Conservative, stodgy, slow to adapt, slow to change…

These terms have all been applied to manufacturing companies and the suppliers that provide automation products and services for them. Automation World wanted to start the new year by looking at the ideas and innovations that have driven automation, and at the technologies developing now that will impact automation in the future.

Last year was just miserable for private equity fund-raising in the United States. Hitting its lowest point since 2003, private equity (including venture capital) fell 68 percent to $95.8 billion across 331 funds, down from $300 billion across 508 funds in 2008, according to Dow Jones LP Source.

No category of funds escaped the slowdown, except for secondary funds — a major outlier that saw a more than 50 percent increase in fund-raising.

Statement by Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Christina Romer on the Employment Situation in December

The statement below was posted on www.WhiteHouse.gov by the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors Christina Romer in response to the December employment report. The statement can also be accessed at the following link: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/01/08/december-jobs-numbers.

On the December Jobs Numbers

Today’s employment report, though a setback from November, is consistent with the gradual labor market stabilization we have been seeing over the last several months.

Payroll employment declined 85,000 in December. To put this number in perspective, employment declined 139,000 in September and 127,000 in October. So, in a broad sense the trend toward moderating job loss is continuing. This trend is particularly obvious in the quarterly pattern: average monthly job loss was 691,000 in the first quarter of 2009, 428,000 in the second quarter, 199,000 in the third quarter, and 69,000 in the fourth quarter.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Early stage venture group Ohio TechAngel Funds has raised $2.5 million for its third investment fund, according to a regulatory filing.

Like the group’s previous funds, Ohio TechAngel Fund III will invest in Ohio-based technology companies in the life and physical sciences, and information technology industries, said John O. Huston, co-manager of the funds.

Angel investors invest money and experience in young companies. In recent years, groups like Ohio TechAngels have organized these investors and joined forces with other angel groups to provide vital pre-seed and seed capital that creates jobs and brings products to market.

The New Year is bringing with it an accelerated buzz and excitement around the forthcoming Social Innovation Fund. A few weeks ago, the Corporation for National and Community Service released funding guidelines and asked for public comment. Sean has been curating that conversation on Tactical Philanthropy and an excellent guest post by nonprofit consultant Adin Miller prompted me to think about the three things I'm watching for with the Social Innovation Fund.

1) Collaboration. The Fund will work be allocating $5m-$10m grants to foundation intermediaries, who regrant the money. Foundations are required to match those grants, meaning that only foundations with a significant amount of cash on hand can participate. That said, the Notice of Available Funds (NOFA) encourages funding collaboratives to form. I love seeing incentives for funders to work together, but it's also a difficult proposition. I'll be interested to see how this plays out.

Technology-related jobs have grown rapidly in the past 25 years. But the past two years have been tough on everyone, including technology workers. Not many new tech jobs are likely to emerge in 2010, but analysts expect to see a rebound by the middle of the decade.

Google and Microsoft aren't the only companies with technology jobs. Any company that manages lots of data, including hospitals, banks, insurance firms and retailers, needs technology workers.

It might sound simple, but taking a step back can help executives look at a problem in an entirely new light

When my colleague Dick Boland talks to an audience about how to manage by designing, there is often a moment where he pauses, usually with a hand raised thoughtfully to his chin. After a long and quiet beat, he takes a large step backward. While doing so, his hands cross his body to rest at either side of his imposing frame, a movement that emphasizes the simple act of stepping back. When he speaks next, it is usually about the importance of such moments, those moments when designers remove themselves from immediate concerns and considerations to look at the bigger picture, the context, the whole; those moments when we step back.

There are two important things about stepping back. The first uses stepping back as a way to get another perspective, to look at the bigger picture. The second is more like stepping away from something, usually assumptions that we have made. Contained in this simple movement are a couple of important lessons for managers who wish to be more innovative or use design approaches in their everyday work.

LAS VEGAS — To the dismay of safety advocates already worried about driver distraction, automakers and high-tech companies have found a new place to put sophisticated Internet-connected computers: the front seat.

Technology giants like Intel and Google are turning their attention from the desktop to the dashboard, hoping to bring the power of the PC to the car. They see vast opportunity for profit in working with automakers to create the next generation of irresistible devices.

The incoming Spanish EU Presidency wants to extend universal service requirements to broadband Internet, making it compulsory for member states to make the service available in every corner of their territory. The move is aimed at improving Web access in rural areas but has raised a number of concerns for the telecoms industry.

The European Commission estimates that only 70% of the population of the EU's countryside areas can rely on existing infrastructure to access the Internet via a high-speed connection.

The age distribution of American entrepreneurs shifted significantly from 2007 to 2008, according to the latest U.S. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report. From the executive summary:

For the total entrepreneurship and the established firms measures, the results indicate a marked reduction (around 8% to 9%) in entrepreneurial activity for individuals in the 18-44 age group and an increase of a similar amount in the 45-99 age group. While previous reports pointed toward this trend, this year’s data indicate the need to follow this trend closely because of the possible implications it could have for entrepreneurial behavior in the United States.

Here is a great list of resources for entrepreneurs.  As an example, the first three alphabetically listed resources are listed here:

Advanced Manufacturing Institute
AMI provides a spectrum of resources to propel innovation and accelerate the economic development of Kansas through the advancement and utilization of manufacturing technologies.

Alliance for Technology Commercialization
The ATC was established to help develop, transfer, and commercialize new technologies. The objective is to create high power jobs and increase prosperity in Pittsburg, southeast KS and the region.

Association of University Technology Managers
The mission of the AUTM is to promote, support and enhance the global academic technology transfer profession through internal and external education, training and communication.

If you’re an academic entrepreneur with a new business, the key word for 2010 is uncertainty. It’s uncertain how sustained an economic recovery will be, how quickly you will find customers, and how much support – or hindrance – you’ll get from the public sector.

But, say the experts, that doesn’t mean you should forget about starting a business and stick to the university lab. Instead, success in 2010 will take extra perseverance, skill and luck, according to innovation experts speaking at Science|Business’ annual Academic Enterprise conference, held on December 10 at Paris City Hall.

This morning’s roundup of the latest venture capital news and analysis across the Web:

More People Go With Visa - Silicon Valley has long depended on immigrant entrepreneurs for new ideas, but there is a dearth of H1-B visas, which allow educated foreign professionals to work in the U.S. To open the doors to more founders who want to found technology start-ups, a group of tech investors is proposing that lawmakers adopt the “Startup Visa” that would enable VC-sponsored entry to the U.S. for two years. The idea appears to be a spinoff of Paul Graham’s proposal in April for a “Founders Visa” for 10,000 foreign start-up founders. The Wall Street Journal’s article on the Startup Visa mentions that this would be for technology entrepreneurs, though I’m guessing it would also have to address founders of other companies in the life sciences and clean technology spaces. As Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, wrote in The New York Times last year, there is too much focus on how immigration policy affects high-skilled workers in the information technology sector, but the new battle is in life sciences and clean technology, with many experts in those fields now residing abroad after being educated in the U.S.

It’s easy to believe them when clients ask us, designers, to make recommendations. We want to believe they love us for our wisdom, knowledge, and experience. They want our advice. And we love giving them advice. It makes us feel smart—like they finally “get” what we’re about. They want to do the right thing and we know how to help them. So, why is it bad to make design recommendations? They want it. We want it. Why shouldn’t we make the recommendations they’re asking us to give?

Simple: The recommendations don’t work. We end up looking bad. Clients lose faith in our skills. And the design doesn’t get better. Interestingly, in our research, the best teams don’t use recommendations. Instead they use an experimentation approach.

Jan. 7--A Wichitan, a software- giant executive and the son of oilman T. Boone Pickens are among the judges of Pipeline's Innovator of the Year competition to be held Jan. 21 in Overland Park.

The judges are Rich Bendis, president and CEO of Innovation America in Philadelphia and former CEO of the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp.; John Pavetto of Wichita, chief information officer of Koch Industries; Tom B. Pickens III, CEO of Astrotech in Austin, Texas; Cliff Reeves, general manager of Microsoft's emerging business team in Silicon Valley, Calif.; and Bill Sanford, CEO of Symark in Cleveland and a board director of the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

Eleven agriculture innovators will share $225,500 in grants for projects designed to strengthen, build or restore sectors of the Wisconsin agricultural industry.

The Agricultural Diversification and Development Grants build on the state’s efforts to encourage innovation and diversity in agriculture, Wisconsin’s signature industry.

“Agriculture is the backbone of Wisconsin’s economy and these innovative projects ensure that agriculture will drive our state economy for years to come,” Gov. Jim Doyle said. “These grants build on Wisconsin’s nation-leading agricultural diversity by encouraging investment, growing jobs and creating new products.”

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said Intel Corp. is part of a public-private partnership contributing more than $250 million to a government program aimed at boosting math, science and technology education.

The money is targeted for training teachers in those subject areas and builds on an initiative the administration announced in November.

YouTube is still smashing the rest of the Web video industry, at least when it comes to how many videos people watch every month.

The latest data from comScore says YouTube served 12 billion video views during November, up 137% year over year. Unique visitors to the site are strong as well, up 32%.

Research on energy from sunlight, energy efficiency in buildings and advanced nuclear reactors is the focus of Energy Innovation Hubs that will be created and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

On Dec. 22, DOE announced plans to invest as much as $366 million in starting and operating the new energy research centers. The three DOE Energy Innovation Hubs will conduct research on the production of fuels directly from sunlight, improving energy-efficient building systems design, and computer modeling and simulation to be used for advanced nuclear reactors.

A panel of experts discuss how businesses can work toward sustainability.

In April 2009, Forbes hosted a panel discussion about sustainability and as part of our Business Visionary series. Strategy & Innovation editor Renee Hopkins recently re-convened the panel to explore the topic further. The participants include Andrew Shapiro, CEO of strategy consulting firm GreenOrder; Lewis Perkins, Sustainable Strategist for the Mohawk Group; and Mark Johnson, co-founder and chairman of Innosight.

Strategy & Innovation: I'm struck by the differences and similarities between existing companies like yours, Lewis, trying to move in the green direction, and companies like the ones you describe in your article, Mark, and the ones you work with, Andrew, that are trying to formulate new business models around sustainability, or clean-tech, or both. Let's talk about the start-ups first. If you're a "green" start-up right now, what's the most critical issue or issues facing you?