In response to my previous post here:

Here's a podcast of me talking about how to find a good job fast:
http://blipcasts.com/

I just got this email from the Dean of my alma mater:

John,

That was a great podcast! Thank you for sharing. I have passed 

it along to folks within Daniels. I hope you are doing well!

All the best,

Chris

--------------------------------------

Christine M. Riordan, Ph.D.

Dean

Professor of Management

Daniels College of Business

University of Denver

2101 South University Boulevard, Suite 664

Denver, CO 80208

Phone:  303-871-4324

http://www.daniels.du.edu

Here's a podcast of me talking about how to find a good job fast:
http://blipcasts.com/

It was on this day that Martin Luther (books by this author) published his 95 Theses in 1517, an event that led to the Protestant Reformation. He was protesting corruption within the Roman Catholic Church, and he was particularly upset by the selling of indulgences, which the Church was doing to raise funds for restoration work on St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Luther's initial goal was not schism nor even confrontation; he was operating more in the mode of muckraking (a tradition that would become popular centuries later). Luther was hoping that his statements would shame the Church into mending its ways.

In Thesis # 86, Martin Luther posited: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?" But the selling of indulgences was the iceberg tip of a deeper theological issue: a debate over the doctrine of Justification, and its role in salvation. The Roman Catholic Church's position was that man could not be saved by faith alone; good works must accompany the faith. And at the time, buying indulgences to save one's soul and help achieve salvation in the afterlife counted as something somewhere between good works and spiritual insurance.

Luther insisted that this was wrong, theologically so, because only God could grant salvation. The pope could not, Luther said, and the practice of selling and buying indulgences was harmful to Christianity because the false assurance misled people from being faithful Christians. His language grew stronger over time, and he wrote: "All those who consider themselves secure in their salvation through letters of indulgence will be eternally damned, and so will their teachers."

There were attempts at mediation and counseling by the Vatican, but slowly a virulent confrontation between Luther and the pope developed. Luther was called to Rome and asked by the pope to recant 41 of the sentences from his writings, including some from the 95 Theses, or else he would be excommunicated. He refused and grew increasingly outspoken. He proclaimed: "The Roman Church, once the holiest of all, has become the most licentious den of thieves, the most shameless of brothels, the kingdom of sin." He was excommunicated, declared a heretic and an outlaw. He was a hero of many German townspeople.

And it was on this day just 10 years ago — in 1999 --- that Lutheran and Roman Catholic clerics signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. It's an 8,000-word document that aims to explain misunderstandings and resolve differences over the very doctrine that was at the heart of the of the Protestant Reformation. The document's preamble states that the two churches, Lutheran and Catholic, "are now able to articulate a common understanding of our justification by God's grace through faith in Christ." The document is not all encompassing when it comes clearing up issues about Justification, it disclaims, but does say that no one will be excommunicated over the issue of Justification anymore.

From: The Writer's Almanac

Humility is a virtue, not a neurosis. It sets us free to act virtuously, to serve God and to know Him. Therefore true humility can never inhibit any really virtuous action, nor can it prevent us from fulfilling ourselves by doing the will of God. Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Speakers Corner again this Sunday, 4 p.m., Civic Center Park. What's on your mind?
I just posted this on Craig's List. Please forward to your friends who might be interested, OK?
http://denver.craigslist.org/pol/1443972551.html




Also, we have good speakers at the Denver IDEA Cafe and the new Franklin Circle open meeting this afternoon, hope you can join us! More info on the links to the left here.

Life is sweet. Wake up! How?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUfBHoVNkok&feature=related

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
Pablo Picasso, born on this date in Malaga, Spain (1881)

"The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work."  Christopher Robison

Denver IDEA Cafe Announces Speakers.
Since 1994, free help for people starting a new career, project, campaign or new business.

DENVER—The Denver IDEA Cafe startup workshop meets from 2 to 3:30 p.m. each Friday at Panera Bread, 13th and Grant in Denver. More information and RSVP at http://Meetup.com/Denver-IDEA-Cafe or (303)861-1447.

Upcoming speakers:

This Friday, Oct 23: J. Brad Bernthal http://caete.colorado.edu/coursedb/view-instructor/161
Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Technology Policy, Entrepreneurial Law, University of Colorado Law School.

Oct 30: Dawn Todd www.DawnTodd.com, founder of Wildly Successful Women; business coach Jerry Chesser www.ActionCoach.com.

Nov 6: Suzanne Kaller, Arapahoe Library District, about startup resources available in public libraries. http://www.arapahoelibraries.org/go2.cfm?pid=8169

Since 1994, the Denver IDEA Cafe has been helping people who are starting in a new direction by providing a free forum where successful people share their startup experience and then brainstorm specific questions or problems.

IDEA is an acronym for: I= Inspiration or Identify the Problem; D= Develop Alternatives; E= Evaluate the Alternatives; and A= take Action. The meeting is free and open to anyone who is starting a new career, a new campaign or project, or a new business.

This is why I say I'm a recovering M.B.A.:

Sony's founder, Akio Morita, was a master at watching what consumers were trying to get done and at marrying those insights with solutions that helped them do the job better. Between 1950 and 1982, Sony successfully built twelve different new-market disruptive growth businesses. These included the original battery-powered pocket transistor radio, launched in 1955, and the first portable solid-state black-and-white television, in 1959. They also included videocassette players; portable video recorders; the now-ubiquitous Walkman, introduced in 1979; and 3.5-inch floppy disk drives, launched in 1981. How did Sony find these foothold applications that yielded such tremendous up-side fruit?

Every new-product launch decision during this era was made personally by Morita and a trusted group of about five associates. They searched for disruptive footholds by observing and questioning what people really were trying to get done. They looked for ways that miniaturized, solid-state electronics technology might help a larger population of less-skilled and less-affluent people to accomplish, more conveniently and at less expense, the jobs they were already trying to get done through awkward, unsatisfactory means. Morita and his team had an extraordinary track record in finding these footholds for disruption.

Interestingly, 1981 signaled the end of Sony's disruptive odyssey, and for the next eighteen years the company did not launch a single new disruptive growth business. The company continued to be innovative, but its innovations were sustaining in character-they were better products targeted at existing markets. Sony's PlayStation, for example, is a great product, but it was a late entrant into a well-established market. Likewise, its Vaio notebook computers are great products, but they too were late entrants into a well-established market.

What caused this abrupt shift in Sony's innovation strategy? In the early 1980s Morita began to withdraw from active management of the company in order to involve himself in Japanese politics. (This information was recounted to us in a July 2000 interview with Mickey Schulhoff, who worked for over twenty years as CEO of Sony America and served for much of this time as a member of Sony Corporation's board of directors.)

To take his place, Sony began to employ marketers with MBA's to help identify new-growth opportunities. The MBA's brought with them sophisticated, quantitative, attribute-based techniques for segmenting markets and assessing market potential. Although these methods uncovered some underserved opportunities on trajectories of sustaining improvement in established markets, they were weak at synthesizing insights from intuitive observation. In searching for an initial product foothold in new-market disruption, observation and questioning to determine what customers are trying to do, coupled with strategies of rapid development and fast feedback, can greatly improve the probability that a company's products will converge quickly upon a job that people are trying to get done.

From: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/maney/2003-11-12-innovators-solution-excerpt.htm

"For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine."

Arthur Miller, born this date in 1915, considered by many to be the greatest American playwright. From his 1949 play, Death of a Salesman.

"It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryers were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind. After Rome has kindled and satisfied the enthusiasm of the Classic pilgrim, his curiosity for all meaner objects insensibly subsides."

Edward Gibbon, writing about his inspiration to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His six-volume work, published between the years 1776 and 1788, covered more than a thousand years of Roman history, from 180 A.D. to the fall of Constantinople.

Speaking at the Denver IDEA Cafe this Friday, Oct 16: Author Joe Clark www.CommonSenseRetirement.com, a former Texas State Trooper, Joe owned a private investigation company for 15 years, now consults with people who are turning 65 about their retirement choices.

What are you creating?

Whether it's a new project, a new campaign, career, or new business, you can get help each Friday afternoon at the Denver IDEA Cafe.

The IDEA Cafe is designed to be helpful to the person who is not sure what they are going to do Monday morning. If that's you this Friday, please join us.

Also join us if you have startup experience you'd be willing to share. But please, don't come to just network. For more information and to RSVP see: http://meetup.com/Denver-IDEA-Cafe The meeting is free and open to everyone, we just ask that you bring your brain for the brainstorming.
See our meeting announcements in the Denver Daily News.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.  George Bernard Shaw  http://www.quotes.net/authors/George%20Bernard%20Shaw

I just confirmed Wendy Norris (photo to left) will be with us this afternoon at the Denver IDEA Cafe. Wendy was the managing editor of the Colorado Independent, one of the first online newspapers in the country. She currently has a Knight Foundation grant and is researching new media. She'll share her startup experience and her perspective on the entrepreneurial opportunities that are available for journalists. There is an item about the meeting in the Denver Daily News today on p. 5, take a look, then pass it along to a friend. More info and RSVP at http://meetup.com/Denver-IDEA-Cafe.

 

Right after the IDEA Cafe, at 3:45 p.m. today (Fri, Oct 9) or any Friday we have a free, open meeting of the Denver Open Franklin Circle. At each meeting enough information is distributed to those attending that they can start a new Franklin Circle with their friends and business associates on a topic of their choice. For more information and to RSVP for this afternoon or future meetings, see http://meetup.com/Franklin-Circle-Denver-Open

1. We have a great speaker tomorrow (Friday, Oct 9) at the Denver IDEA Cafe. Wendy Norris is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced journalists in the country regarding new media. If you or someone you know wants to turn your talent for writing and reporting into a business, join us! http://meetup.com/Denver-IDEA-Cafe. 
2. Have you thought about starting a peer advisory or master mind group with your friends and business associates? Join us any Friday for the Franklin Circle Denver Open group. You'll get enough information at the first meeting to start your own group over the weekend, or meet with us each Friday until you get your own group started. More info and RSVP at http://meetup.com/Franklin-Circle-Denver-Open
3. I'm meeting with Scott Heiferman, the founder of meetup.com tonight (Thursday, Oct 8). Watch for improvements in my meetup.com groups as a result of our meeting!
4. Rocky Mountain Inventors Association http://rminventor.org  has asked me to be their Executive Director. If you already have experience with the group, or if you'd like to become involved, please contact me.
5. It is possible that my work with RMIA (see #4 above) will result in me discontinuing my consulting practice. But for now, I'm still available to be of assistance to you as you start in a new direction with your career or business. If you might like help, contact me. But please, do it now. I'd hate for us to miss this opportunity. And I need the money!   John@JohnWren.com or (303)861-1447
   

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 6, 2009

Contact: John Wren cell (720)495-4949

University of Colorado Prof Speaks to Denver IDEA Cafe October 23.
Since 1994, free help for people starting a new career, project, campaign or new business.

DENVER—The Denver IDEA Cafe startup workshop meets from 2 to 3:30 p.m. each Friday at Panera Bread, 13th and Grant in Denver. More information and RSVP at http://Meetup.com/Denver-IDEA-Cafe or (303)861-1447.

Upcoming speakers:

Oct 9: Reporter, editor and entrepreneur Wendy Norris linkedin.com/in/wendynorris on journalism and her startup experience.

Oct 16: Author Joe Clark www.CommonSenseRetirement.com, a former Texas State Trooper, Joe owned a private investigation company for 15 years, now consults with people who are turning 65 about their retirement choices.

Oct 23: J. Brad Bernthal, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Technology Policy, Entrepreneurial Law, University of Colorado Law School. Brad leads the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (LAWS 7619) and the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic (LAWS 7809). In addition to his clinical instruction, Brad teaches doctrinal courses in the areas of telecom policy, spectrum management, and entrepreneurial finance.

Prior to law school, Brad conducted legislative research as a staff assistant to United States Senator Robert Kerrey. Brad started his legal career in San Francisco with Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP. He then returned to Denver where he practiced at Hogan & Hartson, LLP before most recently working for the Boulder law firm of Berg, Hill, Greenleaf and Ruscitti. http://lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profile.jsp?id=192

Since 1994, the Denver IDEA Cafe has been helping people who are starting in a new direction by providing a free forum where successful people share their startup experience and then brainstorm specific questions or problems.

IDEA is an acronym for: I= Inspiration or Identify the Problem; D= Develop Alternatives; E= Evaluate the Alternatives; and A= take Action. The meeting is free and open to anyone who is starting a new career, a new campaign or project, or a new business.

###

John S. Wren, MBA http://www.JohnWren.com is the founder of the Denver IDEA Café, the Denver Startup Forum, and Franklin Circles. He is a business consultant and adult educator. Wren is also the new Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Inventors Association http://www.rminventor.org/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 6, 2009

Contact:  John Wren cell (720)495-4949

NEW FRANKLIN CIRCLES FORMING IN DENVER, FIRST STARTED IN 1727.

Adult self-directed learning groups may have been Ben Franklin’s best idea, says John Wren.     

DENVER— Franklin Circle Denver Open Group, each Friday, 3:45 p.m. at Panera Bread, 1330 Grant, Denver. Free. More information and RSVP at http://meetup.com/Franklin-Circle-Denver-Open or contact John Wren at (303)861-1447 or John@JohnWren.com.

In 1727, young Ben Franklin formed a group in Philadelphia for “the purpose of mutual improvement” as he puts it in his famous Autobiography. In 1996, inspired by Franklin, entrepreneur and long-time community activist John Wren formed the first Franklin Circle here in Denver, and he’s now actively working to spread the concept.

“I’ve conducted startup workshops and done consulting with small businesses for years,” said Wren. “This experience has convinced me there is a real need for these peer advisory groups for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and creative managers. The intention is to help people to start and grow their own business, and to help them become better citizens through active participation in local government and politics.”

Each group is autonomous, and those who are interested are invited to attend one of Wren’s free meetings. Help is then available to start or join a free or tuition-based group.

###

Attachment: What is a Franklin Circle?

John S. Wren, MBA   http://www.JohnWren.com   is the founder of the Denver IDEA Café, the Denver Startup Forum, and Franklin Circles. He is a business consultant and adult educator. Wren is also the new Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Inventors Association http://www.rminventor.org/

About the Alumni Symposium yesterday:

Corey Ciocchetti spoke yesterday at the University of Denver luncheon. Prof. Ciocchetti told us why he walked away from a $120,000 per year job as a successful lawyer with a big firm to become a teacher, and the rewards he's found since he entered that new profession at DU.  He then gave a very inspirational talk about how we can each live our days to the maximum advantage for ourselves and others by being honest with ourself, living with integrity, and doing our best each day by keeping things in perspective as we hustle, fight for things that matter, listen, and laugh often through out the day. www.coreyspeaks.com

I also attended sessions on spirituality and education, the rise and appeal of Islamic fundamentalism, and Lincoln and Colorado (there is a very good reason Lincoln Street runs right in front of the Capitol.)

It was a great day. I connected with old friends, made a few new ones, and got a lot to think about that will be influencing the topics for discussion for the next several weeks!

I'm at the University of Denver Alumni Symposium today, posted about last night's speaker Roger Birnbaum on Facebook. Caught end of Dr. Daniel Lair talking about the importance of dialog and discussion in forming values, and the positive side of social networking in facilitating it. Are you on Facebook? www.Facebook.com 

More here tomorrow morning about what's new on campus.