Intelligence

JoAnn Winks

Johann Winks is the Assistant Port Director of Trade with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Area Port of Denver at Denver International Airport.  Winks recently meet with ICOSA and shared the following information and resources.

The department is responsible for guarding nearly 7000 miles of land Read More »

Phil Lawson

Phil Lawson is the founder and CEO of Spherit Inc. Spherit is a company that looks at the whole of a complex issue and makes sense of it.   Through an online questioner system a chart is created that reports the shape and pattern of a company.  One element the chart produces is staff ability for example is an employee ability being fully used.   The application that does this is called Sphere and it has countless applications.  It can also be used in the areas of health, personal relationships and individual career goals.  The purpose of the application is to assist in navigating to the best possible outcome.

Lawson is also the author.  Being Spherical — Reshaping Our Lives and Our World for the 21st Century is a book about navigating through change.  Lawson co-authored, It’s Going to be OK (but not like we thought), “A story about absolute certainty, confounding bewilderment and an inescapable transformation,” says Lawson.

For more information, visit; www.engagesphere.com

Colorado Gives Day

Colorado Gives Day is hosted by FirstBank and the Community First Foundation.  The two dedicated collaborators, Marla J. Williams, president and CEO of Community First Foundation and Jim Reuter, executive vice president of FirstBank has set 2011’s goal of exceeded last year’s total distribution of $8.7 million.  Ever wonder how your donation supports the community?  Here are two nonprofits with one their many of their success stories.

Marla J. Williams, President and CEO of Community First Foundation

The Nonprofit

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Angel Tuccy

Time is the invisible resource and to harness the most of it you can follow the following surviving time management tips.

1. Concentrate on producing results.  Some like the “good ol’fun” of procrastination but that is not managing time effectively.
2. Ask for help by first creating a list of rankings with ABC priorities; A being the most important.  Angel Tuccy of The Experience Read More »

If you’ve ever started a business, been involved with a Startup, or know somebody who has; a business plan in a static state is good for a matter of days. It is not that the process of planning is bad. It is that fact that things in the business world change at warp speed. I recently found a solution to this problem that I am going to share in the post below.

Recently I came across a tool called www.fundingroadmap.com . In their own words they are a “..fast and easy multiple choice planning platform built in the cloud.” So….what does that mean? It means it has never been easier to build a business plan. It means it shows you everything you need to take your idea and put some meat to it. It means that when you show this to an investor it shows you know what the hell you’re doing.

Why the cloud for a Startup business plan? Ever been working on a doc and need someone to add to it? This tool allows you to always have the most current version ready for anyone in the company or a potential angel or venture capital investor. Instead of emailing a pdf, you can now email a secure login and password (that you control) to an investor and they have everything they need in its current form, ready to go! Instant global access for review by investors, secure online storage in case of fire or natural disaster. A feature more important now,then ever before.

Video in your Startup business plan. Huh? Yep, you heard me. Funding Road map allows you to insert a short video right in the start of your plan. Think about it, you can how put your 90 second to 3 minute pitch right in the beginning. This gets the investor interested. Of course they’ll have questions after viewing the video. Now with Funding Road map they can just click on the link to go to the piece of information they need in the business plan to do the correct amount of due diligence to report back to their peers and get you the funding you need to start your business. Read More »

Laurie Bassi

Laurie Bassi lead author of Good Company, takes an in-depth look into the worthiness era.  The worthiness era is a convergence of economic, social and political forces requiring companies to be better employers, sellers and stewards of community and environment in order to make more profits.

Good Company systematically compiled information on the Fortune 100 and dispersed grades; A through F.  Good company index focuses on going beyond social responsibility.  Companies who use their core capabilities to make contributions to community and society are good companies such as Disney and FedEx who earned A’s.

Consumers require and buy more from a good company so the good guys make more money than the bad guys.  At the micro level power shifts show technology fueled people power which forces companies to be better.  To be good a company must be simultaneously caring, exacting and inspiring for example boards of directors should be involved and know about all levels in a company.

Go to www.glassdoor.com to see into that which is normally blocked and discover employee reviews about what it is like to work in 100,000 companies.  Salaries and interview processes are shared.  Also, www.wratings.com shows consumer experiences on 4000 companies.

Book signing:

November 15^th

12:00P.M.

Barnes and Noble Downtown Denver

Also available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Berrett Koehler Publishers

Related articles

• Patagonia Asks Its Customers To Buy Less (fastcompany.com)
• 9 Sites That Measure Companies’ Social Responsibility (mashable.com)

Cathey McClain Finlon

Determine if a company’s mission matches your vision and values.  Early in her career Cathey McClain Finlon did just that.

Finlon’s expertise in matching vision and values is found in reviewing the following:

1. “For things to change, I have to change.” In growing the McClain Finlon advertising agency to Ad Age Top 100 U.S. agencies responsibilities were given to those who were trained.  It is a challenge to give up things to other people as a company grows.
2. Spend time working with industry and community boards to build skills and let those skills flow into the company, (Finlon spent 30 percent of her time on boards).
3. Mentors pick you, and you earn their mentorship.  People who identify themselves as serious doers are chosen to be mentored.  “Show me your friends and I will show you, you,” Finlon.
4.  Unbalanced work and home make life rich and full.  Unbalance is fun and intense which can allow you to achieve more.
5. Work harder than the next person, leave no rock unturned.
6. Check fear at the gate; don’t let it run your business.
7. Run, don’t walk from bad work situations.
8. Be optimistic.

On the tenth floor, perched high above the University of Colorado, Boulder campus, teeming with young minds, running eagerly between classes is the office of physics professor, Dr. Jerry Peterson, Ph.D.  His office is quaint but every inch of it is covered. Books line shelves and table tops, papers and binders are stacked high on two separate desks, graphs and charts hang on the walls and sitting atop one of his bookshelves are Geiger counters and a Safeway bag filled with uranium ore.

“Come on in, check out my view,” he says to me. Through the only window in the office, he looks out onto the beauty and simplicity of the flatirons that stretch across the Boulder horizon.  It is the perfect juxtaposition to the chaos of his office and the nature of his study.

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September 21^st marked a milestone for Colorado business schools who took home top spots in the Aspen Institute’s new MBA rankings. The ranking focused on schools that offer relevant courses centered on topics of sustainability via social, environmental and ethical practices and how businesses are impacted by these decisions.

Over the course of seven months, the Aspen Institute analyzed course descriptions, course availability and faculty research data from 149 schools in 22 countries to determine this years top MBA schools. Participating schools were measured independently based on size, enrollment and resources to determine the strength of each score.

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