We are proud to announce the first annual SBIR Hall of Fame Awards. The SBIR Hall of Fame awards will be made to firms with a long period of extraordinary success of research, innovation, and commercialization within the SBIR program.

Hall of Fame Eligibility

For the SBIR Hall of Fame, nominees must be previous SBIR awardees that have contributed significantly to the program’s goals over a period of time through their work.

Any individual who owns and operates or who bears principal responsibility for operating a business that received an SBIR Phase I and II award or STTR award may be nominated. Partners who jointly own and operate a business may be nominated as a “team,” so long as the number of individuals in the team nomination does not exceed four. Nominees may have previously received a Tibbetts Award, although receipt of a Tibbetts Award is not required. Nominees must also be residents of the United States or its territories and will be subject to background checks.

Ok, you’ve been hustling for 2 months, selling the shit out of your vision to all of these amazing investors, trying to pickup a few nickels to rub together, and finally…finally, finally, finally, you have persuaded 6 or 7 very smart folks to cough up some seed capital. Today the money hits the bank. You did it! You got Keith Rabois, Ron Conway, Eric Schmidt, FirstRound Capital, and Jeff Bezos to give you $1 Million. You go out, drink 15 shots of Tequila, puke, wake up the next day, and you say to yourself “thank god, I can finally get back to thinking about my product. 30 days or so pass, you have a few conversations with one or two of your seed investors, and then you realize “hmmm, I have all these smart people around the table, I should probably try to involve them as much as possible in what we’re doing.” It has been about a month since you closed the round, and you say “I know! I will right a MONTHLY update.”

You sit down, and the first sentence of your update reads as follows:

“All, we are so excited to have everyone on board. This is the first of our monthly updates. Every month we will write to you and tell you what’s going on with the company and how you can help”

Today's economy is the worst period in decades for small businesses and startups to obtaining financing, writes The Wall Street Journal:

Ensconced in a strip mall behind a Carpeteria outlet, Derek Smith has been tinkering for two years with a wireless electrical system that he says can help schools and office buildings slash lighting bills. With his financing limited to what he earns as a wireless-technology consultant, he has yet to hire his first employee.

This is a far cry from his last start-up, which he cofounded in 2002. At the two-year mark, that company, which makes radio-tracking gear for hospital equipment, had five employees, about $1 million in funding from angel investors and offices with views of downtown San Diego.

"When I started this the plan was to go out and raise a bunch of money," says Mr. Smith, who is 36 years old. That was in late 2008, just as financial markets around the world collapsed. "I quickly discovered I can't do what I did before."

DUBLIN — Antoinette Shields had a plan to keep her tall, blue-eyed son, Kevin, close at hand. When she took over her boss’s construction company in 2002, she hoped to retire at 55 and give her son the business.

But it is not working out that way. Mrs. Shields’s company, which once employed 26 people, is now down to 8, still afloat in Ireland’s collapsed economy, but barely. Though Kevin graduated from college two weeks ago, she has no work for him, and he expects to emigrate to the United States or Canada next year.

“That is where we are,” Mrs. Shields said. “Sad, isn’t it?”

Jane Addams (1860-1935)

Any down-on-his-luck person who's been helped by a social worker has Jane Addams to thank. In grimy late 19th century Chicago, she pioneered the idea of settlement houses that offered night classes for adults, a kindergarten, a coffeehouse, a gym and social groups meant to create a sense of community among the downtrodden of the neighborhood. Her Hull House was a residence for about 25 women, and at its peak was visited by more than 2,000 people a week. As her community influence grew, Addams was appointed to prominent state governmental and community boards, where she focused on improving sanitation, midwifery and food safety and reducing narcotics consumption. An ardent pacifist and outspoken advocate for women's suffrage, Addams was also the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Rather than follow a well understood game plan, energy technology entrepreneurs need to think more like chess players on the fast-changing global stage.

A panel of clean-tech entrepreneurs and financiers here at the MIT Venture Capital conference yesterday discussed ways to navigate the regulatory and commercial landscape. Their strategies reflect how energy innovators and their financial backers have had to adjust over the past few years to have a shot at succeeding.

One persistent challenge for energy technology entrepreneurs is getting the money and permits to build either an initial production facility to make goods, such as solar panels or biofuels, or test a product at large scale.

Making the transition from individual contributor to manager, or entrepreneur to “corporate” executive, is one of the most difficult shifts most of us will face in our careers. A study conducted by a national management consulting firm a few years back indicated that more than 40% of newly appointed managers fail in their first 18 months on the job!

As a consultant working with many entrepreneurs attempting to grow their businesses either for continuity purposes or for sale I see them experience many of the same issues.

In many cases these issues boil down to developing and maintaining effective relationships.Our educational system has a bias towards “technical” skills and individual achievement. Winning means getting the best grades and “setting the curve” as an individual.

Here are some of the most common mistakes I have observed in “new” managers:

1. They fail the “politics quiz.” Organizational politics are a fact of life. Don’t sacrifice key relationships because a colleague or subordinate has a talent for getting face time.

2. Don’t try to “clone” yourself. Of course you’re brilliant, that’s why you were promoted. However, good management is getting the best out of the staff you have. Improving employee performance is a process not an event.

IT BRINGS a whole new meaning to freeze frame. A team at Nokia in Finland has created one of the unlikeliest computer displays yet - the world's first ice touchscreen.

It is not a practical device, of course, but the screen is being seen as a step towards an era in which the surfaces around us gain computing capabilities (see "What is ubiqitous computing?").

"This was a playful experiment, but one that we think showed interactive computing interfaces can now be built anywhere," says Jyri Huopaniemi at Nokia's research lab in Tampere, whose team built the touchscreen, dubbed Ubice, or ubiquitous ice.

Bike trials is a form of mountain biking where the rider attempts to go over an intense obstacle course without putting her feet on the ground. Scottish cyclist Danny MacAskill is a master at street trials. In this demo video, he rides around Scotland's Edinburgh Castle, bunkers on the island of Inchgarvie, and a power station in the Scottish Highlands. (Thanks, Sean Ness!)

How do men and women small business owners approach innovation differently? That’s one of the questions the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is seeking to answer through a six-country study that’s going on as we speak—as one of the organizers of the study, I’m looking for entrepreneurs in the U.S., both male and female, who can take a few minutes to participate in an online survey.

Business creation has long been known as a driver of economic growth, and new firm formation is often seen as an indicator of a healthy and growing economy. New firms challenge the status quo with new ideas or innovative approaches to existing market needs, forcing incumbent firms to either improve their products and processes or be overtaken in the marketplace. In this process of economic natural selection, only the fittest firms remain, and economic growth is stimulated.

Yet, it is increasingly recognized that one size does not fit all in terms of economic policy and enterprise support: targeted and proactive policy and programmatic support is needed to foster small firm formation and innovation in particular. There is also a growing recognition that fostering small firm formation in general does not ensure economic self-determination and opportunity for all. Women and other socially excluded groups are often left behind if an “open for all” approach is taken in business development.

Some Texas angel investor groups are hoping their members take advantage of a federal provision exempting them from capital gains taxes on investments made by the end of the year. But others question whether it’s too late in the game.

The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 includes the provision for investments made from Sept. 27 to Dec. 31 as a way to create more jobs during the sluggish economy. More check writing by angel investors would be a huge benefit to Austin’s startup community because the Central Texas Angel Network is one of Austin’s most active investors in early-stage companies.

The act’s provision, referring to “gains on qualified small business stock,” applies to investments only in C corporations with gross assets of $50 million or less after Aug. 9, 1993, and before it issued the stock. The provision includes other requirements such as a five-year holding period, but the Angel Capital Association is recommending that members capitalize on the window of opportunity.

One of my favorite movie lines, which I think about often, comes from the 1993 movie Rudy. In his pre-game inspirational talk in the film, Notre Dame football coach Dan Devine says, "No one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around."

Yet, this happens all the time in our businesses.

We let competitors push us around. We let them steal our customers. We let them push our prices and margins down. And we let them dictate how we run our businesses.

So how do we stop this? How do we dictate how competitors need to act? And to go even further, how can we terrorize our competition so they don't even want to compete with us?

Here are 7 of my favorite ways:

1. Know More Than Them

By investing in the latest education, you will always have an edge on your competitors (assuming they don't also do this). Learning the best new techniques in sales, marketing, operations, finance, HR, etc. will allow you to outperform your competition on multiple fronts.

2. Create a Vision and Stick to It

Spend the time to create a solid vision of the company you want to create. For example, my vision at Growthink is to become the number one place where entrepreneurs go for assistance starting and growing their companies.

When you have a solid vision, you will not make knee-jerk reactions to your competitors' actions. Rather they will react to you. Also, while competitors' actions may cause you to shift your strategies, if you have a set vision, you will spend less time strategizing and more time Dave Lavinskyexecuting.

Here’s an amazing way to get the lay of the land in London. Photographer Jeffrey Martin has stitched together 7,886 high-res images, creating an 80 gigapixel (or 80 billion pixel) panoramic photograph of England’s great capital. The photo is also interactive, which means you can play aerial tourist. When you enter the site, click on “Show Landmarks” (lower left corner), make a selection, and then start flying around the city.

Vivek Wadhwa, a leading entrepreneurship researcher at Duke University, offers a piece explaining why so many well intentioned attempts to copy Silicon Valley fail. He focuses on connections between and among motivated people. In other words the culture and social institutions of the place. From Wadhwa’s piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

All of those are well-intentioned efforts to build Silicon Valley-style technology hubs, but they are based on the same flawed assumptions: that government planners can pick industries they want to develop and, by erecting buildings and providing money to entrepreneurs and university researchers, make innovation happen.

Sure, we all know many airports and cafes have free WiFi, but what about your local big box retailer?

Recently Unplggd.com were surprised to discover a free WiFi hotspot where they did not expect it which got them thinking about all of the unexpected places where they’ve found free WiFi.

1. The Laundromat

2. Best Buy

3. Fast Food Shops

4. The Park

5. Grocery Store

(CNN) -- Japan's finances may not be in great shape, but when it comes to fashion, there still aren't many places more cool.

Consumers from Asia, Europe and the United States might not be buying as many Japanese cars and TVs, but they continue to be influenced by Japan's culture. That means that when global brands are looking for the hottest new fashions, eyes almost inevitably turn eastward.

"Most of the time, most global trends start in Tokyo," trendspotter Loic Bizel told CNN. A Tokyo-based fashion expert who consults for labels like Timberland, Lacoste and Sonia Rykiel, Bizel also takes foreign fashionistas on tours of Tokyo to scout for street style trends to replicate in their home markets.

"People really started to look at Japan as a lab about seven or eight years ago," he added. "Trends are picked up really quickly in the streets."

Is the world ready for another Internet bubble?

Ready or not, it appears to be coming. In fact, it may already be here. And it seems to look, not surprisingly, like the last Internet bubble. (Well, maybe with fewer sock puppets.)

First, there’s plenty of deal flow. Dealogic data shows that the number of technology deals — more than 5,100 so far this year — is at its highest point since the year 2000. Back then, in the peak year for Internet deal-making, there were 7,007 technology mergers and acquisitions.

True to the scrappy start-up nature of tech investing, the deals are small. According to Dealogic, the average technology deal this year is $46 million, not much more than the average of $40 million in 2000.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that five smart grid projects would receive more than $19 million in funding. The projects selected for these awards will help prepare the nation’s grid infrastructure to better handle clean energy technology.

A few weeks ago I pointed out how to ready your website for international business — everything from translating your website text, to search engine optimization in other languages.  That article sparked thoughtful discussion.  So this week I thought I’d expand the discussion beyond your Web presence, and focus on how to prepare your business as a whole to go global.