Well, the publisher of Goldsmith’s latest book wasted no time today in making sure reporters here in City Hall's Room 9 (on request!) had enough copies to keep them riveted for months to come. Title: “The Power of Social Innovation,” with the subtitle of “How Civic Entrepreneurs Ignite Community Networks for Good."

Here’s a nerve-tingling description of what the book is all about, courtesy of a media consultant hired to promote a now-likely-to-be-suspended book tour by Goldsmith:

"This candid and engaging book offers concrete strategies for aspiring innovators and civic entrepreneurs across sectors—non-profit, civic, government, business and philanthropic— who believe that we can do better in solving our communities’ most pressing social problems. Rich with vivid examples of how results-based problem solving can be applied to areas like criminal justice, homelessness and education, the book demonstrates that when innovators effectively engage both government and the communities it serves, real results are possible.”

I love cooking, so I know a fair amount about Croc-wearing superstar chef Mario Batali. But here is something I didn’t know until reading an interview with him in Harvard Business Review.

He has the makings of a great CEO.

As the chief executive of 14 high profile restaurants in the United States and Spain, Batali has figured out that the stereotypical brilliant-but-belligerent chef is not an effective model for leadership in the modern food service industry.

Describing his organizational business model, it’s all about team. Creating the right team. Helping it overcome problems. Promoting from within.

“All of the executive chefs and most of the general managers and wine directors have worked with me directly. They know where I’m going. They know the shorthand we use in describing how things need to change. I go into most of the New York restaurants almost every day, and we talk about things as they’re evolving. My objective as a manager, of course, is to remove the obstacles that prohibit greatness of the people that I’ve hired. So I ask, what is the hardest thing about today? And I say, well, why don’t we get somebody else to do that, or let’s remove it, or let’s streamline it, let’s make it easier. Then they can enjoy that zenny tea service effect of working through something they know how to do.”

If protecting inventions is at the heart of high tech competitiveness, plans underfoot at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) plans will critically wound small companies. The agency has long worked under tremendous pressure and a growing backlog that has been the subject of heavy criticism. As details emerge of what the Patent Office plans in terms of improved performance and mechanisms to achieve it, one thing is clear: Patent filing and maintenance rates may shoot so high as to make it economically difficult, if not impossible, for many small companies to adequately protect their innovations.

The result could be even greater control of technology markets by a handful of large corporations that have the resources to file extensively and lock out small companies.

Some people are superb at creating visual tools to illustrate complex subjects. John Maloney is one of those gifted people who can synthesize information into a picture which helps people understand the emerging, and existing, knowledge that rest within an organizations “network” of people and processes.  More importantly the illustration above provides a “ systemic view” of how and where social technology integrates into the capabilities infrastructure of an organization.

A “Platform of Knowledge” is representative of what every organization has but most cannot “see or actualize” the knowledge because they lack the understanding to recognize that knowledge is an asset.

Over a year after the Recovery Act of 2009 was signed into law, the U.S. Department of Energy says that $32.5 billion of the $36.7 billion it was authorized to spend is "spoken for," and nearly 5,000 projects have been funded. The department has selected all but 1 percent of the proposals that will receive grants and contracts. So far, however, only $3.5 billion has actually been spent, and the money has only directly created 22,841 jobs.

This week, the DOE's senior advisor for Recovery Act implementation, Matt Rogers, provided an update on the department's progress in identifying projects that will receive funding. While much of the Recovery Act focused on funding for near-term recession relief, including tax relief for individuals and support for local and state governments, the funding allocated to the DOE was mainly for projects with longer term payoffs, including building infrastructure such as wind farms and battery factories and conducting research.

New rules designed to improve the transparency of investment funds could make venture capital less attractive to small businesses by forcing them to publish commercially sensitive information, according to venture capitalists.

The EU has set up an SME finance forum to tackle the ongoing funding crisis facing small businesses but Uli Fricke, chair of the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA), says a clause in the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) will undermine efforts to support fast-growing firms.

Fricke said companies with 50 employees will have to meet additional disclosure criteria if they accept venture capital, forcing them to share details of research investments and business strategies.

I know I was complaining about this earlier this year but I have to say that April was really quiet, as far as small business research goes.

The good news is that there are some real gems among the few releases we had.

Entrepreneurial Geography

In light of the frequently repeated jobs-jobs-jobs mantra, a policy brief out of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government answering the question “What Makes A City Entrepreneurial?” was both timely and intriguing.

On the surface, the answer to that question is fairly intuitive — although I’ll put it differently than the good researchers at Harvard did. The easier and cheaper it is to start and run a business, and the more room there is in the local or regional economy (less dominated by large companies that crowd out the smaller ones), the more independent small businesses there are.

In the book Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen talks about Disruptive Technologies. He talks about various well established companies in various industries failed to adapt themselves to the disruptive technological changes and which led most of them to fail in longer run. These kind of changes keep happening all the time around us, and once we map it to disruptive technology, suddenly we see reason.

When I [Mayank Sharma] applied it’s principle to my previous company (SiRF), I suddenly could see why the company failed. SiRF had established market leadership in GPS chips being used my navigation devices and in other niche segments. Profit margin in these industries was close to 50% and the company thrived in this market. Market for GPS chips in mobile phone was quite small then, and the profit margin quite low (30%-40%) for SiRF to address this market. But the market for GPS chips did change drastically in favor of mobile phones, where the requirements were completely different (low profit margin, low power etc..) and SiRF could not hold on to its leadership position.

1: Cape Wind

The 420-megawatt Cape Wind project  is big, but the expectations for it are even bigger. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who just last week announced approval for the project amidst some stiff opposition, expects the Nantucket Sound wind farm to do no less than prove the viability of offshore wind in America. Much remains to be done before the first turbine blades start to spin – bank financing and power purchase agreements must be finalized and the project must be built on time and within budget. But Cape Wind has already done a lot. The project’s developers have endured nine years of attempts to regulate offshore sites that played like a bureaucratic version of “Who’s on first?” before finally arriving at guidelines that future developers can follow. More importantly, the Obama administration has decided that the need for renewable energy trumps environmental and cultural concerns that threaten to block large projects. It’s an imperfect solution, to be sure, but it does move green energy forward.

2: President Barak Obama

As skilled a politician as he is, President Barack Obama has benefited from a whole heap of luck in his career. His presidential campaign, you may recall, reached orbit only after the economy crashed with a Republican at the helm. So, perhaps on a cosmic level, it was time for Obama to meet some truly rotten fortune. And he did – when he proposed opening up large swaths of the Atlantic and Gulf to offshore drilling just three weeks before BP’s deep-water rig sank off the coast of Louisiana, releasing 5,000 barrels of oil per day directly into the ocean. What does this disaster mean for Obama’s “pan-energy” strategy? It really depends – if we have to wait for three months for a second well to be drilled, Obama will face intense pressure from his base to back down on offshore drilling. If BP can block the leak soon, offshore drilling could remain politically viable. As Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said this week, “The Challenger accident was heartbreaking, but we went back to space.”

When JumpStart was started, the leaders looked across the country for models to emulate, and Innovation Works in Pittsburgh was one of them. Innovation Works (IW) is five years older than JumpStart but served as the model for many of our operational choices. While we have some important differences (including funding sources and the specifics of our local geographies), we also have many of the same elements: business community, deal flow from multiple partners including universities and service providers, inspired and supported entrepreneurs, and a model which ties various amounts of funding with business assistance.

IW had its annual meeting last Thursday and John Dearborn and I were in attendance. WOW. If you ever needed proof that the model we are both pursuing can work to create incredible economic transformation, a thriving entrepreneurial economy, positive internal brand image, and jobs, take a look at Pittsburgh and the work of IW. As just one example alone, the annual meeting was at McKesson Automation. The company that was the predecessor to McKesson was brought to IW by its three founding entrepreneurs. With the initial funding and business assistance from IW, the company grew from three to 800 employees in the Pittsburgh area. It was sold to McKesson and continues to employ over 500 hundred people in the Pittsburgh area and thousands of people across the U.S., while those three entrepreneurs have gone on to start other companies that have created hundreds of jobs (or lead IW, in the case of Rich Lunak). And that’s just one example.

The 2010 Fortune 500 list just came out and I'm completely blown away by Wal-Mart's size. We all know that the retail giant is the largest company in the world. But it's by how much that gets me.

Wal-Mart clocked in at $408 billion in revenues in 2009. The second-ranked Exxon Mobil, brought in $285 billion. If the difference between the two -- $124 billion -- were a company, it would be ranked 7th on the list. Let me say that again: Wal-Mart is bigger than the next largest company by the equivalent of an AT&T.

Let's exclude the oil companies from the list for the moment, since their revenues depend heavily on the price of oil and swing wildly -- Exxon's revenues were over $400 billion last year. Looking at companies that make anything but oil, Wal-Mart is basically three to four times the size of the largest ones, including Ford, HP, Citigroup, GM, IBM, and so on.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED:

The full U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote on reauthorization of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 as early as next Wednesday, May 13.  ASTRA believes that bipartisan support for this vital legislation is important and most timely, given the nation's economic woes.

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 is a bill that lays the basis for sustained funding increases in our nation's often neglected science, engineering and technology resources for three key agencies: the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science, and the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST).

ASTRA has supported efforts like the COMPETES Act for a decade.  Finally, the benefits of adequate federal R&D investments in our science and engineering ecosystems are being recognized across the political spectrum. 

Republicans, Democrats and Independents in Congress have all voted for legislation like COMPETES in the past.  That's because they realize that job creation, global competitiveness, innovation, STEM education, national security and other issues directly relate back to our country's federal R&D investments.

Now, more than ever, our R&D investments are needed to keep up with aggressive overseas competitors - whether they be governments or private entities determined to either widen their leads, or overcome the current position of U.S.-based industry, small businesses, academic institutions, and workers...

Please review our ASTRA's extensive materials on these topics. They provide fact-based reasons to support this widely-held and nonpartisan view. See: www.usinnovation.org and www.aboutastra.org 

For specific details about what the COMPETES bill would do for the nation's science, engineering and technology infrastructure and workforce, see http://www.usinnovation.org/files/UpdateAmerica%20COMPETESforCVD2010.pdf

Whether you like it or not, style has caught up to substance in the modern business landscape. Everyone's got an opinion about what's cool, and those opinions can make or break you, 140 characters at a time. It's like the first day of school at Beverly Hills High and, as a small business, you might be feeling like the gawky new kid from the Midwest. Harder still, it's not enough just to get the popular crowd to like you--now you have to do it without alienating yourself from the edgy kids. Long story short: You're not getting anywhere until you can establish yourself as cool, because when it comes to business, cool equals cash.

But what makes products, software, websites, brands or companies cool? Should you go viral on Twitter or YouTube? Can you cash in by attracting other cool people to become evangelists on your behalf, or is it possible to gain top search engine rankings (and robust sales) by blogging?

To uncover the secrets of cool, we sought out several leading experts, a mega-preneur and two growth-track entrepreneurs. The results may surprise you: Coolness--and the hefty revenues that come with it--is attainable, even for "nobodies" on a skimpy budget.

Despite the growing complexity of doing business in China, it is where innovation needs to happen with products designed solely for Chinese consumers.

Our View: Product development in emerging economies can cross over to serve your core consumers. Global companies have embraced reverse innovation and set up local growth teams in India and China that innovate for local markets. These teams are often allowed to steer product development and utilize a local budget, and their efforts can dispel the threat of local competitors. These products increasingly do well in developed markets, where price-consciousness and demand for basic products are on the rise.

Rodney mighta felt bad … but he should make you feel good. Because a new study shows that laughter can produce the same health benefits as physical exercise. That euphoric finding was presented at the 2010 Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim.

The idea that a good guffaw might be good for you surfaced in the 1970s. Since then, mirth has been shown to reduce stress and even boost immunity.

To continue cataloguing the health benefits of hilarity, scientists at Loma Linda University had volunteers watch a video: either 20 minutes from a funny movie or stand-up routine. And the researchers found that laughing along with some light-hearted comedy actually lowered volunteers’ blood pressure. And it altered their appetite hormones in the same way that moderate exercise would.

A to-do list is a fundamental tool for getting things done: it helps you plan your day, see what you've accomplished, and what you should work on next. But a badly-written to-do list can actually sabotage your productivity instead of boost it.

The best part of using a to-do list is crossing items off of it as done, finished, complete. Some tasks are easier to tick off as done than others, so you want to make your to-do list as doable as possible. A common mistake is assigning ourselves impossible tasks that never get done because we didn't think them through. If you put in some thought up front, you can pare down your to-do list to the tasks you're most likely to check off the list.

First, know the difference between a project, goal, and a task. A project is a big undertaking that involves several tasks. A goal is something you want to achieve through both tasks and repetitive actions. "Clean out the garage," "Save $5,000," "Learn how to speak French"--these are projects and goals, and they don't belong on your to-do list. They'd just sit there and haunt you, because it wouldn't be clear where to start. Reserve your to-do list for the next steps that move a project along. Your goal to "Save $5,000" is going to start with a simple task, like setting up a monthly savings transfer.

This week PricewaterhouseCoopers and Cooley Godward Kronish hosted the “Shaking the MoneyTree Report” event in Palo Alto. The annual event featured top names in the venture capital industry and was hosted by Steve Bengston of PricewaterhouseCoopers, whose humor brought a welcome and lighthearted air of optimism that fit well with the news that, although Silicon Valley endured tough times along with the rest of the country these past years, the VC market is seeing some moderate signs life after some rough quarters. The MoneyTree Report is a collaboration between PWC and the national Venture Capital Association using data from Thomson Reuters.

Mr.Bengston hosted a panel with top VC names that included Dan Avida of Opus Capital, Juan-Antonio Carballo of IBM, Craig Jacoby of Cooley Godward Kronish, Dan Lankford of Wavepoint Ventures, and Tom Vertin of Silicon Valley Bank. As our economy is pulling itself out of the doldrums that were the past couple of years, the panelists expressed a general—and cautious—optimism about the VC industry in the year to come. When queried by Bengston as to how much investment money was likely to pour into Silicon Valley this year, a general and probably safe consensus was an average of around $20 billion. This number is up from $17.8 billion last year but doesn’t even come close to the peak of $100.4 billion in 2000.

Ron Conway is the Robert Pattinson of angel investors.

Hell, if Conway had a gig on Twilight he’d turn all the bad vampires into good ones!

So how did the angel investor who endowed Google and PayPal become so very successful?

Conway is often referred to as the messiah of angel investors worldwide, and according to an article by Chris O’Brien, Conway walked the hard road with poise to take the title as Silicon Valley’s most influential startup investor.

O’Brien states that, while most VCs are best known for the money they’ve made, Conway is best known for the people he knows and the way he treats them – which is well.

In recent decades, many economists have advised governments to stabilize, privatize, and liberalize markets. Economists do know how markets work, and they can often predict how mature market economies will respond to certain events and policies. But developing economies lack both mature markets and the institutions that support them—including institutions that define property rights, enforce contracts, convey prices, and bridge gaps between buyers and sellers. These are precisely the institutions that political leaders must establish and then modify as economic growth introduces new problems and opportunities.

The work of the Commission on Growth and Development tended to confirm that political leaders play pivotal roles in the success—and the failure—of economic development. As detailed in its publication The Growth Report, the commission closely examined 13 nations whose gross domestic product (GDP) grew at least 7 percent a year for at least 25 years after World War II. In other words, these economies at least doubled in size each decade.

While the federal government’s efforts to pull the nation out of the Great Recession drew a tremendous amount of attention, some metropolitan areas responded to the wrenching downturn in remarkably creative ways. A handful used funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to drive innovation in service delivery, governance arrangements, or integrated solutions to policy problems.

As we explain in this paper, innovators tended to have either a pre-existing vision for regional collaboration or regional goals; strong leadership and institutional capacity; and a widely shared spirit of collaboration. In some cases the federal programs funded by ARRA such as the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program or the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP2) program explicitly encouraged collaboration or integrated proposals.

But we also found that creativity in governance breeds creativity. For example, Seattle and the Puget Sound had a long history of innovation around sustainability issues, with dedicated public offices to address environmental concerns and a regional culture primed to embrace new green initiatives. So, not surprisingly, they offered compelling ARRA responses around energy efficiency and conservation.