we really need to dig deeper and ask ourselves some questions. When I sit down with people I ask them to look at, what is it that you want your writing to do? You're writing because there is an end-goal in mind, something you want to cause or affect, and you're using the power of your voice in a written format to reach that goal. If I'm not intentionally specific, if my client isn't intentionally specific about what they want to create, chances are the writing is not going to carry that impact. Equally important to that is who is going to be reading this writing. Who is your audience? We have to be really specific, I don't just mean 'my customers' - Who are your customers? What group or groups of people are we talking about? the reason this is so important is, we have a message we want to get out, how is that message going to be received? What's going to touch on the information my customer needs? What are the emotions that are important to them, the things they like to hear. Again, if you don't do that you're not going to reach the reader emotionally and you're not going to reach your goal. Kirsten also addresses; Being Specific, Knowing Your Intended Audience, Researching Your Industry, Planning Your Presentation, and of course, Being Clear, Concise and Compelling. Whether you are developing a new website, writing a proposal, creating a new ad or brochure, you'll want to listen this interview...
Related Links: C3 Writing || Clear, Concise, Compelling || Startup Colorado Public Launch || Blog || In the News Channel || Keywords: Kirsten Nelson, C3 Writing, Clear, Concise, Compelling, Blogs, Brochures, Websites, Written Format, Your Intended Audience, Your Industry, Your Presentation - bytes=6123000
LISTEN TO: Kirsten Nelson, Founder, C3 Writing

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