As 2010 comes to a close, we asked several venture capital investors to reflect on the past year and give us their outlook for 2011. We’ll be bringing you their responses over the coming days.

Next up in the series is Noah Walley, managing director at Investor Growth Capital. Walley, who focuses on software and technology-based services investments, thinks 2010 was better than 2009 - though that’s not saying much - but that the IPO market needs to rebound significantly.

As part of the Internet's ongoing effort to recreate Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Falling Water house in as many media as possible (Lego, Half Life 2), the folks at Garden Melodies have produced a gingerbread edition:

It took over 12 hours to design
It took Brenton and I around 40 hours to build and decorate
There are around 164 different pieces of gingerbread
It took roughly 12 square feet of gingerbread dough (that's four large batches) to make all the walls, floors and roof
Over 8 bags of powdered sugar were used to make all the frosting
It took over 40 sleeves of large Smarties which are used to simulate dry stack stone on the building exterior
The river and water fall are made up of three batches of hard candy

Many of us have the ability to change the trajectory of other people’s lives. Sometimes we don’t even realize it. This is a story of one person who had the power to change my life – and did so. It’s the story of persistence in entrepreneurs. And it’s the story of “paying it forward.”

The person who changed my life was Cory Van Wolvelaere, who passed away two years ago this week after a long battle with cancer.  I know his life touched many of us that worked with him – in ways he never knew.  In his 53 years he changed the trajectory of lives including mine.

We all have the ability to change the trajectory of the lives of others.  As a VC I’m acutely that a “yes” decision to support an entrepreneur can do just that, yet I only write 2-4 of them per year and maybe another 3-4 as an angel.  But I strive to impact the lives of many more through hours of coaching entrepreneurs, challenging people to be better, making human connections for people or providing timely advice.

He’s been called charming. He’s been called creepy. He travels under cover of night, moving from perch to perch. And he knows if your kids have been naughty or nice.

He’s the Elf on the Shelf. A book. A doll. And now a holiday phenomenon at a home near you. Maybe even yours.

According to a story in USA Today, the 8-inch-tall fella spends his days “watching” kids to see if they’re behaving. Then he flies to the North Pole to report bad behavior to Santa, nightly trips that kids are well aware of. When he returns, he lands in a different spot in the house, thanks to a parent’s helping hand, setting off a hide-and-seek game every morning.

Being an entrepreneur these days requires an understanding of a thousand topics, many of which don’t even exist today in traditional learning vehicles, like schools and textbooks. The Internet and its information wave have changed everything – it’s the problem, with constant change, and it’s the solution, if you use it to navigate quickly and self-educate.

True entrepreneurs love to learn, unlearn, and relearn, whether they are 20 years old, or 60 years old. A new business means change, so they deal in change, and relish the journey. Usually it’s called initiative, dedication, and can-do attitude.

But under these words are some common principles that every entrepreneur needs to follow implicitly or explicitly, to keep up with change, and actually make change:

• Stay open to learning. Unlearning and relearning doesn’t require that you toss out any of your accumulated experiences or know-how. It just requires a relentless focus and willingness to do better things, and accept better ways of getting things done.

“Back in the day” (late 1999) I was a part of an investor group that contributed $1 million for a 35 percent ownership stake in a startup technology venture that held a lot of promise (don’t they all?). You can probably guess the next chapter in this story. The tech bubble burst, the NASDAQ dropped 65 percent, technology needs shifted quickly and our company’s outlook changed dramatically within about a year.

Fortunately, we had a great investment banker who was able to arrange a sale of the company and its technology to a public company out of Canada for $1.5 million USD. Our 35 percent equity stake in the company would return only $525,000 of our initial investment, a 50 percent haircut in less than 18 months. Ouch!

How are entrepreneurs feeling about the economy as we head into the new year? I’m happy to have some good news to report on that front. Recently my company, GrowBiz Media, collaborated with Zoomerang, the world’s first Web-based survey tool, to survey small business owners about their business goals and plans for 2011. The results of the “Small to Midsized Business: Plans for 2011” survey were overwhelmingly positive about both their own companies, and the economy as a whole. Here’s a closer look at what our survey of over 1,000 SMB decision-makers (owners, partners and general managers) found.

Nearly three-quarters of SMBs (72 percent) say the overall economy will improve (30 percent) or hold steady (42 percent) in 2011. And when it comes to their own companies, 34 percent expect their sales to rise in 2011, while 50 percent expect them to stay the same. Only 16 percent think their sales will decrease.

The tech world will be hit with another year of disruption in 2011, producing new winners and losers.

For tech companies to win, it isn't just about tapping into the hot trends.

It's about executing.

And those who execute well are the rock stars of the tech world.

We've taken a look at some of the executives who are going to play outsized roles in tech in 2011. Some of them are prominent, some less, but they will all play a big role in shaping the future of technology in 2011.

It had to happen: the yule log in 3-D.

This latest refinement carries a whiff of retrofitted modernity, like a space capsule upholstered in chintz or a Microsoft Kinect game of croquet. But each generation has to find its own way to televise Christmas warmth, and a three-dimensional yule log is “Avatar” without blue people, “Saw 3D” with carols instead of bloodcurdling screams.

As a child I always looked forward to that annual rite of the holiday season: the prime time broadcast of animated Christmas specials. I’m not sure why these meant so much to me–some of them were downright bizarre.

Now that my four-year-old daughter has been asking to watch some of them, I began thinking about the actual content. Here’s a run down of my impressions of a few of the TV specials. (If I get some of the details wrong, excuse me, but I’m not going to go back and re-view every one. My memory should be good enough, having watched all of them annually for more than ten years.)

Singapore, December 23 – The UN General Assembly on Monday gave its seal of approval to the creation of a new international body to be called the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

The creation of the IPBES caps the end of 2010 - the International Year of Biodiversity - and will expand global efforts to stem the loss of biodiversity and essential eco-systems beyond the realm of research and into the realms of policy-making and action.

In the same way that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is helping governments and industries assess risks due to climate change and plan for mitigation measures, IPBES is expected to drive action on stemming bio-diversity loss.

The merger of United Airlines and Continental means all the planes in their combined fleet need a paint job. See a video of one aircraft's makeover.

Diet and exercise

Keep the holiday bulge off by exercising, controlling cravings, and paying attention to weight and eating [J Consult Clin Psychol].

Eat right to keep weight off and live longer. You can lower risk your risk of an early death from chronic disease by making healthier food choices more frequently. Eat more frequent amounts of low-fat dairy products, poultry, fruits and vegetables, and fish; and avoid red meat, fried foods, alcohol, high-fat dairy products (ice cream, cheese, whole milk), and sugar sources — breakfast cereals and other refined grains (rice and pasta), sweets, and desserts [J Am Diet Assoc].

Don’t fry fish. Frying fish above 350°F (180° C) destroys heart-healthy omega-3s, which may partially explain why people in Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and other “stroke belt states” have a higher risk of stroke [American Academy of Neurology], along with use of trans fat and other factors.

One Arm Swimmer wins heat in 25m Fly at 2010 Nashville City Swim Meet

The year is coming to a close, and I can think of no other 12-month period that saw such amazing growth in the scope of mobile gadgets. Of course, this time next year, I’m likely to repeat myself because mobile processors in phones are getting more powerful just as mobile broadband networks are revving up speeds. It’s hard to imagine it was only five years ago that I first experienced 3G data speeds, and today I can surf the web on the go at least ten times faster!

Since I get to play with gadgets on a regular basis, I thought I’d summarize a brief list of my gadgets of the year. While companies often send me devices to review then return, I’ve personally purchased all the gadgets on this list. Of course, we all have different needs and device requirements, so my faves are likely to vary from yours. Be sure to let me know if I missed any that are on your list!

Many people get Christmas Eve off from work, but that doesn’t include Santa Claus — and it also doesn’t include the hundreds of volunteers who spend the day using some of the world’s most advanced military technology to track his movements. (Note: For the purposes of this article, let’s just all agree that Santa Claus is real and delivers presents to good girls and boys the night before Christmas.)

For the 24 hours before Christmas, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (otherwise known as NORAD, previously known as CONAD) takes on the job of tracking Santa’s progress, a tradition that began in 1955 when, according to the official NORAD Santa site:

…a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

In May 2010 IBM published an international research study titled Capitalising on Complexity - Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study.

Based on world-wide research with over 1500 CEO's and executives, creativity was identified as the most important leadership competency for enterprises seeking success in the contemporary business world. Business leaders at all levels realise that the complex situations they face cannot be approached in a routine manner, and therefore the quest for creativity starts.

But creativity is sometimes perceived as a fuzzy concept, applied to the use of specific techniques such as ideation, brain storming and so on.

Owen Davis, 45, conceptualized and built three innovative technology companies that were later sold for profit, surviving, even thriving, through the most challenging environment for Internet startups, while most others failed.

Now he’s trying to help other technology entrepreneurs succeed.

As managing director of NYCSeed, a private-public initiative, Davis wants to fund and nurture technology entrepreneurs in New York City and move them from an idea to a marketable product.

“This is my only focus, getting innovative companies off the ground,” Davis says. “This is it, it was something I really wanted to do.”