Q: Presidents love to talk about small business, but were any of them entrepreneurs? — Mara

A: Indeed, if there is one thing that presidents are good at, it is talking about how important small business and entrepreneurship are to the American economy. Consider this small sampling of quotable quotes:

Barack Obama: "I think Ronald Reagan. .. tapped into [the fact that people wanted] a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

George W. Bush: "Prosperity results from entrepreneurship and ingenuity."

Ronald Reagan: "Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States."

Calvin Coolidge: "The chief business of the American people is business."

Innovation Coach.com is pleased to announce a series of YouTube broadcasts on each of the ten key imperatives necessary to creating successful, sustainable innovation.

Coral Springs, Florida (PRWEB) February 16, 2010 -- Innovation Coach.com is pleased to announce a series of YouTube broadcasts on each of the ten key imperatives necessary to creating successful, sustainable innovation. These imperatives, created in a acronym of “INNOVATION” are: Inspire; No Risk, No Innovation; New Product Development; Ownership; Value Creation; Accountability; Training and Coaching; Idea Management; Observe and Measure; and Net Result…Net Reward.

The 10 innovation imperatives are presented by and extracted from Robert Brands’ “Robert’s Rules of Innovation”, a must read business book about to be published by Wiley.

Brands’ extensive hands-on experience as an entrepreneur and leader in international product development teams having delivered year on year innovation, captured these imperatives as guiding principles to be utilized by today’s business leaders in order to nurture and profit from innovation strategies.

While there are often investments that should be made upfront, often times new founders and new startups will waste money and time on things that they shouldn't. I sure know I did during my first go-round. Don't make my mistakes. Here are three things you should put off as long as possible:

Don't incorporate until you're playing with Other People's Money.

There are two kinds of other people's money. The first is Other People's Money -- investment dollars from outside sources: friends, family, angels, VCs, certain grants, and so forth. The second kind of other people's money is even more important -- paying customers.

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was announced back in February 2009, the SBA received $730 million of federal stimulus funding from the program. Loan demand soon gobbled up that funding, and in December, the SBA received an additional $125 million (I blogged about that extension on Small Business Trends last month).

SBA Administrator Karen Mills told BizJournals.com that the SBA was able to immediately get that money distributed to small businesses. However, the extension runs out at the end of February. President Obama has now called for extending the recovery act provisions for the SBA through September 30, 2010. The House has passed legislation that includes $323 million in funding for the extension; the Senate still needs to act on the proposal.

February is an important month in the history of American commerce. In this month is the birthday of one of the country's earliest business innovators and large-scale entrepreneurs.

During a time period of America's existence as an English colony and then a young nation -- when, to put it mildly, communication and transportation faced challenges -- this businessman's enterprise processed 1.5 million fish per year sent throughout the 13 American colonies and the British West Indies. The mill he built grinded 278,000 pounds of branded flour annually that was shipped through America and, unusual during colonization, even exported to England as well as Portugal. And in the 1790s, during the last years of his life, this mogul built one of the largest whiskey distilleries in the new nation.

Don't think you've heard of this entrepreneur? Well, it's possible you might know him from some of his achievements in the political sphere. He did, in fact, have a few notable accomplishments there. Like serving as a representative in colonial Virginia's House of Burgesses and as a Virginia delegate to the pre-Revolutionary War Continental Congress. Then being chosen to lead the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and leading the American nation to a hard-fought victory for independence. And then, a few years after that, becoming the new nation's first president.

I was asked the question, "What can we expect to see from science in the next decade?" My answer comes from the perspective of a social scientist, as I research social problems from the influence of cognitive neuroscience. I am inspired to write this particular analysis after attending the TED 2010 conference, which wrapped up this past weekend in Long Beach, CA.

Some of you may ask, "What is TED? And how does it relate to science in the next decade?"

TED is a conference held every year in California where the world's best thinkers, innovators, scientists, designers, engineers, entertainers, politicians, philosophers, convention breakers, envelope pushers, you name it- come together in a glorious think tank environment in which to spread ideas and share innovation from every area of society. As TED attendee Red Maxwell, President of onramp branding, so cleverly stated, "Every speaker at TED is a type of hero. Everyone has their own super power, based on their field." Indeed, TED speakers are all superheroes in their prospective domains, and TED itself is the Hall of Justice for thinkers and innovators. Even the attendees at TED are amazing. They are some of the most passionate, creative, interesting people in the world, meeting for four days of networking, sharing of ideas, and learning from one another. I have had the pleasure of meeting some incredible people at TED, who have inspired me to share my vision of science in the next decade.

I believe this question should really be broken up because there are three VERY different (and incredibly important) pursuits intermingled here:

1. Trend spotting
2. Putting emerging behaviors into context for a business
3. Putting emerging needs into context for a business

Only at the very beginning of a business, when it is all or nothing for a small team of founders, should responsibility for these three tasks be combined. The reason responsibility for these three different pursuits should be split up is because each requires a different way of thinking, that often requires different types of people to generate the most relevant and actionable insights.

In the spirit of the upcoming Olympics, the editors at CollegeSurfing.com put on their judge hats to award some accolades to the top social media innovators among the nation's colleges and universities. From active Twitter feeds and fan-packed Facebook pages to creative YouTube videos and compelling blogs, here are the 50 schools that captivated us with their social media savvy. Congratulations to the medal winners in the first CollegeSurfing.com "Web 2.0 College Olympics..."

Gold Medal Winners

1. Tufts University - What's for dinner? If you're a student at Tufts, you'll always be in the know about your next meal since the school's two dining halls tweet breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus every day of the week. Tufts maintains a handful of other Twitter feeds, like @TuftsUniversity and @TischLibrary. Students interested in the school can join the Tufts Facebook group, which is moderated by more than two dozen students and also provides links to a variety of student and administrator blogs. Plus, the university has an entire site dedicated to Web 2.0 tools like wikis, podcasts, conferencing, and more.

2. Johns Hopkins University - The prolific feed of Johns Hopkins University is packed with tips on everything from area restaurants to major money-saving deals on Windows 7. Plus, the school gets props for letting the Twitterverse in on its tongue-in-cheek swine flu lexicon. Twenty current students are official bloggers for the Hopkins Interactive hub, which also presents student profiles, videos, and discussion forums. Johns Hopkins even maintains a separate Facebook page for prospective students.

The Atlantic (Peck) - The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar men. It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a despair not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years to come...

We are in a very deep hole, and we’ve been in it for a relatively long time already. Concerns over deficits are understandable, but in these times, our bias should be toward doing too much rather than doing too little. That implies some small risk to the government’s ability to continue borrowing in the future; and it implies somewhat higher taxes in the future too. But that seems a trade worth making. We are living through a slow-motion social catastrophe, one that could stain our culture and weaken our nation for many, many years to come. We have a civic—and indeed a moral—responsibility to do everything in our power to stop it now, before it gets even worse.

As other sources dry up, revenue from research commercialization is becoming increasingly important for American universities. Attracting that revenue, however, is a complex process.

In 2008, infants in China began exhibiting mysterious kidney problems.

That fall, news broke that several companies had added melamine, a dangerous industrial chemical, to milk to boost its apparent protein content. By the end of the year, six children had died, and nearly 300,000 fell ill.

The World Health Organization called on researchers to develop a rapid test for melamine. As it turned out, an enzyme able to detect the substance had been sitting in Larry Wackett’s lab at the University of Minnesota for years.

Wackett and the University sold the enzyme to Bioo Scientific Corp., a solution Wackett called “win-win” for a technology previously of no use to the general public.

The idea to commercialize research breakthroughs from American universities is hardly new; quite the opposite, it’s been statutorily mandated for 30 years.

YouTube had an extra-special Valentine's Day this year.

Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder and current CEO, announced that on Sunday, the site officially turned 5 years old.

"When we registered the YouTube domain on February 14, 2005, we set out to create a place where anyone with a video camera and an Internet connection could share a story with the world," Hurley wrote on the company's blog. "Five years into it, we're as committed as ever to the core beliefs and principles that guided YouTube's creation."

Those core principles, Hurley said, revolve around allowing users to have a voice through video, working with Hollywood and other partners to help content succeed online, and setting "the standard" in online video.

Montgomery County officials gave a Gaithersburg company a $1.5 million taxpayer-funded grant based on support for the startup by a venture capitalist who leads it.

County Executive Ike Leggett also asked the County Council to support state funding for Zyngenia, writing in a letter that the venture capitalist, David Mott, "supports the funding of this company."

Mott was named chairman of Zyngenia in November when the Maryland venture capital firm where he is a partner, New Enterprise Associates, announced that it was investing $10 million in the company. Zyngenia, which was founded in 2008, seeks to develop new anti-cancer and autoimmune drugs.

I [Jeffrey Phillips ] had a rather disconcerting part in a recent discussion with some senior leaders and executives who were discussing innovation. It was interesting to hear from some of them that they believe "innovation" is a fad, and will run its course shortly. They believe that innovation is simply another "quick fix" elixir cooked up by management consultants to find new things to sell to senior executives. Some others in the discussion believed that innovation is more systemic, and will have a longer shelf life, and add value for many years to come. I found myself disagreeing with both schools of thought.

The cynics suggest that innovation is simply a buzz word for creating new products or services, something that many firms already do. In that regard they view innovation as the current flash in the pan, meant to distract everyone from the real problems and place a nice bow on a box that already exists. To these cynics I say - you couldn't be more wrong. In a market that is moving and changing as quickly as the one we are experiencing now, and an environment where consumers are demanding more, and better, products and services, and in a production environment where any new idea can be copied fairly quickly, the only real winners are those who create substantially new concepts on a consistent basis. The old, static product lives and days of lower competition are over. Innovation isn't a "nice to have" or a "flash in the pan", it is rapidly becoming the most important skill set your organization can acquire.

Annual awards program recognizes top innovations in Northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND, Feb. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- NorTech, in partnership with Crain's Cleveland Business, is pleased to announce the winners of its annual Innovation Awards program which honors the achievements of Northeast Ohio's most innovative organizations and leaders.

This year, twelve winners have been selected to receive awards, representing innovations from a broad range of technology industries including bioscience; instruments, controls and electronics; advanced materials; information and communication technologies, and advanced energy.

A panel of distinguished judges from across Northeast Ohio, representing academia, venture capital, private industry and economic development, selected this year's winners.

Over the past few months a movement has been gaining strength across the country. Cities like Washington and, most recently, New York, have been turning to young, tech-savvy innovators to do what they do best, dream up new things--but for the public good. Washington's had an Apps for Democracy contest, and New York the NYC Big Apps competition (which announced its winners last week), in which private citizens have been challenged to develop user-friendly digital applications using city data, a project that has the benefit of making government more transparent and accessible to its constituents.

This kind of public-private mash-up makes sense in an increasingly digital, highly globalized economy. For quite some time we in the private sector have been discussing the economic implications of the rise of Asia as new technologies reduce barriers to entry in many fields. In the public sector, too, the need to do things quicker, faster and better is becoming an issue, as economic development officials seek out ways to do more with less in the greatest recession in more than half a century.

We are partner of the Crossroad project, funded by the European Commission to build a research roadmap for governance and policy modeling (including government 2.0).
In the project, we are mapping the different research activities in this field and providing guidelines for future research that the European Commission should fund. We start from the State of the Art, and we try to outline the future developments of government 2.0 and related topic.

In order to draw on the maximum range of ideas, Crossroad just launched a call for contributions, where we ask to provide a short paper on the state of the art of a related field and on future research needs. Deadline is february 25th. The best papers’ authors will be included in the Scientific Committee, rewarded with a lump sum of 2500 Euros.
I am a big fan of such kind of competitions , as they are able to reach out to the real innovators and raise unexpected insight. As I said in a previous post, all too often government funding goes to the “usual suspects”, a self-referential circle of people very knowledgeable about the government way of thinking, rather than of the topic.

A recent story in The Sunday Oregonian described how the venture capital industry is drying up in Oregon, down either 38 percent or 14 percent, depending on the source cited ("Recession tightens spigot on flow of venture capital," Jan. 24). Those of us in the startup world have seen this happening, so it's no big surprise. It's not that Oregon has inferior entrepreneurs or startups. Quite the contrary, actually. There's a much more important factor at work: the almost complete lack of early investment in startups, called seed capital.

Seed-stage capital is one of the most critical ingredients in the success of high-growth businesses. Providing seed investment capital allows entrepreneurs to quit their job and begin to build their ideas. Without seed capital, great business concepts may go elsewhere -- or worse, go nowhere at all.

Despite the grim economic realities of the past decade, I'm convinced there is reason to be bullish about the Pioneer Valley's prospects.

Building a strong, vibrant, and sustainable economy for the 21st century will take vision, courage, and commitment by the business, civic, and public sectors to work together toward this goal. This is not an assignment for a region that lacks confidence or tenacity; it is for one with assets and attributes that make the potential for success extraordinarily likely. I submit that the Pioneer Valley has this in its regional DNA.

City and regional planners look ahead to devise economic plans that will ideally allow local or regional communities to avoid or minimize problems while simultaneously chasing opportunities. In the Pioneer Valley, we have the "Plan for Progress," which lays out a "road map" to a strong and competitive regional economy.

Do you want to become a better entrepreneur? Well who doesn’t, right?

Over the past 8 years I have started around 9 companies. Sadly most of them failed, but the good news is, I have learned a lot over the years. Some of these things maybe obvious to you, while others may not, but none-the-less there will be something that will be beneficial to you.

Here are 53 things to keep in mind if you want to be a better entrepreneur:

1. Don’t let emotions cloud your decisions.
2. Accept criticism, no matter who gives it to you.
3. Never stop networking.
4. Learn from your own mistakes.
5. Learn from other people’s mistakes.

With lenders tightening the reins on borrowers and prices for everything from materials to health care on the rise, many small-business owners are straining under the weight of growing debt.

Last month, 8,113 businesses nationwide filed for bankruptcy protection--a 57 percent increase from the same time a year ago, according to Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, an Oklahoma City bankruptcy data and management company.