I’ve noticed a trend toward more video presentations lately. I looked at one this morning and it reminded me of the old writers adage “show don’t tell.” This applies nicely to every pitch you ever do. Specifically, I don’t want to hear you describe what you are going to do, I want to see it. Or – if it’s not built yet, see an example of it. It’s always better to point me at a URL, even if it’s a very rough prototype, as I can usually get a much quicker view of what you are doing by simply playing around.

Every day I get emails from folks either raising money or telling me about their new idea and asking for feedback.  The conventional wisdom is that VCs rarely invest in things that reach them randomly (or “over the transom” in someone’s VC vocabulary – I can’t for the life of me figure out why that phrase hangs around.)  However, this isn’t the case for us as 10% of the companies we’ve funded in the past two years were initially from “cold call” email inquiries (Brightleaf and Organic Motion).  So – I’m very happy to get a steady stream of random emails – keep them coming!

Short answer: Because there isn’t enough innovation. Here’s what business and government can do about this.

2.8 million

That’s how many new jobs America’s most technologically-advanced industries were supposed to create between 1998 and 2008. Such ‘leading-edge’ industries as aerospace, telecom, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductor and electronic component manufacturing were all going to add workers over the next ten years or so, according to November 1999 projections by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (see the full list below). Indeed, by my calculations, the 1999 BLS projections implied that employment in leading-edge industries would grow at a 3.4% annual clip, more than twice as fast as the rest of the private sector.

At the time, this forecast made perfect sense. Riding the New Economy boom, the U.S. had become the innovative icon for the rest of the world, the country that knew how to do it right. The global division of labor was clear: The U.S. would focus on breakthrough innovations and creating advanced goods and services, which would in turn create high-paying jobs. Meanwhile, production and routine innovation would be shifted to low-wage countries.

THE government will provide up to $250 million as initial seed capital for public-private co-investment funds to be set up later this year to invest in Singapore firms, part of a broader initiative to help Singapore businesses attract more private capital to grow.

In an unexpected move, it also announced tax incentives to encourage rich individuals, or 'angel investors', to invest in start-up companies.

In addition, the government confirmed that it was studying how best to set up a specialised financial institution to plug gaps in the supply of cross-border financing for Singapore firms, similar to the export credit agencies or export-import (Exim) banks elsewhere - as recommended by the Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) earlier this month.

R&D Credit Coalition - The research and development tax credit is a jobs credit – the Senate should act quickly to revive it, strengthen it, and make it permanent. When the credit expired on January 1st of this year, the cost of hiring R&D workers in the U.S. went up. Now, by expanding and permanently extending the credit, Congress could help to create over 100,000 jobs in a single stroke. An expanded credit would also add billions to our GDP and tax coffers, spur thousands of patents, and give companies one more reason to invest in America. More than 70 percent of the credit allowed to expire in December went to U.S. wages. Why leave a proven jobs credit on the table?

The R&D Credit Coalition is a group of more than 100 trade and professional associations [including NACFAM] along with small, medium and large companies that collectively represent millions of American workers engaged in U.S.-based research throughout major sectors of the U.S. economy, including aerospace, agriculture, biotechnology, chemicals, electronics, energy, information technology, manufacturing, medical technology, pharmaceuticals, software and telecommunications.

The fruits of EU research are not being converted into marketable products due to difficulties in funding expensive "demonstration" projects, according to Bernhard Schleich of SusChem, a European technology platform for sustainable chemistry.

Schleich says Europe's research funds are geared towards pre-competitive research but stops short of backing new technology when it approaches the demonstration phrase.

He said most funding opportunities in Europe are still "research-oriented".

But it is a big step from a research result to a final, marketable product. Here, companies are often left alone because this phase is no longer considered pre-competitive – which is not always the case. Often excellent research will not be developed further because no 'risk funding' is available, Schleich said in an interview with EurActiv.

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, and a group of about 20 venture capital firms will invest more than $3 billion in U.S. technology companies over the next two years, two people familiar with the matter said.

Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini will make the announcement during a speech today in Washington, the people said. They declined to be identified because the plan has not yet been made public. Nick Jacobs, a Singapore-based spokesman for Intel, declined to comment.

The chipmaker has an investment arm, Intel Capital, which takes stakes in companies that have technology that can be used to increase future processor sales. U.S. semiconductor companies including Intel have lobbied the government to raise standards in math and science education, increase funding for research at universities and cut corporate taxes to promote domestic investment.

The old mechanism for funding the commercialization of new technologies is in trouble.

In the summer of 1996, Silicon Valley venture capitalists put a few million dollars into a telecom-equipment startup called Juniper Networks. Three years later, after a few more rounds of funding and the release of its first product, Juniper enjoyed an initial public offering of shares, or IPO. At the end of its first day of trading, it was worth nearly $5 billion, and within nine months, it was worth almost 10 times that. The original venture investors, meanwhile, were able to walk away with profits of better than 10,000 percent.

Around the same time Juniper went public, Silicon Valley venture capitalists were putting money into a new networking startup, Procket Networks. This time, the initial investments were bigger, and over successive rounds of financing, Procket collected almost $300 million in venture money. Three years after it started, though, the company had still not launched a product, and in 2004 its assets were acquired by Cisco in a fire-sale deal. This time the VCs walked away with just a fraction of their original investments.

The difference between those two stories is, of course, the difference between the world of the late-1990s technology-stock bubble and the world after that bubble burst. But of late, it also seems like the difference between the historical image of venture capital and the harsh reality of the current business. A decade ago, venture capitalists seemed like genuine alchemists, able to turn even startup dross into purest gold. In recent years, however, the industry has seemed less magical than mundane. Since 2004, its average five-year return has oscillated around zero. High-priced IPOs have become rare events, even as VCs have continued to pour tens of billions of dollars into new companies every year. As Fred Wilson, a principal at Union Square Ventures, bluntly puts it, "Venture capital funds, as a whole, basically made no money the entire decade."

So you've got a great innovation on your hands--a new product or service that is going to change everything. Well, soon you'll face your first battle: How to explain the thing. If it's new, it's going to take some explaining, but long explanations make for lousy marketing. So how do you talk about your innovation without killing the excitement?

The first thing you've got to do is anchor in what people already know. So let's say I had to explain Netflix to somebody who'd never heard of it. Well, I could start by saying, Netflix is like Blockbuster. Now at least you're in the right mental space--okay, I get it, it's a movie rental business. But then I can add to it: Netflix is like Blockbuster--but it's by mail. Or it's Blockbuster with no late fees, or Blockbuster that actually has the movies you want in stock.

So Blockbuster is the "anchor" here--it gives you very quick intuition about what Netflix is. As another example, think about the first generation of cars--how are you going to explain a "car" to someone who's never seen one. Well, they were called "horseless carriages." "Carriage" is the anchor--people understood what that was.

A HOW TO IN HELPING SHAPE YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH........ALL YOU NEED IS AN ANCHOR AND A TWIST.......WORTH THE 2 MINUTES YOU WILL INVEST WATCHING..........RICH BENDIS

A few years ago, researchers at Cincinnati-based consumer goods multinational Procter & Gamble (P&G) made a breakthrough that could revolutionize how food is wrapped and stored. But there was one problem, as Chris Thoen, director of innovation and knowledge management at P&G, recounted during a recent conference at Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation. Despite a portfolio of more than 300 products worth nearly $80 billion, P&G didn't have a strong presence on supermarket food-wrap shelves, and it would take millions of dollars of marketing, packaging and other costs to change that.

The good news was that one of the multinational's biggest rivals, The Clorox Company, did have that presence, thanks to Glad food wrap. So P&G approached Clorox with an offer to collaborate. Seven years later, Glad's Forceflex -- using P&G's technology, which embeds a kind of cement in small dimples in the cling film to increase its stickiness -- is a top-selling product and Glad is now a joint venture of the two companies, with P&G owning 20%.

"Glad had a great name in marketing and in manufacturing, and we brought a product technology in," said Thoen, describing just one of several approaches to collaboration that have had a dramatic impact on how the company has become more innovative over the past decade.

Kevin Rose, Digg's founder, spoke this week at Webstock in Wellington, New Zealand and covered 10 amazing tips for entrepreneurs. They were truly insightful
- and obviously came straight from the heart and soul of someone who worked a day job and built his dream after hours. This is our take of what he had to say.

1: Just Build It: You don't need anyone's approval and in fact, you probably won't get it, so don't even try.

2: Iterate: Build, release and iterate. Make a list of the features you want to create over the next six months and get going! For small companies, once a week; for larger companies, maybe twice a month.

3: Hire Your Boss: Make sure you hire people that you would want to work for, who challenge you and you can learn from.

4: Demand Excellence: Ensure staff are committed to and understand your vision. Passionate, committed staff have a tendency to rub off on people. There is nothing like a new junior developer who runs circles around everyone to get people hyped up and raise the bar! Stay involved in the hiring process as long as you possibly can.

Rich Bendis President, Innovation America will speak TODAY about how innovation will change small business.

Editor's Note: This is to be a live blog radio show to air at 1:00PM on Feb 24, 2010  Click the link below for more details.

The Minister of Infrastructure, Science and Technology, Johnny Swartz, this week rebutted suggestions the newly adopted Botswana Innovation Hub would sideline Batswana inhabiting in the rural areas, arguing the move to design the institution was premised to create employment and development of skills, which would play a pivotal role to the livelihood of Batswana, including those in the rural areas.

Endorsed in the previous sitting last November, the Hub is expected to accelerate economic diversification as well as create more employment opportunities to increase productivity but there remained suspicions the initiative would discriminate, affording opportunities to the Batswana living in urban areas while those living in the rural areas would be left in the lurch.

However, answering a question in parliament Tuesday, Swartz discarded such assertions, insisting that the government, through the initiative, anticipates “employment and skills development would be the major outcomes which would benefit our people”.

Watch this Kauffman Foundation/National Governors Association Center for Best Practices Event to be Web cast live from the Kauffman Foundation
"Spurring Business Startups and Innovation in Clean Technology"
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST
To view webcast go to: www.kauffman.org/NGA

Governors across the country are looking for ways to build their economy by supporting new businesses and spurring entrepreneurship. At the same time, they are looking for ways to build opportunities in emerging industries such as clean energy. This webcast will feature three ways in which states can use existing scientific and business talent to spur the creation of new clean energy companies:

• By providing scientists and engineers with the skills and knowledge they need to start companies. - Andrew Hargadon, Center for Entrepreneurship, University of California, Davis, will discuss the Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy, a one-week business development intensive that teaches science and engineering students and faculty how to commercialize research and start new ventures.
• By transitioning entrepreneurs and executives from other high-tech sectors into the green energy sector. - Peter Rothstein, New England Clean Energy Council, will discuss the Clean Energy Fellowship Program, an entrepreneurial development program that rapidly transitions experienced entrepreneurs and executives into the region's clean energy sector.
• By working across states to take existing small businesses to scale. - Kimberly Loui, Arizona State University, will present the soon-to-be launched Energy Innovation Network, which aims to catalyze interaction between states and other stakeholders to create the conditions necessary for the growth of existing startups in clean energy.
  

Eric Jorgenson has notebooks with several million dollars scribbled on the pages.

The business and economics junior carries pen and pad wherever he goes, and whenever he thinks of the next best business venture he pulls out the notebook.

Jorgenson, who will co-direct The Hatch, an entrepreneurial incubator for students to be located at 325 E. Grand River Ave., is just one of many minds East Lansing and MSU are attempting to tap into as the city pushes entrepreneurship.

“There’s a common consensus of being sick of being considered a rust belt automotive, has-been sort of town, and that’s not what we are,” said Jorgenson, who started a bamboo clothing company called GoBoo Clothing.

“There’s a lot of young influence driving it into the right places and trying to bring Michigan up.”

The Office of Science and Technology of Boston (MS&T), directed by Antoine Mynard, is closely interested in the issues of innovation, technology transfer and entrepreneurship. It is well-known that in the United States, the financing of innovation is largely private, whereas in France the mechanisms of intervention and accompaniment of innovation belong to both the public and private spheres.

In the United States, investment banks play a very important role, parallel to that of venture capital enterprises and angel investors. The financial crisis of 2008 so impacted the economy of innovation because all aspects of American finance were affected in one way or another.

After decades of being celebrated as one of the hallmarks and virtues of American-style capitalism, “financial innovation” has come onto hard times.

Soon after the financial crisis began in 2007 and 2008, certain instruments of recent high finance – the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) and the credit default swap (CDS), as leading examples – were blamed by the media, the public, many policymakers, and even by some top economists for nearly bringing the U.S. and global financial systems and their economies to their knees.

It didn’t take long for financial innovation more broadly to be condemned.

New York Times columnist and Princeton professor Paul Krugman, for example, has asserted that it was “hard to think of any major recent financial innovations that actually aided society, as opposed to being new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes.”

"As countless studies have demonstrated, the key to unlocking the innovation economy is talented, driven and risk favorable people. Motivation, inspiration, and the capacity to dream and to act on those dreams are the greatest assets in the global innovation competition."

These two sentences begin the Public Policy Institute's new report entitled "Transcending the Hamster Cage, Unfettering New York's Static Innovation Economy." If you have not yet read this report, I encourage you to do so. The report’s findings are directly applicable to the Quebec-New York Corridor.

Within the last week, we have seen that Quebec has done extremely well in attracting venture capital investment, an accomplishment that speaks of the culture of innovation that is being driven north of the border. In New York State, we are all too often the hamster on the wheel, expending incredible amounts of energy and resources but going nowhere.

While the United States is usually the country hailed for its can-do business spirit, Canada is proving to be the home of the fearless entrepreneur.

Recession-weary Canadians have gone into business for themselves in near-record numbers in the past couple of years, and the trend shows no signs of slowing as hiring by larger corporations remains slow. The trend to self-employment goes against activities south of the border, where small-business growth has been weak.

A flip through any Yellow Pages reveals start-up businesses of endless variety, and while there are countless failures to go with every success, they are becoming an increasingly strong economic force.

Welcome to the 6th installment of Savvy Sunday Series where I inspire you to become an Evolutionary Entrepreneur.

Social Media is all the buzz these days and for good reason. It’s possibly the best source of `free’ marketing and promotion you can get for your business. Yet I speak to so many of you every week, who say how totally confusing and overwhelming it can be. I hear you.

Luckily it doesn’t have to be. Over the next few weeks I’m going to offer you my tips, tricks and guidance on building an integrated social media campaign to make sure your business shines.

Over the last year and a half I’ve been finely honing my Social Media skills, and every day I’m learning more and putting it into action and seeing what works well and what doesn’t.

The trick is it takes time and effort and a desire to engage and connect. If you’re prepared to do this then you will really see great results for your business.

In an earlier post, we posed the question, “Is College Necessary for Entrepreneurs?” While there are certainly good arguments for both sides, it’s a fact that a college degree does not guarantee success. And there are countless determined entrepreneurs who have proven that success can be achieved despite a lack of higher education.

We have compiled a list of 100 amazing “degreeless” entrepreneurs who have risen to the top. Some high-profile entrepreneurs you will recognize immediately, while others you may be discovering for the first time. Many of them didn’t complete elementary school, and still more are considered high school dropouts. Their backgrounds and industries run the gamut; however, they all have at least two things in common. Incredible success and no college degree.