1. Lists simplify.

2. Lists promise instant knowledge.

3. Lists provide choices.

4. We are all victims of information overload. Lists help us make sense of the world.

5. Lists make it seem as if the list maker knows something that list readers don't.

6. Lists appeal to an ever expanding population of ADD sufferers.

7. Lists appeal to the left brain need for order and linearity.

8. Lists are made of soundbytes. Soundbytes 'R Us.

9. Lists are familiar. We grew up making them: laundry lists, grocery lists, and Christmas lists.

10. Lists can be updated, added to, or subtracted from easily.

I am happy to report that in its third year, Global Entrepreneurship Week grew by leaps and bounds. As more countries take advantage of this global movement, more minds are pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams. GEW has not just inspired students looking for a way to reach their goals, but the leaders of nations who were inspired in their efforts to boost growth by the sheer energy of the millions of participants in GEW activities during the past two weeks. In case you haven’t been following, here are a couple of anecdotes from this year’s Week, and the reaction it produced among some of the world’s leaders.

GEW/Germany, “Gründerwoche,” alone tripled its impact with over 1,200 events and 650 partners through the year in 2010. The Week had the Ministry of Economy and Technology as the country’s GEW official coordinator. Many other countries joined the global campaign for this first time this year, like El Salvador. Even countries where entrepreneurship is not deep-rooted in society and have not mustered its officials’ support have created activities to unleash its people’s entrepreneurial potential and wake up their governments to their power to drive the economy.

1. "I want to put a ding in the universe." - Steve Jobs

2. "Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them." - Alfred North Whitehead

3. "Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next." - Jonas Salk

4. "If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong." - Charles Kettering

5. "If you can dream it, you can do it." - Walt Disney

6. "Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller

7. "You can't solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level." - Albert Einstein

albert-einstein.jpg

8. "Do not fear mistakes. There are none." - Miles Davis

9. "The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct arising from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves." - Carl Jung

10. "There is only one thing stronger than all the armies of the world: and that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo

The microfinance industry, which up to now has been one of the great triumphs out of the many anti-poverty and social justice campaigns created to help third world nations, is suddenly facing what appears to be imminent collapse in India.

Do any of these circumstances sound familiar?

Initially the work of non-profit groups, the tiny loans to the poor known as micro-credit once seemed a promising path out of poverty for millions. In recent years, foundations, venture capitalists and the World Bank have used India as a petri dish for similar for-profit "social enterprises" that seek to make money while filling a social need. Like-minded industries have sprung up in Africa, Latin America and other parts of Asia.

But micro-finance in pursuit of profits has led some micro-credit companies around the world to extend loans to poor villagers at exorbitant interest rates and without enough regard for their ability to repay. Some companies have more than doubled their revenues annually.

BEIJING -- It is just a simple piece of plywood, but it is a striking symbol of the frenzied adoration Kai-Fu Lee, perhaps China's most prominent technologist, elicits in this country.

"One overanxious entrepreneur knocked down our door," said Lee, explaining why the plywood used to cover the damage is on display in his spaceshiplike offices.

Few Chinese executives have the technology cred of Lee, who was tapped by Bill Gates to lead Microsoft's operations in China, personally wooed away by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and turned down an offer by Steve Jobs. His new venture, Innovation Works, a $115 million fund to back early-stage technology companies, is something of a laboratory to teach this nation of 1.2 billion people a course that could be best described as "Silicon Valley 101." His efforts tap into the ambitions of a rising economic giant to someday have its own world-dominating technology companies.

Among the business people gathered in San Francisco last week for the annual Web 2.0 Summit, there was little doubt that the second Internet boom will be just as transformative as the first. The connected pocket computer (otherwise known as a smartphone) and the social Web have created monster new markets, as more than one speaker noted, and the money is flowing accordingly.

Much of that money is flowing to the Bay Area, home to what are arguably the four most important companies of today’s consumer Internet: Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter. Apple and Google are the second and sixth most valuable public companies by market cap in the country, respectively. The other two are commanding private-market valuations in the billions.

But the business contours of the industry are still taking shape, and how they evolve over the next couple of years will go a long way toward drawing the new economic geography of Silicon Valley.

George sez, "This looks like the work of the world's greatest dad: a ceiling level, custom-built kinetic marble run - complete with Instructables info to make your own."

For some time, I’ve been arguing that there’s nothing in the typical university’s portfolio of commercialization activities that necessarily needs to be dependent on government grant support. In fact, universities are free to ask private donors to fund anything from the basic operations of the tech transfer office to the costs of running a proof-of-concept or commercialization center.

That universities have typically not asked for such support, but rather have waited for a motivated donor to drop it in their lap unbidden,1 is a function of opportunity cost. Every time a university president makes an “ask” of this kind, that’s one less donor who can be asked for a dormitory, a professorship, or a financial aid fund. To date, few presidents have been able to convince themselves that that are donors who will consider funding commercialization activities who would not otherwise be giving to more conventional entries on the “table of needs.”

Tiny cameras. Hearing devices for the teeth. Wi-fi for refrigerators. These are some of the products made by companies that have caught the eye of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the Central Intelligence Agency.

One of the most recent companies to get an infusion of cash from the U.S. spy bureau's investment fund is Cleversafe, a Chicago-based startup that offers software to keep data stored in cloud networks secure by slicing it up and storing it in different locations. In a press release issued last month about the investment, William Strecker, In-Q-Tel's chief technology officer, said the intelligence community is looking for new ways to secure information given the increasing ubiquity of cloud computing.

The SEC is moving much faster in releasing proposed rules after the SEC Open Meetings. After Friday morning’s open meeting discussing the exemption from registration for venture capital funds, the SEC has released the full text of the proposed rule merely several hours later.

I have been waiting to see how broad this exemption will be. I’m still holding on to the slim chance that I could squeeze into the exemption. Given that the SEC is still looking for some broad reporting and subjecting venture capital firms to examination, I’m not sure the exemption will offer much benefit.

Here is the SEC’s proposed definition of a venture capital fund for purposes of the exemption:

A venture capital fund is any private fund that:

(1) Represents to investors and potential investors that it is a venture capital fund;

(2) Owns solely:

(i) Equity securities issued by one or more qualifying portfolio companies, and at least 80 percent of the equity securities of each qualifying portfolio company owned by the fund was acquired directly from the qualifying portfolio company; and

(ii) Cash and cash equivalents, as defined in § 270.2a51-1(b)(7)(i), and U.S. Treasuries with a remaining maturity of 60 days or less;

(3) With respect to each qualifying portfolio company, either directly or indirectly through each investment adviser not registered under the Act in reliance on section 203(l) thereof:

(i) Has an arrangement whereby the fund or the investment adviser offers to provide, and if accepted, does so provide, significant guidance and counsel concerning the management, operations or business objectives and policies of the qualifying portfolio company; or

(ii) Controls the qualifying portfolio company;

(4) Does not borrow, issue debt obligations, provide guarantees or otherwise incur leverage, in excess of 15 percent of the private fund’s aggregate capital contributions and uncalled committed capital, and any such borrowing, indebtedness, guarantee or leverage is for a non-renewable term of no longer than 120 calendar days;

(5) Only issues securities the terms of which do not provide a holder with any right, except in extraordinary circumstances, to withdraw, redeem or require the repurchase of such securities but may entitle holders to receive distributions made to all holders pro rata; and

(6) Is not registered under section 8 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (15 U.S.C. 80a-8), and has not elected to be treated as a business development company pursuant to section 54 of that Act (15 U.S.C. 80a-53).

This is a bit of a distillation of observations over time. I thought of it because I think that a lot of people that are trying to improve innovation within an organization think that they can go from the bottom left (No Innovation Capability) to the top right (Google-Like Innovator) in one jump, simply by introducing some sort of innovation program. I think that this is impossible – that you actually have to make the trip in a number of steps, and that there are many different paths that you can take.

The table has two increasing dimensions. Across the horizontal axis there is increasing commitment to innovation. This can include things like talking about how innovation is important, including it as a core value, putting in systems to support and improve innovation, and explicitly earmarking time, money and other resources to innovation. This is measuring innovation inputs.

Going up the vertical axis shows an increase in innovation competence – mainly the ability to generate and successfully execute new ideas. This measures innovation outputs.

Millet rich in iron; wheat abundant in zinc; cassava tinged with extra beta-carotene. An array of crops bred to contain micronutrients that could fight the widespread problem of undernutrition is about to be unleashed on the developing world, beginning next year.

The first meeting of international experts in biofortification heard last week (9–11 November) that, after almost a decade of research and development, high-iron pearl millet seeds will be released in India next year; and cassava and maize boosted with beta-carotene (which the body turns into vitamin A) will be released in Nigeria and Zambia in 2012. Sweet potato containing extra beta-carotene is already on the market.

But will the undernourished embrace these solutions to the health problems that lack of nutrients brings? Experts at the meeting, the First Global Conference on Biofortification, are now turning their attention to winning over their customers — and they are realising there are many hurdles.

For an American tourist weaned on Gaelic kitsch and screenings of “The Quiet Man,” the landscape of contemporary Ireland comes as something of a shock. Drive from Dublin to the western coast and back, as I did two months ago, and you’ll still find all the thatched-roof farmhouses, winding stone walls and placid sheep that the postcards would lead you to expect. But round every green hill, there’s a swath of miniature McMansions. Past every tumble-down castle, a cascade of condominiums. In sleepy fishing villages that date to the days of Grace O’Malley, Ireland’s Pirate Queen (she was the Sarah Palin of the 16th century), half the houses look the part — but the rest could have been thrown up by the Toll brothers.

It’s as if there were only two eras in Irish history: the Middle Ages and the housing bubble.

This actually isn’t a bad way of thinking about Ireland’s 20th century. The island spent decade after decade isolated, premodern and rural — and then in just a few short years, boom, modernity! The Irish sometimes say that their 1960s didn’t happen until the 1990s, when secularization and the sexual revolution finally began in earnest in what had been one of the most conservative and Catholic countries in the world. But Ireland caught up fast: the kind of social and economic change that took 50 years or more in many places was compressed into a single revolutionary burst.

The University of Texas at Austin took in $134.5-million in capital campaign donations during the second quarter of 2010, ranking first among institutions surveyed by The Chronicle. The increase put Texas 40 percent of the way toward making its $3-billion goal by 2014.

Texas has the sixth-largest capital campaign in the country. But the college was one of three institutions responding to The Chronicle's survey, along with Boston College and Rutgers University, that is still short of the halfway mark for its campaign goal. (Rutgers went public with its campaign in October.)

David Onion, associate vice president for development, said Texas was "a little behind the pace that we desire" to meet the 2014 end date, but the university was fortunate to have the large support received so far, given the tough economy.

One way to develop stronger innovation skills is to practice pattern recognition...seeing an inherent pattern used to create innovative products and services.  Pattern recognition "builds innovation muscle" and makes you more adept at applying patterns to other products and services.  Here is an interesting example that uses the S.I.T. pattern called Attribute Dependency.  This pattern creates new (or breaks existing) dependencies between attributes of a product or service.  It can also create dependencies between attributes of the product or service and its external environment.

Do you see the Attribute Dependency pattern in this map?

This "new world order" map creates a dependency between a country's population size and its land mass.  By correlating the two attributes, countries are located where their population is best matched to physical area.  Take a moment to study it.  It is worth the look.

I've been pretty clear as of late that I think the market for investing in web startups is getting overheated. When I talk to some people about this, they say "you should shut down and ride out the bubble on the beach." To which I say "we don't think we can time markets."

If you had a crystal ball, then doubling down when the market is ice cold and folding your hand when the market is white hot would be a great investment strategy. But nobody has a crystal ball and timing markets is a lot harder than it seems.

So I prefer to focus on pacing ourselves. What I like to say is "we should add the same number of names each year to our portfolio and put out about the same amount of cash each year." The number we try to add each year is 6-8 new portfolio companies. USV has been investing since November 2004 so we've been in business exactly six years. And we will have 37 portfolio companies soon. So that is almost exactly 6 new investments per year. We had 31 portfolio companies at year end 2009, so we've added 6 new names this year.

A rapidly growing industry in China—dairy farming—is also a major new source of greenhouse-gas emissions. But Huishan Dairy in northeast China is trying to change this by installing the world's largest system for generating electricity by collecting methane gas emitted by fermenting cow manure.

The Chinese have not, historically, been big milk drinkers, but decreasing costs and aggressive marketing efforts have changed that. Huishan's new system will prevent methane—which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas—from reaching the atmosphere. It will also reduce waste and odors, and produce a valuable organic fertilizer that's safer than raw manure.

The operation at Huishan is 10 times the size of the typical systems for generating electricity from cow manure. Its massive scale could help make the project more economical. GE, which is supplying the project's gas-powered generators, also hopes it will act as a showcase for the technology. Methane is not widely harnessed in farming worldwide, largely due to the initial costs, a lack of established economic models, and little government support.

As one of the fastest-spreading technologies in history, the mobile phone has been transformative for the billions of people in the developing world who never had a landline or an Internet connection. One of the most unexpected benefits is its ability to deliver banking services.

Veronica Suarez, like some 2.5 billion other adults on the planet, has no bank account of her own. Suarez and her husband run a small grocery store in Quito, Ecuador, a city of about 1.4 million people on a plateau ringed with dormant volcanoes. In the past, she would often spend half a day traveling to pay bills in cash. But since June, she has been testing a mobile banking service called Mony, which is run by the Panama-based startup YellowPepper Holding. Now she can simply type out text messages that zap payments to the phones of the delivery men who bring cases of Coca-Cola and boxes of vegetable oil to her shop. That could enable her to save travel time, reduce the risk of getting robbed, and run her business more efficiently.

"It works pretty well," says Suarez, whose store is one of 52 mom-and-pop shops in Ecuador taking part in the tests. "But sometimes I am $50 short to pay the delivery man. It would be better if they loaned money, too."

1. Fund Your Passion Through The Crowd

An effective way to raise money for a new venture or small business idea can be through crowdfunding, on a site like IndieGoGo. You can pitch your idea, set a funding goal and deadline, and immediately engage your potential customers by offering unique perks and pre-selling your product. For example - need to raise capital to launch an organic line of beverages? Offer your funders the opportunity to help you name your flavors in exchange for a minimum contribution.

Thanks to Erica Labovitz of IndieGoGo

2. The L3C

Here's a new great way to gain capital for your venture:

1. For a Low profit limited liability company (L3C, which is now available in about 9 states).
2. Match your company's mission up to any not for profit foundations that align/match your mission.
3. Obtain and propose from the NFP foundations a grant to seed the business, utilizing PRI or program related investment funds, and growing the mission of the organization.

Thanks to Erin Albert of Yuspie, LLC