Innovation counselors and organizational consultants alike extol teamwork as the key to shared success. For projects or new initiatives to succeed, it’s said all involved have to be “on the same page” or working together as one.

But does that include innovation initiatives in the corporate environment?

Some years ago, an assistant coach on the Chicago Bulls chided Michael Jordan for the star player putting on a stellar – albeit individual – performance in a team win. The coach stated the now famous line, “There is no ‘I’ in team.”

The statement has come to epitomize the place of players in a team performance. For a team to be successful, the thinking goes, there is no individual.

Nighttime flight is an important milestone--but solar power is unlikely to transform aviation.

Swiss researchers yesterday marked a major milestone in the development of a solar-powered, single-pilot aircraft that they hope will eventually circumnavigate the globe. They kept their craft aloft through an entire night on stored solar energy.

In the wake of the event, the pilot, André Borschberg--CEO and cofounder of the Solar Impulse project--declared: "I have just flown more than 26 hours without using a drop of fuel and without causing any pollution!" The plane took off from a Swiss airbase early Wednesday and landed there at dawn Thursday.

Germany today began to end months of uncertainty surrounding the proposed changes in its feed-in tariff regime which has been responsible for the sustained growth of the German solar industry. Germany’s Bundesrat, the lower house of their bi-cameral system, agreed to amendments that have shifted the incentives away from the larger scale solar field instillations on cropland.

The focus of the new round of incentives is aimed at creating more small scale self consumption installations that will encourage the urbanised take up of photovoltaic solar panels. However, this new ‘retrospective’ change will reduce the existing tariff for rooftop panels by 13%. So the tariff will reflect the maturing market for solar in Germany, while the field tariff will be completely abolished.

The changes reflect the lower cost of the components required for the solar PV market and the fact that Germany is approaching grid parity, the point at which the cost of solar power is the same as that of fossil fuel production, sooner than expected.

A prototype medical dressing that could save children’s lives.

Researchers at the University of Bath say the dual-purpose bandage will react when burns wounds become infected.

They’ve been testing fabric, covered with microscopic bacterial matter.

[Dr. Toby Jenkins, Senior Lecturer at University of Bath]:
"Firstly it will automatically release an antibiotic, or an anti-microbial, directly into the wound. This will have the advantage for clinicians, that they will not have to intervene directly. The wound will sense what's going on and if it feels itself to be infected it will respond completely automatically. The second thing it will do will be to change color, at the same time alerting a clinician or a nurse or a patient, him or herself, that infection is starting to take place in the wound environment."

Sure, sending newsletters is a great way to send information to your customers, but what information are you getting back? You might think collecting information at subscription is the only way to get data out of your newsletter, but there are several other ways you can get your company newsletter to deliver valuable customer insights.
Use Every Newsletter as a Test

If you’re sending the exact same newsletter to your entire contact list, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to test various parts of your campaign. By segregating two recipient groups and sending slightly different newsletters to each, you can read differences in reception to determine the most effective techniques. Use your newsletter to test various subject lines, article titles, and images. You can also run tests by segregating customers and non-customers to see which of the groups has a higher read rate. Just remember not to change too many things between the different newsletters since you might not be able to tell which of the changes caused a higher read rate.

No, this is not a post about what who believes what about science (snore). This is a post about the economic and political assumptions that guide thinking about climate policy.

Andy Revkin helpfully points to a new report (PDF) from the Information Technology and Information Foundation, which seeks to expose 10 myths of global climate change. Here they are:

1) Higher prices on greenhouse gases are enough to drive the transition to a clean economy

Reality: Better price signals are helpful, but not sufficient in significantly reducing GHG.

2) The U.S. can make major contributions to solving climate change on its own

Reality: The energy needs of the rest of the world will result in them producing the lion’s share of GHG; any solution must be one that is able to be adopted by every nation in the absence of regulation or energy taxes.

3) Cap-and-trade is a sustainable global solution

Reality: As Copenhagen showed, a global agreement is not likely, and the only solution that can meet 50 the percent reduction of GHG is making non-carbon alternatives as cheap and functional as fossil fuels.

This past December I spent a week in Boston to try to get to know some of the local VC’s and entrepreneurs a bit better.  One of the meetings I had (organized by my good friend Jeff Yolen) was with New Atlantic Ventures held the at the CIC, aka the Cambridge Innovation Center (no prizes for guessing where it’s located).

As they showed me around the CIC I was instantly envious.  I recently wrote a blog post about why I believe that startup teams in close proximity perform better.  I believe that first-time entrepreneurs also benefit hugely from working in close proximity to other companies.  VCs constantly share cross fund information and are therefore always getting dialed into what is going on in the industry. We know prices of deals, compensation, who’s doing well / poorly, etc.  Entrepreneurs need to share more information with each other.  I’m surprised how few people talk about valuations, term sheet terms, how much to pay recruiters, etc.  A tech lab is a perfect hub for this kind of cross-company fertilization.

The Solarium, a new 8-story apartment building in New York City, is part of a new wave of green buildings in Gotham. Its exterior is made from 100 percent recycled material. The burnished floors are sustainably farmed bamboo. The apartments lack bathtubs in order to save water. Perhaps the most novel green accoutrement of the Solarium, however, is a small, black windmill perched on a short pole rising from the rooftop. Made by WindTronics, the windmill went live in April — it is one of the early beta units from the Michigan startup.

The company claims a single windmill can supply as much as 30 percent of a household’s annual power needs if winds average roughly 10 miles per hour. That is a brisk steady breeze but even homes averaging lesser amounts (5-9 mph winds) can receive significant electrical outputs of 15 to 30 percent of annual power needs. The Solarium’s wind turbine will power light fixtures in common areas and a rooftop theater for residents. “It has no noise and no vibration,” says Cyrus Claffey, the CEO of Clareo Networks, a real estate technology and design company that researched and planned the project for the Solarium’s developers. “It is bird friendly. And it has a great design. Power kicks in at a much lower windspeed than comparable products.”

The tech VC meltdown is already laying waste to smaller firms and those who entered the game too late. Even the best scenarios are unlikely to generate returns commensurate with the investment risk and lack of liquidity. Where will new capital come from? It is likely that a new player in traditional corporate venture capital will grow in importance: university-funded commercialization.

Venture capitalists style themselves as the stewards of entrepreneurship, offering cash (and supposedly expertise) to young Edisons seeking both fame and fortune. Stunning returns for early investments in companies like Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) (reportedly each dollar invested returned US$10,000) kept the dream alive for egocentric investors and entrepreneurs alike.

And yet like a Greek tragedy, the halcyon days brought the seeds of destruction. One recent analysis by Harvard Business School Professor William Sahlman demonstrated that median returns peaked in 1996 at 45 percent, and by 2008, those returns were -10 percent. Technology definitely lost its luster; last year, Cambridge Associates reported that returns in the electronics industry decreased from 157 percent on companies founded in 1998 to 5 percent for those founded in 1999; they have been negative for all subsequent vintage years. 1998 was clearly a banner year: Returns on hardware companies founded then reached 150 percent and have oscillated between -13 percent to +30 percent in the subsequent years, while 1998-vintage information technology companies generated astonishing IRRs of 275 percent and have been consistently less than 30 percent for all vintage years since then. (Observant readers will remember that Google was the crown jewel of the "entering class" of 1998.) It wasn't a bubble; it was a nuclear mushroom cloud.

Kids learn differently than when you and I were in school, and if research coming out of MIT's Media Labs is anything to go by, in the future they'll learn in tech-boosted ways that are incredible. Witness: The Neverending Drawing Machine, a collaborative art tool.

NEDM is basically a collaborative real-time content-sharing and creativity system that lets users create novel digital artworks together. In some ways, its interface and powers remind us of the shelved Microsoft Courier content-creation and sharing platform that was destined to be a novel tablet PC. It's particularly targeted at kids, of course, and because it's digital it lets kids create art that wouldn't be possible before, and it means that they don't necessarily need to be in the same place together.

You could throw gold doubloons at them, but retaining your best players doesn’t have to be monetary.

So, if not cash, what’s the best way to keep employees happily in your employ?

Business consultant Sherry Daniels, writing on HBR.org, has a refreshing take on the question. Why not ask them what they want?

In yesterday's Sunday Business cover story, I looked at the state of Baltimore's biotech industry, and compared it to its larger cousin to the south, in Montgomery County. Take a read.

Baltimore's biotechnology industry has made strides. Two biotech parks by the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland now anchor the east and west sides of the city. A few dozen biotech startups have made their home here.

But Baltimore's nascent biotech industry doesn't yet have a breakout company — a darling of venture capitalists and Wall Street that has grown past the risky and unprofitable startup phase to achieve a steady stream of revenue and products in the pipeline.

A company like MedImmune in Montgomery County, which produces an H1N1 flu virus vaccine, among others.

In most of the world, entrepreneurs form the basis of the economy.  From mom and pop bodegas and pizza shops to technology system integrators, the next smart car, and small law firms, it is typical for startup and small business to form over 90% of a country’s economy. And, surprisingly, in innovation economies, such as the U.S., while 25-34 year olds have the highest prevalence, the majority of entrepreneurial activity comes from those over 35 years old.

If you are en entrepreneur, or thinking of becoming one, this column will provide tips to help you avoid pitfalls and point you to resources based on my 15+ years of starting companies, mentoring companies and learning from others.

China had an early rebound out of the recent great depression. This and the recession itself gave rise to an extensive global dialogue on how to get back on track: from the need to limit personal greed and implement effective oversight to the role of market interventions by governments. This response is much needed. There is a more broader question related to how we achieve a balanced and sustainable global and European growth? For that we should look beyond the current crisis.

China consistently outperforms the economic growth of US and Europe for three decades now. China has become one of the largest growth engines of the world. Although we may not beat the sheer size of China, I would like to argue that if we have the courage to adapt our European model of liberal capitalism to include some of the ‘Chinese characteristics’ we may set ourselves on a new growth path.

Thursday, July 15, 2010 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
B-340 Rayburn House Office Building

A luncheon briefing presented by ASTRA, The Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America for the House R&D Caucus.
Congress continues to seek solutions to help the nation regain its lost momentum as the world’s most innovative and competi- tive country. Please join us and participate in a nonpartisan panel discussion with leading experts in business commercial- ization, small business and entrepreneurship, patent and intel- lectual property, and innovation measurement and assessment.
Topics covered will include:

• Overview: Measuring the Decline of U.S. Science Leadership & Where We are Headed (Shelton)
• Barriers to Commercialization of R&D Discovery: The University-Industry Interface — What’s Working and What’s Not (Darmody, Johnson)
• Modernizing America’s Intellectual Property System: The Importance of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) in enabling U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness (Graham)
• “MIssing in Action”: The Role Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs Should be Playing in Reviving the U.S. Innovation Economy (Bendis)

Download the PDF for more infromation or contact Robert Boege at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

These slides have served as change agents in greentech circles. By popular demand, we added a few slides to the collection.

If you attend enough cleantech events or are pitched by enough startups, you start to see the same few PowerPoint slides over and over again. Here is a collection of the best or at least the most notorious and historically significant slides in our industry.

After publishing this list last week to an overwhelming response, we heard from the original architects of some of these iconic greentech slides and we made sure to give them their overdue credit.  We also added a few additional slides that we left out during the first go-round.

The Keeling Curve.  Regardless of the flaws of An Inconvenient Truth, the movie, or those of Al Gore, the man, the movie and the man present this CO2 data in a variety of compelling ways.  The graph shows the variation in concentration of  CO2 in the atmosphere over the last fifty years based on Charles Keeling's measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Even if you don't subscribe to the theory of anthropogenic global warming, this chart is pretty stark evidence that something is happening and it's happening fast.

Imagine you’re having some big, high falutin’ meeting.  Perhaps it’s a board meeting.  Or, if you don’t have a board, perhaps it’s a management team meeting.  Or, if you don’t have a team, perhaps it’s just you talking to yourself at 3:00 a.m. in the morning.  Whatever mechanism it is you have to talk about important issues and make decisions, imagine that meeting.  Are you imagining it?  Good.

Now, imagine that same meeting with one important change:  One of your smart, savvy, customers is at the table.  And, she has an actual voice.  She’s a peer. She makes arguments, some of which are wrong and misguided, just like you and the rest of your team.  If the customer were there, I think you’d have better meetings.

Practically speaking, you probably can't actually put a customer in all your meetings.  If that’s the case, you should act as if she’s there.  Pretend like she’s sitting in the room.  In the past, I’ve actually designated an empty chair in the meeting as being where the customer is, and looking in that direction while asking “what does the customer have to say?” (yes, I’m weird).  When you’re trying to make an important decision, and you’re sort of divided on the issue, ask yourself:  If the customer were here, what would she say?  You don’t actually have to do everything she says, but it’s useful to at least factor in her point of view.

I often run across early stage companies in a real quandary about how much money to take in their first round of funding.

That is, the round just beyond the Ramen noodle eating, avoid starvation round that is usually funded out of your own pocket. The round that really gets things going once you’ve established a team and product viability.

The advice they often get – build a spreadsheet outlining fixed and variable costs over the next year or more. Estimate headcount, salaries, rent, capital equipment needs, etc. and, voila, you’ll have your number.

That’s fine, of course, but the spreadsheet should be the end result of the planning process, not the process itself. In my experience, there are certain high-level guidelines that should be used to determine how much money should be taken.

Fortune on Friday released its list of the 50 smartest people in tech. Topping the list of CEOs is Apple's Steve Jobs, while the company's lead designer, Jony Ive, took the top spot in the designer category.

Jobs is credited with bringing Apple back from the brink of disaster in the late 1990s, introducing products like the iMac and iPod. Jobs later lead the charge to change the mobile industry with the iPhone and mostly recent, the iPad.

"He is a visionary, a micromanager, and a showman who creates such anticipation around new products that their releases are veritable holidays," writes Fortune. "And Jobs is a pop culture icon like no other business executive."

Runners-up for the smartest CEO include Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Demand Media's Richard Rosenblatt.

Government stimulus spending is a contentious issue right now in Washington. But the $7.2 billion in the last stimulus package for extending high-speed Internet access is just beginning to be spent, and the beneficiaries could not be happier.

Cynthia K. Wegener and her husband, owners of a farm and horse-breeding business in western Kansas, will be able to upload a photograph of a horse to show a potential buyer in seconds, not the 20 to 30 minutes they now need with dial-up service. “I just cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it is to do anything with it,” she said.

And in remote Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, with limited Internet access, the program will bring more fundamental changes, expanding the health care options, for example, to allow doctors in Anchorage, 400 miles to the east, to see patients via videoconference.