The Greatest Work of Art is to Love Someone: Shann Ferch at TEDxSpokane

The oppressor will always oppress until stopped, they will never just stop. But if the oppressor is loved they will benefit from being stopped, too.

How to start a group.

Watch this, if you like it share with those who you'd like to invite to be in your new group! Also share with others who you think might be interested in starting a group or joining one of the new groups that will be forming.30- minutes.
t
Questions? Post here, call me, or join us for our "Starting a new group" Meetup online any Tuesday afternoon, RSVP at http://Meetup.com/Small-Biz-Chamber 

William Dean Singleton speaks at DU's spring 2012 graduate Commencement ...

A lifetime of experience distilled into 20 minutes. Worth watching and re-watching, he lived the American Dream. Health problems that show here forced him into retirement, it's great DU got him to give this talk.

Wren College?

Requesting a review copy of a new psychology book that looks like it might be a good catalyst for a new self-directed learning group I plan on forming, an idea.

A-ha!

Rather than holding myself out as Small Business Chamber of Commerce, why not form Wren College.

I don't think local chambers ever quite believe me when I say we want to cooperate with them, but they do that all the time with institutions of higher education.

One of my Facebook friends is one of the biggest critics in the country of colleges and universities, they've just become diploma mills, she writes.

I'm going to ask her about the idea, but what do you think?

We'd hold a weekly MOOC for people who want to start a new group, just like I do now. People could form their own group for free, as always, but if they want to be part of the faculty of Wren College, they first have to complete a course of study in adult self-directed learning. Same for students, could continue to be free, unless they want us to issue a certificate of completion documenting what had been learned.

What do you think?

How much to be in top 1%

More Millionaires 

The ranks of America’s rich and super rich have rebounded in the last few years, and there are more households worth $1 million than ever before. To make the top 1% requires household worth of at least $5 million.

Carl DeTorres

Source: Spectrem (click)

"A Million Dollars Isn't What It Used To Be." (click)
In 2007, an investor with $1 million could earn $60,000 annually 
on a certificate of deposit. Today, that same CD would earn $12,000.

What’s your story?

Want help to get started?

We share startup stories and

help each other find and do Good Work.

Good Work pays well, really helps your customers, and is a way to learn and grow as you earn money from it.

Our new, free Z-NOS Groups use spiritual principles combined with the one-day-at-a-time methods from Just Start, a recent book based on solid research, published by Harvard Business Review Press. We recover, start, grow, and flourish with a new career, project or campaign, or new business. No dues or fees.

 To find a free meeting near you contact:

Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Inc.

“Real help, real people, real recovery, really start now.”

SmallBizChamber.org or  http://Facebook.com/Small.Business.Chamber

Twitter @IDEACafé or Call 24/7 (303)861-1447 + AMDG

MBA a blessing or a curse?

(Do you agree or disagree? Your comment below is very welcome. John)

In a recent survey, 32% of CEO's interviewed had a positive impression of hiring MBAs, 23% were neutral, and a solid 44% had outright negative views.

Executives said that many business schools “better structured for the Industrial Revolution rather than the Information Age.” 

From today's Wall Street Journal

Getting an MBA (DU'80) certainly helped me get a great job, I was hired as Assistant-to-the-President of an American Stock Exchange company when the Chancellor introduced me to the school trustee who eventually hired me, but what we'd studied didn't really help me do the job once I was at my desk, in many ways it was clear to me the MBA hurt me on that job, even more so when I started working with startup businesses. For years I've called my self a recovering MBA, much of what I'd been taught in graduate business school had to be overcome to actually help someone who is trying to turn their idea into a business.

The Wall Street Journal article above seems to advocate for updating the curriculum at business schools, but is that really the problem?

nGram analysis (% word or term of all words indexed by Google) would indicate there has been a dramatic grow of interest in MBAs since the degree was first awarded at Harvard in 1912:

From 2004: New Conference to Strengthen Neighborhood Meetings...

This is my very first post here on www.JohnWren.com, back in January, 2004. When did you start blogging? What was your first post?

New Conference to Strengthen Neighborhood Meetings
Click JohnWren.com Start!: New Conference to Strengthen Neighborhood Meetings...: Click to see more.

The new Colorado Neighborhood Caucus Conference will be held Monday, January 26th...

George S. May International Company History

Working for the George S. May International Company was a very great learning experience for me, fantastic sales training program.

Until not long before I was hired, I didn't know much about the company.

That changed when I gave a talk about marketing in California for a national trade association, a man came up after my talk and offered to buy me dinner.

WANT TO LEARN MORE, FASTER, CHEAPER AND HAVE FUN LEARNING IT?

‏+++Pope Francis Teaches A Business Lesson.+++

WANT TO LEARN MORE, FASTER, CHEAPER AND HAVE FUN LEARNING IT? 

Then start learning like Pope Francis, and like they teach nurses to learn.

You don't have to be Catholic or just Christian to benefit from the learning method Pope Francis is talking about here (click below): 

1) Pope Francis receives; he reads, prays, studies. 2) Then he just does it. 3) Finally he shares what he's done, he teaches, and that's when the real learning takes place.

70th Wedding Aniversary Today.

Amarillo First Baptist now from their
Facebook Page (click here to see)

John E. Wren, Pres.
Western Merchants.
(click here for more)

Happy aniversary 
mom and pop!

Some of my Facebook friends may not know about my parents' startup story. They should make a movie about their lift togetherr, one with a single mother, the other with a mother who would have in some ways been much better off single, together they achieved the true American Dream.

Amarillo High School "The Sandies" is where Jane Wren my mom and and my dad John E. Wren (who cancer took in 1979, just after he'd gotten them into the condo where mom lives now) met in 1941. They eventually married March 16, 1944 after dad was discharged from the Navy. They were married in a small ceremony in the parsonage of First Baptist Church (photo of it today) by the

Mom with twin greatgrandson,
Christmas 2009.

pastor who'd been there since 1941, Dr. A. D. Foreman. Mom and dad's best friends were the only witnesses, Sandies C. E. Nance, Milda Fey and Betty Mashburn (who later married Bob Ely, he eventually became pastor of Trinity Methodist Church here in Denver and he preached at my dad's funeral in November, 1979 at Wilshire Presbyterian Church.)

I just talked with mom on the phone, she's doing ok, but not feeling like doing anything today to celebrate. She said she'd just been sitting and thinking, I'll bet, she has a lot of memories. How many trips did she and pop take together?

To go from that day 70 years ago when two kids from financially poor families found the courage to marry (thank God they didn't go to the pitiful pre-marital counciling that is given today) to what they were able to accomplish together is the very best example I know of the chance to work hard and get ahead in life, the possibilities America once held and I think the possiblity that can be ours once again if enough people read Edmund Phelps book Mass Flourishing, insist candidates in the upcoming elections read it, and each and everyone of us start doing all we can to restore the vitalism and dynamism that we once had. I know pop would have loved it, it's the sort of thing men like George Vineyard used to talk about, I'm sure, when they taught senior high boys in Sunday school.

One thing that could be easily changed immediately, our leaders should start setting the example by taking seriously themselves and encourage everyone who hears their talks to go to church on Sunday, or to temple on Saturday, or to practice whatever they find helpful , to practice their own religion, to pray for them and to ask our higher power, what most of us call God, including those who print and coin our US Money, ato pray for all the leaders of the world and all common people, that we all be filled with hope and encouraged to get back to work, trusting the little we can do, that each and everyone of us can do, will with God's help, be enough.

God bless mom and dad and all those like them in the greatest generation who set a good example for us in so many different ways, and may God bless us all and allow us to each respond to what we are being called on now to pick up the fallen flag and carry on.
God bless you, God bless America and the world, and don't forget to go to (in what ever way you understand it) church. +++

IDEA Cafe startup workshop in old Rocky Mtn

JohnWren.com Start!: IDEA Cafe in old Rocky Mtn News.: Item in old  Rocky Mountain News. We are still doing it, Friday afternoons at Panera Bread, 13th & Grant and elsewhere, now  http:// www.SmallBizChamber.org

Bing Crosby's gift to Gonzaga University |

Photo found on

Text and Pixel Reflections: Gonzaga University | Campus Signage

Need a new idea? Have a good idea, now need to make money?

Free (for now) and open to everyone! First meeting of new Z-NOS Group (see below for more info) this Friday, 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Panera Bread, 13th and Grant St. here in Denver, a block from the Capitol. .

 Please forward this along to anyone who you know that wants to find a good job or who wants to start a business. Intended to be a followup to our Small Business Chamber startup workshop, it's held at 3:45 p.m. each Friday, same location. Information and RSVP for both groups at http://Meetup.com/Small-Biz-Chamber

In Recovery?

Just Start!

People in recovery help each other find good work fast.

Good work pays good money, really helps customers, and provides opportunities to learn and grow. Our new, free Z-NOS Groups use principles from 12-step recovery and Ignatian spirituality, combined with methods from the book Just Start, which is based on the latest business research. Published recently by Harvard Business Review Press, Just Start confirms what IDEA Café Startup Workshops have taught since 1994.  (Have a good career but care about your local business community? Call about how we can help you start a new group and why you should.)

To find a free meeting near you contact:

Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Inc.

“We cooperate with local chambers to help startups. Real help from real people.”

+ Start + Grow + Flourish +

www.SmallBizChamber.org or  Facebook.com/Small.Business.Chamber

Twitter @IDEACafé or Call 24/7 (303)861-1447 + AMDG

Help to find your peer advisory group.

I just posted this on Twitter. Join us online Tuesday?

FREE FOR NOW: help to start your new group, in cooperation with your local chamber or other local group. http://t.co/CCs1Qlmm0D
— John Wren +++ Start! (@JohnSWren) March 8, 2014

More about business peer learning groups: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-chautin/business-peer-groups-coac_b_793555.html

View From The Top: General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal

What I posted on Facebook just now after watching Gen. McChrystal and then this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17rAxDB4Jw4 

It's only an inch, but with HP's help that's enough. Get up, again. Recover, again. Again, again, again...

In a fit spiritual condition, with HP informing my desire, I ask: What do I want? What can I DO today? Now I just start+++

What are you going to do?

NOW and think, plan compared to ETERNAL, pray, start

What I want when in what some call "a fit spiritual condition" is one thing, it's something else when that want of mine is driven by gluttoney, just to name one of my unfit spiritual conditions that visits me each evening with thoughts of a snack.

So Just do it! can be for the better or for the worse. When I give in to the gluttoney in the evening, eating yet another candy bar is the result.

What's true for me as an individual seems to possibly be true for the world, at least here in the U.S.A., might be interesting to take a look at the nGram analysis, how often a word is used in comparison to all other word in the extensive Google Books library, shows we much prefer to write about:

NOW, think, plan   (at least for me, an unfit spiritual condition), not so much about

ETERNAL, pray, start (what I take as being in a fit spiritual condition.)

Here's an nGram analysis of how often these words have been used in U.S.A.:

IDEA Cafe in old Rocky Mtn News.

Item in old  Rocky Mountain News. We are still doing it, Friday afternoons at Panera Bread, 13th & Grant and elsewhere, now http://www.SmallBizChamber.org/ Tina Griego wrote in part:

Desperation leads to innovation. Courage is found when complacency is no longer an option. 

This makes the IDEA Cafe a perfect place for the present day. It is the search for, the grabbing of that "aha! moment" that lead John Wren, a business consultant and adult educator, to start the cafe more than a decade ago. It is neither a networking nor advice-dispensing meeting. It is a free gathering, largely of entrepreneurs, but also of people who "are just stuck." 

The group brainstorms business or project ideas, and Wren invites speakers, usually those who have successfully started their own businesses, to talk about their experiences.
 
"This is a gathering of people who have made that transition meeting with those who seek to," he says. 


We are not in the worst of times in Colorado… But we are not in the peak of economic health, either, and what is historically true is that bad times open doors to good ideas. 

For complete column:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/dec/01/griego-reinvention-in-times-of-transition/

Tuesday join your neighbors...

I've been posting this Facebook notice about Tuesday's Colorado Caucus, #1 networking event in Colorado. Do well by doing good through your participation.

What do you think would make this message go viral? Have an idea? Great! Now just do it! Or post your suggestion here for me and others.

Here's the Facebook message I've been putting up today along with a link to it:

Want to do more than just complain about the government? Want to really help make a difference? 

If you're in Colorado, attend one of the 6,000 free, open (by state law) neighborhood meetings that will be held next Tuesday. Learn how right now by checking out http://www.COCaucus.org/ and then SHARE with your friends and neighbors.

The Colorado Caucus: The best chance the common person has of serving in elected public office.

https://www.facebook.com/john.s.wren/posts/10152720342008782

Skip the Academy Awards, get ready for Tuesday. None of today's "stars" will be remembered in 30 years: