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.

Worldwatch looks back at this year in environmental news, picking the most notable stories posted to Eye on Earth over the past 12 months. by Ben Block.

Climate: Ocean acidification, "the other CO2 problem," receives wider attention as more than 150 marine scientists from 26 countries urge world leaders to take action. Australian scientists announce that the Great Barrier Reef is growing at its slowest rate in 400 years, one of several marine ecosystems threatened by acidification.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary – Steve Jobs

2009 was probably not so great for Indian startup ecosystem. Thanks to recession, angels and VCs stayed away from taking big bet (as expected) and 2010 does promises to be an interesting year for the ecosystem.

[Editor's Note:  This article has been removed due to poor quality.  We apologize for any inconvenience.]

JEFFERSON CITY — Mark Pydynowski was working in New York. Ramos Mays was studying physics in Sweden. Yet the two former Washington University baseball teammates chose to return to St. Louis to launch a high-tech venture.

They created SOMARK Innovations Inc. to develop an electronic ink tattoo as an animal identification device. But after just three years in Missouri, Pydynowski and Mays relocated their promising young firm to San Diego this past year.

June Holley’s Twitter feed pointed me to a good post on innovation from the Innovation Leadership Network blog. The following words caught my eye:

…the way to innovate is to generate a lot of ideas, figure out ways to try them out cheaply and quickly, and then scale-up the ones that seem most promising.

This apprqoch works particularly well in regional economic development. It is the framework we used in developing Strategic Doing at the Purdue Center for Regional Development.

Business people in Wisconsin enter 2010 with a much hardened view of the world. Going through a near depression will do that to you.

Almost every manager was faced the undesirable task of shrinking their enterprises and letting go of valuable employees, many with long tenures of service. Business volumes in manufacturing, the mainstay of the state's economy, fell by half or more in early 2009.

IF we have overindulged in anything these past several days, it is neither holiday ham nor American football; it is Top 10 lists. We have been stuffed full of them. Even in these self-restrained pages, it has been impossible to avoid the end-of-the-decade accountings of the 10 best such-and-suches and the 10 worst fill-in-the-blanks.

And so, in the spirit of rock star excess, I offer yet another.

The main difference, if it matters, is that this list looks forward, not backward. So here, then, are 10 ideas that might make the next 10 years more interesting, healthy or civil. Some are trivial, some fundamental. They have little in common with one another except that I am seized by each, and moved by its potential to change our world.

When the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve, venture capitalists were toasting good riddance not just to 2009 but to an entire decade in which their industry as a whole lost money for its investors.

While prominent firms such as Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners and Norwest Venture Partners still earned handsome returns and have raised new investment funds, the venture capital industry as a whole is struggling to return to positive territory.

The SBTC opposes the House SBIR bill, which would radically alter the nature of the SBIR program. We instead support the Senate bill, which would keep the program largely the same.

Permitting VC firms to have more than 50 percent control of the SBIR small companies completely changes the program.

As it has stood for 26 years, the SBIR program was the only level playing field for the very smallest companies. With 25-page limits on the proposals and a technology peer review it permitted the small companies to compete. If the House Committee proposal is incorporated in the SBIR program, the well-funded VC-owned companies will have the advantage of their lobbyists and large marketing departments to influence the outcome of the awards.

Every quarter, without fail, a bunch of articles appear talking about the venture capital industries investment pace as a result of the PWC MoneyTree report. I used to get calls from all of the Denver / Boulder area reporters about my thoughts on these – that eventually stopped when I started responding “who gives a fuck?”

A few days ago I got a note from Steve Murchie about his new blog titled Angels and Pinheads. I’m glad Steve is blogging about this as he’s got plenty of experience and thoughts around the dynamics of angel investors – some that I agree with and some that I don’t. Regardless, my view is that there more there is out there, the better, as long as people engage in the conversation.

IT may not feel that way right now, but the last 10 years may go down in world history as a big success. That idea may be hard to accept in the United States. After all, it was the decade of 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the financial crisis, all dramatic and painful events. But in economic terms, at least, the decade was a remarkably good one for many people around the globe.

The raging economic growth rates of China and India are well known, though their rise is part of a broader trend in the economic development of poorer countries. Ideals of prosperity, freedom and the rule of law have probably never been more resonant globally than they’ve been over the last 10 years, even if practice often falls short. And for all of the anticapitalistic rhetoric that has emerged from the financial crisis, national leaders around the world are embracing the commercialization of their economies.

Innovation America's tagline is "The Daily Pulse of Global Innovation". See the impact that Global trends and Innovation are having around the world by watching this short, thought provoking video. I liked it so much that I made it the lead article for the first Monday of 2010! IT IS A MUST WATCH !
Enjoy and Thanks to Tom Mathews for sending it to me.
--Rich Bendis