After graduate school I worked as Assistant-to-the-President of Outdoor Sports Industries here in Denver. It was a great job. I helped prepare the annual report, installed a strategic planning system with the managers, published a monthly news letter for the board of directors, coordinated a management training program, and was involved in acquisition analysis, charitable contributions, and represented the company on various organizations.

OSI, listed on the American Stock Exchange, went from $2 to $27 a share while I was with them. They eventually sold to the Brown Group.

When I started, OSI sent me to a week long American Management Association workshop "The Assistant-to Positions.

I then used vacation time to lead the workshop myself a couple of times, when Victor Phillips, who had led the workshop I attended and who had written a book the AMA published with the same title, couldn't fit it into his schedule.

If you'd like to find a job as the Assistant-to-the-President, please call me. I want to help 2 or 3 people get hired, and then offer a workshop or webinar now that the AMA has discontinued it. 

Also contact me if you own a business and would possibly like to hire an Assistant-to.

Contact me at John@SmallBizChamber.org or (303)861-1447. To make sure I'm sitting by the phone when you call, set an appointment by clicking the "Set Appointment" button to the left on this page.

Recall, along with our wonderful caucus-assembly system for nominating to the primary ballot that we still have here in Colorado (click here for more about it) was one of the Teddy Roosevelt reforms, and it should be used more often. Let's immediately get rid of representatives who are grand standing and spending time on personal issues rather than working for our common good.

The term "American dream" was coined 1931 by J.T. Adams (1878-1949), U.S. writer and historian, in "Epic of America." I found a copy of it in a used book store a few years ago for just a couple of dollars. A new paperback edition (click) has recently been published. [The American Dream is] "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

I've been asked to blog about tonight's Presidential debate. The comments I make will be my own, I do not speak for our Small Business Chamber, which takes no position on issues or candidates.

You can watch my comments about the debate tonight just click on the link below: http://live.denverpost.com/Event/University_of_Denver_Debate_2012_First_Presidential_Debate_Community_Bloggers

I'll be scoring each of the 6 debate rounds tonight using the PERMA system described by Martin Seligman in his recent book Flourish (click here).  P is Positive Affect; E is Engagement (or flow); R is Relationships; M is Meaning (the big picture); and A is Accomplishment.

I'll also be looking for acknowledgement from each debater that it is not nearly so important who gets elected President as that it is vital that we have strong grassroots, a continual replenishing of new voters who take their job seriously, new volunteers, and new candidates for local office. A home run for me would be recognition of our Wonderful Colorado Caucus, our grassroots system for nominating to the primary ballot, the best chance the common person has for serving in elected public office. For more about our Colorado Caucus see http://www.COCaucus.org 

I'm going to start posting more here, but for us to really keep up with each other it would help if we were Facebook friends. Invite me at https://www.facebook.com/john.s.wren

I first met Karl Dakin when he was with us to share his startup experience at our Denver IDEA Cafe Startup Workshop just before he started his new job as Executive Director of the Sullivan Chair for Free Enterprise at Regis University here in Denver (click here for more). 

He was far and away the best presenter at RevenueNorth Wednesday, where he gave a great talk about the business advantage of becoming recognized as an expert on some topic, and how everyone can do it.

 Karl talked about the trend away from classical employment and toward project participation, which will change how we work and how we get work. This trend will result in the growing importance for people to establish and be recognized for expertise on particular topics of knowledge.

Individuals who become proficient at sharing their knowledge will become sought after to participate in projects where that knowledge is needed.

I liked the talk so much I started Tweeting my notes, you can see them on http://Twitter.com/JohnSWren 

Pick a topic, write a book --Karl's book on this topic is on Kindle (click here)--start giving talks, interviews, teach a class, you'll start getting calls from people around the world who want to hire you. Karl has done this himself and with clients repeatedly, it's clearly a winning formula.

Karl started the talk by asking for a volunteer who knew how to do something. A man in the front, I think he was just trying to make a joke, said, "I know how to drive a tractor." Karl said, ok, let's take that. How many here would like to know or need to know how to drive a tractor? About a dozen people held up their hands. Karl called on a few, asked them why they needed or wanted to know about tractor driving.

Karl then asked how many would pay someone to teach them how to drive a tractor. Three people out of the hundred or so hearing the presentation held up their hands.

It dramatically made the point, whatever you know, there's a good chance some one, some where will pay you to show them, if they see you as an expert.

Has this ever worked for you?

Karl's presentation has caused me to start wondering if I need to change my approach.

For nearly 20 years I've held myself out as the non-expert, that we teach what we most need to learn our self, and that is what I've been doing with my startup workshops and consulting "practice."

Maybe it's time for me to change, to follow Karl's advice and become known as an expert in startup. What do you think? Would this be a change for the better? Would it make you more likely to pick up the phone and call me when you are starting in a new direction with your career, starting a new project or campaign, or starting a new business?

"He who knows most knows best how little he knows." Thomas Jefferson