Corporate America has given the world the corporate ladder, corporate culture, the corporate tie, and even Mad Men.

However, enormous organizations don’t often give us the innovative, disruptive products we crave as consumers – or the creative, supportive environment we look for as employees. For entrepreneurs, Corporate America is especially lacking in the sense of urgency and passion that allows new products and concepts to seemingly fly into the marketplace.

WHAT is the secret of innovation? There are many explanations. “You start with some very bright people, let them hang out with other very bright people and allow their imaginations to roam,” is how Susan Hockfield, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), sums it up. But there seems to be an important local factor too.

Babbage has been along to an exhibition which has just opened at the MIT museum as part of the celebration of the institute’s 150th anniversary. Staff, students and others were asked to help pick the 150 artefacts that have been included. The idea is that these things illustrate not just some of the breakthroughs MIT has been involved with, but also the character of the institute. Some 700 nominations were made to a website and these were voted on.

INSIDE WISCONSIN

Tom Still column No. 2-11

“State pension fund’s creation of venture ‘portfolio’ could help Wisconsin economy”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (1-10-11)

Contact: 608-695-7557

By Tom Still

MADISON – If you want to understand the value of venture capital to the nation’s economy – and the challenges facing Upper Midwest states such as Wisconsin – look no further than findings issued a year ago by the Brookings Institution, a leading independent policy research group.

In a report that urged creation of a $1 billion investment fund focused on the Great Lakes, Brookings researcher Frank Samuel noted:

n  In 2008, venture-backed companies were responsible for 11 percent of the nation’s private sector employment and 21 percent of the gross national product. That’s so even though venture capital, as a percentage of all business capital, is a fraction of the total.

n 

You have a business that works, but can you make it better?

At the beginning of a new year, it’s always tempting to change things dramatically. And after a month, you go right back to the way things were. The status quo always seems to be in place. You want to change, but, more importantly, you NEED to change. Gone are the days when you could ride a good idea for a decade.

You need to evolve as an entrepreneur. And that needs to start now!

Take a Risk…

Entrepreneurial inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of places. For Becca Brown, the seeds of a business idea were planted when the heels of her Champagne-hued prom shoes sank into the grass of her parents' front yard in 1996.

A decade later, Brown offered her business school classmate an unusual idea for an entrepreneurship project: "Becca turned to me and said, 'Why is there nothing to stop heels from sinking into the grass?' " recalls Monica Ferguson Murphy.

Murphy, who had wobbled on shoe stems herself, knew Becca was on to something. The two pitched the concept of a high heel stabilizer/protector cap for the class. After graduation, they followed up on the offbeat idea.

Forget about Foursquare.

Two year-old, $100+ million companies are old news.

The real excitement in startups comes from figuring out the next big thing that no one's heard of yet.

That's why we're launching a quarterly report on the young startups you need to keep an eye on.

An innovative device which cancels out the noise of the dental drill could spell the end of people’s anxiety about trips to the dentist, according to experts at King’s College London, Brunel University and London South Bank University, who pioneered the invention.

It is widely known that the sound of the dental drill is the prime cause of anxiety about dental treatment, and some patients avoid trips to the dentist because of it. This new device could help address people’s fears and encourage them to seek the oral healthcare treatment they need.

When 25 budding entrepreneurs signed up last year to be part of the inaugural class of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School’s INNoVATE program at the university’s Montgomery County Campus, they all had big dreams but knew they needed some direction and education to reach their goals. The program, which is founded on the idea that participants will actually start their own companies working with either a technology they bring in themselves or one offered by local academic or government institutions, provided that direction.

And now, a year later, 22 have completed the program. And while many of the students have not yet finished the legwork necessary to start a business, six have launched new companies. Included in the list of graduates-turned-business-owners is Nexercise CEO Ben Young, who credits the INNoVATE program with helping him—and others—prepare for success.

It’s expensive, crowded and noisy as hell here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A woman wearing black leather boots is repeating the same guitar riff on The Fingerist – a music adapter for iPods and iPhones – so loudly that it’s nearly impossible to hear what the CEO at a neighboring booth is saying about his reason for being here.

His start-up, like so many of the 3,000 others exhibiting here, is launching - at no small expense to his company or his investors.

Small business owners have endured a lot over the past couple years, with a slow economy, lingering access to credit issues, and tax and regulatory uncertainties. If we are to grow this economy -- especially in light of the sluggish employment picture -- entrepreneurship will be a large part of that solution, and as a result, policymakers have devoted much attention to it of late.

As a nation, we must also adapt our policies to support both existing "Main Street" businesses and high-impact firms. For them, we need to maintain a strong economy for increased sales, and politicians should be keenly aware of the tax and regulatory effects of new laws. More than anything, these owners want a government that is as unintrusive as possible.

The U.S. Small Business Administration, where I previously served, estimated the annual burden from federal regulations to be $1.75 trillion, with very small businesses facing significantly higher costs per employee. State and local rules are not included in this analysis, and the cumulative burden of all existing regulations is much larger. It is time for us to start to rein these costs in.

We are pleased to offer to you and your colleagues the new Seed and Venture Capital Training Course Program brought to you in partnership with National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer. If you are interested in taking one or all of the courses, please access the link below.

http://center.ncet2.org/index.php?option=com_joomla_lms&Itemid=53&task=course_guest&id=32

Course Information:

The Seed Funding and Venture Capital Course Certificate Program is an insider view to the venture capital process offered by the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds (NASVF) and National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2). You’ll learn from NASVF members how angels and VC's identify investable startups, what needs to be in the business plan, how to build effective leadership teams, how to do a deal and what terms to avoid, and what to do after you get funded.

A plan to spur high-tech jobs on New York's Long Island by linking that region's leading research institutes was announced this week in the latest effort by development interests here to create Long Island's own Silicon Valley.

According to reports published in Newsday, New York's U.S. Senator Charles Shumer reportedly brokered a partnership among Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National and Cold Spring Harbor laboratories with the goal to attract more federal grants and private donations than the facilities could get individually. The innovation fund would then be used then be used to help commercialize breakthroughs and create jobs. 

"The potential here is breathtaking," Schumer said in a series of interviews with Newsday reporters.

My mother suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s and so I have considered—albeit briefly—to take a predictive test for such an illness. But I wound up deciding against, mostly because I didn’t want the knowledge to alter my life.

But most people are not like me, according to a new survey out of the Tufts Medical Center. Apparently 76 percent of the 1,463 respondents would take a hypothetical test for Alzheimer’s, breast or prostate cancer, or arthritis. And they are willing to pay for it. Up to $600.

Over the past several months, there’s been a shift happening in the Bay Area. Whereas a lot of startups used to be centrally located in actual Silicon Valley, near the tech giants, Stanford, and the venture capitalists, they’re increasingly moving north, to the city of San Francisco. (Technically, TechCrunch was one of those startups, we moved to the city in June from Palo Alto.) So it should be no surprise that a number of incubators are popping up in the city. But Founders Den, which is opening its doors today, is attempting to be a bit different.

Founders Den isn’t actually an incubator at all. Instead, it’s a shared office/club for entrepreneurs — all types of entrepreneurs, from experienced ones who have sold companies, to those just starting out. The idea is for them to all come together in this new, large 8,500 square foot space in the SoMa area of San Francisco. We got a chance to tour the place last week — it’s very, very nice (check out the video below).

Given the momentum gained in 2010 to get policymakers thinking about entrepreneurship, it is reasonable to expect that America’s commitment to entrepreneurship will grow, especially once we see that commitment translated into concrete policy action. Of course, the hope is that those policy actions will be the right ones—inspiring confidence, building up decision-making around risk-taking and investing, spurring new enterprises built on innovative products and services, and along with it, job creation. With that sense of optimism, comes the vision of a global economy finally starting to shake free from a global crisis.

We’ve come a long way in the U.S. since the focus of economic policy was mostly on big business. The notion of entrepreneurial growth, and the increased understanding of the importance of young businesses is finally gaining track among policy and opinion leaders. A Republican-controlled House of Representatives will share power in Washington between Democrats and Republicans which bodes well for smarter policies around private sector job creation. The establishment of new entrepreneur-friendly institutions—such as the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship inaugurated at the Department of Commerce in early 2010, a Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship and a Presidential proclamation during Global Entrepreneurship Week—may be mostly symbolic but they honor a nation’s entrepreneurs and the role they play as catalysts for creating new industries, businesses and jobs. They are steps to foster a culture where entrepreneurship is publicly appreciated and celebrated. They also represent the success of the efforts of those who are ushering in a new foundation for sustainable growth.

One of the biggest challenges for managers of remote teams is striking the balance between micro-managing (trying to see and know everything that’s happening at every moment) and not monitoring the team enough (and getting blindsided when things go wrong). How do you know what to look for?

According to the new book, “Virtual Team Success- a Practical Guide for Working and Leading From a Distance”, there are four common pitfalls virtual teams often stumble into. If you know what to watch for, you can avoid many of the most common problems.

Darleen DeRosa and Richard Lepsinger have written a very solid book full of practical tips, based on research from over 100 virtual and remote teams, mostly in big tech companies like Google. Their research shows that 27 percent of teams weren’t producing at an acceptable level ( a number I find optimistic, but then I’m a glass-half-empty kind of guy).

Keith Yamashita in his remarkable closing story at BIF-6 asked a question that still haunts and compels me. Is it worth daring to be great? No consulting buzzwords, no ambiguity, just a simple question for all of us to ponder. Implied within Keith’s question is the presumption we can all be great. We just have to dare to do it. Greatness isn’t something conferred or willed by others. It isn’t an entitlement or an inheritance. Greatness is innate and waiting for us to dare to achieve it. Keith rightly suggests greatness isn’t a deficit that you have to fill. We unlearn greatness. We permit “the system” to suppress greatness. We start to believe what other people say about us as being true about us. Kids don’t start out that way. Kids are innately and wonderfully curious about the world around them until sadly society wears the enthusiasm and opportunity for greatness down. All kids start great.

I’m reminded of Michelangelo saying, “every block of stone has a statue inside and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”. The same is true for people. Each of us is born with an incredible sculpture inside. We all have greatness within us and it’s our personal opportunity and responsibility to discover it. We must be our own sculptors and not wait or depend on being sculpted by others. If we’re waiting for permission to be great we will be waiting a very long time. Compelling sculptures are born of self-exploration and personal passion. Greatness comes from within. It’s not up to parents, teachers, friends, and bosses to do the sculpting but to encourage us, create the conditions, and provide the tools for self-sculpting.

It’s everyone’s dream: Win the lottery! Sell your company for millions! Invent Beanie Babies and move to Fiji! In truth, though, instant millionaires don’t quite get the joy ride they are hoping for. There may be a giddy rush of success, but the new money can also cause an enormous amount of anxiety.

In fact, when we interviewed some of the suddenly wealthy — a former flight attendant whose side business took off, a cancer survivor who won a medical malpractice judgment, a factory worker who won the lottery — we found a thread of caution running through all their responses.

My picks for favorite startup sectors to improve your fundability in the new year include green, biotech, and renewable energy (also called alternative energy or sustainable energy).

In previous articles, I’ve put some definition around the green and biotech investment categories, so I’ll try to do the same here for renewable energy.