Techcrunch have a story up this morning: To date, US online holiday spending up 12% to $16.8bn, in fact revenues of ecommerce companies have grown consistently through two recessions since 1999 (source Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near).  A recession is obviously never good news for anyone, but these stats are a timely reminder that if a startup has picked its market well it shouldn’t worry too much about recession.

The quintessential venture backed startup is in early at the beginning of a new market opportunity (either a genuinely new market or a re-segmentation of an existing market) and raises money to grow as fast as possible to lock down a leadership position – a process that will likely take five years or more from the date of company formation.  If they have picked their market well, during that time it will go from tiny – usually sub $10m, to substantial – usually $100m+, and sometimes way bigger than that.  In other words for the company to be successful its market will need to be growing at near exponential rates over five years or more.  If a recession hits during that period (which is pretty likely) then market growth might slow, but it should still be significant – as ecommerce companies are seeing now.

It may be hard to believe in these gloomy days, but this is a time of incredible opportunity for our nation's kids. The future looks very bright for people who have a strong grasp of science, technology, engineering and math (often referred to as STEM). So it's nothing short of tragic to see just how many of our kids aren't getting the math and science skills they'll need to seize the opportunities that lie ahead.

That's why we at Change the Equation (CTEq) launched a ground-breaking contest among some of the world's most innovative companies to prove just how cool jobs in STEM fields can be. Our STEM is Cool! contest challenged these companies to produce brief videos featuring an employee or group of employees who use STEM in exciting or unexpected ways. (Vote for your favorite video here).

When I was young, I was fascinated by life, in all its straight-forward manifestations: the gulls and horseshoe crabs on the beach near my home, the perfect little spiders and the even-more-perfect webs they wove, the predictably unpredictable array of multicolored warblers spangling the trees, the challenging, chattering squirrels.

But I hated “biology,” the academic study that supposedly concerned itself with these things. Not only did biology seem to have been mis-named, pre-occupied as it was with “thanatology”—the study of dead things (notably, via dissections)—but, worse yet, it abounded in brute memorization. Names, names, and more names: of phyla, classes, orders, families, genera and species, of bones and muscles, organs, and tissue types, of subcellular anatomy, and the stages of the Krebs cycle. Especially despicable, I still recall, was the obligation to memorize all of those damned digestive enzymes, where they were produced, and what they digested: ptyalin—saliva, starch; pepsin—stomach, proteins … ad infinitum and ad disgustum.

In the last few years, leadership programs have sprung up in remarkable numbers at colleges and universities across the country. Institutions as diverse as Creighton University, Arizona State University, and Highland Community College, in Illinois, now offer leadership training and opportunities to their students. Some universities and colleges, like Gonzaga and the City University of Seattle, have developed degree programs in leadership, and many more such programs are being planned. It seems that every university Web page and presidential message now highlights leadership opportunities for students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The idea is that leadership—like scientific disciplines, for example—consists of a set of skills, methodologies, and ideas that can be taught. The difference is that unlike, say, biology, leadership should inform all aspects of life. Leadership programs teach important life skills, such as introspection, cultural sensitivity, moral acuity, people skills, and decision-making acumen.

Three years ago, in December of ’07, the number of jobs in in this country peaked just shy of 138 million. Then the economy fell apart.

By December of ’09, 8 million jobs had disappeared.

For the past year, the economy has been adding jobs — very, very slowly. So slowly, in fact, that the unemployment rate is still near 10 percent.

In all, the economy has added a million jobs in the past year, according to the government employment figures out this morning.

The global financial crisis of the late 2000s precipitated an economic downturn of such magnitude and reach that many now refer to the period as the “Great Recession.” According to the International Monetary Fund, global economic output, which had grown at an annual rate of 3.2 percent from 1993 to 2007, actually shrank by 2 percent from 2008 to 2009. A precarious economic recovery is now underway.

Aggregate views of the global economy, however, mask the distinct experiences of its real hubs—major metropolitan areas. Metro areas, which are economically integrated collections of cities, suburbs, and often surrounding rural areas, are centers of high-value economic activity in their respective nations and worldwide. And because metros form the fundamental bases for national and international economies, understanding their relative positioning before,during, and after the Great Recession provides important evidence on emerging shifts in the location of global economic resilience and future growth.

Silicon Valley is a special place, a place where dreams come true. What makes Silicon Valley different? Why is it so entrepreneurial? Why do start-ups sprout like weeds here? Innovation is the lifeblood of economies and of nations. GDP growth is often the result. Many other cities and countries have tried to copy Silicon Valley and yet no one has really been able to duplicate its success. This is an insider’s answer to these enduring questions.

At this point, entrepreneurialism has become ingrained in the local culture. My daughter, who is in elementary school, does not have an annual science fair. Her school has an Invention Convention. The children are not only expected to invent something that makes their lives easier or better, they are expected to write a simple business plan as part of their projects. This is 2nd grade in Silicon Valley! Recently, I attended one of the more popular professional events held in Silicon Valley – Tech Titans of Tomorrow. The title may be a misnomer as these teenagers are more apt to be referred to as Today’s Teen Titans. This annual event invites teenage entrepreneurs to talk about their organizations and their products, and concludes with a session where the teenagers pitch their products to investors for funding. At this year’s event, one 17-year-old raised money to start an investment fund that is targeted at providing funding to teenagers to turn their product ideas into a reality. Another teenager received a grant to install centralized energy monitors into local schools so administrators could see which rooms and equipment were creating their huge energy bills; the result is a $5,000 per year savings on their electric bills for each school. Yet, another had started his first company at age 11 and had started three companies by the time he entered college – a lawn service, an company making accessories for handheld PDAs, and an IT services firms helping what he termed “old people like my parents and grandparents” with their computers and mobile devices. Yet another teenager was proud that he had one of the top iPhone applications.

In 1981, a score of well-to-do twentysomethings congregated in Estes Park, Colorado for a new-age pow-wow on how to use their inherited wealth toward social good. They called themselves the Doughnuts. The gathering was organized by Joshua Mailman, son of famed New York philanthropist and investor Joseph L. Mailman. "We were part of the generation of people interested in meditation, Buddhism, Shamanism, rainbow gatherings, and Burning Man," he tells Fast Company. "It was a mystical, non-western way of looking at the world."

Today, Mailman has moved beyond the Doughnuts to become a veteran angel investor and philanthropist through three organizations he founded: the Threshold Foundation, the Social Venture Network, and Serious Change.

If the goal is to develop markets start by developing talent. If you want to accomplish the most amazing things focus on developing the talent of amazing people. Mentoring and coaching are the most important leadership roles. Innovation starts by surrounding yourself and connecting with the best talent. If you want to attract the best talent develop a reputation as the best talent developer.

Put growth opportunities for others ahead of your own. Put growth opportunities for others ahead of your organization and your community. If you put developing talent first you will attract the best talent. If you consistently encourage and prepare talented individuals to grow into the best opportunities, wherever they are, you will become a talent magnet. People who want to get better will want to work for, with, and near you. If you prioritize talent development people will trust their talents to you.

How do you build a technology city? Cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Boston already have a substantial technology base and are considered to be vast technological hubs. How can smaller cities hope to rival such tech strongholds?

It’s not easy. A technology city is an intricate set of networks and social relationships — simply building a science park isn’t going to work. A city needs a comprehensive plan that encompasses the following:

• At least one major success story — A brand name draws world-class talent to a city. It also generates a stream of talented workers who often venture off and start their own spin-offs.

Humpback whales are impressively agile swimmers—thanks in no small part to the rows of bumps, called tubercles, on the leading edges of their flippers. Tubercles generate swirling water formations, called vortices, which help the massive mammals maintain lift and delay stall, an aerodynamic phenomenon in which the flow of fluid over the top of the flipper becomes separated from the flow underneath, causing increased drag.

Previous research has shown that adding tubercle-like bumps to wind turbine blades could make the blades better able to harvest energy, especially at low speeds. Engineers have already applied the principle to industrial fans and continue to develop whale-inspired wind turbine technology. Now, researchers at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) have shown that adding bumps to underwater tidal turbines also improves their performance, too. In a laboratory experiment, the results of which they presented November 22 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics, bumpy turbines produced significantly more energy at low speeds, when compared to a standard turbine with smooth-edged blades.

Raising a first-time venture capital fund is no easy feat, especially at a time when the number of firms is shrinking and limited partners are growing skeptical of the asset class.

But Roger Ehrenberg managed to do just that, holding a $50 million final close for the debut fund of his New York-based firm, IA Ventures. That total doubles the original target after a strong response from investors, which include Cendana Capital, the Investment Fund for Foundations, Horsley Bridge Partners, and individuals from the financial-services industry and venture capitalists. Fortune earlier reported news of IA Ventures’ close.

IA Ventures is among the few firms that have raised first-time funds in the past couple of years. Check out our previous list here and here.

Realistic Robotic Arm Within Reach
Lightning-fast connections between robotic limbs and the human brain may be within reach for injured soldiers and other amputees with the establishment of a multimillion-dollar research center led by Southern Methodist University (SMU) engineers. Funded by a Department of Defense initiative dedicated to audacious challenges and intense time schedules, the Neurophotonics Research Center will develop two-way fiber optic communication between prosthetic limbs and peripheral nerves.

NASA Opens Space Station for Biological Research from NIH Grants
NASA is enabling biomedical research with National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants that take advantage of the unique microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station to explore fundamental questions about important health issues.

NIH Teams with Pay.gov to Speed Tech Transfer Payments
A new payment site within Pay.gov will make it easier for companies that license inventions owned by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make their royalty payments. Royalties are typically paid upfront for biological materials and over the term of a commercial patent license. The project is led by the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and the Office of Financial Management at NIH.

As an angel investor who has considered hundreds of startup opportunities, the concept of a value proposition may be the most misunderstood and taken for granted element that I see in newly formed startups. While entrepreneurs freely throw around the term “value proposition,” they rarely offer a thoughtful explanation for the “value” their business is providing and, more importantly, an understanding of who their real customer is and what valuable benefit their customer perceives they are receiving.

To address this gap, I’d like to discuss a basic value proposition definition below.

The value proposition is a short statement that clearly communicates the target customer, the customer’s problem and the pain that it causes, the unique solution that addresses this problem, and the net benefit of this solution from the customer's perspective.

Let’s consider each of the four elements of the value proposition definition above:

1. The target customer. Many entrepreneurs quote a large market size and impressive dollars spent in the market, but not many entrepreneurs can name specifically who will buy the proposed product or service, and how many of these customers exist. To identify a target customer, it helps to document a customer profile statement, identifying all of the traits known about the customer and what makes them different and unique from the larger market population. Out of this exercise comes a clearer understanding of what makes them a “target” customer. It’s not uncommon that a company serves more than one target customer, leading to a customer profile for each type.

This past October I was invited by Steve Blank to speak at Stanford for their Enterprise Thought Leader (ETL) series.  The topic I chose to speak about was “lessons on starting a company” but I created the sub-title in class “a Silicon Valley heresy” since my goal was to slay many of the myths I believe exist right in the heart of Silicon Valley!