April 27 (Bloomberg) -- To understand why today’s crisis is a truly terrible thing to waste, consider the Panic of 1873, says Richard Florida in his latest ode to economic innovation, “The Great Reset.”

That distant crisis boiled up from a sadly familiar bust in mortgages and building in Europe. It then rolled across the Atlantic to the U.S., where Jay Cooke & Co. collapsed, triggering the fall of other financial firms. The Long Depression had begun. Iron mills shut down; railroads went bankrupt; jobs evaporated, sowing hunger and homelessness. The economy contracted for 65 months.

Yet when we think of that epoch today, we usually recall a brighter legacy: a burst of revolutionary technologies such as Thomas Edison’s light bulb and first power station, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, George Westinghouse’s electric transformer. What happened in these dark years?

We've been having, let's say, some "interesting" interactions with folks, when we asked them to talk about their innovative experiences with finance and accounting BPO.

What's been a tad disturbing, is how many have tried to pass up any mild form of progress as "innovation".  Our lieutenant entrusted with plowing through these case studies is Bruce McCracken, who shares some of his recent experiences with us, when trying to explain what innovation actually entails.  Over to you Dr Bruce...

Innovation?*!@?#!?

Ask six people what represents innovation and you will get half a dozen answers. Three people discussing innovation will consist of a couple of people talking about two different things while the eyes of the third glaze over. Innovation is a term that epitomizes the semantic differential. But regardless of how it is interpreted, it is a very important element for potential buyers of BPO services.

Innovation is the cornerstone of our forthcoming report, “Reaching New Performance Thresholds with Managed Finance Services: Real-world Experiences”. As we progress, our contacts with providers have shown considerable variance in the perceptions of what innovation entails.

The 10th anniversary of World IP Day on April 26 provides us an opportunity to recognize that protecting intellectual property rights is vital to America's economic prospects — both here at home and in markets around the world. As the theme of this year's celebration, "Innovation — Linking the World," reflects, new and innovative technologies and creative advancements play a vital role in breaking down international borders and in creating and sustaining economic growth. Intellectual property is one of America's greatest assets and its protection is central to our economic prosperity and security as well the public's health and safety. Aggressive intellectual property law enforcement is crucial to our continued success and safety, and is a top priority of the Department of Justice.

Businesses that create and rely upon intellectual property, from large entertainment conglomerates to small biotech firms, make up among the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy. These industries also represent a significant portion of U.S. exports, with intellectual property now comprising a significant — and growing — share of the value of world trade. The proliferation of worldwide Internet access and advances in traditional distribution methods, such as transportation and shipping, now allow American businesses of all sizes to market their intellectual property throughout the world. Digital content, whether embodied in software, books, games, movies or music, can be transmitted from one corner of the world to another almost instantly.

But these unprecedented opportunities for American businesses and entrepreneurs are put at risk by criminals and criminal organizations that seek unlawfully to profit by stealing from the hard work of American artists, authors and inventors. For every new technological advancement by American business, there is, unfortunately, a criminal who would seek to misuse it for his own illicit purposes. Criminals are responding to American innovation with their own creative methods of committing intellectual property crimes — from widespread online piracy to well-funded corporate espionage to increased trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other goods.

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday the Internet and the ongoing process of media convergence carry a risk of conformity of thought and control.

Benedict said that while the Internet is egalitarian and creates the opportunity to be informed and stay connected, it also comes with risks.

The pontiff noted that the digital divide adds to the gap already separating wealthy nations from poor ones. He also mentioned the "dangers of conformity, of control, of moral and intellectual relativism, which can already be recognized in the decline of critical spirit."

The pope was addressing a meeting on digital technologies and new media promoted by the Italian Bishops' Conference.

This is serial entrepreneur Cameron Herold speaking at TedXEdmonton. Cameron suggests 9 core entrepreneurial values we can teach kids in the classroom and at home:

attainment
tenacity
leadership
sales
intraspection
networking
handling (?)
boot strapping
customer service

His advice is primarily for parents, but also for youth educators and entrepreneurs who want to help out the next generation of innovators. If you want to raise your kids to think outside the box…this is one video you might want to check out.

WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti.

“When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war,” General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter.

The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.

More than 800 giant wind turbines spin off the coasts of Denmark, Britain and seven other European countries, generating enough electricity from strong ocean breezes to power hundreds of thousands of homes. China’s first offshore wind farm, a 102-megawatt venture near Shanghai, goes online this month, with more in the pipeline.

But despite a decade of efforts, not a single offshore turbine has been built in the United States.

Experts say progress has been slowed by a variety of factors, including poor economics, an uncertain regulatory framework and local opposition.

GLOVER’S REEF, Belize — As Alex Tilley powers his 15-foot skiff over the turquoise surface, a dark form slips across the white sand floor below. “Sting ray,” Mr. Tilley says.

For the next half mile, en route to the Wildlife Conservation Society research station here at Glover’s Reef in Belize, at least half a dozen rays are spotted moving beneath the surface. To Mr. Tilley, the presence of so many rays says a lot about the state of the reef here.

“The fish populations at Glover’s are still very robust,” he said. “This is definitely one of the healthiest reefs in the region.”

Mr. Tilley is the station manager and resident scientist here on Middle Caye, one of six small islands within the Glover’s Reef atoll. A Ph.D. candidate in marine biology from Bangor University in North Wales, Mr. Tilley leads a reef monitoring program sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society, a Bronx-based organization that helped establish the reserve here in 1993.

Europe's biggest cities believe the European Commission's definition of innovation is too narrowly focused on the commercial and research sectors. In an interview with EurActiv, Paul Bevan, secretary-general of Eurocities, said Europe's urban centres are teeming with examples of social, organisational and market-driven innovation.

"We get a little frustrated that the focus is on R&D and market innovation. Those things are hugely important to Europe's global competitiveness and we wouldn't want to diminish that. However, we are concerned that the role of city governments as innovators and facilitators of market innovation is not part of the discussion," he said.

Eurocities, which lobbies on behalf of big cities, expects to make this point to Innovation Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn when they meet in the coming weeks. EU innovation policy is about more than just "grand projects," said Bevan.

Launch: Silicon Valley 2010, co-presented by SVASE, Garage Technology Ventures and Microsoft, provides an effective and cost efficient platform for the next generation of emerging technology companies to launch their products to the world, in front of an audience of Silicon Valley’s top VCs, Angels, corporate business development executives, prospective customers and partners, bloggers and media.

Launch: Silicon Valley 2010 is designed to showcase products and services from the most exciting of the newest startups in information technology, mobility, digital media, next generation internet, life sciences and clean energy.

Launch: Silicon Valley 2010 will feature new companies that are ready for launch, but are not yet well known. These are companies that have a product or service available (as of June 8, 2010), but have not been out in the marketplace for more than a few months.

Companies that are interested in presenting their products at Launch: Silicon Valley 2010 should send an Executive Summary of no more than 2 pages to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by latest Friday May 7, 2010.

AMERICA COMPETES ACT REAUTHORIZATION BATTLE BEGINS IN EARNEST — COMPETES UPDATES, FUNDING LEVELS & HOW TO GET INVOLVED ... RECORD-SETTING CONGRESSIONAL VISITS DAY 2010 UNDERWAY... ASTRA’s STATE R&D SHEETS and STATE STEM ED REPORT CARDS ISSUED... NEW BUDGET SCORECARD ATTACHED... PCAST ISSUES 3rd NANOTECHNOLOGY REVIEW... DEPT. OF ED. RELEASES BLUEPRINT FOR REFORM: “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND” SUPPLANTED ... SBIR AWARD CAPS RAISED BY SBA... ARE THESE AMERICA’s MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES?... ASTRA’S INNOVATION BENCHMARKS SURVEY COMPLETED... SBIR PROGRAM REAUTHORIZED THROUGH JUNE ...

Download the PDF

Eat less saturated fat: that has been the take-home message from the U.S. government for the past 30 years. But while Americans have dutifully reduced the percentage of daily calories from saturated fat since 1970, the obesity rate during that time has more than doubled, diabetes has tripled, and heart disease is still the country’s biggest killer. Now a spate of new research, including a meta-analysis of nearly two dozen studies, suggests a reason why: investigators may have picked the wrong culprit. Processed carbohydrates, which many Americans eat today in place of fat, may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease more than fat does—a finding that has serious implications for new dietary guidelines expected this year.

In March the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a meta-analysis—which combines data from several studies—that compared the reported daily food intake of nearly 350,000 people against their risk of developing cardiovascular disease over a period of five to 23 years. The analysis, overseen by Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute, found no association between the amount of saturated fat consumed and the risk of heart disease.

Facebook is projected to do over a billion dollars in revenue this year, more than some small countries, and its 400 million strong userbase is larger than the population of most big ones. So why shouldn’t the social network have its own private currency? In the future, we may pay for some goods not with dollars, yen or euros, but with Facebook Credits.

Credits wasn’t the biggest news last week for Facebook, which announced an aggressive initiative to make itself the consumer web’s connective tissue that CEO Mark Zuckerberg called “the most transformative thing we have ever done.”

Creating a new virtual economy is a pretty big deal too, but Credits, which allow people to buy units of a virtual currency that can then be spent on various applications across Facebook, remained in the background. That’s because the program is still in private beta — independent payment companies control most of the $1 billion virtual goods market.

In the emerging Internet of Things, everyday objects are becoming networked. Recently we looked at smart clothing, today we explore the world of smart cars. From Formula One to cheap family cars, all kinds of vehicles are utilizing sensors and advanced technology nowadays. While some of the features we discuss below aren't connected to the Internet, yet, all of them are using sensors. And so we can easily imagine the day when most cars are connected to the network.

We begin our post looking at the state of the art in car sensor technology: Formula One manufacturer McLaren's 300 live, simultaneous data streams. We end with a look at family car Alhambra's more humble sensor technology. In between we have the latest from Chrysler, General Motors and Ford.

A few years ago North Dakota erected some clever signs at its border with Montana. One sign advised anyone headed west to remember what happened to a certain long haired cavalry commander who left North Dakota in 1876 and ended up in a sorry state on the banks of the Little Big Horn in Montana.

With all due respect to North Dakota, given a choice, does Montana sound like a lot more interesting place - to visit, to live, to work?

George Custer didn’t live to contemplate what I think of, and many others think of, as the allure of Montana. It has always fascinated me that the land of the Big Sky has a certain “brand” that states like Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado - not to mention North Dakota - never seem able to match. Maybe its because Montana has been building the brand since that fateful day in June of 1876 when the tourist from North Dakota misjudged his welcoming committee.

"Space matters." That's the mantra at the Stanford d.school, where students and staffers have spent six years figuring out how to tweak an environment to make it a more fertile breeding ground for ideas. Now they're going to find out if those ideas work.

The boxes were unpacked in late March, in time for the start of the university's third quarter. But the official ribbon-cutting on the 40K square foot new building (which houses both the d.school and all other design programs at Stanford) isn't until May 7. Fast Company got a sneak preview, and we'll be giving you a guided tour (along with photos, videos and critiques of the space from the students themselves) in the days ahead. We'll go behind the scenes to show how every nook, cranny, and fungible wall system has been smartly designed to maximize collaboration.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- To motivate the well-off to funnel more of their cash into small businesses, should the federal government offer investors new tax breaks?

President Obama thinks so. He's thrown his support behind a proposal to eliminate capital gains taxes on investments made in 2010 and 2011 in qualifying small businesses. The House of Representatives has already passed the legislation; the Senate has yet to take it up.

"We should eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment so these folks can get the capital they need to grow and create jobs," Obama said at a February town hall meeting in Nashua, N.H. "That's particularly critical right now, because bank lending standards have tightened since the financial crisis and many small businesses are still struggling to get loans."

NEW YORK, April 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Award-winning B2B social networking site Internet Evolution has published its first list of the 100 most innovative, influential people who determine the ways we use and experience everything in the Web 2.0 world.

Working with nominations from readers and message board moderators, Internet Evolution then whittled the list down to 10 people in each of 10 categories: social networking; enterprise and cloud computing; news/media; greentech; wireless and gadgets; e-commerce; search; security; digital entertainment... and most over-rated.

The full report can be accessed here:

http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=190304

"Our categories really cover the breadth of the Web 2.0 experience for business users and consumers," says Terry Sweeney, Editor in Chief of Internet Evolution. "There are some familiar names – Mark Zuckerberg, Rupert Murdoch, and Craig Newmark – but also some less familiar ones like Randi Levin, CTO for the City of Los Angeles, or Guido Bartels of IBM, who's also the chairman of the GridWise Alliance."

Dropbox is a "hard drive in the clouds," says the hot Silicon Valley startup's very humble founder and CEO, an MIT grad named Drew Houston.

Drew came up with the idea upon having forgotten his USB drive on a trip from New York to Boston. Like a typical MIT student, he sat with his laptop at that magical train station and began writing the first code to solve this problem for himself (as he had forgotten his USB port) and then learned he could solve this problem not only for himself, but, for the world!

Seed funding from Y Combinator soon followed with more funding from Sequoia and Accel. And then Drew said it was “off to the races”. They have raised a total of 7.2 million, won a Crunchy Award in ’09 for best Internet application and were recently nominated for a Webby.