Excerpts from a speech by CEOs for Cities President and CEO, Carol Coletta on the Washington D.C. creative economy.

Urban Escapism & Neo Rebellion
People are getting tired of saving the world and about negative news about the climate, terror,.. Games, 3D Technologies, Space Flight, iPhone & Apps, Outdoor activities and everything else which is interactive and entertaining is going to boom

Terror, Alternative Energy & China
This is what you already hear in news.
* This is going to be the century of China.
* Alternative energy will displace the old energy sources.
* Apocalyptic scenarios are very in and increasing the fear in people. So far unthinkable techniques (data security) will be accepted.

Information everywhere through mobile devices
Creative Capitalism

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – A paper published this past summer providing evidence that the gene variants found in some non-cancerous tissues may differ from those present in blood samples from the same individual was the top-read story on GenomeWeb Daily News in 2009.

That article just edged out a report early in the year that the National Institutes of Health would channel stimulus funds into existing grants rather than restoring previous cuts to existing programs and grants.

Newspapers had a nice run from the 1970s to the 1990s. Unfortunately, as this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes clear -- by way of Marketwatch -- it's over.

Newspaper employment has utterly collapsed in the last 15 years, with employment numbers now around where they were in the mid-1950s.

The good news: It's a great opportunity. The next decade will give birth to new forms of reporting, more in tune with today's technology and news consumption habits.

People will not follow an unenthusiastic leader. They will follow someone who has a vision and is passionate about it. Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela showed great passion for what they believed – it was what made them great leaders.

The sales training expert Robin Fielder says, ‘Never, ever forget that people are more persuaded by your convictions than by your arguments.’

The final application deadline for InvestMidwest’s 2010 Venture Capital Forum, the Midwest’s premiere venture capital event, is quickly approaching.

High-growth companies interested in presenting their business plans to an audience of the nation’s top venture capitalists, corporate and private investors, and investment bankers, must have their applications in by Jan. 8, 2010 to be considered for participation in the March 24-25 forum, which will be held at Wells Fargo Advisors in St. Louis. The application can be completed online at InvestMidwest’s website: www.investmidwestforum.com.

“While we already have some great applications in hand, there’s still time for companies to submit their proposals before the deadline,” said Chris Walsh, Executive Director of InvestMidwest. “We are eager to move forward with the next step of reviewing the final submissions and selecting the presenters for the 2010 forum. Based on the interest so far this year, it should be a very successful forum.”

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation (H.R. 4213) to extend approximately $31 billion in tax breaks for one year. Included in the package is $7 billion for the research and development (R&D) tax credit.

Philadelphia's cultural community: Peggy Amsterdam, president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance for the past 10 years, died of cancer on Saturday, Dec. 26. She was 60.

Says GPCA chief operating officer Tom Kaiden in a press release, “Peggy’s energy, connection, and courage inspired everyone she touched. I am at a loss for words to describe our sorrow at her passing. She was a great leader, and we will humbly carry on her mission of ensuring that arts and culture remain at the core of what defines Greater Philadelphia as a region and what binds us together as a community.”

I had the privilege of working with Peggy on several Creative Economy projects in Philadelphia and looked at her as a professional and dedicated leader for our Region. It is unfortunate she left us so early, but we are all better off as a result of her personal commitment to the Creative and Cultural expansion of Philadelphia. - Rich Bendis

Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube all have ridiculously young founders. These and other social media wunderkinds took the world by storm and reshaped friendship, media, and publicity, bringing interdependence's warm glow (and a nice serving of attention deficit disorder) to the world. On facebook alone, I have 2400 friends, and I even know some of them! :) In terms of social media, this was definitely not the decade from hell. This was the decade where google became a bona fide verb. You and I were brought closer together, no matter who you and I are (as long as we live in the first world and can afford high speed internet, that is). We also became even more scatterbrained and unable to pay attention to the people right in front of us. Ah, the irony of social media.

Nothing makes a person sound smarter than articulating some huge idea about how the world is going to change, or how they can change it, over the coming years.

A big idea can lead to countless books, TV appearances, and a nice stream of speaking fees at conferences across the country.

Short answer: enough to get your startup to an accretive milestone plus some fudge factor.

“Accretive milestone” is a fancy way of saying getting your company to a point at which you can raise money at a higher valuation. As a rule of thumb, I would say a successful Series A is one where good VCs invest at a pre-money that is at least twice the post-money of the seed round. So if for your seed round you raised $1M at $2M pre ($3M post-money valuation), for the Series A you should be shooting for a minimum of $6M pre (but hopefully you’ll get significantly higher).

Like the rest of the world this year has been rather interesting for small business in Australia. By all accounts our economy has weathered the economic crisis quite well with the economy forecast to grow in 2010.

The latest MYOB Business Monitor revealed that business confidence is growing; especially amongst younger business owners with 65% expecting improvements in the next year.

Whilst there will still be challenges to overcome by small businesses, a key to their success in Australia as in most countries will be to meet the challenges head on and act on opportunities to grow their business.

Last week I [Stephen Shapiro] was with a group of extremely successful entrepreneurs in Las Vegas. I was a bit of an outlier as my background is mainly with large, multi-billion dollar businesses. Everyone else in the room came from the start-up world. Also, nearly everyone in the room worked exclusively with speakers and authors. Although I too am a speaker and an author, it was clear that my perspectives were a bit different than everyone else in the room. Or as one entrepreneur said, "Steve, you have distinctions in innovation that we don't."

So they asked me to share my point of view. What I shared were three simple distinctions on innovation.

1. Challenges not Ideas

2. Process not Events

3. Diversity not Homogeneity

I was asked recently what the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator outside Geneva, is good for. After $10 billion and 15 years, the machine is ready to begin operations early next year, banging together protons in an effort to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang. Sure, there are new particles and abstract symmetries in the offing for those few who speak the language of quantum field theory. But what about the rest of us?

The classic answer was allegedly given long ago by Michael Faraday, who, when asked what good was electricity, told a government minister that he didn’t know but that “one day you will tax it.”

Recently, Rich Bendis, the former CEO of InnovationPhiladelphia and nationally renown TBED (technology-based economic development) expert launched a daily news digest called Innovation Daily. You can find this digest here.

If you are someone who cares about anything related to global and national issues surrounding the topics of invention, commercialization, angel and/or venture capital, and public policy do yourself a favor and subscribe to this free service.

Rich has done an incredible job of aggregating news and stories that are relevant to his readers – I look forward to reading it everyday.

Happy Holidays and I wish you all the best in 2010!

As student journalists master the different ways social media can be used to report news and strengthen a publication, tools such as Twitter, Facebook and personal blogging can play an important role in nabbing a job or internship.

Think of it this way -- it's a bit more complicated than just sending out a resume and hard-copy portfolio.

New media guru David Spinks says college journalists on a job search must develop a social media strategy to help separate themselves from droves of others on the prowl for a particular position. Spinks serves as the community manager for Scribnia.com, an online platform for both bloggers and readers, as well as the co-moderator of young professionals Twitter chat #u30pro.

Advice on using "tough love" to motivate children to find a job and leave home after university is being issued to parents by the government.

The guide from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills admits graduates could find things difficult in the current financial climate.

It warns against nagging but also against being "too supportive".

This morning’s roundup of the latest venture capital news and analysis across the Web:

Business Is “Sonic Boom”-ing - The Wall Street Journal reviews Gregg Easterbrook’s “Sonic Boom,” which postulates that the global economy is not facing years of famine, but rather years of plenty, as globalization fully takes hold. Easterbrook cites the rebirth of industrial cities including Waltham, Mass., which has benefitted greatly from its proximity to high tech and venture capital hub Boston, and Erie, Pa., which is recovering largely due to updates of its locomotive plant. He also argues that innovation and VC cash will be the catalyst for continued advancement of global growth.

[Editor's Note: More on the original article.]

The Chicago-based Intellectual Property Exchange International — the first financial exchange to sell patent licensing rights — is poised to launch early next year. In return for a share of the revenues, the exchange will promote the patent and sell the license rights in individual units issued like stocks. The exchange also will enforce its protections with litigation, when necessary, and publish sales and price data online. “It’s like an initial public offering for a patent,” explains Jim Malackowski, chief executive of Ocean Tomo, the Chicago-based merchant bank backing the exchange. The exchange has soft commitments from four or five companies and expects to have 10 to 15 “industry leaders” pledged by February, according to Gerard Pannekoek, CEO of the patent exchange and former president of the Chicago Climate Exchange.

As we mentioned in a recent column, 2009 wasn’t as bad as advertised for the venture capital industry. The first half of the year was rocky; however, growth stormed back in the latter half of 2009. The 2010 IPO and M&A markets are shaping up to be the strongest in years and early- and mid-stage venture capital firms with cash have good reason to be optimistic.

Normal consolidation occurred in our industry this year. A number of prominent firms went quiet or declined to raise new funds. As the capital markets thaw a bit more in the coming months, we expect the strongest of these firms to reemerge, though probably in scaled-down fashions. Others will manage their current investments to fruition and new funds and models will be born.