Everyone knows that raising private capital to finance a startup is difficult. This post is not going to tell that story. There are zillions of articles and blog posts about how to raise money. Maybe someday I’ll write one too.

The process of raising venture capital is time consuming, and at the end of the day, you’ll give up anywhere between 25-50% of your company in your first round and more in later rounds. But if you are developing advanced technologies where there’s a considerable amount of technical risk, while you are proving that your technology works there’s an alternative to selling off huge chunks of your company.

This report investigates the global state of cleantech innovation in entrepreneurial start-up companies. We are currently faced with a range of climate, energy and economic challenges. Technology start-ups provide one of the most important vehicles for developing and commercializing innovation to meet these challenges, while generating value for investors. This report reasons as to where these innovative cleantech companies will spring-up over the next decade, and shows which countries are falling ahead and below the curve for cleantech innovation.

Download the Full PDF of the Report

As an innovation consultant and a facilitator of the creative process, I continue to be astounded by how few organizations have any kind of process is place to PAUSE, reflect, and make sure they are coming up with the right questions. Apparently, I'm not alone...

1. "It's not that they can't see the solution. They can't see the problem." - G.K. Chesterton

2. "There are no right answers to wrong questions." - Ursula K. Le Guin

3. "We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong." - Bono

Sweden is not waiting for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress next month to devise its strategy for building a strong startup ecosystem. While “number of patents” is only one metric to measure innovation, Sweden thinks it is one of the most important. The 2011 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII)—developed by the INSEAD eLab which takes into account dimensions such as creativity and efficiency—ranks Sweden second of 125 economies. For the Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012, Sweden came in third position. And, in Thomson Reuters’ “Global Innovators” list, Sweden is the headquarters location of 6 percent of the list’s companies.

But Sweden is looking for more than a hot spot in those rankings. According to my conversations with staff from the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC, it is aggressively pushing for a new wave of young innovators to keep its economy vibrant and innovation-driven. This Friday, the Embassy, in collaboration with the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems, will comb for lessons learned from various initiatives and policies from Sweden and the United States designed to help innovators (ages 18 years and older) develop and market their ideas. Annie Lööf, Sweden’s Minister of Enterprise, will be there along with representatives from U.S. Department of Commerce.

Intelligent Communities: Platforms for Innovation
6-8 June, 2012 – New York City

The ICF Summit is an international gathering of community leaders and their business and institutional partners from around the world. The annual meeting of the Intelligent Community movement, the Summit offers a unique opportunity to learn how to use information and communications technology to build prosperous economies and meet the social challenges of the 21st Century.

The 2012 Summit, produced in partnership with the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, focuses on "Intelligent Communities: Platforms for Innovation." Innovation in Intelligent Communities brings together business, government and institutions in a dynamic partnership that produces results ranging from better and cheaper service delivery to citizens to the birth and growth of entrepreneurial businesses and vital new institutions. Intelligent Communities are pioneers in the complex collaboration that powers innovation today and are experts at building an innovation culture that attracts talent, investment and global recognition. By becoming platforms for innovation, Intelligent Communities create a better life for citizens on all rungs of the economic ladder and a vibrant future for the next generation.

The audience for the Summit is limited to 250 attendees in order to provide the right environment to share knowledge and build relationships. Attendance is principally by invitation but a limited number of paid registrations are available

Register at www.icfsummit.com

Intelligent Community Forum
www.intelligentcommunity.org

I recently wrote a post about negotiating with suppliers called “The End of the Mexican Road.”

The post talked about how to find the lowest acceptable price & terms in a deal through testing.

In the post I made clear that I believe that all negotiations should seek to find fair deals where both parties can feel good about the outcomes. But that doesn’t mean always just saying “let’s split the terms 50/50 down the middle.” Often that doesn’t make sense.

Throughout the world, and particularly in emerging market countries, the entrepreneurial landscape remains notoriously difficult to navigate, with an estimated 80% of small businesses failing to sustain themselves for a period of longer than five years.

However, with an increasing percentage of jobs now being directly attributable to small business ventures, financial backers in both private and public sectors are slowly starting to acknowledge the substantial impact of entrepreneurial activity on a nation’s economy.

Yet, in spite the rising global trend towards venture capitalist backing of tech startups, there remain very few such initiatives present in emerging markets. Can this be accredited to unsustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems, or is success simply a mind-set shift away?

Europe’s broadband internet coverage is close to 100%, but super-fast connections remain marginal and well behind the EU's official target despite the rhetoric surrounding the benefits of the digital economy.

European Commission figures show that 95.3% of EU households live in areas covered by broadband – walking distance from the 100% coverage the bloc aims to achieve by 2013.

Some countries – the UK, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Cyprus and Denmark – are ahead of the pack and have already reached the 100% objective.

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe their initial idea and inspiration requires the most important creative thinking. Experienced entrepreneurs will tell you that the initial idea is the easy part, and it’s the later implementation, and the competitive business marketing that are the real creative challenges.

There is a tough balance here to achieve, since a large portion of starting and running a business requires analytical, logical thinking. In fact, our education and training to logically associate related concepts reduces our ability to add the creative side, even though we were all born without that bias. Maybe that’s why “thinking outside the box” is so rare.

Built In Chicago has spent the past year collecting and analyzing data on the Digital Technology startup community.  The below slides represent the first annual Digital Startup Report: a snapshot of both current, and historic startup launches, fundings and exits. We will continue publishing this data monthly, quarterly and annually.  If we inadvertently missed a company, or funding, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for inclusion in the next report.

Digital:

Our definition of "digital" for purposes of collecting data, and publishing reports, is a company whose business is primarily web or mobile based.

It is universally agreed that reviving America’s once-dominant manufacturing base is essential to our economic recovery and our future prosperity.  On February 22, 2012 in Washington, DC, the CONNECT Innovation Institute released four key research studies analyzing the state of American manufacturing and production at a Brookings Institution program titled “Why-and Which-Manufacturing Matters: Innovation and Production in the United States.”   The authors and researchers of the studies presented their findings and policy recommendations to a standing room only, bipartisan Washington audience.  The event included a closing keynote by Dr. Irwin Jacobs, co-founder and former chairman, Qua

lcomm, Inc. who voiced his support of the recommendations and shared his concern that America needs to remain strong in advanced technologies and products.

The studies offer specific actions to stimulate competitiveness, particularly at the regional level, and to spread or amplify the benefits of innovation throughout society.  To date, novel developments that give rise to “game changing” technology have been the hallmark of the American economy and a source of enormous wealth and value for the nation.  However, the globalization of design, production, sophisticated manufacturing and distribution has slowed this critical economic engine.  If innovation is to continue to be a major economic driver for the American economy a new form of innovation in processes and production is required in order to avoid losing jobs and industrial capabilities essential to the health of the U.S. economy.

View the PDF

“Budgets are like making sausages; it is better not to see them made,” noted Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor. (As the man who combined the many German principalities into a unified nation, he was an effective manager if ever there was one.) No one enjoys the budgeting process, but it’s something that must be done. If done well, it’s worth the effort.

In October 2011, Lab Manager Magazine conducted a survey of managers to learn about some of the details of their laboratory budget processes. Slightly more than 95 percent of the respondents were responsible for the budgets in their laboratory.

Creativity: now there’s a word I thought I wouldn’t see under attack. Don’t we live in a society that thrives on the idea of innovation and creative thought? The age of the entrepreneur, of the man of ideas, of Steve Jobs and the think different motto? Well, yes and no. That is, indisputably yes on the surface. But no in a way that you might not expect: we may say we value creativity, we may glorify the most imaginative among us, but in our heart of hearts, imagination can scare us.

As a general rule, we dislike uncertainty. It makes us uneasy. A certain world is a much friendlier place. And so, we work hard to reduce whatever uncertainty we can, often by making habitual, practical choices, choices that protect the status quo. You know the saying, better the devil you know? That about sums it up.

College leaders are trying new approaches to teaching and research with digital tools, and some of those approaches could be transformative. Here are profiles of a dozen of those leaders, highlighting their ideas and the issues at stake. In making our selections, we considered nominations from readers. See which other innovators they suggested.

North America is windy. If the U.S. and Canada had enough wind turbines, they could produce all the electricity they need, and then some, from wind alone. The same is true of solar energy, with even bigger power surpluses. The U.S. Southwest's deserts get enough sunlight to sustain the country's thirst for electricity—20 times over. But both these sources are inherently erratic: winds wane and clouds show up with little notice. Wind, moreover, tends to blow harder at night, when demand for electricity is at its lowest.

Coders and entrepreneurs don't always have to be the nerdy, quiet types.

If you were one of Facebook's earliest employees, chances are you found yourself at their house playing beer pong or going to one of Zuck's crazy parties, like those chronicled by David Kirkpatrick in "The Facebook Effect."

You know — the kind of lifestyle you might find in a fraternity.

And, no surprise, a lot of the top founders and tech leaders these days also found themselves starting in fraternities.

For the third year in a row, the Aloha State gets kudos as the happiest U.S. state, with Hawaii residents scoring highest in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

But you don't have to jet to an island for a smile, as North Dakota and Minnesota came in second and third, respectively. West Virginia's residents showed the lowest well-being scores.

Following a trend that has been consistent over the past four years, Western and Midwestern states fared well on the happiness index, accounting for nine of the slots on the top 10 happiest states' list, with Southern states sliding into half of the bottom 10 states.

Reverse innovation, a growing trend in the developing world, is challenging the concept of traditional innovation by creating products and ideas in a new and thoughtful way.

Vijay Govindarajan, Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business, defines it as innovation that starts in poor countries and brought to people in wealthy countries.

Starting PandoDaily has been one of the most terrifying and exhilarating things I’ve ever done.

To say it’s “hard” is an understatement. I never come close to doing everything I need to do on a daily basis. I’ve never spent so much of my day feeling like a failure no matter how hard I work. But I was prepared for that part.

What I wasn’t prepared for is how fun it would be. And the satisfaction of not only paying my own salary– which I’ve done for years on various book projects– but paying the salaries of others. Creating jobs in an industry as screwed up as journalism feels awesome, and every kind Tweet or comment from a reader has an emotional kick of adrenaline that I never felt when I was just a reporter.

Shenzhen, China, is a long way from Silicon Valley. But for startups that want to create the next iPhone, it may be the best place to get their businesses off the ground.

That's the thinking behind Haxlr8r, a new hardware-focused startup accelerator that is about to begin its first round of incubation by investing in nearly a dozen startups making hardware ranging from electronic toys to a device that manages household energy usage. Created by venture capitalist Cyril Ebersweiler, the program will provide seed funding along with a three-and-a-half-month program that will introduce startups to factory and industry contacts and offer guidance.