Business innovation and strategy were central topics when the Brainzooming blog’s precursor started in 2007. Since then, the content covered in the blog has grown and changed, but there’s a concerted effort to stay true to its initial strategic theme.

Following up the recent summary article with links on social media strategy, this list covers new business innovation articles from 2010. Most appeared on Brainzooming initially, but some were published exclusively as guest Brainzooming blogs on other websites.

Beyond this comprehensive list, another key business innovation reference on Brainzooming is the post “Taking the NO Out of Business InNOvation,” an overview of ten common situations blocking business innovation across companies.

Facebook’s decision to defer an IPO creates an opportunity for other Web 2.0 companies to tag along under Facebook’s valuation umbrella in the public markets. LinkedIn is reported to be the closest to filing for an IPO, but several should get set to follow. And investors ought to beware.

Bankers face a delicate task: telling their venture-backed clients that they’re not Facebooks. Despite the egos involved, not every company has 500 million users, $2 billion in revenue, a $50 billion valuation and the ability to draw $2 billion privately from Goldman Sachs Group.

We’re only 10 days into the new year and Groupon Inc. may win an award for “The Best Headline of A Corporate Press Release” with this attention grabber: Groupon Raises, Like, A Billion Dollars

Actually, the daily-deals site said it raised $950 million - and a large share of that financing (at least $344 million) will be used to buy stock from existing shareholders, not for the company to use. So this round of financing is much smaller than $1 billion.

This brings up a question - has a private company ever raised a cool billion in a single round of venture capital?

When Porsche announced last Spring that it plans to built a production version of the 918 plug-in hybrid Spyder supercar, green car buffs rejoiced. At this week's Detroit Auto Show, the luxury auto company upped the hybrid supercar ante with the 918 RSR racecar, a modified version of the Spyder hybrid. Fast Company sat down with Michael Mauer, Porsche's head of design, at the Detroit Auto Show and talk about the new vehicle.

In the world of materials, strength (the amount of force a substance can withstand) and toughness (its capacity to resist fracturing) are not merely different attributes; they're very difficult to achieve together. Now a collaboration of researchers from Caltech and the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has created a form of glass that has both qualities. It's stronger and tougher than steel or, indeed, any other known material. The material features palladium, a metal whose possible use in glasses was recognized 45 years ago.

The initial spark of inspiration is creativity’s calling card. It can be an idea for a poem, sculpture, dance or concerto, a new garden, business or invention, a Halloween costume, a party or a gift; it can be a vision of you in a new relationship to others and to Self. Inspiration is non-verbal; it is the life-enhancing “Wow!” moment when the vision of what can be -of who you can be – carries you into unchartered territory and the land of possibility.

The land of possibility is the womb of creativity; it is here that you swim on the sea of the unconscious; your spark of inspiration is thrust about by the surging waves of the chaos.

This land is not unknown to you. In fact, you visit it every night in your dreams. What sometimes makes it a nightmare is that your mind cannot make sense of this non-verbal world. Which is why mind – with its language, thought and need to analyze – should not be allowed entry into the early stages of the creative process.

As she comes to Kansas University, Julie Goonewardene is all about helping turn faculty ideas into marketable ideas.

And those who worked with her at Purdue University say she’s one of the best around at it. Those former colleagues include KU’s Provost Jeff Vitter, who worked with her as a former dean of sciences at Purdue.

Goonewardene (it’s pronounced goon-WAR-den) came to Purdue in 2005 after working with three different start-up companies.

She has worked at the Purdue Research Foundation in several roles, including as director of business development.

Jan 10, 2011 – Three budding authors will have their business books published thanks to Small Grants for Big Ideas, a new program from the Association for Creative Business Writing. The grants program, launched this year, offers business-writing and publishing assistance to authors of business books that will help re-energize the American economy.

“In the summer of 2009, I read a column in the 'New York Times' by economist Thomas Friedman stating that the best way for America to get out of its economic morass is to ‘Invent, Invent, Invent,’” says Lynda McDaniel, director of the association. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since, which led to Small Grants for Big Ideas. These grants are designed to foster American ingenuity and innovative ideas that will invigorate our economy.”

Vivek Wadwha put a post up on Techcrunch over the weekend title What Excatly is a Business Model?  To my mind he didn’t really answer that question (I was expecting a piece about different ways of organising revenues and costs to make a profit) but he does list out seven requirements for a successful business.  It is worth every entrepreneur and investor going through this list and making sure they know how they will deliver on each of these points, and the value in frameworks like this is that they throw the spotlight on areas that might have been forgotten.  Note that I’m not saying this is an exhaustive list of things that a business needs to think about.  That will vary by sector and is difficult to generalise.  Rather I think it is helpful to collect a number of frameworks like this and revisit them periodically as sense checks on a business.

While recent economic reports and certain trends offer a glimmer of hope for an improved economy on the horizon, most agree that any recovery will likely be slow and modest in the near term. As we continue to dig in and keep forging ahead during these challenging times, I’d like to offer 5 quick tips to possibly assist you in getting 2011 off to a great start. While there are certainly a variety of other factors and strategies to consider, it’s my sincere hope that these 5 areas will prove beneficial.

1. Strive For Excellence – a tough economy generally translates into more competition going after a smaller pool of opportunities. To give yourself the best possible chance for success in an increasingly competitive environment you must strive to be the very best in your chosen field or industry. Doing just enough simply isn’t enough. Go the extra mile. Doing just enough will leave you on the outside looking in. Those individuals and organizations that push themselves to higher levels of achievement, higher levels of customer service, and higher performance standards will have a distinct advantage over their competitors.

The inspiration for the title of this post came from a talk that my friend Kami Huyse, COO of Zoetica, gave to the PRSA – Digital Impact conference NYC in May 2010. While an amusement park like Sea World could measure success by coaster rides, you may have something different in mind for your business and the metrics of success you have.  I was part of a panel measuring results: Guide to Google Analytics, Affiliate Metrics and more at the recent Affcon 2010 Summit with Wade Sisson and Brad Geddes. My discussion was on social media analytics, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

Jeremiah Owyang defined social analytics as “The practice of being able to understand customers and predict them using data from the social Web.” Shel Israel wrote in a post on Global Neighborhoods, “There is great danger in measuring the wrong things.”

The first venture capital firm headquartered in El Paso has made its opening investments, and has raised more than $50 million, even as many venture capital firms nationwide are shrinking.

Cottonwood Capital Partners’ first fund, the Cottonwood Technology Fund, raised almost $13 million last year, according to managing director Beto Pallares.

But that number was dwarfed last week when Woody Hunt, lead investor, local heavy-hitter and businessman, committed $40 million to establish a second, as yet unnamed, fund.

“I am satisfied with the progress we have made so far,” Hunt told El Paso Inc. He is out of the country and was unavailable for further comment.

Every investor I know can tell you at least one story about a great startup team that failed, even though it was well-funded and staffed with qualified and smart people. The reason almost always given is that the team didn’t work well together (dysfunctional). What does that really mean?

In my experience, genuine teamwork is hard to find, and even harder to predict in a new team. A lot of studies have been done on this, and most have focused on recognizing the symptoms of a dysfunctional team, rather than searching for personal attributes that will likely lead to a cohesive or high-performing team. So I don’t have any magic to prevent this problem.

I’m often approached by people who claim to have invented the next big thing, and ask me how much it’s worth, or complain that they can’t find an investor who will fund it. The honest answer is that ideas and new technologies are worth nothing, outside the context of a specific business plan that meets a market need for a fair price.

Invention is the process of creating a new technology. Business innovation is taking that technology and successfully bringing it to market in a way people want. There is a variation on an old quote that sums it up for me: "Invention is turning money into technology. Business innovation is turning technology into money."

The nominations and votes are in from the Under30CEO audience! We have put together the 30 most influential Under30CEO’s from 2010.

We asled readers to judge "Influence" based on how much the person’s ventures were impacting the world and the way we live everyday. Together, all 30 founders' ventures are valued at nearly $100 billion; they reach millions, if not billions, of people across the world.

If you want a very quick primer on all the stuff nobody ever tells you about raising venture capital check out this video where Mark Jeffrey & I break it down on This Week in VC.  A summary of what we discussed is below:

Not 100% in order of the video, but close.  All of this is covered in more detail on the TWiVC video above (and much of it is covered in text on this blog on the “Raising VC” tab)

1. Will a VC sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement)? No. If they did they would be in constant violation because VCs often see 3-4+ companies in every market that they operation.  NDAs would make it impossible to do business.   Asking for one to be signed shows naïveté.

Many of us dread negotiations. We approach these high-stakes interactions with trepidation, and would rather spend our time doing just about anything else.

But that’s because we have mistaken notions about what negotiation means, says Stuart Diamond, professor of a famed negotiation class at UPenn’s Wharton School, and author of the new book Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World (Crown Business). “Every human interaction involves negotiation, from kids and relationships, to jobs and travel, to shopping to chatting, to politics and diplomacy,” he says.

It's easy to dislike angel and venture capitalist investors. For entrepreneurs looking to raise capital for their start-up businesses, these early-stage investors can be awfully hard to find, and when you do find them, it's even tougher to get investment dollars out of them.

But, think again: angels and venture capitalists (VCs) are taking on serious risk. New ventures frequently have little or no sales; the founders may have only the faintest real-life management experience, and the business plan may be based on nothing more than a concept or a simple prototype. There are good reasons why VCs are tight with their investment dollars.