Over the past few years, the raging debate in economic development has been over whether cities should be cool or uncool. Should cities pursue “the creative economy” by going after arts, culture, creative research & development, and innovation? Or should they focus on the bread-and-butter economy: hard infrastructure, traditional industries like manufacturing, and blue-collar jobs?

Usually a raging debate is an indication that the wrong question is being asked, and that’s the case here. The question is not whether cities must be cool or uncool in order to prosper. Clearly, there are some cities in each camp that prosper, and some cities in each camp that do not. The question is deeper: In both cool and uncool cities, what is the underlying nature of the economy? Does the city simply import money from other places, or does it export goods and services to other places? Because it is this distinction – not cool or uncool – that serves as the dividing line between prosperity that is real and prosperity that is illusory.

The Associated Press is reporting that the Obama Administration is ready to declare that it is diverting the $400 million awarded to Ohio for the 3C train plan and the $800 million awarded to Wisconsin and instead give the money to California, Illinois, and New York—who have Governors who are more than happy to use federal funding to develop passenger rail service in their States.

That’s $400 million in federal economic development funding for a project that was projected to create over 10k jobs throughout Ohio that is now on the express train to other States.

My partner Albert wrote a post about email today. In it he says:

I just don’t see a way anymore of answering everything that hits my inbox and theoretically should get an answer.

It's a familiar tale and I sympathize with Albert. I have been struggling with this issue for years. I've blogged endlessly about it and you all have been very helpful with suggestions. I moved to gmail which has helped. I use labels and shortcuts which help. I use priority inbox which helps. But everytime I make a productivity gain, the volume eventually overwhelms me.

One of our portfolio CEOs told me an entrepreneur complained to him that "fred wilson never returns my emails." That hurts to hear but I suspect it is more true that I want to admit.

November 2, 2010, was an historic Election Day in terms of what happened in congressional elections. But it also was historic at the state level. Not only did Republicans experience a net gain of six governor seats, but they also had big gains in state legislative houses. According to the Christian Science Monitor:

“Some 53 percent of state legislative seats will be held by the GOP, the most since 1928... Democrats will retain control in at least 16 states, Republicans will wield power in at least 25, and control will be split in at least five... Although some newly Republican legislatures had been under divided control, six states saw a major upset in which Democrats lost both chambers: Alabama, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Regionally, the most prominent move toward the political right came in the Midwest. Democrats retained clout in the Northeast and much of the Southwest (including Nevada and New Mexico), while Republicans added to their strength in the South.”

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New research suggests that private industry and academic science pursue different goals with different consequences, but that the two can still be complementary.

Over the past three decades, private funding and collaboration in university-based research has risen steadily. That has led to concerns about the independence and integrity of public science. However, University of Chicago sociologist James Evans finds that industry can advance academic science by shaking up its conservative nature and encouraging novel discovery.

Evans’s research, released today in the American Journal of Sociology, focuses on the science surrounding Arabidopsis thaliana, a flowering plant that has become the dominate genetic model in plant and agricultural sciences. Evans looked at over 18,000 research articles involving Arabidopsis, mapping out which articles are linked together by common research themes, methods, or citations. He could then compare those data to funding sources for each article.

Most startup founders know exactly what they want to design and sell, and they are personally convinced that everyone will buy one. Yet they often fail to realize that their view is likely biased, and will be instantly discounted by potential investors. Business plans with no “industry expert” data on your target opportunity size and growth are routinely rejected.

Your business plan must have an “Opportunity” section, where industry market size and growth projections are included. Within this section, investors look for footnotes referencing external sources, or quotes from notable domain experts. Absence of these raises a big red flag.

DIEPPE - British entrepreneurship guru Alan Barrell took a hot topic in Canadian policy - generic versus brand-name drugs - to spell out the benefits and challenges of introducing open innovation at a talk in Dieppe on Wednesday.

Fresh from meetings in Ottawa on spurring entrepreneurship in Canada, Barrell said the patent protection that big pharmaceutical firms covet for their name-brand drugs is going head-to-head with a push for fiscal restraint in Canada.

The federal government is considering loosening patent protection laws favouring Big Pharma to allow cheaper generic drugs to flow onto the market more freely, but there's a risk that firms such as GlaxoSmithKline Inc. (NYSE:GSK) could in turn threaten to pull research out of Canada, he said.

While those who run venture-capital funds may get more attention, angel investors invest in far more start-ups in a given year.

The National Venture Capital Association cites data from Thomson Reuters that show 728 companies obtained their initial investments from venture funds in 2009 - a total of $3.3 billion invested.

In contrast, 57,225 businesses raised $17.6 billion from 259,480 individuals in 2009, according to the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

However, like the shrinking venture-capital industry, angel investment has also been declining, said the center. Its data for the first six months of 2010 show that the $8.5 billion invested was down 6.5 percent from the same period of 2009.

The normally low-profile Ohio Development Department suddenly found itself at the center of gubernatorial politics this summer — and its very existence at risk — when Republican candidate John Kasich declared, “The days of trying to connect to business leaders through bureaucrats are over.” His campaign unveiled a sweeping proposal to privatize the agency’s core responsibility of attracting and retaining businesses.

Kasich argued that the department had largely failed at its core mission, pointing to an exodus of prominent employers as evidence. “We know all too well the story of NCR in Dayton, in which the Department of Development simply missed the warning signs and failed to act aggressively to keep the city’s last Fortune 500 Company,” said Kasich’s running mate, Mary Taylor. NCR moved to the suburbs of Atlanta.

Democratic Governor Ted Strickland fired back, saying that privatization would be like tasking a fox with guarding a henhouse, and raising concerns about the transparency and accountability with which the proposed nonprofit would operate. “After years of supporting unfair trade deals and outsourcing that cost Ohio over 460,000 jobs and helped Wall Street, it’s not surprising that Congressman Kasich wants to outsource economic development to corporate interests at the expense of working Ohioans,” the Strickland campaign said in a statement.

No one likes to be laughed at, but people do love to laugh. An inventor has created a toy that plays a variety of laughs, in hopes of bringing a smile to the face of sick children reports Daily Pilot. With every purchase, his business even gives $3 to The National Children’s Cancer Society.

Riding in an elevator with firefighter and Newport Beach inventor Steve Islava can be a load of laughs.

He doesn’t have to say a word. He just pushes a button on his latest creation, Laffy Laffalot, and the children’s toy plays one of 20 pre-recorded laughs that can make an elevator full of people smile and even chuckle. The device allows you to record your own message or laugh into the recorder and play it back later.

Colleges must play a greater, and more deliberate, role in helping regions innovate and thrive in an increasingly competitive and globalized economy, speakers urged this week at a conference on higher education and economic development.

Economic development is "no longer about attracting businesses," said Sam M. Cordes, co-director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development. "It's about attracting people, about attracting talent."

Participants in the two-day conference, "Providing a Uniquely American Solution to Global Innovation Challenges: Unleashing Universities in Regions," delved into the various ways colleges can help build stronger local economies, including acting as conveners for conversations about regional development, aligning their curricula with local elementary and secondary schools, and producing and retaining well-educated workers.

Each and every Groupon board member stood to gain millions, hundreds of millions, or even more than a billion dollars by accepting Google's $6 billion offer to acquire the company.

Groupon cofounders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky might have made as much as $600 million and $1.8 billion, respectively.

So how in a sane world could these people have told Google no?

How do you turn down hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth?

Everything gets a little busier during the holidays. There are parties to attend, things to bake, decorations to put up, and family to deal with lovingly enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s my most favorite time of the year, but it’s also really easy to let productivity fall to the wayside in lieu of more fun winter activities. Even if you’re feeling a bit like playing hooky in the snow, you want to make sure you head into the New Year as productive and motivated as possible. Below you’ll find tips that have allowed me to stay motivated during the holiday season. Of course, I’d love it if you’d share what’s worked for you.

1. Plan Ahead

Be realistic about your time. If you know you’re going to be traveling or skipping out early, schedule those as days off. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to work from the train the same you can from your office or that you’ll be able to find a quiet spot to focus when your house is filled with family. You can’t. Before things get too crazy, take a look at your calendar and decide when it’s realistic to schedule work time and when you should admit you’ll need the day off. If you work those days in now, you’ll be able to plan for them so you don’t fall behind.

Too many entrepreneurs still believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and investors will throw money at you. Every investor I know is frustrated with the poor quality of the business plans they get. This is sad, since “how to write a business plan” is a frequent topic found in every business journal, and a common title in the business section of every book store.

What is the definition of a good business plan? In simple terms, it is a document which describes all the what, when, where, and how of your business for you, your cohorts, and potential investors. Forcing yourself to write down a plan is actually the only way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. Would you try to build a new house without a plan?

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. That means skip the jargon and include explanations and examples. A plan that generates more questions than it answers is not a good plan.

Diving blue whales can dive for anything up to 15 minutes. However, Bob Shadwick from the University of British Columbia, Canada, explains that blue whales may be able to dive for longer, because of the colossal oxygen supplies they could carry in their blood and muscles, so why don’t they? ‘The theory was that what they are doing under water must use a lot of energy,’ says Shadwick. Explaining that the whales feed by lunging repeatedly through deep shoals of krill, engulfing their own body weight in water before filtering out the nutritious crustaceans, Shadwick says, ‘It was thought that the huge drag effect when they feed and reaccelerate this gigantic body must be the cost’. However, measuring the energetics of blue whale lunges at depth seemed almost impossible until Shadwick and his student Jeremy Goldbogen got chatting to John Hildebrand, John Calambokidis, Erin Oleson and Greg Schorr who were skilfully attaching hydrophones, pressure sensors and two-axis accelerometers to the elusive animals. Shadwick and Goldbogen realised that they could use Calambokidis’s measurements to calculate the energetic cost of blue whale lunges. They publish their discovery that blue whales swallow almost 2,000,000kJ (almost 480,000kcalories) in a mouthful of krill, and take in 90 times as much energy as they burn during a single dive in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

“I have a short five-slide deck to share that provides a solid framework for understanding our business.”

Since moving to San Francisco a little over a year ago, I have spent every day helping to build Socialcast and about.me.  During this time, I have raised more than $10 million combined over 3 funding rounds for both Socialcast and about.me.  Convincing venture capitalists to invest in two startups in less than 365 days was a challenging task, but one that quickly taught me the dos and don’ts of raising money. Here is an overview of the unique lessons I learned during the fundraising process, mostly focused on the initial meeting, which is the most crucial as you are introducing your company and vision for the first time.