Agloves

  Jennifer and Jean Spencer

 

Agloves® is a patent-pending winter touchscreen glove company based in Boulder, Colorado which currently employs seven streamlined employees.  The remarkable founders are Jean and Jennifer Spencer.  Together they developed gloves with a silver (Ag) element which is a conductor for the bio-electricity that comes from ones fingers which is needed to activate a touch screen.  The origin of Agloves derives from the element symbol for silver―Ag, (Agloves).

Through connecting with the technology industry such as the Boulder Open Coffee Club, Agloves launched within months and by the second month of business were selling Agloves internationally.  Jean Spencer attributes four elements to success; 1. Analyze the market beyond the obvious demographic, 2. Establish who is going to pay for it, 3. Consider manufacturing locations, 4. Utilize social media such as LinkedIn to find industry peers and ask for best practices.  International business comes with challenges such as customs, duties, and exporting.  One essential to customer care is considering the most efficient method to ship product to customer.  In researching for a method Agloves found that having multiple manufacturers and warehouses internationally has value.

IFA, Consumer Electronics Unlimited hosts the world’s largest trade show for consumer electronics and the results from Agloves attendance is that it opened up 11 countries to sell in.  Agloves also partners with the U.S. Air force, and the U.S. Army to provide Agloves to all solders.

An important social media element is Twitter since 6% of sales generate from that effort.  Agloves shared social media guidelines they follow; 1. Be human on the web, share things that are of interest, funny and respond to questions, 2. Learn to use Twitter, and 3. Be photo happy.

Agloves goals are to; 1. Build buzz, 2. Establish the brand, and 3. Expand to niche markets.

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The Export Factor, Bioscience

Selina Marques and Lana Lennberg Selina Marques works extensively in exporting bioscience and agribusiness across Colorado.  Marquez is a senior international trade specialist with the U.S. Commercial Service Export Assistance Center in Denver.  Bioscience and agribusiness encompasses medical, dental, pharmaceutical and chemical supplies.  A partnership with the U.S. Federal government has given 1.5 billion in assistance to the industry of exporting these goods.  There are 16,000 jobs in Colorado in this sector.  Developed countries such as the U.K., Germany, Spain and Japan are the most shipped to countries.  The typical process for a company is to sell locally, regionally, nationally and then internationally.  Export centers nationally can facilitate this process.  Regulatory and registration procedures are a challenge for this sector and as such the U.S. Export Center’s focus is on making the procedures doable through Trade Missions and Webinars.

A trade mission to Botaga, Colombia has been developed where the export center matches U.S. companies to vendors in Botaga, Colombia. It will be held on November 15-18, 2011 with a focus on oil and gas, plastics, mining, auto, security, pollution control, tourism, and medical industries.  As of today there are seven open opportunities for companies to meet vendors in Colombia for a more than reasonable price of $1,850 which includes airfare and lodging.  For more information call Selina Marques at 303-844-6623 ext. 215.

Lana Lennberg is a senior international trade specialist with the U.S. Department of Commerce/US Commercial Service (USCS) and has been assigned to the U.S. Export Assistance Center (EAC) in Denver, Colorado since 1998. She invites companies to the Export Center’s webinars, starting Nov. 2nd.  This webinar focuses on exporting plans.  For more information, (303) 844-6623, and ext.: 213; e-mail: [email protected].

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Kristin Tarr and Tammy Fernandez engaging in Community and Business Partnerships.

Tammy Fernandez Community and business partnerships are results of corporate values and social responsibility in action.  To form a partnership first look into your company’s core values and strategy, and then research other entities with the same vision to form opportunities.  Set goals with measurable outcomes such as, count hours volunteered, public relation analyses within Facebook or a website, and increased partnership opportunities.  Most importantly tell about these partnerships in social media, press releases, and through internal and external company webpages.  By measuring success of a project future profits can be determined.

Kristin Tarr asks for a call to action and speak-out.  To get involved in helping your community or if you have a story of involvement to inspire others, visit: Business Service Corps on Facebook or http://www.businessservicecorps.com.  Ms. Tarr is co-founder and managing partner of the Business Service Corps where the motto is working together brings the highest level of efficiency.

Tammy Fernandez is executive director of community investment at the University of Phoenix.  The University of Phoenix has 260 locations nationally in 41 states.  In 2011 the University of Phoenix adopted corporate social responsibility in education to help the community.  This lead to the Points of Light project in Atlanta, Georgia and next year they will focus on internal and external social responsibility communication to complete more projects.

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ICOSA is transforming collaboration.

Kim DeCoste is vice president and editor-at-large for ICOSA where she manages the media team, and contributed to editorial planning for the magazine and a book on connections + collaboration. A few of her articles are “The Evolution of E-Learning,” “A Win-Win: Kroenke Sports Enterprises Does Great Work for Kids & Education,” “Living the Mission: Private STEM Solutions & Public Education,” “Authentic Leadership is Gender Neutral” and “Closing the Education Gap.”

ICOSA is thought of as organic―focused on developing collaboration and taking it to the next level which is transformation.  The method ICOSA uses can conceptually be adopted to fit into high schools but specifically higher education.  To be a doer one needs to learn to walk with others, and identify goals and meeting those goals in a manageable way.  ICOSA would like to work with higher education in providing students with collaborative methods.

Amazon is an example of a company who has successfully transformed.  Amazon.com launched its marketplace in 2002 selling books, music, videos and DVS’s and now has since developed the Amazon Kindle e-book reader and sells just about any product globally.

The difficult areas of collaboration are blending the different view of what success looks like and keeping people together and focused on the mission.

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Camp Bow Wow―Where a dog can be a dog®

Heidi Ganahl  

 

Founder, president and CEO of Camp Bow Wow, Heidi Ganahl owns the largest pet care as well as women owned franchise in North America. Camp Bow Wow―the largest global doggy day care company, and a $50 million leader in the $47 billion United States pet sector now has 115 camps, one Canada camp, 25 home buddies, and 30 behavior buddies franchises.  Interest in potential franchisees grew after being featured on America Online. Camp Bow Wow’s future is growth with a goal of 500 units in the next four years, then international growth to Australia and the United Kingdom.

Ganahl financed Camp Bow Wow herself by putting her own equity and credit into Camp Bow Wow, which is never recommended but she knew the franchise business concept was best for her and her passion since she enjoyed growth, public relations and marketing, and charity.

She created the Bow Wow Buddies Foundation, a nonprofit organizationdedicated to improving

Camp Bow Wow Calendar Contest

the lives and health of dogs.  Her greatest accomplishment is being at the forefront of a collaboration that has found homes for 5,000+ dogs.  Ganahl advices to, follow your gut, collaborate, and don’t listen to the nay-sayers when following your passion.

For more information, visit: www.bowwowbuddies.com

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PROCESS WILL SET YOU FREE!

 

 

 

Jeanne Brown, Chair of the Board of Rocky Mountain Performance Excellence (RMPEx) helps organizations improve performance and achieve results through the Baldridge criteria. She is a quality management and performance excellence professional with more than 30 years of leadership experience in the high technology and utilities industries.  Three simple steps to freedom are defining, writing down, and keeping current the process.  Robert Galvin of Motorola said, “To get the process exactly right is going to be cheaper and it is going to be better.” He received one of the first Malcolm Baldrige Awards.  “Common knowledge grows the entire organization towards the goal of excellence,” say Brown.  This can be accomplished by having a central repository that is accessible to anyone.  The bottom line is that, “taking time, money and materials out of the process and streamlining them but still maintaining a high level of quality and service for customers will increase profits,” Brown.

These 12 steps are good reasons to document, provided by Jeanne Brown:

  1. Establishes a Baseline from which to improve - this creates a point of reference for where you are now and which direction you need to go to improve your process.
  2. Streamlines and standardizes training - when the process is clearly defined, training is easy, and everybody is doing the job the same way.
  3. Keeps everyone current - in a document control system, there is revision control that assures everyone is using the most recent document.
  4. Captures subject matter expertise for the benefit of all – it is important to capture expertise from knowledgeable individuals.
  5. Assures smoother transition during change - proper documents provide a stable foundation when people move to other jobs or organizations.
  6. Frees up time & energy for innovation & creativity - once you have the basic directions, you and others will be able to look at ways to move forward rather than spend time learning the basics over and over.
  7. 7.    Reduces and eliminates redundancy - documenting the process helps to identify places where there may be duplicated efforts or steps.
  8. Identifies and fills in any gaps in the current process - as you document, you may discover places where things might drop through the cracks.
  9. Clearly defines resource requirements - defining responsibilities in the documents helps everyone know exactly what the job requires.
  10. Reduces risk on the job - clearly defined processes lead to concise and useful training, which helps to reduce the risk to the employee.
  11. Provides a document change history for future reference - the document control system will provide a method to research a past event and determine the process that was being used at that time.
  12. Offers a one-stop-shop for an organization’s work activities - the central location for controlled documents allows for cross-function learning and sharing.

For more information, visit:

http://www.coloradoexcellence.org/

http://www.baldrigepe.org

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Leading by Example and Small Business Success and Community Engagement

Jeff Wasden  

 

Jeff Wasden, owner of PROformance Appeal took a failing company and turned it around to being awarded Business of the Year and Best of the Best. Wasden points out during difficult economic times businesses pull back on promotional items and professional memberships which handicap businesses. People do business with people―that is what draws business in.  Industry and community partnerships have businesses value―it can be everything to a business.  Equally as important is building a culture of involvement. Wasden noted, evaluate where you want to go, what your passion is, and join business chambers to establish yourself and not just to grow your business.  Growing your business is something that follows.  Establishing business relationships and giving back are at the forefront.

By following his interest in politics Wasden (chair of Business Leaders for Responsible Government and the Legislative Action Committee) within the South Metro Denver Chamber organized the Elevate Colorado 2010 Governors Forum, an event for business and community leaders surrounding the gubernatorial conversation featuring former Governors Bill Owens, Richard Lamm, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Dan Maes and Tom Tancredo.  Wasden commented that it was an event not to steer people a specific way but to inspire people to stand-up and do something.

www.proformanceapparel.com and www.bestchamber.com

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“Every Conversation Is an Opportunity for Success”

  Debra Fine

 

 

Rotary is an international service organization with thousands of members.  One of those members is best-selling author and communication expert Debra Fine.  “The Fine Art of Small Talk: How To Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills -- and Leave a Positive Impression!” has been featured on the Today Show, the Early Show, NPR, CNN, Fox Business News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Men’s Health Magazine.  Fine mentioned that small talk develops interconnected relationships and in essence is a necessity in growing any relationship; personal or business.

Fine is president of the Rotary Club Denver Southeast.  She knows "a desk is

Cover of

dangerous places to view the world," John Le Carre.  And as such Rotary’s current project is Race Across Africa a “virtual” race up the Nile River raising money for water projects in Africa; www.raceacross.org.  Rotary’s mission is to provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through its fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.

Rotary’s members comprise of like-minded people who follow The Four-Way Test;

  1. Is it the truth?
  2. Is it fair to all concerned?
  3. Will it build good will and better friendships?
  4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

These questions can be asked to ensure ethical projects are being accomplished.

Rotary International emblem

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THE PARADIGM PROJECT― Sustainable Development and L3C Social Enterprise

Wood Walk  

A group of talented, passionate people who want to use “Paradigm” as a vehicle for connecting commercial markets in Europe and America with developing world communities in such a way that makes drastic impact on people and the environment in a sustainable way.

The Paradigm Project’s Greg Spencer has a passion for Africa and leveraging the valuable carbon market to nonprofits and communities.  “Commercial business concepts applied to nonprofits are key to successful development work,” according to Spencer.  Carbon offset projects are typically planting trees, water efficiency based, and prevention of overharvesting and deforestation whereas cook stoves increase social benefits by enabling financial redistribution, time, and increase health creating a more sustainable lifestyle.

THE NUMBERS­―

28,973 stoves sold 52,000 trees saved 14,000 tons of carbon avoided 1 million+ hours of time saved

THE COLLABORATORS―

Collaboration between investors, donors and communities such as the Clinton Global Initiative, Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, and Compassion International brings these stoves to communities for $40.00 per stove.  These stoves release 60% less toxins and 50% less wood is needed equaling cleaner combustion and fuel efficiency.

For more information, visit: www.theparadigmproject.org or to read the article featured in ICOSA Magazine, visit: www.theicosamagazine.com/a-burning-desire-to-change

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The U.S. Department of Commerce and Frederick Exports

Martha Butwin and Zach Frederick  

Martha Butwin, Senior International Trade Specialist at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Denver Export Assistance Center facilitates exporting goods and services for a variety of companies.  The Gold Key Service program (starting at $700) serves as a starting point for companies working towards exporting.  The International Partner Search (starting at $550) pairs companies who are potential partners.  Each program starts with questioners to determine a match.  An international company profile is prepared to reduce the amount of scammers.

Butwin recalls the high point in her career as working with partners, Project C.U.R.E. and CAP World Wide to provide not only medical supplies but life supplies to Afghanistan people.  To view the video “From Colorado to Kabul”, visit: www.theicosamagazine.com/videos

For more information, visit: www.export.gov

Zach Frederick, founder of Frederick Export, an export management company attributes five practices for sustainable success: 1. Management must buy into exporting, 2. Global pricing parody, 3. Knowing industry contacts, and 4. register your trademarks in every country you export to is vital, (as company control can be lost to a distributor), 5. Qualify the leads.

For more information, visit: www.frederickexport.com

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