You know what a clown car is, right? It’s a circus act where a very small car motors to the middle of the ring, its doors fly open, and out tumble dozens of clowns from a space seemingly no larger than a glove compartment.

My public presentations are often clown cars, I’m afraid, stuffed with with ideas, numbers, concepts, and clever quotes that stun the audience like a blow from a maul. I realized the error of my ways as I read Nick Morgan’s recent blog on why it’s so difficult to retain information given at a presentation.

Not only do presenters try to present too much, but the audience is easily distracted by that jerk’s ringing cell phone, the crazy typo on your title slide, and the smell of lunch being set up in the next room.

It's time for a roundup of the latest read/write devices that Internet of Things geeks are using to program our future. We're doing this in part because today IBM announced the free open-sourced Mote Runner Software Developer Kit. This super-simple software runs sensor-communications devices like the Crossbow Iris.

Arrayent, Arduino, Pachube, Logiboxx and Nabaztag are also examples of devices that do what Iris can do. From tracking objects, to objects communicating on our behalf, to objects that gather information about their surroundings for us, our awareness and activity-tracking technologies will soon create a Web with over a trillion nodes.

Yesterday’s Apple keynote was, I think more than ever, a testament to Steve Jobs’s presentation skills. Faced with an audience that had already seen the grand finale, he still had no trouble evoking plenty of gleeful gasps and applause. He even managed to make the now-infamous Wifi glitch amusing and entertaining (if a bit odd), rather than painfully awkward. But despite all of his showmanship and a very impressive new product, the keynote wasn’t quite the game changer that I expected. I don’t mean to say I found the iPhone 4 to be disappointing — it will be incredibly successful, and many of my friends are champing at the bit to get one. But I expected to walk out of San Francisco’s Moscone Center yesterday longing for the next iPhone despite my current allegiance to Android. That didn’t happen.

Last week, Patently Apple, a blog "celebrating Apple's spirit of innovation," noticed that Apple engineers, in 2008, had quietly filed a patent for a technology to embed solar cells under touch screens.

On Monday, CNET's Green Tech Blog reported on Patently Apple's discovery. In the opinion of the blog's editor, Martin LaMonica, the patent signifies that future iPhones and iPads could, with a little help from the sun, produce their own power. It does not, however, signify that we will all soon carry solar-powered mobile devices:

So, apparently, it's not quite time to get really excited about this.

Sorry for the tease.

Until now. The recent Harvard study, first published in April, doesn’t specifically focus on angel credits. But it does prove the value of angel investors to start-ups beyond mere money, something Lenczewski either failed to understand or simply did not want to understand.

Boy, if only this Harvard University business school study came out before February, when Minnesota Tax Committee Chair Rep. Ann Lenczewski argued, somewhat nonsensically, that direct grants to start-ups were superior than angel tax credits.

She even commissioned a much ridiculed report from the House Research Committee to back her claims.

Fortunately, common sense prevailed and Minnesota enacted a five year, nearly $60 million angel credit program. But Lenczewski was right about one thing: there has been little quantitative evidence to support angel credits.

For several years now, I have been keeping a close eye on Brazil and its entrepreneurial scene. From a business perspective, Brazil has been booming for several years, with massive increases in foreign investment and an increasing amount of attention from US- and Europe-based companies. Even though its economic performance may be somewhat less stellar than that of its BRIC-neighbors, it is clear that a potential market of 192 million inhabitants, abundant natural resources and a GDP-rate about double of the EU-average equal a very attractive value proposition for potential investors.

Following a conversation with Diego Remus, CEO of Startupi, one of Brazil’s leading startup blogs, I was surprised to learn that the Brazilian entrepreneurial scene does not seem to be seeing a lot of that investment – foreign business angels and venture capital firms seem reluctant to invest in Brazilian startups. According to a recent blog post, “In September 2009 Naspers Group, already present in Brazil, acquired nearly all of Grupo Buscapé. It had been a while since we’d seen an acquisition as notable as that one here. The whole world waited expectantly for more buys, which didn’t happen for a while but things are picking up again.”

In February, Portland, Oregon Mayor Sam Adams announced the city would put $500,000 towards a seed fund to help encourage regional startups. And on Friday of last week, the Portland Development Commission announced it had finally chosen the five local business leaders to help launch the fund, predicting it would be "open for business" by the fall.

Portland isn't the only city undertaking these sorts of early-stage investments. Last month, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his city was sponsoring an Entrepreneurial Fund, in a partnership with Firstmark Capital that had over $20 million earmarked to fund startups.

University research historically forms the foundation for many of the most significant U.S. technological advancements and industries—think biotechnology and the Internet, to name just a few notable examples. Yet many more ideas are left on the shelves and in the laboratories of universities across the country. These ideas are waiting to be developed into new products and services to fuel the United States in the 21st century. To be sure, hundreds of academic discoveries are transformed every year by entrepreneurs and established corporations. Yet even greater opportunities await to boost our nation’s economic growth and social wellbeing, through ideas that never make the leap.

This paper proposes a pilot initiative for the federal government to accelerate the great potential of breakthrough innovations arising from academic research. This $20 million pilot program would invest a small amount of federal funding to create rational experiments that test and demonstrate clear, replicable methodologies to bring existing research results into the U.S. commercial marketplace through ten local demonstration sites.

The Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County will officially open its $1.4 million “entrepreneur wing” at its Buckingham complex Wednesday.

The 5,000-square-foot addition was created by converting unused space in the back of the center, which was formerly used as a printing and distribution warehouse for D.A. Lewis.

The project was funded primarily by Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research, the research arm of the Hepatitis B Foundation, both of which are based in — and helped establish — the center. The center also received a $200,000 state of Pennsylvania Keystone Innovation Zone grant that was used to create teaching lab space in the wing.

It’s hard being a woman — especially when it comes to seeking investment in your company.

Women-owned businesses accounted for 21 percent of the entrepreneurs that sought angel-investment capital in 2009, but only 9.4 percent of those females were successful in their quest, according to a report published by Jeffrey Sohl, director of the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire, earlier this year.

“Women entrepreneurs — I am not whining, it’s just a fact of life — we have a harder time raising money and (being) taken seriously from big money and technology companies than men do,” said Gervaise Wilhelm, president and CEO of St. Paul based medical technology company CloSys Corp.

I’m pretty sure that my email inbox is going to drive me to the funny farm.  It’s the only thing that I can never quite seem to get on top of.  The other day, I received an email with the subject line, “Stress Management for Women.”

Maybe they know something about me that I don’t, but I’m NOT a woman and I’m definitely NOT STRESSED!!!  Ok, maybe just a little bit…

The point is, companies are turning to email marketing frequently because it’s cheap and it’s effective. But, recent studies show that about 90% of all email sent is SPAM. I would argue that 5% of the rest is borderline (like my Stress Management for Women email) – not relevant, not timely and to the wrong target.

The problem for small business owners is that we have to try and get our legitimate email to our prospects and customers amidst all the irrelevant junk that’s out there. It’s like being the needle in the haystack, hoping you’re found. Recently, the emergence of Email Marketing 2.0 is giving small businesses a way to stand out and be relevant and found in the email world.

The philanthropic organization One Laptop per Child (OLPC) never quite managed to hit its price point for its "$100 laptop," but now the organization is sketching a concept for a $75 tablet computer that it hopes will further decrease power consumption and pioneer the first flexible LCD display.

"A tablet is simpler than a laptop, so it's easier to make a tablet cheaper," says Ed McNierney, OLPC's chief technology officer. But beyond that basic advantage, he says, the key to achieving super-low cost while also innovating is by working to establish common designs that can be broadly adopted and customized by other companies.

The project starts with processor technology from a commercial partner, Marvell, known for super-low power consumption--potentially as little as one watt, compared to the five watts consumed by OLPC's flagship machine, the XO. Marvell is already customizing tablet platforms for use in U.S. schools.

James Sinclair, head of the hospitality industry turnaround firm OnSite Consulting, says one of the biggest challenges his employees have had adapting to the way he runs his business is answering the question, "But where is your company based?"

The answer: Wherever the work needs to be done. "We have 65 people, and we have no office," Sinclair explains. Headquarters is a post office box; he also has an Internet-based phone and unified communications system.

Sinclair used to have an office. "Sure, we picked out a nice office with a conference room and people working away. But our clients don't want to see our office, don't want to see the conference room. They want us to come to them," he says.

Montgomery County's Department of Economic Development is seeking $2 million from the county's rainy day fund to attract biotech companies.

The County Council passed a bill in March allowing the department of economic development to offer biotech firms tax credits, as an incentive for them to relocate to Montgomery.

"We don't have a funding source at this point," Steve Silverman, director of the economic development department, told The Washington Examiner. "It will require a special appropriation of money that would be likely to come out of reserves."

President Obama has made it a priority to address one of America’s greatest challenges, meeting energy demand in a sustainable way by transforming the ways we produce and consume energy. He assembled a team that could help him in this task, such as science adviser John Holdren, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and energy adviser Carol Browner. Congress in turn is working on climate change legislation that could foster a new wave of energy innovation. Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have recently unveiled their new energy bill that would introduce fees on carbon emissions. Other recent developments in Washington have included entrepreneurs, which signals a government push to leverage their risk-taking behavior and the power of individual innovators.

Last month, I joined over 140 participants at a White House Energy Innovation Conference sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation to discuss how to accelerate energy innovation, and support entrepreneurs and small businesses in the energy sector. I encountered many entrepreneurs and innovators among leaders from the federal and state governments, academia, the private sector and the nonprofit sector. Given the nature of the energy challenge, the ability of our nation to innovate in energy requires the risk-taking, ingenuity and determination of entrepreneurs.

Divide your salary by 1,000. While recommending business books on a blog post last week I said a business book pays for itself in less than an hour. A reader asked me how I measured that. If you want quick and dirty, then divide the annual salary by 1,000 and that’s the hourly cost to the company. That’s your time-is-money rate. It’s valid for you, for your team members, for your company.

When I say it’s valid, I mean as a guideline for understanding costs and making decisions. It’s just a rough estimate. And I think it’s probably a useful exercise, so here it is, as you would work it out in your favorite spreadsheet:

First lady Michelle Obama and Corporation for National and Community Service CEO Patrick Corvington announced today that several foundations and private philanthropists have committed a total of $45 million over the next two years to be used primarily as matching funds for programs chosen by the $50 million Social Innovation Fund (SIF).

The rationale behind SIF, which is overseen by the Corporation for National and Community Service. is to leverage public money to bring in private money to help develop new social programs that work, and then to replicate those programs. The first batch of 69 applications are now being considered. Grants are to be awarded in July.

If you are a subscriber to Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis's listserv (you are, right?), you probably found your email inbox slammed last week when the list briefly allowed recipients to reply to the entire list. In today's "Jason Nation" missive, Calacanis apologized, explaining the error and using it as a launching pad to discuss what can be an unpleasant but sometimes necessary task: firing an employee at your startup.

In the case of Calacanis's email, it seems, the sys-admins who set up the list accidentally left the "post to list" setting on for several thousand list members. Oops. Calacanis recognized the problem almost immediately and shut the email server down. And according to Calacanis, the individual responsible was apologetic, fearing that he'd be fired.

To achieve victory in the corporate world, a start-up needs three things, says serial entrepreneur and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen. One of those – a product that’s ten times better than the nearest competitor – has a little wiggle room, but the others need to stand firm. Andreessen describes all three in this entrepreneur thought leader lecture given at Stanford University.