State Innovation Models offer states new tools and flexibility to develop and implement health care improvements

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a new opportunity made possible by the Affordable Care Act to help states design and test improvements to their health care systems that would bolster health care quality and decrease costs.

“As a former governor, I’ve seen states in action and know what great laboratories they are for innovations we can put into practice nationwide,” Secretary Sebelius said.

Karen Merrick has joined the Iowa Innovation Corporation as Chief Operating Officer.  Merrick had previously been with the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

The Iowa Innovation Corporation is a business-led independent non-profit that works with the state’s universities and colleges, businesses and government to facilitate Iowa’s innovation economy.  It was created by the state legislature in 2011 to employ innovative economic development strategies.

Feeling low on energy? Maybe you just need to move in a new direction. In 2010, I was the CEO and co-founder of Prepay Nation, a company that made international mobile money transfers possible though technology integrated with top-up machines housed in brick-and-mortar establishments. It was my job to check in on how the top-up technology was functioning and how customers were responding so that I could steer the company in the right direction. Consequently, I spent a lot of time traveling between the many retail outlets where customers went to top-up their mobile accounts. Always on the go with my trusty Blackberry at my side, I started to realize, wouldn't it be easier on everybody if these transactions could be done between mobile devices, saving customers and me the trip to retail outlets?

Fifteen years after founding the Burlington County College business incubator, Frank Keith is back — at least for a little while.

Keith, who doesn't like to disclose his age, has had a long career in business, both in the private sphere and working with college incubators.

"I love it," said the Mount Laurel resident. "I really do. It's really enjoyable."

The incubator offers professional office space, networking opportunities, and business development services to entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. There are 13 incubators at colleges in New Jersey. The BCC incubator has 27 tenants.

Angel investors are by definition hard to track down, but digital tools such as The Funding Portal are making it easier than ever for businesses to find elusive private investors.  

Angels are wealthy individuals or groups of investors who provide capital to early-stage businesses for ownership equity or convertible debt. Traditionally, funding provided through angel deals in Canada ranges between $10,000 and $300,000, but can be higher depending on the individual funding round.  

THE scene inside the Home Depot on Weyman Avenue here would give the old-time American craftsman pause.

In Aisle 34 is precut vinyl flooring, the glue already in place. In Aisle 26 are prefab windows. Stacked near the checkout counters, and as colorful as a Fisher-Price toy, is a not-so-serious-looking power tool: a battery-operated saw-and-drill combo. And if you don’t want to be your own handyman, head to Aisle 23 or Aisle 35, where a help desk will arrange for an installer.

It’s all very handy stuff, I guess, a convenient way to be a do-it-yourselfer without being all that good with tools. But at a time when the American factory seems to be a shrinking presence, and when good manufacturing jobs have vanished, perhaps never to return, there is something deeply troubling about this dilution of American craftsmanship.

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?

I recently checked out the Global Innovation Index 2012 results to learn more about the rankings and to disentangle some of the measures. The Index ranks China overall at #34 (out of 141) while the United States comes in at #10. Switzerland comes in at #1 (!), while Sudan comes in last place. The seven fundamental measures of the Index include:

• Institutions 
• Human capital and research 
• Infrastructure 
• Market sophistication 
• Business sophistication 
• Knowledge and technology outputs 
• Creative outputs

The website has an array of data analysis tools that allow users to compare the metrics of country indexes. I have always had a weakness for radar diagrams.

Campus are becoming incubators for startups, offering encouragement in the form of classes to nurture young dreamers. This explains the influx of 21-year-olds making millions of dollars in investment before they can legally pop a beer.

Given the amount of preparation and forethought it takes to start a company, you may think it ludicrous to expect entrepreneurial success in a semester or two. Yet, a handful of programs across the country have produced their fair share of fresh-faced CEOs. The lesson here? If they can do it in ten weeks on a shoestring budget, you can too.

I hate to break it to you, but here’s the scoop: Just about any business advantage that you pride yourself on can be copied by a competitor. The only question is when your competitors are going to get around to it.

The culture of your company is the exception to this rule. Strong company cultures are overwhelmingly knockoff-resistant. At Apple, insiders such as former Senior Vice President Jay Elliot credit much of the company’s success in retailing to the cultural fit Apple looks for and inspires in its personnel: With a team that’s totally wedded to the Apple culture, Cupertino doesn’t need to sweat the imitation Apple Stores now popping up with identical furniture and Apple gear for sale. Those knockoff stores will always lack staff who have the all-crucial Apple mindset.

Entrepreneurship returns to its origins: a government that was once a startup itself. Last week Congressman Mike Honda (Silicon Valley, CA) introduced the Entrepreneur-in-Residence Act of 2012 (H.R. 6119), legislation that would authorize the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, in coordination with the Department of Commerce and Small Business Administration, to place 30 Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR) in federal agencies. The idea is to infuse many of the same operational and creative solutions-oriented principles found in startups and small businesses into the inner workings of government, and it’s a good one.

The crop of companies being born in New York and relocating here has revived the city’s entrepreneurial spirit with the potential to transform the economy. Projects such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to establish an engineering campus on Roosevelt Island could help populate the city with more tech-savvy people, but that is still years in the making.

In the meantime, programs such as SummerQAmp and hackNY are working fast to match students with startups at a time when low-cost labor is essential in the competitive job market. But there may be some reluctance among local startups to take on interns in a community that is still early in its evolution.

Too many CEOs and other leaders today are uncertain about their role in executing strategy. Too often they relegate this and miss an important opportunity to perform the role of Chief Execution Officer. Unlike a traditional CEO, the Chief Execution Officer gets involved in the details of strategy execution by: translating the strategy into measurable objectives, sharing the story of the strategy with internal and external audiences, establishing a feedback system, and by aligning the reward and recognition system with strategy.

By not relegating the execution of strategy, the Chief Execution Officer can achieve consensus and commitment across the leadership team, establish and preserve the integrity of the strategy, and engage the work force. If done correctly, this approach and these achievements can greatly improve performance of the strategy. But for many CEOs, becoming actively engaged in strategy execution remains a challenge.

Question: Where do you live and what makes it a unique and incredible place for entrepreneurs to live and work?

Question by: Story V.

Boulder Is for the Bold

“We are based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. It has a long resume of accolades, such as the most educated U.S. metropolitan area (US News & World Report), happiest, healthiest city in U.S. (2010 Gallup poll), and is “America’s best town for startups” (BusinessWeek). Boulder’s thriving startup scene, incredible quality of life and close-knit community make it a phenomenal place for entrepreneurs.”

TE·NA·CIOUS/TƏˈNĀSHƏS/

Adjective: 1. Not readily letting go of, giving up, or separated from an object that one holds, a position, or a principle: “a tenacious grip.” 2. Not easily dispelled or discouraged; persisting in existence or in a course of action. - Oxford Dictionary

When I was a entrepreneur I’d pursue a goal relentlessly. Everything in between me and my goal was simply an obstacle that needed to be removed.

This week I had another reminder of what it was like.

I was speaking at the National Governors Conference in Williamsburg, Va., and my talk ended Sunday at noon. I knew I had to be in Chicago at 9:30 a.m. Monday for a Congressional hearing (I was the lead witness) so I made sure I was on the next to last plane out of Richmond (just in case the last one got canceled).

Manizales Colombia Mayor Jorge Rojas, and Babson Global’s professor of entrepreneurship practice, Daniel Isenberg, jointly announced today the launch of the “Manizales-Plus Project.” A collaboration of the leading public and private institutions in Manizales and Babson Global, the four-year project will foster high growth entrepreneurship in the city of Manizales, Colombia. The Manizales-Plus Project (Manizales-Mas in Spanish) will be one of the first urban implementations of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Strategy for stimulating high growth entrepreneurship that Professor Isenberg and Babson Global have been developing since 2009. The project will seek to enrich the city’s entrepreneurship ecosystem to support ambitious entrepreneurs in rapidly starting new ventures, while accelerating and scaling existing ones. In addition to the City of Manizales, project partners include the five SUMA consortium universities (listed below), the Luker Foundation, Incubar, Parquesoft, the Manizales Chamber of Commerce, and the Caldas Entrepreneurs Network.

Manizales has a population of about 400,000 people and is located in the heart of the Coffee District of Colombia, a triangle of states including Caldas. The capital of the district, Manizales was founded in 1849 by Antioquian pioneers who left their homes to escape civil war and search for agricultural opportunities and a better quality of life. The founders’ emphasis on education and culture contributed to the city’s concentration of highly regarded universities, international design and jazz festivals, and safe environment. Although it is home to some of the world’s best coffees, Manizales suffered a rise in unemployment and decrease in standards of living when the coffee markets contracted about 30 years ago.

Inspired by a European study, a team of Stony Brook University researchers looked into the potential impact of healthy human skin tissue (in vitro) being exposed to ultraviolet rays emitted from compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. The results, “The Effects of UV Emission from CFL Exposure on Human Dermal Fibroblasts and Keratinocytes in Vitro,” were published in the June issue of the journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology.

The researchers, led by Miriam Rafailovich, PhD, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and the Director of the Garcia Center for Polymers at Engineered Interfaces at Stony Brook, conducted similar research to a European study on Light Sensitivity. Stony Brook researchers collected CFL bulbs purchased from different locations across Suffolk and Nassau counties, and then measured the amount of UV emissions and the integrity of each bulb’s phosphor coatings. Results revealed significant levels of UVC and UVA, which appeared to originate from cracks in the phosphor coatings, present in all CFL bulbs studied.

The best way to learn entrepreneurship is by doing it, failing a few times, and doing it again.  But real-world experimentation is costly and time-consuming.  The case method provides aspiring or improving entrepreneurs with the best possible substitute for a decade of experience in losing people’s money and making huge, enlightening mistakes.

Put yourself in the shoes of an investor or job applicant considering sinking your money or your time into one of two companies run by first-time CEOs.  Do you feel more confident in the company run by the CEO who has read every relevant book or article, or in the one who has practiced every relevant scenario?  The better leader will be the latter, who has learned how to launch, grow, and turn around a company by experimenting in hundreds of situations with his or her colleagues.  The better entrepreneur will have learned by case method.

Incubator Innospring has launched an accelerator to help startups ramp up.

The U.S.-China technology incubator, based in Santa Clara, is looking for up to 10 companies in the fields of mobile and health IT, cleantech, and a especially big data. And if they’re globally minded, even better, said an Innospring spokesperson.

Selected companies will get $100,000 in funding as well as mentorship, workshops, and general assistance startups need in the realms of marketing, legal, HR and bookkeeping.

If Canada is going to support the crowdfunding model here, as the U.S. has decided to do with the passage of the JOBS act, then it must consider one important question: How likely are crowdfunded startups to succeed, and return money to the investor?

Jeanne Pi at AppsBlogger made an extensive post looking at Kickstarter statistics, complete with an infographic, based on data from June 23. There are several eye-opening data points, mostly showing how touch it really is to succeed on the crowdfunding platform. For example, 9 out of 10 failed projects do not even reach 30 per cent of their funding goal. Less than five per cent of projects more than double their funding goal, and being featured by Kickstarter was the biggest predictor of success - 89 per cent compared to 30 per cent without being featured.