The latest round of aviation changes has left Wichita's economic future in limbo. Some local leaders are looking to solve that with an aviation innovation.

With recent layoffs, lost jobs and the chances of a company like Hawker Beechcraft heading South, some say a different kind of development would be the best way to keep Wichita the Air Capital.

Taking off on a runway just outside your back door is reality today.

If James Wiebe has any say, the innovation of smaller, easy-to-fly aircraft, could be the key to Wichita's future.

"We're always looking at finding ways to produce more innovative flight to provide people things they want. They want to be able to fly inexpensively and safely, and they really want to be able to enjoy it," said Wiebe, owner of belite Aircraft.

I obviously don’t speak for all investors. But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors. And they’re easy to remember because they all begin with an M: management, market, money and above all else momentum.

This post was prompted by an email exchange I had with a young entrepreneur. It’s a conversation that creeps up from time-to-time. This person had been introduced to me several times by angels and I was told that I’d be the perfect seed investor. I was interested in learning more. For a combination of reasons I didn’t end up talking with the CEO in time and the company quickly became over subscribed. That’s fine. It is probably the right thing for the stage of company.

I returned this weekend from the Aspen Institute’s annual meeting of development entrepreneurs in New York where fresh thinkers were hard at work looking for new approaches to impactful international economic development. USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah sought out the opportunity to present his new vision for his agency, and Carl Schramm, President of the Kauffman Foundation, challenged the traditional strategic and intellectual platform that has driven the tired policies of decades of Washington consensus thinking around how we stimulate global economic growth.

As I listened to discussions at the ANDE meeting, it became clear to me that my assumption that we all agreed on the importance of young startups as the primary drivers of economic growth and poverty reduction was one not commonly held. That, along with there being a keen interest among ANDE members in focusing now on “measuring impact” over messy, experimental “entrepreneurial capitalism” leads me today to post on one of my favorite topics – our common progress (or lack thereof) in “measuring entrepreneurship” around the world.

Oct. 5 – OK, so I’ve been beating up on China a bit recently, however as I pointed out, there are political hierarchical issues to solve, an economy to recalibrate and enormous amounts of bad debt sloshing around. That’s not that great a scenario, and as for the theory China escaped the global recession – I may point out perhaps for China alone, it may still yet to prove rather more a case of postponement. But at the end of the day, and especially for my business, we’re committed to China, and obviously see great things on the horizon. It’s just that a slowdown is occurring, India is growing, and the dynamics are changing. Short term, this is the deal:

• Will China’s economic growth slowdown? Yes.
• Will it lose labor intensive industrial investment to other regional markets? Yes.
• Has it gotten more expensive? Yes.
• Is the economy out of alignment? Yes.

1. Work to further solidify your natural strengths; worry less about your weaknesses.  Apply the 80/20 principle: spend 80% of your time building your strengths and become and expert; spend 20% of your time improving your weaknesses to become average.

2. Eating slow will make you full faster and thus eat less.  Easier said than done, I know.

3. The only way to learn how to do something is by doing it.  Practice truly does make perfect.

4. Walking or biking is the best way to experience your neighborhood, your city, or the world.

5. Going on a diet is not a way to stay healthy in the long term.   Please don’t say you are going on a diet.  The word diet implies it will end at some point.  Sure you might lose some weight being on a diet.  But sooner or later your diet lifestyle will become unsustainable and you will go back to your old ways.  The only way to lose weight and be healthy is to eat food that tastes good, eat food that is low in calories/fat, eat less food, and get some exercise at least two times a week.  It’s really that simple.  There are no secrets.  We are not smarter than nature.

All the information and knowledge in the world will not help us unless we take time to reflect upon what we have learned and also do something with it. When I discuss personal knowledge management [a term that really needs to be changed and I welcome suggestions] I emphasize reflection through doing. In my case, this happens most often on my blog. Blogs are powerful tools for reflection.

• Blogs act as the glue between our interactions with others, whether they be projects, meetings or conferences
• Blogs are ways of mapping our personal learning journey
• Every blog is unique and, over time, gives a whole-person view
• Blogs encourage dialogue and help us relate to a wider audience and be more professional
• Blogs provide peer feedback
• Blogs can also be emotional and playful, to show and share our humanity

All aviation stakeholders, including manufacturers, airlines, airports and navigation service providers, have issued a joint call for governments to agree a global plan to address aviation emissions at December's United Nations climate summit in Cancún.

The call from the international aerospace industry comes as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is holding its general assembly in Montreal.

Industry worries that a fragmented worldwide regulatory system would raise compliance costs for the sector and hurt the global industry.

The Venture Capital industry is splitting into various segments to serve different “customers,” much like the car companies expanded their product line in the early days of their industry.

So says Chris Dixon, Cofounder of Hunch, an online recommendations site based in New York City, and an experienced investor in early-stage technology companies such as including Skype, Foursquare, Stack Overflow, TrialPay, DocVerse (acq by GOOG), and others. Dixon’s article was picked up recently by BusinessInsider.com

The surplus of venture capital firms today has generated more competition and allowed entrepreneurs to become more selective as to who to partner with. As a result, venture capitalists have become more specialized. They have segmented their services either by industry (IT, cleantech, healthcare, etc.) or by the four distinct stages in the venture financing process.

It’s week 40 of 2010 and we have another dose of creativity for you.

My Creative Team’s Big List Of Creativity Links – I’ve pulled together in Word document format all of the creativity links we have presented so far this year. I’ll keep updating, so check back often.

The Top 10 Social Networks For Creatives - This article starts by looking at the benefits of networking for creative people & surveys 10 social networks that should be on your radar as a creative professional.

If Boston, NYC, and San Francisco are the top three U.S. innovation cities why do their economic, education, health care, and energy systems produce the same poor results as cities around the rest of the country?  I read the recent Top Innovation Cities of the Global Economy report from 2thinknow ranking the top 100 global innovation cities with great interest. Of course I quickly scanned the rankings to see which U.S. cities made the list.  While I was disappointed my hometown of Providence, Rhode Island didn’t make the cut I was pleased to see our neighbor Boston was ranked number one.  Two other U.S. cities joined Boston in the top ten, NYC ranked fifth and San Francisco ranked seventh.

As a complete The Simpsons dork, I’m just going to ignore “journalistic integrity” or whatever for the moment to blabber on for three paragraphs about how cool this is. In making an appearance on a The Simpsons episode last night, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg joined the pantheon of Internet moguls Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, achieving the honorary PhD in nerd pop culture that is awarded with every appearance on Matt Groening’s opus.

Want context? In the “Loan-A-Lisa” episode, Nelson founds a super successful bike shop and decides to drop out of school. Lisa takes him to a TechCrunch Disrupt-like “Entrepreneur Expo” where she attempts to introduce him to rich people that can demonstrate how having an education is crucial to their success.

Having started, run and lead various companies since I was 15 years old, I’ve learned a few things about being an entrepreneur – often the hard way. I’ve had successes, failures and massive failures, but each taught me something valuable. 

While a lot has been written previously about the key qualities of successful entrepreneurs, I’ve always thought there were a few items that were missing. Sure, things like passion, creativity, self-confidence and coordination skills are helpful, but those just scratch the surface. If you’re an emerging entrepreneur looking to succeed faster, just ask yourself the following questions…

Are you persistent? – There is no “instant gratification” when you’re running your own business. There’s no monthly pay check and you may work very hard for little reward.

It’s difficult to determine exactly where public investors are drawing the line these days. Is consistent profitability a prerequisite for a successful IPO, or will growth potential suffice? Is the bar set at $100 million in revenue for technology companies? Does a company need to tell a good story, or are investors only listening to hard data?

The answers to those questions will help determine the fate of the 49 U.S.-based venture-backed companies that have registered for, but not yet completed, their initial public offerings.
Now that the third quarter has come to an end, we decided to take a look at the growing venture-backed IPO pipeline and compile a census of sorts.