If you've been in the innovation support business for very long, you know there are some organizations that are just hard to describe. They may not be exactly like the commonly accepted definition of some economic development programs or approaches. Part of RIAN’s mission is to establish a definition for these complex or hybrid entities as Venture Development Organizations (VDOs).

Our experience reveals that although VDOs necessarily come in lots of shapes and sizes, they share may characteristics with each other and with other tech-based economic development organizations. The most important characteristic they share is success. VDOs are helping create good jobs in high growth innovation-based ventures.

As regulators consider easing online fundraising rules for small firms, a new directory lists more than 400 websites around the world that already generate capital for everything from start-ups to satellites.

Launched last week by crowdsourcing.org, a Dallas-based website, the directory includes crowd-funding platforms for donations, philanthropy and sponsorships, as well as peer-to-peer lending and investing.

Crowd-funding sites first appeared about a decade ago, linking fundraisers to large pools of donors. Rather than a return on investment, small companies that raise money in this fashion typically offer a token gift, such as a T-shirt or a mug to supporters, to avoid running afoul of securities regulators .

You probably can't describe the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Perhaps one cola seems sweeter, but you couldn't certainly distinguish them in a taste test. Yet you know without a doubt which one you like more.

The fierce brand loyalties of Coke vs. Pepsi are a marvel of American marketing.

Slightly older, Coca-Cola was always the dominant brand.

Recently released U.S. Census Bureau data indicates the share of employment in companies of different ages. The figure below shows that, in 2009, only two percent (2%) of Americans working in private sector businesses were employed in companies started that year. Even young companies, those aged one-to-ten, only employed another 19.5 percent of private sector workers.

So where do most people in the private sector work? The answer is mature companies. The Census Bureau’s data reveal that 55.8 percent of those working in the private sector are employed in companies 26 years or older. Another 8.4 percent have jobs in companies aged 21 to 25. And 6.6 percent work in businesses between 16 and 20 years old.

Why are some companies able to consistently conceive of, create, and bring to market innovative and profitable new products and services while so many others
struggle?

In an exhaustive new study under its annual The Global Innovation 1000, global strategy consulting firm Booz & Company says, it isn't the amount of money they spend on research and development and that there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending, in terms of either total R&D dollars or R&D as a percentage of revenues.

Being a member of Generation Y sure ain’t cheap.

According to a new study by credit card big-wig American Express, Australians aged 18-24 have been priced out of owning assets that previous generations took as a given. Instead, they’re opting for the more wallet friendly renting, loaning and swapping.

The American Express ‘Future of Consumer Spending’ survey found that, as the cost of housing, domestic travel and accommodation, and fuel has risen, Gen Y has reined back on big-ticket buys.

Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday announced the formation of a new fund to provide early-stage business financing to alumni who have graduated from CMU within the past five years through matching grants of $50,000 and other support.

The lead donor to the Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund is CMU alum Jonathan Kaplan, former CEO of Pure Digital and developer of the Flip video camera, with his wife Marci Glazer. Peter Stern, Datek Online founder and Kaplan’s classmate, is also providing financial and advisory support.

Today we mark the end of the Business Plan Challenge season by unveiling the winners, but it is really just the beginning of a journey for these companies and all of you who entered this year.

While today’s Challenge winners and finalists are as diverse as South Florida, there were some common themes:

• You don’t need a mountain of cash to start a business. Most of today’s winners are bootstrapping their companies. With today’s technologies, that’s very possible, and in today’s economy, that’s smart. But, says Challenge judge Alice Horn, “Bootstrapping will only get you so far. Don’t skimp on professional advice as you build your business.”

Over the weekend I got an email from a polling company with the startling headline “College Students Aren’t Getting Entrepreneurial Skills.” I’m not going to cite the source here, though, because I want to poke some fun at the poll and its conclusions, and I don’t want to make it personal.

But here’s an opening quote:

Americans also say that traditional teaching methods aren’t the way to teach entrepreneurial skills. Overall, 73 percent report the best way to teach a student to become an entrepreneur is to enable them to create businesses or intern in start-ups. And 76 percent said that students launching a business while still in college will make them more successful (SIC) in creating jobs and opportunities after graduation.

Microsoft researchers have developed a handheld device that gives physical-therapy patients a virtual view beneath the skin to see what an injury looks like inside. The hope is that this will make them a little more eager to keep doing their therapies.

"People are notoriously bad at sticking to their physical therapy regimens," says Amy Karlson, of Microsoft Research's Computational User Experiences Group in Redmond, Washington. Between 30 and 50 percent of patients with chronic conditions fail to comply with their recommended therapies, she says. As a result, conditions can take longer to heal or can get even worse.

I went back and looked at all the MBA Mondays post I've written to date and what jumped out at me was a lack of discussion of financing options. Since the audience for MBA Mondays is largely entrepreneurs and the technology industry, I will frame this discussion in the context of what options are available for small tech companies. In this series of posts we will discuss the following financing options:

Common Stock

Convertible Debt

Preferred Stock

Venture Debt

Since James Moore introduced the term business ecosystem in 1993 the term ‘innovation ecosystems’ has gained currency within corporate headquarters’, management consultancy, government white papers for economic development and academic papers on global innovation and competition. New concepts and words like ‘innovation ecosystems’ often denote a departure from an old reality to a new one and an underlying shift in mainstream thinking from an existing to a new paradigm. The ecosystem raises (at least) two important questions.

How should we understand innovation ecosystems in the evolutionary context of global economics and innovation?

This week, I was invited to join the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Trade Ministerial in Big Sky, Montana. This regional bloc meeting remains one of the most important venues for discussing global economic policy. It is also one that has paid attention to the role of entrepreneurs in achieving its goals of trade and cooperation for growth.

For example, in order to promote entrepreneurial development within the region, APEC has developed initiatives and even case studies to foster an understanding of the attributes and needs of entrepreneurs. The first APEC symposium on venture business and innovations in entrepreneurship development was held in 2000. Since then, a continuous exchange of ideas and information has been taking place among the economic institutions and entrepreneurship organizations representing the 21 APEC member economies. For example, in July 2008, APEC held a Workshop on Embedding Entrepreneurship in University Curriculum in Ha Noi, Viet Nam, that focused on the growing demand for entrepreneurs and how to facilitate the development of entrepreneurship programs at universities. Last October, the United States and Japan co-hosted the APEC Women’s Entrepreneurship Summit (WES) in Gifu City, Japan, to help inform innovative strategies to strengthen women entrepreneurs’ participation and contributions to economic growth. I also encourage our readers to check out and send us updates on our reviews of the state of entrepreneurship in some of the APEC member countries (e.g., Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea), as well as on other APEC countries and beyond. Also, check out what is going on for Global Entrepreneurship Week in the region.

This Web-only article is a special rich-media presentation of the feature, "7 Radical Energy Solutions," which appears in the May 2011 issue of Scientific American (subscribe here). The presentation was created by Zemi media.

A new MIT initiative, Production in the Innovation Economy (PIE) seeks to analyze the state of production in the United States and to propose new routes from innovation through manufacturing to jobs and growth in the United States. Developments emerging in laboratories like those at MIT in areas including energy, life sciences, transportation, environment, communication, and security have the potential for extraordinary contributions to human well-being. To transform these technologies into flows of new products, services, and processes, we need systems of production different from old-style manufacturing. Countries that can build powerful links between research in the laboratory and new manufacturing will emerge as the ones that benefit the most from their innovative capabilities. Manufacturing is on the critical path delivering innovation in science and technology to end-users, whether in new medicines, high-tech devices, or electric vehicles. Our question is: how can the United States create and sustain these new production systems?

For years the common belief was that the only place to start a tech company is in Silicon Valley. Startups outside of the Bay Area were largely overlooked or ignored. Lately, that myth has been exposed, and startup ecosystems have sprung up all across the United States. Cities not normally referred to as “tech hubs” have started to draw the attention of the media and the public.

In the tech world, my hometown of Los Angeles, California has long been considered the red-headed step child of its more successful northern counterpart. However, in recent years, a number of legitimate startups have set up shop around the city. In response, Los Angelenos have started to embrace, define and build a startup ecosystem. In the process, we’ve learned a few lessons.

Scholastic skepticism is contagious. Pundits and parents alike continue to second-guess the value of a college degree. After all, the recession has changed the way many Americans look at big-ticket purchases; plenty of families worry that today's expenses will not pay off tomorrow.

Not surprisingly, today's cost-conscious public views college price tags with a wary eye. According to the Pew Research Center survey of the American public, only 35 percent said colleges were doing a "good" job in terms of providing value to students and parents; 42 percent said "only fair," and 15 percent said "poor."

The latest MoneyTree study by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the NVCA have some in the Venture Capital universe encouraged. Several statistics seem to justify the optimism.

From data compiled by Thompson Reuters, the study finds the average Venture deal size reaching $8 million for the first time since 2007’s first quarter. Total dollar amounts for deals also rose to $5.9 billion. The numbers also reveal 14 companies receiving $50 million or more, the highest number since 2001. 4 of the 14 were for $100 million plus.

On the flip side, 736 total deals invested nationwide is the lowest since the 3rd quarter of 2009. With total deals down, the rise in average deal size accounts for the total combined deal volume increase to to $5.9 billion, but the study notes this increase is slight.

ALABAMA: BIRMINGHAM
Meagan and Darrius Peace | Magic City Black Expo
Three years ago, the Peaces, owners of a cosmetics company, decided that young black business owners like themselves needed a local showcase. Today, the Magic City Black Expo is a nexus of entrepreneurial camaraderie -- and so important locally that it's a regular stump stop for area politicos.

ALASKA: ANCHORAGE
Michael Sobocinski | Seeds of Change
Community gardens are not new. Nor are efforts to aid youth in the juvenile-justice system. But merge the two, as Sobocinski did, and add a social enterprise selling vegetables from the gardens -- then you have a program with the potential to change lives on multiple levels.

Everywhere you look this spring, there are signs of bubbly enthusiasm for technology. Microsoft just paid $8.5 billion for a company that isn’t profitable. Facebook has racked up more than 600 million members around the world. LinkedIn is teed up to go public this week at a valuation of more than $3 billion.

It may be hard to remember, but the history books say there was once a time when broad swaths of the American public got that fired up about biotechnology. I’ve now been writing about the industry for 10 years, and have never encountered that feeling myself. The only biotech industry I’ve ever known is populated by a small group of hard-core specialists. When I venture outside biotech circles and tell people I write about new biotech drugs, devices, and diagnostics, I usually get greeted with a blank look. I’ve learned the best option is either to pass the celery sticks, or change the subject to something popular, like Facebook, or something else I may have in common with the other person, like being a fan of the Green Bay Packers.