The recent DARPA Network [Red Balloon] Challenge (prior post here) was a national illustration of the power of mobile communication for innovation. In approximately 8 hours and 52 minutes, the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team was able to correctly identify the location of 10 special weather balloons located across the US.

Lance Whitney writes “Team MIT’s strategy was to build a Web site designed to attract more and more followers–people who might know the balloons’ locations themselves and those could bring aboard others who knew the coordinates, essentially creating a chain effect.”

Lance spoke with Riley Crane, the MIT group’s leader. Riley highlighted the power of the human network:

I [Mark Anderson] love a new year. It’s a fresh start, an opportunity to refocus my goals, a chance to try something new. And there’s party hats!

But there’s not a lot to poke fun at. You can use the number of the year, but that obviously has an extremely short shelf life. There’s the ball dropping in New York, but drawing a big crowd is no fun. So, you’re pretty much left with resolutions.

Scott Steinberg: Shiny Objects
In 2010, expect to see small-business owners becoming more tech-savvy, and increasingly going mobile, virtual and viral as a result. Not only is it now possible to tap into the power of smartphones, netbooks and
online services or cloud computing apps to slash overhead drastically and take your office wherever you go. It's also viable to use social networks, microblogging applications and all-purpose multimedia devices'
to build buzz for products and brands, connect directly with consumers and source real-time customer feedback that allows you to optimize any sales effort or marketing campaign.

[Editor's Note: Plenty more predictions on the original article.]

Coral Springs, FL (PRWEB) January 4, 2010 -- According to the authors of the forthcoming book, Robert’s Rules of Innovation™ (ISBN # 978-0470596999, John Wiley & Sons), the number one New Year’s resolution for savvy business leaders should be implementation of a sustainable culture of innovation -- despite the steady drumbeat of negative economic news.

The authors assert that accelerated innovation is a key to maintaining corporate health into the new year and beyond, as well as helping secure the U.S.’s place in the global economic order. “Although it’s understandable to be wary of failure in such a financially uncertain time, this is exactly the worst type of environment to shy away from aggressive innovation efforts and their inherent risks,” said Robert Brands, author of the book, with Martin Kleinman.

Ignore all the other lists! As we did last year, Techmeme has distilled its very own Top 10 story list, utilizing headline ranking data archived throughout the year. While we employ a terrific team of news editors to guide our story selection, this list draws on many factors outside our direct influence, making it a … nearly objective sampling of what was important in 2009.

The list is dominated by milestones and turning points at Apple and Google, who have an outsized impact on the rest of the industry. A few truths discovered over the past 12 months: The boundary between a partner and an awkward competitor is awfully thin. Steve Jobs is always a hot topic. And nothing, I mean nothing, gets keyboards clicking like the tantalizing promise of tomorrow's technology.

Here is presenting the top 10 articles published in 2009 under the category Entrepreneurship. If you notice, majority of these articles are contributed by startups as well as VCs and we urge you to read them/share with other entrepreneurs.

* How to Write a Business Plan?
* Enterprise Sales Strategy – What you need to know before you talk to that BIG Guy
* 5 personal finance mistakes that first time entrepreneurs must avoid
* VC 101: The Process of VC due diligence and what it means for startups [Must Read]
* 101 on How VC Industry Works [Must Read for all you Entrepreneurs]
* Ethics, Startups and the case for being ‘Practical’
* Startups – Do you empower your employees to take $ decision?
* Desperation Level – Do you Measure Business Partners on that?
* Innovating on a Shoestring Budget – Myths Broken
* Entrepreneurs – Do you Know your Blind Spots

[Editor's Note: details and links to articles can be found on the original article.]

Thiruvananthapuram: India is planning to develop a suitable science, technology and innovation policy framework to encourage innovations. At the end of the current 11th plan, India might need a strategy to assess and measure the economic impact pf R&D and technology-led GDP growth and prepare a roadmap for adequate investments into the science, technology and innovation during the 12th plan period.

Gross investments into research and development form an important indicator of global competitiveness, said the minister for science and technology and earth sciences, Prithviraj Chavan while delivering his keynote address to the 97th Indian Science Congress here on Sunday.

Ivy League colleges -- Yale, Harvard, Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- have approached the ministry of human resources development to collaborate in the proposed Innovation Universities across the country, official sources said.

These universities are a part of the ministry's 'brain gain' policy to attract talent from all over the world. Human resources development minister Kapil Sibal [ Images ] had last August announced that 14 Innovation Universities will be set up in the country under the 11th Five-year Plan (2007-12).

Japan trailed Taiwan to rank 15th, followed by Hong Kong at 16th

Taiwan ranked 13th in the European Business School's (EBS's) 2009 innovation capacity rankings among the 131 nations polled around the world and the second among Asian countries, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday.

In all five Asian countries that made the EBS top 20 innovators list, known as The Innovation for Development Report 2009-2010, released by the European Business School at the end of 2009, Taiwan ranked only behind Singapore, which ranked sixth, CEPD officials said.

After hibernating for the last year, Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists are beginning to stir.

Technology financiers raised about $14 billion to finance new companies in 2009, a sharp drop from $36 billion in 2007. But as the economic freeze begins to thaw, investors are once again writing checks to entrepreneurs.

Some of the ideas will become the big public companies of the future, following in the footsteps of one-time start-ups like Google, Cisco Systems and Amazon.com. Many more will fail because they are too early, late or unoriginal.

With the first decade of the 2000s completed, GE thought it would be a good time to toast a few of the many milestones reached over the last 10 years at GE Global Research — which is the company’s technology development arm. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in R&D since Jeff Immelt became chairman and CEO in 2001, resulting in dramatic expansions at research headquarters in Niskayuna, N.Y., and our center in Bangalore, India; the creation of global research centers in Munich and Shanghai; and new technology centers planned for Detroit, Mich., and Masdar City in the Middle East. Those investments either are, or soon will, produce an array of benefits for science, the marketplace and investors. To keep it short, we’ve highlighted four that are about to jump from the lab — and four that have already made the leap.

When New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the Securities and Exchange Commission announced in March that they were investigating pay-to-play problems at the New York State Common Retirement Fund, we had a feeling it might be big, coming as it did in conjunction with broader calls for reform in the financial services industry. But little did we know just how big.

Scarcely a week has gone by since then when we haven’t found ourselves covering this from one angle or another, leading us to periodically massage our aching wrists and wish the Common Retirement Fund had a shorter name.

Despite the numerous guilty pleas (the most recent being that of Elliott Broidy) and settlements Cuomo has already extracted, it may be that we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg in this scandal, as there are also hints of wrongdoing in other states, including New Mexico and California, as of yet not fully explored. That is dangerous, as each additional charge of malfeasance or guilty plea will only add to the massive damage already done to the private equity industry’s reputation.

Here is a nice list of top 10 articles for Q4 2009 from INSEAD | knowledge.  Worth checking out.

As usual it was Peter Drucker, the godfather of modern management, who said it first. Right back there in 1966 (!), in his landmark book "The Effective Executive", Drucker argued that companies would need to build a new kind of organizational capital as the industrial economy gave way to the knowledge economy. His famous proclamation was that, in future, brainpower would be a more valuable asset for wealth creation than factories and financial clout. All of which came true, of course. But that was not the end of it. Now, over four decades later, we are once again challenged to rethink organizational capital as we make the transition from a knowledge economy to an innovation economy. And that creates a new agenda for every single company.

Since the beginning of time, it’s been entrepreneurs that drive the creation of innovation. True breakthroughs have been the result of an individual or small team who had an idea and the determination to see it through to fruition. In many cases, ignoring the advice of friends and the lack of what many would call standard market research/validation. While we enjoy the fruits of the rapid pace of innovations, it is the entrepreneur, slaving away alone or within a small firm, who is inventing the future.

Yogi Berra said it best: "It's tough to make predictions -- especially about the future. The future ain't what it used to be!"

What's going on in Washington sure underscores Yogi's insight. Things, they are a changing. I've been watching the SBIR reauthorization related activity in Congress and at the Agencies with bemused frustration. I've heard every argument and every rationalization of what should be done a countless number of times. I can even argue both sides on some of the issues.

One thing for sure, SBIR will be different. But how? No one knows for sure. Especially not me. But I'm going to apply another of Yogi's observations -- "You can observe a lot by just watching." -- and give a shot at some predictions for SBIR in 2010, based solely on what I've observed

Credible case studies or examples of how people in organizations successfully use social communication channels like Twitter to connect and engage with customers are gold dust to anyone looking to make a case in their own organization.

We know how Dell can make money out of Twitter – $6.5 million so far, they say. It’s a terrific case study. Yet such an achievement can not only seem out of reach for many organizations, but also not necessarily reflecting their goals which may not be about making money directly from their Twitter activity.

Some of the more unusual capital –raising strategies exercised by entrepreneurs this past year prove that entrepreneurs that make a creative effort to find angel investors can successfully attract capital for their business.

An independent café and bookstore in Brooklyn, NY garnered 144 local investors who contributed capital when the owner turned to the community with her venture proposition. Faced with accrued fines that would have resulted in a loss of the store’s license to serve food and beverages – and thereby necessitating it to close down – the owner of Vox Pop in Brooklyn petitioned neighbors at town hall meetings for help. She netted $64,000 from local investors who wanted to make sure their neighborhood shop stayed open.

In economic development, theory and practice exist as two seemingly separate realities. Academics strive to develop or refine theory by drawing on abstract concepts about the way people behave and institutions work, while practitioners draw from a stock of experiences.

By bringing together leading theorists and practitioners such as Blakely, Blair, McCann, Luger, Gunder, Stough and Stimson, this book provides the first comprehensive overview of local economic development theories for over fifteen years. It explores the theory behind the key concepts that every economic practitioner must understand and in doing so, ties together the various theories from across the disciplines to practice.