Worried about the financial crisis? Want to save money on your food budget?

Here are the 20 healthiest foods for under $1:
http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22107/52070-20-healthiest-foods--1/2

Yes, the Denver IDEA Cafe is meeting this Friday. Normally we take holiday weekends off, but we want to be available as so many people are looking for a new direction with their career. More info and RSVP at http://ideacafe.meetup.com/1 Especially welcome are the people who attended in the last year or so who'd like to let us know how they are doing now.

Do you want to start an IDEA Cafe at a time and place that would be better for you? I'll help. To find out more, send me contact me now or, better yet, attend this Friday and let's talk right after the meeting.

I'm starting something new for 2009: Friday Afternoon Chalk Talks. These will be 50 minute presentations by experts on various business topics. If you have a topic you'd like to present, send me an email with the topic and your qualifications.

Coming up January 8: The first meeting of your new Denver CPA and Lawyer Peer Group (we're dropping the word "advisory" as we add lawyers because of their fear of forming a client relationship with other members of the group during the learning sessions.) If you are a CPA or lawyer, or if you know a good CPA or lawyer, let me know if your interested and I'll have Mary give you a call.

Also forming: New Colorado CEOs Peer Advisory Group. This is for CEOs of businesses with 10 or more employees. Let me know if you or anyone you know would like more information.

I've adopted a new slogan: Ready to Serve. How may I be of service to you?

Be sure to read the comments!

Interesting article in New York Times on rehabilitation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/health/23reha.html

Most interesting are the 109 comments. Gist as I read them:
AA and 12-step programs work. In Denver, see www.daccaa.org

Fred Smith, FedX founder, interview with Charlie Rose. Mentor was Abe Plough (creator of Coppertone, Tanya), "What does it take to be a success in business? Be in a good business!" U.S. Marine Corp built on servant leadership.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/9099

Amar Bhide's The Venturesome Economy listed as one of the top books of the year by Business Week Magazine.

Dr. Bhide tells me he will be here with us in Denver sometime in late January or February, but it won't be on Ben Franklin's birthday after all.

Who would be a good speaker to help us celebrate January 17?

Josh attended the Denver IDEA Cafe for the first time last Friday. He just sent me this email. When I asked via return email if it was OK to share it with you, he said sure, so here it is:

John-

Thanks again for hosting the Idea Café. There should be at least one of those in every city as far as I’m concerned. And thanks also for inviting me to join the Speaker’s Corner. I’m looking forward to participating one of these days. I couldn’t remember if you were interested in coming to Tuggl’s Community Managers event on Wednesday night or not, but here is the info nonetheless: http://www.centerd.com/events/?id=p/1/3111EBE753E974D34B470416A9EAE91F/I/2521746877035127499

Keep in touch, John. You’re really working on some novel and important things.

Best,

---
josh clauss
communications guy
tuggl.com

719.641.5126
josh@tuggl.com
http://www.tuggl.com/

I'll be at Josh's event Wednesday, I just RSVPd using the above link. How about you?

We are hoping for a very special speaker at the Denver IDEA Cafe this Friday, watch for an announcement here tomorrow. RSVP now if you want to be sure to have a seat, last week we had to cut off at 27, the capacity of the room. RSVP for this Friday's (Dec 19) at http://ideacafe.meetup.com/1

If you want to see Jersey Boys you'd better get your tickets TODAY, it's about to sell out!

Mary and I saw it last night, and it's really true big songs don't die!

Dramatic spectacle shows both the strength and character flaws of 4 New Jersey boys who decide to get out of the neighborhood, "Back then there were three ways to get out: join the military, get mobbed up, or become a star-- up and out!"

Strong emotions are on display from start to dramatic finish. "Sell 100 million records and see how you handle it." There is never one drowsey moment in the electric musical story.

Song after song, 27 in all, we're shown the 45 year career, how Frankie Vally became Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons with a brass section! From Sherry and Big Girls Don't Cry, to Working My Way Back to You and Rag Doll, each song is a brush stroke that paints the story: "You can't buy this, it's from the people."

Josh Franklin (Bob Gaudio), Joseph Leo Bwari (Frankie Valli), Steve Gouveia (Nick Massi) and Erik Bates (Tommy DeVito) are too good to be true.

"To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and, whatever you hit, call it the target," and "I'm not getting paid much for staying alive but it's good experience."

From Potshots by Ashleigh Brilliant, whose birthday is today.

Q: What's the best political book you've read in the past year? Bonus: Suggested reading for Bush in retirement and Obama in the White House.

A: Amar Bhide's "Venturesome Economy" -- annihilatingly good since it is so much at odds with the current, brows-knitted, anxious attitude toward the economic future. Bhide points out that multiple players move the economy forward. To him consumers are important, too. But his consumer is not the dullard multiplier so much discussed in all the infrastructure spending projects. The Bhide consumer is the one who takes the risk of deciding at designer handbag is worth the money -- along with the designer himself of course. A better explanation of the Kate Spade phenomenon and many other parts of our creating/shopping culture will be hard to find. Bhide is the undiscovered Malcolm Gladwell.

Amity Shlaes, a Bloomberg columnist and senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression”, Harper Perennial, a national bestseller. On http://www.politico.com/arena/bio/amity_shlaes.html

The most read article on DenverPost.com this morning is an article from last week about media companies across the country being put up for sale. It's worth reading for the comments alone. http://www.denverpost.com/popular/ci_11142071

In case you've been on Mars, our oldest local newspaper here in Denver is on the auction block.

I just sent this letter to the editor at the Rocky Mountain News after my repeated efforts to post the comment to their online forum failed:

RE: Sale of the Rocky

Since 1965, I made many trips into the newsroom of the Rocky with things it seemed to me readers would want to know about.

Those trips became much more difficult when the move was made to West Colfax, into the building that was torn down to make way for the Hickenlooper Justice Center. (Government wants us to save paper sacks and rubber bands, but they put up and tear down buildings like they are playing with Legos!)

Community Newspapers such as Life on Capitol Hill, the Washington Park Profile, and the Cherry Hills/ Greenwood Village newspaper The Villager, are doing better than ever. Free daily newspapers like the Denver Daily News are a national phenomena.

I think where the Rocky went wrong was when it opposed the local neighborhood precinct caucus as a way to get on the primary ballot. People in Colorado love this system.

Why did the Rocky oppose it? Consciously or unconsciously, I think it was because it boosts ad revenues to have candidates spend money on advertising rather than grassroots organizing, which is demanded by the caucus system. Ads alone just don't work in caucus-states, look what happened to Hillary Clinton. But caucus-states strengthen neighborhoods, that's why the neighborhood newspapers are doing well, especially here in Colorado.

Let's talk about this at Denver Speakers Corner Sunday. You're invited, John Temple and any other Rocky people who'd like a forum. We'll video the session and put it up on You Tube. More info and optional RSVP at http://cocacop.meetup.com/2

John Wren

We’ll brainstorm what opportunities the failure of the Rocky presents this afternoon at the Denver IDEA Café http://ideacafe.meetup.com/1

TV newscast w/ Dr. Amar Bhide:

The Denver IDEA Cafe got a nice mention from Tina Griego in her Rocky Mountain News column this morning. She writes about her experience when she attended Friday’s meeting as an observer. In the comments I invite her to return to share her experience as she started her career in journalism. (click here to see it) Post your comments about turning lemons into lemonaid, OK?