AMES, Iowa -- Due to the current economic climate, starting a new business in the new year might appear to be an impossible task. Many people are still uncertain about their finances and banks are more cautious about lending funds.

Howard Van Auken, the Bob and Kay Smith Fellow in Entrepreneurship at Iowa State University, knows that 2010 may not be the best time to start a small business. But he says people are still spending and that presents opportunity.

Your real problem may lie not in your company's technical creativity but in the business model behind it.

In the quest to come up with the next great product, many businesses ignore a possibly even greater source of differentiation--the next great business model.

My [Bill Lay] firm, PRTM, has done research into the performance of the top 150 global firms from 1975 to 2008. We have found that companies that focused on developing innovative products to the exclusion of all else have tended to derive little benefit from those investments. Instead of enjoying a competitive advantage over rival firms, they have ended up with very low market value, often for years at a time. They've gotten stuck in what we call the product trough, a kind of quicksand where they spend more and more money developing new products while their valuation drops.

The Corporation for National and Community Service today released a long-awaited draft notice spelling out how it will award grants under the $50-million Social Innovation Fund.

The “Notice of Funds Available” — which was delayed by slow Congressional action to approve the agency’s budget — says the corporation plans to award approximately five to seven grants of $5-million to $10-million during the 2010 fiscal year, which ends September 30.

The money, which will be awarded for periods of up to five years, will go to “intermediary grant-making organizations” that will in turn award grants of at least $100,000 annually to promising nonprofit groups. Both the intermediary organizations and the nonprofit groups must provide matching funds.

ABOUT 10 years ago, I [MICHAEL FEINSTEIN] was doing a weekend of Christmas concerts, accompanied by a fine regional symphony in California. The first night went well, I thought, with a program of holiday classics that seemed beyond reproach. The song choices were about as controversial as a Creamsicle.

But I was wrong. Minutes before I walked onstage the second night, a nervous representative of the orchestra board appeared in my dressing room to tell me that my program was “too Jewish.” Wow, I thought, who knew that orchestra management played practical jokes on artists moments before their shows? My laughter turned to disbelief when the stuttering gentleman said that there had, in fact, been complaints.

Entrants are encouraged to submit their applications prior to the February 12, 2010 deadline.  Participating companies to be matched with test and early adoption partners.

Entries for the Utility Technology Challenge, identifying the top commercial and near-commercial innovations in energy generation, management, and conservation, are already being received from companies worldwide.  The Utility Technology Challenge (UTC) is supported by organizations committed to the development and adoption of clean energy solutions, including the US Department of Energy, Austin Energy, Accenture, the City of Anaheim, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), National Grid and Lockheed Martin.  Managed by The Clean Technology & Sustainable Industries Organization (CTSI), the Utility Technology Challenge will give needed visibility to the companies that can make a short-term impact on our energy future.

"In our role as trusted advisor for more than 40 smart grid initiatives, Accenture has a strong appreciation for the value of collaboration," stated Sharon Allan, Accenture Smart Grid Services Executive.  "This encompasses the sharing of information, experience and insights between utilities and the citizens served by them, utilities and their technology providers, and utilities and the regulators and policy-makers who impact strategic decision-making.  It is for this reason that we embraced the opportunity to participate in the Utility Technology Challenge.  We believe that participation in this initiative offers many opportunities to both leverage lessons learned and to identify and test new technologies that can help the industry achieve its goal of a more sustainable energy future."

Opportunities to build angel investing in China’s fast growing early stage businesses and develop new cross-border investment links was the focus of a major conference and study visit to Beijing between 5th and 8th December 2009 attended by Business Angel investors from over 20 countries, including UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, South America and continental Europe.

The World Business Angels Association (WBAA), which was set up in 2008 and formally established in January 2009 brings together national federations of business angel networks and individual investors across the world to raise awareness about the importance of angel investing in entrepreneurs and with a view to creating a global environment to stimulate opportunities for international investing. The conference in Beijing which was WBAA’s first major event attended by over 250 delegates, was co-hosted by the newly formed China Business Angels Association and the World Returning Scholars Association which represents Chinese individuals or “sea turtles” who have studied and worked in other parts of the world and who bring back their skills and international experience to support the growing economy in China. Senior politicians from the Beijing Government and regional Governments were key note speakers at this event and presented the current policy and initiatives taken in China to support growth and investment in enterprise.

GRAND RAPIDS -- The president of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. is looking forward to 2010.

Unlike some economists who say a recovery won't appear until 2011, Greg Main thinks next year will be the turning point.

"Michigan appears to be on the edge of crawling out of this," Main said. "I think we're going to see pretty strong growth over the next year."

Have you given up on innovation? MIT's Michael Schrage says that can be fatal to any company, no matter the industry.

Schrage offers an interesting counterpoint to a famous statement by Columbia Business School's Bruce Greenwald, who said, "In the long run, everything is a toaster." Schrage disagrees, citing the evolution of two-sided toasting (1919), toaster ovens (1950s) and digital toasters (1990s), among other advances.

As the recession continues to loom and as unemployment rises, we have seen an increased interest in executives wanting to start their own businesses. They want to transition from executive to entrepreneur.

December 19, 2009 ( PowerHomeBiz.com ) - As the recession continues to loom and as unemployment rises, we have seen an increased interest in executives wanting to start their own businesses. They want to transition from executive to entrepreneur.

You may be interested in becoming an entrepreneur because you lost your job, or because you have a great idea, or because you cannot find a job you are interested in.

Regardless of the reason, however, you will find there is more information available today concerning starting a business than the average human being can consume in a lifetime. Standard advice includes:

Geeks love gadgets and this flowchart will help our geeky friends decide on their new gadget.

This is the age of social networking with Facebook, Twitter and mobile technologies enabling people to connect with millions in geographically dispersed locations worldwide. Enterprises from home-based startups to Fortune 500 companies are restructuring workforce and productivity models using efficient collaborative network tools.

Government institutions are undergoing historic generational shifts in leadership with the election at age 48 of the first African-American president. It is truly a brave new world both economically and socially under construction, with new hopes, leadership and definitions of what I call “The Five E’s of Success”: Education, Empowerment, Excellence, Entrepreneurship and Ethics.

More than half of all U.S. businesses are home-based. These firms are often dismissed as hobbies or part-time ventures with limited economic impact.

But our research shows otherwise. We estimate that about 6.6 million home-based enterprises provide at least half of their owners’ household income and together employ more than one in 10 private-sector workers.

The rise of the homepreneur is a long-term trend that will continue to accelerate over the next decade. Fueled by technology and enabled by low costs, businesses of all kinds are finding there is no place like home.

After all I [Jeffrey Phillips] read on the blogs and on Twitter, and all the new innovation programs and initiatives in state and local governments, I feel the need to revisit the definitions of these key words. While innovation, invention and entrepreneurs are important and somewhat interconnected, they aren't synonyms and they have different needs, intents and purposes. Whether accidently or on purpose, we can't allow them to mean the same things.

Entrepreneurship: the process through which entrepreneurs create and grow enterprises: Entrepreneurship development…the infrastructure of public and private policies and practices that foster and support entrepreneurship.
Some of the entrepreneurs are:

1.Survival entrepreneurs: who resort to creating enterprises to supplement their incomes because there are few other options available. Sometimes called “entrepreneurs by necessity”

2.“Lifestyle entrepreneurs” are people who chose self-employment because they no longer want to work for someone else, or because it provides a better way of balancing work and home demands, or because it enables them to stay in communities to which they have great attachment. The focus is usually on providing a living for the entrepreneur and her or his family. They are often called “Mom and Pop” businesses,

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The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) has unveiled three major new innovation clusters focusing on climate, energy and information technology. Each of the initiatives will bring together academia and industry at several locations across Europe.

The Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICsexternal ) will receive start-up funding of €3 million and will report to the EU's commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth.

The EITexternal headquarters in Budapest is expected to be fully up and running by April 2010, but the KICs will be autonomous and will be run "like a business", according to the Institute's chairman, Martin Schuurmans.

With over 80% of people using search engines to find local information, it is impossible to imagine a brick and mortar business that couldn’t benefit immensely from local search. On the other hand, having no local search presence could potentially end a local business.

According to comScore/TMP, Google grew their local search market share from 15% in June 2008 to 26% in June 2009.

What is your share of that traffic and potential leads ?

If you read and apply these 10 tips your Google Maps traffic will have no where to go but up.

This book provides a principled approach for the effective management of innovation tournaments – identifying a wealth of promising opportunities and then evaluating and filtering them intelligently for greatest profitability. With a set of practical tools for creating and identifying new opportunities, it guides the reader in evaluating and screening opportunities. The book demonstrates how to construct an innovation portfolio and how to align the innovation process with an organization’s competitive strategy.

Innovation Tournaments employs quirky, fresh examples ranging from movies to medical devices. The authors’ tool kit is built on their extensive research, their entrepreneurial backgrounds, and their teaching and consulting work with many highly innovative organizations.

For more information, click here.

You can find this title at IESE’s Library catalog.

With traditional biofuels under fire for driving up food prices and wreaking environmental havoc, industrialists are stepping up research into algae as a sustainable alternative - but many obstacles remain before algae oil finds its way into our cars and planes.

BATON ROUGE, La. (December 7, 2009) – The Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) announced today that it has released the second part of its two-part white paper series detailing a strategy for developing an innovation-driven economy in Louisiana. Together, the series fully details how Louisiana’s strategic focus on innovation as a basis for economic development can ensure that the state is prepared to compete in a 21st century environment. The Innovation Economy in Louisiana, Part 2 continues the analysis of part one, which advocated for greater support of research and development (R&D) that would generate commercially-viable innovations. In Part 2, BRAC describes how entrepreneurship, workforce development, risk capital, and coordinating authority at the state level are the remaining components necessary for a comprehensive strategy for a statewide innovation ecosystem.

A new venture capital foundation aiming to raise money for China’s small businesses to help relieve their financing hardships is a model that Australia should consider, says the Council of Small Business of Australia.

“The new venture capital foundation being established by Chinese authorities to help their small business community deal with the impact of the tightened credit and financing market is a model that the Australian Government should consider,” said Jaye Radisich, CEO of the Council of Small Business of Australia.