This year, a very interesting trend in collaborative innovation can be observed in Central Europe: The once distinct concepts of “Enterprise 2.0” and “Open Innovation” are merging. Firms are taking a holistic view on collaborative innovation and put the question about whether collaborative innovation should happen primarily within the firm’s walls or with externals out of the focus.

This trend became obvious in the regular workshops that we conduct with clients and business friends to share Best Practices and to discuss Emerging Practices. We started this series back in 2010 with an expert circle of Open Innovation practitioners. In 2011, more and more Enterprise 2.0 practitioners out of the professional networks of the expert circle participants joined. In the last workshop, we had a 50:50-split between “Open Innovators” and “Enterprise 2.0 people” – and from both angles, the key questions about how to conduct and implement collaborative innovation were discussed with great intensity – without any visible barriers between the two parties.

Over the past six months I have spoken with a wide variety of people who have shown, in varying degrees, interest in investing in my company. Many of these VCs have specific ways that they conduct a call, interview or meeting. Many of them have lead me down long and wasteful due diligence processes, many have been kind, some have been blunt and harsh but all have been pedantic and specific about the types of questions they ask.

Our government is being strangled by partisan politics. Youth employment is at a 60-year low. Student loan debt is approaching $1 trillion (and default rates are rising quickly).

Yet young Americans are far more optimistic about our country’s future than the pundits would have you believe – and they are demonstrating that optimism through entrepreneurship. According to a 2011 survey, 23% of young people started a business as a result of being unemployed. Fifteen percent started a business in college. And let’s not forget our veterans, who are twice as likely as other Americans to own businesses.

Inequality is shaping up to be one of the biggest issues in the 2012 presidential election. The Occupy movement may have waned since last fall, but its focus on the privileges of the top one percent has yet to go away.

Most economists argue that rising inequality is driven by broader structural changes in the economy. Globalization has shifted manufacturing jobs to lower wage countries like China; new technologies and increases in productivity have eliminated millions of the low-skill but high-paying jobs that were left.

Green growth is a relatively new concept that has been characterized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as "fostering economic growth and development, while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies." It is closely related to the concept of a green economy, which UNEP defines as one in which "growth in income and employment should be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services."

In any discussion of economic growth, an important caveat is in order: growth is not an end in itself. The fundamental objective of economic policy is not growth but rather broad-based progress in living standards. After all, growth in GDP per capita is a measure of mean, not median, progress. Moreover, it is only a partial measure insofar as it captures the production of most but not all goods and services, omitting or undervaluing some of those that improve a society's health, security and the environment.

There is a major, widely overlooked reason why many innovations that should succeed fail miserably.

Here’s an example, a big innovation failure that nobody foresaw. In the 1990s Michelin developed a revolutionary new kind of tire with sensors and an internal hard wheel that could run almost perfectly for 125 miles after a puncture. A light on the dashboard would notify the driver of the puncture, and the driver could then attend to the problem at his leisure. This would make customers’ lives much easier and much safer, and make lots of money for the company. The company built a powerful alliance with Goodyear to reach almost 40% of the world’s tire market with the product. It signed up Mercedes to put the tire on new cars, and other

Have you ever wondered how some people (or organizations) manage to have one amazing success after another? Well I have. I’ve always been fascinated with successful serial entrepreneurs, leaders, and companies that manage to always be at the top of the innovation ladder. People like Thomas Edison, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Wayne Huizenga and Jeff Bezos. Companies like Apple, 3M, GE, W.L. Gore, Proctor & Gamble, Intel and Virgin.

So, what is it about these types of people and these types of organizations that sets them apart? They all have an Innovator’s Mindset.

In my role at the Business Development Bank of Canada, I meet lots of young entrepreneurs in every part of the country. When I ask why they're in business, the reply invariably is that they love the freedom of being their own boss and they want to make a difference.

To turn their dream into reality, they have to build a business from the ground up, often starting with little more than hard work, ingenuity and de-termination. They relish the challenge and take pride in seeing customers respond to what they have created.

One of those young entrepreneurs is Pierre Martell in Moncton, N.B. Martell works in an industry that is almost as old as humanity: He builds homes. But, unlike most builders, he's learned to make savvy use of the Internet not only to attract customers but also to respond to their greatest fears - that their home won't be ready on time or on budget. Martell Home Builders website allows tradespeople, suppliers and clients to find in-formation about a home and follow its construction during a "99-day countdown" to completion. People love it and business is booming.

I admit the news that kids’ virtual world Moshi Monsters had signed a record deal with Sony BMG was sort of interesting. After all, the game, which lets kids adopt their own pet monster, is really turning into a serious childrens’ brand — online, on Nintendo, in magazines, with jewelry and (of course) physical toys.

The service now has around 60 million users, and there are even rumors that parent company Mind Candy is considering an IPO. Great news. What record company wouldn’t want a little piece of that?

Chris Dixon has one of the best posts I’ve seen on how startups should deal with the press. I added a few items in his comments, but thought they were worthy of sharing here.

I sit in a weird spot: although many consider me to be press, I also talk to a lot of other media outlets. I’m often quoted in national newspapers and magazines and regularly appear on TV. This happens partly because I have something interesting to stay; it’s also partly because I treat people how I like to be treated.

Here are my top tips for dealing with the press (including me):

Learn about the news outlet and the specific person you’re approaching. Every outlet has a specific feel and each person with an outlet has their own coverage area, interests, and motivations. Read their stuff and figure it out. Nothing will fall flatter than a bulk email sent to every “tips@” account that begins “Dear reporter.” Learn what each person values. In my case, I don’t really care that much about being first on a story. I add the most value when I do deep analysis. I’m a data and numbers guy; if you have those, I’m more likely to dig in.

As many of you know, The Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act (H.R. 2930) was passed, almost unanimously, in November of 2011. Now, thanks to our elected politicians, we have two additional separate bills in the Senate that differ significantly from what was passed by the House. There is certainly the risk that what ends up being negotiated and put in to law will fall extremely short of what is actually needed to help jump-start our economy.

As an entrepreneur who made the choice to risk everything on building a Crowdfunding solutions company (and who has had her fair share of experience with angel investors and venture capitalists over the past 15 years), it seems clear to me that a crowdfunding for equity bill that closely resembles the original Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act is critically important to the future of our economy.

The Center for Design and Innovation at Temple University’s Fox School of Business held its annual inciteXchange conference at the Fox School’s Alter Hall yesterday, convening innovators, designers, and creative thinkers from around the globe.   As the first major business school to integrate design thinking into its MBA curriculum, this event served as a culmination of a week-long process of design inquiry, where students investigated new solutions to urban problems.

Each speaker presented for 20 minutes, pushing the boundaries of the possible with innovative concepts and projects.  In the afternoon session, Gary Steuer, the Chief Cultural Officer, City of Philadelphia, presented on the creative economy in Philadelphia.  He opened by referencing Dickens and saying that Philadelphia’s in the best of times and worst of times.    On one hand, we’re rife with cultural offerings, creative outlets, great restaurants, and a thriving city … yet on the other, we’re still facing some tough urban problems.  So, what role does the creative economy play in all of this.  Steuer offered some keen insights….

Innovation. These days, there’s hardly a mission statement that doesn’t include it, or a CEO who doesn’t promote it. Yet in most organizations creativity isn’t exactly flourishing.

Maybe that’s because we’re trying too hard to formalize it. A study at M.I.T. found that 80 percent of the breakthrough innovations in products and services did not occur in training sessions or formal meetings. Rather, dynamic innovation was almost always the result of informal (even chance) encounters.

I help organizations find innovative solutions to business challenges. I’ve consulted with clients in the public and private sectors to develop collaborative meetings — and I know the power of well-structured interaction to stimulate a group’s ability to think creatively.

Some people think governments should stay away from the entrepreneurial world. Yet, some of the most interesting programs we have seen recently, such as Start-Up Chile, are promoted by local authorities.

However, this program is very recent compared to another initiative called Barcelona Activa. If you have traveled to Barcelona lately, you may have noted its talent attraction campaign, “Do it in Barcelona“.

Yet, what you may not know is that Barcelona Activa has been around since 1986. Created as a business incubator with the ambition to promote entrepreneurship in the Catalan capital, it is now the city’s development agency.

The number of young entrepreneurs, particularly those in college, has seen an significant increase over the last five years, but beyond the raw numbers there has emerged a burgeoning culture founded on the desire to be independent, to be innovative, and to give back to the community—the principles of entrepreneurship.

Anecdotally, Inc.com has released its annual report on this fresh-faced group of business owners since 2009 and this was the first year that we had over 200 nominations. In the past, we were lucky to get a few dozen. This speaks volumes to the gains this group has made in just one year. However, in the sceme of things, although young entrepreneurs are increasing as a group, the numbers are still quite low, says Michael Simmons, co-founder and CEO at Extreme Entrepreneurship Education Corp.

One of the big advantages of being an entrepreneur and starting your company from scratch is that you get to set the culture, which is much easier than changing the culture of an existing business. The challenge is how to do it, and how to do it right. Why not learn what you can from companies like Apple, who are leading the way with great growth and a great culture?

Jim Stengel, in his latest book “Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit” chronicles a ten-year study of the world’s fifty best businesses, including Apple, and concludes that those who centered their businesses on a culture of improving people’s lives had a growth rate triple that of competitors in their categories.

Crowd sourcing has been discussed in recent years as a way to progress innovation by accessing technologies outside a company’s existing domain expertise. Yet while it’s been adopted as a component of the innovation model by some corporations, results don’t always meet expectations.  In our view, crowd sourcing often misses the mark because of a lack of close collaboration among the participants – the internal and external experts– and an absence of a systematic approach for structuring the discovery process. This results in:

Weak problem definition. If the problem is not defined in a rigorous and functional manner that presents a different perspective, then there is often insufficient opportunity to break out of the traditional ways of thinking about the problem and take advantage of new technical insights in unrelated fields. Moreover, if the problem is defined without deconstructing the problem to define root causes, true breakthrough solutions may never be discovered.

Meet the intern. They are the youngsters braving the grown-up world of office life to gain experience after graduating with fresh dreams and hopes of one day having a good career. Before any of that can happen an intern’s main purpose is to be the office sucker for up to three months, often longer. It can be frustrating. But at least there’s one place they can vent (fairly) safely: social media.

A biotechnology incubator aimed at supporting Arab researchers has been established following the signing earlier this month (13 February) of a two-year agreement between Abu Dhabi University and the medical research and product development company AccuVis Bio.

The incubator, a first for the region, will support biotechnology research and commercialisation in the Arab world, taking discoveries through to marketable products.