I like studying what works and what doesn’t. I focus more of my time on the former, but often learn more from the latter. I compile tactical, earthy techniques from my mentors’ books and sprinkle in a bit of technology. Think of my maneuvers as real-world Google Analytics, but with a focus on extrapolating future conditions and outlining countermeasure options for when the shitake hits the fan.

With that introduction…Here is my list of the seven best places to close a deal in Silicon Valley. It’s meant to give you a home-field advantage even when you’re on the road. It’s street smart to have an array of spots to close deals; here is a window into mine.

1) Menlo Park Starbucks

Meetings that happen in the office on Sand Hill road are official. Official meetings suck.

GUELPH — Guelph innovators now have more provincial support to help them speed their ideas to the global marketplace or to craft them into new businesses.

Glen Murray, Ontario’s Minister of Research and Innovation, announced an initial expenditure of $886,000 to set up the Guelph Innovation Centre, the latest of 14 such centres that are part of the Ontario Network of Excellence.

Local researchers, manufacturers and entrepreneurs with commercially viable innovations now have access to a host of resources geared to hastening new businesses and/or the commercialization of new products. The development is part of the province’s ongoing push to build the knowledge-based economy, foster innovation and create new jobs.

Nothing defines a leader more than their communication style and effectiveness. How we’re perceived is often subject to change, though. If we need lessons we don’t need to look any further than this (admittedly subjective) list of the Best and Worst Communicators of 2010 from the world of politics, entertainment, sports and the news.

This annual list of best and worst communicators is from Decker Communications, a prominent San Francisco based executive communication training and coaching company that’s been training– and assessing– leaders for over 30 years.

According to Ben Decker ( the company’s President) and Kelly Decker (Executive Vice President) here is this year’s somewhat surprising list of those who showed how the perception of their leadership is tied directly to their ability to communicate.

The EU must prioritise investment in education, training, research (fundamental and applied), development and innovation as well as key technologies if it is to safeguard its sources of future growth and jobs, according to EU research and industry ministers. The recommendation is one of many contained in the conclusions on the 'Innovation Union' initiative issued by participants at the latest Competitiveness Council, which took place in Brussels, Belgium on 25 and 26 November. The Innovation Union is one of a number of flagship initiatives launched under the banner of the Europe 2020 strategy.

In their conclusions, the ministers stress : 'Scientific excellence and basic and applied research, supported by world-class infrastructures, life-long learning, training and higher education, in particular in science and engineering, as well as incentives for commercialisation of results, are preconditions for an efficient innovation system.'

When entrepreneurs go looking for investors, most call on independent venture capital firms. But there’s another place companies can seek investment capital: major corporations.

Many big companies have venture arms that invest in growing small companies. Corporate members of the National Venture Capital Association include such well-known names as General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Microsoft, Google, Intel, and Adobe.

In recent years, the proportion of corporate venture capital has shrunk slightly, relative to all venture investments. A PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association/MoneyTree report on Corporate Venture Capital from 1995 to 2009 showed corporate VC peaked at 16 percent of all venture capital investment in 2000 but shrank to 7.4 percent in 2009. In these uncertain economic times, companies have grown more cautious about investing in startups.

You want to show your employees appreciation with a gift this holiday season. But you don’t necessarily want to hand out trinkets that will inevitably create more waste by getting tossed in the closet or the trash can. Rather, think seriously about giving employees an eco-friendlier holiday gift this year.

Here are five green gift ideas for employees to get your mind rolling:

1. Reusable travel mug – Reusable mugs are a nice way to encourage employees to avoid creating styrofoam or paper waste. There are lots of options, of course, at local gift and home furnishing stores. If you need some inspiration, the JOEmo Leak-Proof Coffee Mug gets high marks from the consumer product reviewers at the Hammacher and Schlemmer Institute, or you could opt for a biodegradable porcelain one, such as the Eco Cup.

Last week we had some of the biggest and brightest names in new media take the stage at the Time Warner Center for our first-annual IGNITION: Future of Media conference.

If you missed it, no worries. Here's the 5-minute version...

By breaking ranks with the remaining four member states on creating a common patent, the larger group may ultimately force the holdouts to join them or be left behind.

A forceful number of countries – 23 members of the European Union – said they will work together to create a single patent system to protect the design of products sold across their borders.

After debating rules on a common patent for a decade, a majority of countries said on Friday (10 December) that there appeared to be no way to reach a unanimous vote on the issue of languages.

So they are moving forward under a rarely used provision of the Lisbon Treaty known as "enhanced cooperation".

The low scrubland of densely packed succulents is in full fall color, a carpet of green fading brilliantly to red and gold. This 2.5-acre oasis, located among a barrens of blacktop roofs that stretches east to Broadway and west to the Hudson River, would be an impressive sight even if it wasn’t sitting atop the U.S. Postal Service’s 1933 landmark Morgan Processing and Distribution facility in midtown Manhattan.

The biggest green roof in New York City and one of the largest in the country, the Morgan facility’s verdant covering was completed in December 2008 and has thrived since. As the inscription above the landmark James Farley Post Office might have it, the roof has been affected by “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” and has flourished through freezes and thaws, through summer rooftop temperatures that reach 150 degrees, and through weeks of drought and torrential summer storms, despite never being watered, weeded, or fertilized.

If you think "I better not start a startup now, because the economy is still bad" you will be making a comparable mistake to the people who thought during the dot-com bubble "all I have to do is a startup, and I'll be rich." In reality, what matters more is who you are, not when you do it.

Like Paul Graham says, I see startups succeed or fail every day based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s a rounding error compared to the founders. If you're worried about threats to the survival of your company, don't look for them in the news. Look in the mirror.

Here are some pragmatic reasons from Paul and others to highlight why you might not want to wait for the next business explosion before taking the leap:

Alternatives are not as tempting. If your alternative is no job security, and low pay, why not work for yourself and build your startup? You'll be investing your time and energy into something with more potential upside in future. If you're talented and have always toyed with the idea of a startup, financially it makes sense to do it now.

When Lebron James played his first game as an ex-Cav in Cleveland earlier this month, he was booed by 20,000 aspiring brain-drain border guards still upset about his decision to take his talents to South Beach… and out of Ohio. Ironically, the native Clevelanders I heard complain about this most were actually ex-pats who had taken their talents to Chicago years before. In doing so, they’d followed a well-worn path out of northeast Ohio – one so commonly understood that it could be invoked last year without any real explanation in those viral “Cleveland Tourism” videos.

As blogs like Burgh Diaspora rightly and routinely point out, “brain drain” is a canard when framed simply as a fear about talented native young people leaving a city. The aim of cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh should be to attract migrants from elsewhere to bring in new talent, not to fret about their own citizens migrating elsewhere. “Rust Belt Chic” shows how young people are already moving to the region to arbitrage the rust belt’s cheap costs of living and the often hidden economic opportunities.

We need to move beyond using spending on research and development (R&D) as an indicator of innovation to a systems perspective, writes Eduardo Viotti.

How can we best assess a country's development in science, technology and innovation (STI)? Many would say we can do this simply by measuring the deployment of R&D resources — but this does not give us the full picture.

It is certainly true that R&D spending is one key indicator of the health of a country's STI development. But it is also true that such R&D indicators measure only a small part of a more complex process.

Kansas, like the rest of the United States, has felt the effects of the economic recession. But thanks in part to the state’s diversified economy, we are emerging from the recession stronger than ever. While many states rely on one or two major industries for economic growth, Kansas is investing in several promising sectors of our economy, including the biosciences.

A recent study, prepared by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice for Biotechnology Industry Organization, says, “the biosciences are already shaping up to be a key engine of economic growth in the United States.”

Thankfully, for the past few years Kansas has been involved in building our bioscience infrastructure. Working through the Kansas Bioscience Authority, the state has invested millions of dollars in efforts such as the Animal Health Corridor (from Manhattan to Columbia), the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan and artificial joint composite research at Wichita State University. These projects are moving us forward in bioscience research, development, commercialization, education and workforce preparation.

NASA 2010 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Phase 1 awards have been selected and publicly announced on Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 4:00 pm. The press release, list of awards, and award abstracts can be downloaded from this page. Please click on any of the items below.

2010 SBIR Phase 1 Press Release
2010 SBIR Phase 1 State Distribution

2010 SBIR Phase 1 Awards List (By Firm)
2010 SBIR Phase 1 Awards List (By Topic)
2010 SBIR Phase 1 Awards List (By State)

2010 SBIR Phase 1 Awards Abstract Search
(Provides company point of contact information and an abstract of the work to be performed)

View or Download the complete archive of 2010 SBIR Phase 1 abstracts

If you have any further questions, you can e-mail them to the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Debriefings

Debriefings for Phase 1 proposals submitted in response to the 2010 SBIR/STTR solicitations will be emailed to offerors by February 08, 2011. If your e-mail address has changed or if you have not received your debriefing by this date, please contact us in writing, by e-mail, mail or fax, to the SBIR/STTR Program Support Office (contact information below). Telephone requests will not be honored. Written debriefings, which include the comments of the evaluators, will be sent only to the Business Official designated in the proposal. Address to:

REI Systems, Inc.
NASA SBIR/STTR Support Office
4041 Powder Mill Road, Suite 311
Calverton, MD 20705
Fax: 301-937-0204
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Superficially at least, California’s problems are well known. Are they well understood? Apparently not.

About a year ago Time ran an article, "Why California is Still America's future," touting California's future, a future that includes gold-rush-like prosperity in an environmentally pure little piece of heaven, brought to us by "public-sector foresight."

More recently, Brett Arends' piece at Market Watch, "The Truth About California," is more of the same. California's governor elect, Jerry Brown, liked this piece so much that he tweeted a link to it.

Setting up your own business may seem attractive from afar. The freedom from corporate drudgery, the pulse-quickening start, the sense of control over your destiny and perhaps, if you're lucky, a golden exit which sets you up for life. But the economic aspects are just one side of the challenge. Rarely discussed is the personal toll of life as an entrepreneur. The reason is obvious. You must have the brassy ring of confidence even when the product's not moving, the creditors are calling and your personal life is in tatters after months or years of relentless work.

Meg Hirshberg is seeking to break the silence around the personal lives of entrepreneurs, being the wife of Gary Hirshberg, the founder of the yoghurt maker Stonyfield Farm, and a pioneer in the organic food movement. Hirshberg is developing a cult following by addressing subjects such as why so many entrepreneurs get divorced, what happens to the children of these business fanatics and the challenges of working in your spouse's company. Her column in Inc magazine and speeches to companies and business schools has led to her writing a book on life as an entrepreneur's wife.

When business leaders gathered Monday to announce the creation of a venture capital fund to help entrepreneurs at the very earliest stages of business development, they took a small step toward filling a funding gap that has persisted in New Orleans and Louisiana for decades.

The primary goal of the New Orleans Startup Fund is to provide $25,000 to $250,000 in early-stage capital to individuals looking to start high-growth businesses in the New Orleans region. But it's the fund's tertiary goal of growing the venture capital pool in the New Orleans area that may provide the greatest impact to the business community.

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O’Keeffe TD, today launched a new €17m fund for innovative new Irish firms to create 'high-quality' jobs.

The Bank of Ireland start-up and emerging sectors equity fund will help entrepreneurs to turn ideas into new products and services for export markets. It is the second fund launched by Bank of Ireland and Enterprise Ireland for start-up and early-stage growth firms and it is the 10th new fund supported by the Government through Enterprise Ireland’s Seed and Venture Capital Programme 2007-2012.

Bank of Ireland is investing €15m in the fund, with €2m provided by the Government through Enterprise Ireland and it will target investments between €100,000 and €500,000