BEIJING, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- China revised its 2008 gross domestic product (GDP) to 4.52 trillion U.S. dollars at the average exchange rate of 2008, narrowing the gap with Japan, the world's second largest economy with a GDP of 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars for the same year.

The revision resulted from China's second economic census which raised the country's 2008 economic growth rate to 9.6 percent from9 percent.

Given an estimate of more than 8 percent growth rate for China in 2009, accompanied by Japan's shrinking economy amid the global economic downturn, the country, currently the world's third largest economy, was poised to overtake Japan as the second largest.

I like this story from the 15 October 2009 issue of the journal Nature, about how a pair of blogs allowed dozens of contributors to collaboratively solve a theorem that no single mathematician had been able to solve: the Density Hales-Jewitt Theorem (DHJ for short). The mathematician who created the blog was Timothy Gowers, a Professor at the University of Cambridge and a holder of the Fields Medal, the highest honor a mathematician can receive. Even someone of Gowers’ high caliber was not able to solve the theorem. So he decided to try an experiment: He posted on his blog an invitation, to join a collaborative process of working on the theorem. He called it “The Polymath Project.”

Markets move based on new innovation. Market leaders know this and constantly look for ways to create and bring innovation to market.

Are You Thinking About Innovation?

Accenture writes: To further understand how companies are addressing innovation in this economic climate, Accenture conducted an online survey of more than 630 executives in May, 2009 in the United States and United Kingdom. Respondents represented a broad cross-section of industries – including automotive, banking, capital markets, consumer goods and services, electronics and high tech, insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and medical products, and retail.

There are many problems a small business owner or entrepreneur faces while at the start up phase of a business. Most of the time it is revolves around not having enough resources to meet the needs of the growing company or just to stay above water. Apart from getting funds through bank loans, your personal savings and venture or angel capital, there is an often overlooked resource that could be a windfall for the business if it becomes successful. This source of money and publicity is business contests. They are usually organized by bigger companies, universities or whoever, where small businesses and entrepreneurs are encouraged to submit a business plan to be considered in the contest to win cash of free service.

If you are like most people you will not even bother about it, maybe saying that you have never won anything before so there is no need in trying or write it off as one of those get rich quick scams. However, most of them are authentic, but it would be good idea to do a quick search online to learn more about the contest or the company offering it. There are a few strategies you can use to give your business a fighting chance in the competition and they include:-

• Read The Instructions
• Mail It In
• Be Well Prepared
• The Harder You Work The Luckier You Get

We vividly remember the day, May 26, 2007, when we (RouteGuru) launched our key product, landmark-based driving directions. All major digital media blogs in India went abuzz with the appreciation for the innovation as well as speculations about scaling it.

Last week, Google introduced landmark-based driving directions, a global first for Google Maps. The news about this launch found a place in Google’s worldwide blog as well. And once again, all major digital media blogs, this time globally, are abuzz with the news.

I know we haven’t officially finished all the winter holidays yet, but they’re quickly on their way out. Sorry. That means it’s time to get your site ready for the New Year. Below is a checklist of some of the things you should be looking at as we ring the New Years bell and head into 2010. You don’t want to start 2010 off already looking out of style, do you? Your competitors won’t be.

Remove the holiday images: I know, they’re cute and make you feel festive, but by Monday these should be gone. Keeping up your Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever logos makes it looks like your site is still on vacation and that customers should go elsewhere for timely service. That’s not the message you want to send. It’s time for Santa to go back into hibernation.

A new E23 million expansion of the AIB Seed Capital Fund designed to help Ireland's entrepreneurs has been launched by the Government.

The E23m expansion will bring the total fund size to E53 million and will target investments in start up and early stage businesses with a particular focus on technology, financial services, clean and green sectors, and also businesses in the medical devices sectors. AIB and Enterprise Ireland are joint partners in the new E23m fund expansion, contributing E15m and E8m respectively.

The Fund is managed on behalf of AIB and Enterprise Ireland by Dublin Business Innovation Centre (DBIC) and Enterprise Equity which collectively have over 40 years experience in helping small businesses to develop and providing equity capital. It is administered from NovaUCD located on campus within University College Dublin.

This Christmas season we find many families struggling financially and the burden to make things "merry and bright" is palpable in all parts of our nation. Buying gifts this year is a low priority for many who are faced with the current economic challenges. Yes, these are lean financial times, but I believe there is no better time to encourage a child to become entrepreneurial than during the holidays.

As the creator of a company dedicated to supporting entrepreneurism for kids, I'm a proponent of promoting an early education in true capitalism. This rough economic time can be a teaching moment and the lessons learned in the process can be some of the most valuable, intangible gifts we can provide to our children that will benefit them throughout life. With American families spending 52% less on Christmas gifts due to financial issues, this season is a prime opportunity for our kids to step up and earn some money for themselves—becoming less dependent on the home budget and gratified in contributing to the family in ways they never knew they could.

Some years, the holidays seem to bustle right past, and you’re hurled into the new year — flung onward by the gravity of time — before you know it. There are also years, and this is one, when darkness seems to pile up in drifts as the nights grow longer and the day goes down into its burrow earlier and earlier.

Even at its highest, the sun reclines low along the horizon — resting on its elbow, so to speak — and you can feel the coming of dusk as soon as the day slips past noon. This season, Christmas is the pivot of time, when the sun comes to its solstice and we come, too, to a place where our hearts can rest.

Here at UI Trends we love Santa about as much as we love design and came up the following list. Please feel free to add any that you think we may have left off.

* 10. Santa knows when people have been naughty or nice.
* 9. Santa’s work transcends language and geography.
* 8. Santa and his team have strong domain knowledge.
* 7. Santa loves his work and doesn’t do it for the money.
* 6. Santa uses specialized tools to get a project done.
* 5. Santa has a fondness for #ff0000 and #ffffff.
* 4. Santa has no problem pulling an all nighter.
* 3. Santa is extremely good at managing very very large lists.
* 2. Santa listens attentively and understands what people really want instead of what they say they want.
* 1. Santa works well under pressure and seemingly impossible deadlines.

My [Dave Dawson] wife paid me the supreme compliment Sunday as I was spending the afternoon in the recliner watching professional football players perform.

As she was working on a puzzle, she looked up and said, "Your thumb must be tired. You have so many games going at once that I'm getting confused,"

I would have loved to take credit for keeping track of six games at once.

Just a short message to wish you a happy holiday season from the team here at Blogging Innovation.

As a special gift, we've made all of our white papers and case studies registration-free for your convenience. Just click to download.

If you're not already one of the 1,650+ members of our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn, we invite you to join the discussions and news item sharing that occurs there for the growing Blogging Innovation community.

May your season be full of time spent with happy and healthy family and friends.

All the best,

Braden

Tengion Inc., a Montgomery County biotechnology firm that is developing ways to generate new organs based on a patient's own cells, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $42.25 million in an initial public offering.

The East Norriton company, founded in 2003, has spent $88.2 million on research and development but does not yet have any revenues.

With what looks to be the world’s second largest market for initial public offerings and a burgeoning limited partner base, China is going to command an increasing amount of attention from some of the world’s largest venture capital firms.

Both New Enterprise Associates and VantagePoint Venture Partners have plans to expand their presence in China, according to investors with knowledge of the firms’ activities. These plans potentially include raising a locally denominated investment fund.

They join Sequoia Capital, which VentureWire previously reported has structured its next fund to focus more attention on the China market.

Thought Leadership...What is a thought leader, and what does thought leadership mean in today's business world? As much as some people wish it wasn't so, a thought leader is not someone who simply restates someone else's views and positions. Furthermore, beyond uniqueness of thought, a true thought leader's positions also challenge established norms and conventions. Moreover, the true litmus test for a thought leader is when their unique ideas are implemented in the marketplace, they tend to create disruptive innovation, and often change the way we view the world. In today's post I'll examine the subject of thought leadership in an attempt to separate fact from fiction

It is certainly much easier to look back in time at world leaders, Nobel laureates, religious scholars, philosophers, and captains of industry to identify historical thought leaders than it is to identify today's visionaries. This is due to the fact that thought leadership was once a term reserved for a limited few. Regrettably the label of thought leader has evolved to become a self-bestowed title for anyone who has something to say or promote, often without regard for qualitative issues. Some would say that the term thought leader, once synonymous with futurist and innovator, is more closely aligned with snake-oil salesman today. Don't get me wrong, true thought leaders still exist; they are just much harder to spot these days.

MOSCOW, Dec 25 (PRIME-TASS) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev outlined a plan on Friday to promote innovation and research and development, ITAR-TASS reported.

"We can't wait until the market puts everything in place only by means of competition and other market tools," he said at a meeting of the government commission for modernization and technological development. "We should create a situation when it will become unprofitable to work in the old way and use inefficient technology and obsolete equipment."

Medvedev said that spending on innovation in Russia was extremely low.

This research aims to propose a symbiosis model for new product development based on the open innovation concept. Particularly, a dynamical model of Lotka-Volterra approach is used to analyse the cooperative R&D relationship between the innovation intermediaries and R&D firms, to share their patent portfolio or resources through open innovation process. The study will develop a symbiosis model to assume the growth rate, growth limitation, and positive interaction effect of both R&D firms and innovation intermediaries, for best discussing the market dynamics in four scenarios. Simple numerical examples will also be adopted to demonstrate the utility of this model.

Nerac is a global research and advisory firm for companies developing innovative products and technologies. Two of their employees, Kristy Lutz Ulmer and Margaret Fiore, recently published a report on how companies scout for innovation.

I just got to read it and I find this to be great stuff that I want to share with you. You should also download the full report here - Innovation Scouting For 2009

The findings in the report fit well into a key thing being discussed in the open innovation community right now; the real effects of open innovation are due to behind-the-scenes activity rather than flashy portals and idea-generation campaigns.

As we near the end of the year, it's time to take stock of 2009 and look ahead to 2010. We'll look back at the past year and what we learned in another post, but for what it's worth (and remember what you're paying to read this, and value accordingly) here are five predictions for the coming year in cleantech investing:

1. In terms of U.S. climate change legislation, something will be passed, but it will be more symbolic than impactful
2. 2010: The year of energy efficiency
3. A pickup in investing activity, including the return of the megadeals
4. New hybrid investment models will emerge
5. Some booms and some busts

[Details are available on original article. -Ed.]

Congress has agreed to invest $50 million in the Social Innovation Fund, a program aimed at helping nonprofits bring successful efforts to scale.

The allocation is the full amount requested by the Obama administration, though the victory was tempered by a compromise. Two other programs that benefit nonprofits — the Volunteer Generation Fund and the Nonprofit Capacity Building Program — will have to be trimmed back, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The allocation is included in the 2010 spending bill, and will now go to the House and Senate for votes.