Watson is of little use beyond the game show's set. But some of the techniques that helped the computer defeat two human Jeopardy champions in February are showing promise in a new context: the hospital. Researchers in Canada are using analytics like that which helped the computer decipher the language of clues to provide an early warning when babies in an intensive care unit acquire a hospital-borne infection.

As you would expect, babies in an ICU are surrounded by equipment that tracks their vital signs, but much of that data is wasted, says Carolyn McGregor, a researcher at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. "They produce constant streams of data," she says, "but that information is often distilled down to a (nurse's) spot reading every 60 minutes, written on paper."

What's the secret sauce for job creation? Step one is to identify who actually creates jobs (hint: entrepreneurs), and it seems like all parties in Washington finally agree on this one. Step two is to find the best way to, if you can forgive the term, stimulate them.

Imagine my surprise when a colleague sent me a congratulatory email for being cited in the 2011 Economic Report of the President on step one. Democrats historically look out for workers, while Republicans tend to look out for corporations. The problem is, entrepreneurs are neither and/or both at once. Chapter seven of this year's ERP is fully dedicated to the issue of entrepreneurship, and I was tickled that my paper -- part of the Kauffman Foundation's series on job creation -- was mentioned.

A new hookup site for Yalies is strictly business.

CoderHeap, a startup that connects business innovators with Web developers, was made available to students at Yale and Villanova last Wednesday. Over 80 Yalies have signed up to use the service, which is in its alpha — or initial testing — phase. Businesses seeking to improve their Web presence can post job openings on the site to attract developers and designers.

“I wanted to give people inside a network the ability to connect,” said Thaddeus Diamond ’12, who founded the site. “Whenever you give people the opportunity to find talent, you have a useful product.”

Whether it's the latest tablet computer, electric sports car or other cool new product, Americans get very excited about innovation—and more often than not these innovations are brought to market by engineers working in technology hubs like Silicon Valley.

An innovation engine has many moving parts and all of them have to mesh properly for the engine to run smoothly. In Silicon Valley, and elsewhere in the United States, the engine requires sources of trained professionals (engineers, scientists, business people), sources of capital (venture capitalists, fluid stock markets), and new and existing companies that form a mutually reinforcing ecosystem.

If you are used to setting financial goals for your business you undoubtedly have a revenue goal. In other words, you’ve set a figure for how many dollars your business is going to bring in this year.

But according to Carissa Reiniger, CEO of Silver Lining LTD, that’s not good enough. If you want to achieve a financial goal in your business, you must break your goal down into “units of sale” rather than an annual, quarterly or monthly revenue number.

Growco Stage

Last week (April 6-8, 2011) I attended the GrowCo Conference put on by Inc Magazine. I was inspired and as always when I attend events, I learned a few things. (Many thanks to UPS, which subsidized my attendance.) In a series of posts this week, I’d like to share with you some of what I learned at GrowCo.

Akron, OH (Vocus/PRWEB) April 13, 2011

Summit Data Communications, a manufacturer of industrial-grade and medical-grade wireless modules, today was named the 2011 Outstanding Incubator Client in the technology category by the National Business Incubation Association. A client of the Akron Global Business Accelerator in downtown Akron, Summit bested more than 1,000 international entrants, including two finalists from Hong Kong.

“Summit Data Communications is part of an energized and growing technology community here in Northeastern Ohio,” said Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic. “Summit continues to build upon the wireless communications legacy that began here some 30 years ago with Telxon, and is leveraging the investments we're making to help build healthcare technology companies in the region.”

I just learned about Project Skyway, Minnesota’s First Tech Accelerator Program. I've been interested in accelerators and acceleration programs for some time and an email from them came at just the right time.

Here's what caught my eye and what makes this program different:

First, Project Skyway is the only tech accelerator program that will accept single founders (at least from what I've found).

Second, Project Skyway will accept non-technical teams. This part is huge. Huge. Two full-time software developers will be allocated per company throughout the three-month cycle (for free), which means having a "techie" on the team is not a must. Almost any other accelerator program will bounce you if you don’t have a tech co-founder as part of your team. Project Skyway is seeking applicants with the ability to execute over the ability to code the viable and fund-able prototype themselves.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science has released the world’s first anatomically and genomically comprehensive human brain map, a previously unthinkable feat made possible through leading-edge technology and more than four years of rigorous studies and documentation. The unprecedented mappings are the foundation for the Allen Human Brain Atlas, an online public resource developed to advance the Institute’s goal to accelerate understanding of how the human brain works and fuel new discovery among the global research community.

In developing the Allen Human Brain Atlas, the Allen Institute has now thoroughly characterized and mapped the biochemistry of two normal adult human brains, providing opportunities for scientists to study the brain with new detail and accuracy. The data reveal a striking 94 percent similarity between human brains, establishing strong patterns as a critical foundation for translational and clinical research. In addition, data analysis from the two human brains indicate that at least 82 percent of all human genes are expressed in the brain, highlighting its tremendous complexity while also providing an essential genetic blueprint to understand brain functionality better and propel research in neurologic disease and other brain disorders.

With increased imports of food and raw materials and stricter government regulations, the job of the American farmer has fallen low on the list of professions most children want to be when they grow up. In a move that will hopefully attract more youth to farming, Washington state has instituted a one-year pilot project in two counties (Skagit and San Juan) to allow small farms to take on up to three interns each, according to a Washington State Department of Labor and Industries press release. Unlike most interns who often work for minimal benefit, though, those on the farm receive workers' compensation coverage in case they’re injured on the job. The program brings safety and protection to a dangerous line of work (more on-the-job deaths occurred in the agriculture industry than any other in Washington last year). To qualify, farms must sell less than $250,000 a year and create a curriculum to maximize the intern’s learning experience.

Professor Marek Krawczyk, leading transplant surgeon and Rector of the Medical University of Warsaw (MUW), tells “Polish Market” about the university’s involvement in public and academic projects promoting transplantology, ties between science and industry and innovation, and its unique Pre-clinical Testing and Technology Centre (CePT).

Q: Almost 60% of all investment in Poland goes into intellectual resources. WUM is also in the course of a major project – a Pre-clinical Testing Centre. How will it help raise the transfer of new technology from research labs to the economy?

A: We laid the cornerstone under the centre last September, the ceremony was attended by Science and Higher Education Minister Barbara Kudrycka. Its main task will be high-grade research on innovatory technologies and solutions which will then be introduced into industry. It will be an environmental lab open not just to our staff but all involved in research in clinics and the pharmaceutical branch. In its work as a knowledge, technology transfer and innovation promoter the centre will constitute part of a Europewide research system.

Early stage life science companies still developing their technologies can fall into a gap: too expensive to be supported by more grants or angel investments yet not far enough along to secure venture capital interest.

In the worst economy in generations, their funding challenges are more pronounced. But the first quarter saw several companies in North Carolina’s Research Triangle draw venture capital investments for continued development of pharmaceutical products and medical technologies. Among them, antiviral company Chimerix raised $45 million; nanotechology company Liquidia Technologies raised $10 million; and diagnostic technology firm Advanced Animal Diagnostics raised $11 million.

I am fascinated by the cooperative movement. I would love to see work at home businesses emerge which could form larger cooperatives and enable people to have the benefits of working at home without being “on their own”.

Sometimes cooperatives are associated with hippies or other subcultures that for one reason or another don’t commend themselves to people thinking about starting a home business or work at home business.

Here’s an example of a modern cooperative that’s in a field most people don’t associate with “cooperatives”… a taxi company called “Union Cab”. (Though it’s not really “unionized”… every worker is an “owner”.

The following guidelines are examples of things you can do to facilitate groups of people to be more productive in meetings - and specifically, meetings require creativity and innovation.
1. Design the work...

When designing a process that enhances creativity and innovation think in terms of crafting a set of activities instead of an making an agenda. Agendas are topic or subject focused and most often require working linearly through each topic. Activities are interactive and product focused (see below) and require participants to engage with each other, learn from each other, and create something together.

In our work we've found there are generally six types of activities in creative work:

• activities that orient (to the situation or challenge)
• activities that explore (the territory around the situation or challenge)
• activities that build (models)
• activities that test (models)
• activities that incubate (step away)
• activities that exchange (trade value)

Making the most of New Jersey‟s heritage as a home to innovation and invention will be the key to creating the jobs of the future, and the ongoing goal of a new coalition called Innovation NJ, dedicated to fostering partnerships between businesses and institutions of higher education.

An announcement of the new coalition was made July 15 at AT&T‟s Global Network Operations Center in Bedminster. The event was hosted by Michael Schweder, president of AT&T New Jersey; who was joined by Thomas F. Degnan Jr., chairman of the Research & Development Council of New Jersey and manager of Breakthrough and Leads Generation for ExxonMobil; Judith Sheft, associate vice president for Technology Development at the New Jersey Institute of Technology; Dr. Kathleen W. Scotto, vice president of Research and interim dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; and Maxine Ballen, president and CEO of the NJ Technology Council at the event.

Everyone likes to think they work harder than everyone else, but the latest OECD data may surprise some Europeans and Americans who expected to be at the top of the world's hard work list.

The latest data from the OECD sheds light on not just paid work, but also unpaid work such as cooking and other housework.

Notable absentees from the top 14 include Germany, France, and the UK. All of the countries listed have a work day longer than the OECD average.

The richest Americans in history come primarily from several eras of extreme inequality.

One group of robber barons, like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, lived between the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties.

Then there are the tech mavens and investors who made a fortune in the past twenty years.

We identified peak net worth for historical figures based on scholarly estimates. All figures are adjusted for inflation.

April 18th approaches and as tax season starts to heat up we all start steaming about the cash the government wants from us for living in the U.S.A.

But let's just put something into perspective real quickly.

In other countries taxes are way higher.

And in fact, it's only because our own taxes can go way higher that foreign bond investors haven't totally freaked out yet about lending us so much money.

You’re the head of a growing San Francisco startup looking to cut a sweet deal on a “creative” new office space to contain your ever-expanding cadre of devoted young employees and make your old incubator buddies jealous. Should be a cakewalk in a down market, right?

Err, not so much. While much of the office space available within the city’s traditional high-rise buildings are still experiencing elevated vacancy rates and lower leasing prices, hit the tech industry enclave of the SoMA neighborhood, and it’s a whole different scene.

i6 Green builds on the success of last year’s inaugural i6 Challenge and is designed to encourage and reward innovative approaches to accelerating technology commercialization, new venture formation, job creation, and economic growth across the United States. This year’s $12M challenge rewards communities that utilize a Proof of Concept Center model, such as that championed by the Deshpande Center, to accelerate technology led economic development in pursuit of a vibrant, innovative clean economy.

i6 Green is led by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For more information, visit: http://www.eda.gov/i6

Click here to register to this Webinar (or go to https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/279553330)

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The EU Commission moved to simplify and sharply cut the cost of patent registration in 25 EU members on Wednesday, but Italy and Spain stayed out of the scheme because of unhappiness that their languages were left out.

The Commission's proposal for a new patent system aims to bolster European innovation and competitiveness in the face of fierce competition from rivals such as China.

But both Italy and Spain are dissatisfied that their national languages being excluded from the proposed scheme, fearing losing a competitive edge.