Innovation is one of the hottest topics in business these days. More and more, companies are coming out with new products and services designed to amaze their customers and get them to dig deeper into their pocketbooks. Only problem is, most of what passes for innovation these days doesn’t stand out as very new, different or compelling. As a result, most innovation efforts are lucky to pay for themselves, much less actually turn a profit.

In the US, entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers eagerly await projected growth in the energy, waste and water markets. Green startups are America's triple play: high-quality jobs, energy independence, and a cleaner environment. Politicians cite these startups as the panacea for a stalled American economy.

In the rest of the world, entrepreneurs meet the hype with a small, but collective, yawn.

For years, entrepreneurs in Israel, China, and India have dealt with scarce resources, rapidly growing cities, and hostile ecosystems. Their experiences in emerging markets hold lessons for their counterparts in the US to learn.

The New York Times ran a page one story today about how Silicon Valley appears to be in the midst of a new bubble, driven by the enthusiasm that venture capitalists and angels have for social networking and mobile apps businesses.

It cited the recent reports about how Twitter’s value has been pegged at $4 billion in its rumored round of investment. The story also pointed to the more than $5 billion valuation of Zynga, the creator of social games such as FarmVille on Facebook. And it pointed to Google’s willingness to pay $6 billion for Groupon, which was valued at $1.35 billion only eight months ago. Groupon evidently rejected the offer on Friday because it believes it is worth more.

Creativity is what we have born with; it is true, though some of us may have some trouble to stay creative (fuel it) and so to stay smart in the longer run.

When early settlers first laid eyes on the Tall Grass Prairies of Iowa they saw an agricultural potential not found anywhere else in the world. Early entrepreneurs only needed new technologies to unleash the vast potential of our rich soils and favorable weather. Blessed by abundant natural resources, our original innovators bootstrapped their technological way to prosperity.

Ironically, today's entrepreneurs find the business environment far more limiting than their abilities to invent and innovate. Non-monetary factors often are more limiting than the access to capital and the gravitational reality is that money will flow to geographies and sectors that culture innovation.

In an era where the majority of jobs are provided by small businesses, it is surely the role of government to provide enabling environments for entrepreneurs to run their dream to a conclusion. Surely it is sensible for government to replace bureaucratic barriers to progress with partnerships with the private sector to enable startups to survive the "valley of death." Surely it is in the best interest of all citizens to give new ideas a chance to become as iconic as John Deere and Pioneer.

In early 2008, following enactment of the federal Green Jobs Act of 2007, the California Employment Development Department’s Labor Market Information Division (LMID) began a study of California’s green economy, in partnership with state, local and national policy makers and researchers. There was strong interest in understanding the nature of the green economy, the number of green jobs, and the effects of environmental policy initiatives on the growth of industries in the state.

In response, LMID staff initially compiled and studied available research summarizing the assumptions and findings from more than 100 documents produced worldwide. Based on this research, LMID staff found little reliable data on the extent to which the green economy was affecting employment in California. After consulting with stakeholders, LMID decided to conduct a survey covering all segments of California’s economy in order to estimate the number of green jobs and green business practices.1    This report presents major findings from the California Green Economy Survey, focusing on green employment and green business practices.

Download the PDF

Asia soon is becoming the new driver for global economic driving engines, while USA and Europe may be challenged by their domestic economy. To fuel the economic sustainability Asia needs to fine tune its strategy capitalized on unique comparative advantages: or the other familiar terminology “National Core Competency”. Asia’s Charm, with its unique historic and heritage values are the core Asia’s intangible capitals for new economy landscape.

Thailand’s Creative Economy

While the conventional driving model will rest on physical factors like abundant & cheap labor cost, natural endowments and imported expensive state of the art technology from outsides. This typical growth model is just leading country to red ocean competition. Because every country for decade is producing and enjoying the economy of scale advantages based on the physical (or the other word tangible) economic drivers, Creative & Cultural economy becomes emerging viable factors for new Asia growth model. National Heritage & Wisdom values: religion & belief, way of life of folk, traditional healing arts, local architecture & folklore art, become the unique raw material for new value creation mode

Traditionally, business school gave young businesspeople the “chops” to get ahead in corporate America. But even though the tech startup has become an almost everyday part of modern business, B-schools are still highly focused on issues that large corporations face. And while many do now offer entrepreneurship classes, today’s smaller, more nimble, and highly iterative businesses need a place that’s specifically dedicated to their unique needs. Where’s a person with an idea to learn how to make their own job or company? Enter incubators.

Think of them as e-schools — entrepreneurship schools, to use a term from entrepreneur Steve Blank — of varying lengths and formats that help businesses launch by providing hands-on startup skills, space and mentorship (and often taking equity in return).

The next step in the evolution of mobile communications may be aimed at people who are stuck in the office, not on the move.

Mini cell-phone towers, dubbed "femtocells," can be positioned inside a building and hooked up to an Internet connection. The technology could displace wired phone systems, support mobile business devices like tablets, and enable "smart" offices that can recognize when someone shows up to work in the morning.

Some cell-phone carriers already offer femtocells to consumers with poor coverage at home. But implementing them in office buildings has been slower, because the systems need to be extremely reliable and serve larger spaces.

I recently spoke at Caltech at the Caltech / MIT Enterprise Forum on “the future of social networking,” the 30-minute video is here and the PowerPoint presentation is here on DocStoc).

What I want to answer with this post (long though it may be) is:

• Why did Web 2.0 emerge and are there any lessons to be gained about the future? [cheap accessible digital hardware]
• Why did Twitter emerge despite Facebook’s dominance? [asymmetry, real-time, curated RSS / link-sharing]
• Why did MySpace lose to Facebook & what can Twitter learn from this? [encouraging an open platform where 3rd parties can make lots of money]

Smart people only visit and buy from credible and memorable websites. In the past, if your startup had a website presence, the company was credible by definition. In today’s world, a website is necessary but not sufficient for credibility. Dreamers and gamblers have found out that if the website isn’t validated as credible, it’s probably a scam, and everyone loses.

Yet most startups I know experience the same shock of disappointment when they first open up their website to offer their “million dollar idea” product, and nobody comes. What validates credibility and makes your site memorable in the minds of consumers, and how much does it cost?

1. Put yourself on the site. People buy from people. Until the company name is a famous brand, you are the brand. No name, picture, address, or business history only convinces customers that you are hiding, located in an untrustable country, or don’t have a clue. They will exit quickly.

2. Show evidence of your expertise. Publish a daily blog, contribute to relevant social networks, and write a “white paper” on your technology. People respect people with relevant experience, so highlight your accomplishments, and the credentials you have.

Lots of people in biotech think they are doing innovative things, even when they are really doing something pretty conservative, like testing a proven drug for some new use, or crafting some new way to deliver a therapy with more efficiency or convenience. But how, especially in today’s sluggish economy, do people muster up the guts, raise the mountains of cash, and find the staying power to do something truly big and unprecedented—like create a regenerative medicine based on stem cells?

Risky (or maybe reckless) as it sounds, it’s still easy to find people who are working on this exact kind of high-risk/high-reward kind of challenge. I soaked up some candid insights from some biotech cowboys on Friday during part of the Convergence Forum for life science leaders in San Francisco. This conversation generated more than a few tweet-worthy nuggets for our readers, which I thought were worth rounding up here. The speakers were John Mendlein, chairman of San Diego-based Fate Therapeutics and aTyr Pharma; Paul Hastings, CEO of Redwood, City, CA-based OncoMed Pharmaceuticals; David Perry, CEO of Palo Alto, CA-based Anacor Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ANAC); and Bryan Roberts, a partner with Venrock Associates in Palo Alto.

Here it is, a Sunday afternoon. And like many others, I’m working – gladly working.

And I’m not the only one. You know who you are…

The majority of people I worked, talked, met and communicated with this last week are all online today, working away; some on their mobile devices; some at their computers; all working.

Last Monday morning at 5:30, we were on Twitter, Facebook and IM, answering emails or chatting. And there we were again later that evening on a Twitter chat. Same with Tuesday, Wednesday… and throughout the week.

It seems like even when we aren’t working, we’re talking about work… texting or posting about work, or chatting about about how to be more productive… at work. At 10PM last Wednesday, a large group of entrepreneurial types were on Twitter talking about “Work-Life Balance”.

Earlier tonight, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on American TV news program 60 Minutes where he was interviewed by Leslie Stahl. In the interview, Zuckerberg talked about his life, his company, now worth an estimated $35 billion, and the Hollywood portrayal of Facebook's beginning's in the critically praised film "The Social Network."

60 Minutes also got a sneak peek at the new Facebook profile pages, which are being rolled out gradually, according to a post on the official Facebook blog. The new profile pages will be available to all of Facebook's 500 million users by early next year, says the company.

Two years ago I started my website The Rise To The Top in October 2008. The goal was to create a non-boring resource for entrepreneurs centered around a combination of video interviews (RISE...the web show) with successful entrepreneurs, big thinkers and "doers" (as opposed to people that just talk about doing) as well as blog posts, videos and other goodies.

Of course, like many of us, I really had no idea what I was doing. I constantly tried different things, had some lonely days (weeks, months) in the beginning, but eventually things started to click. I want to share this story with you to show you that this can be done by any hustling entrepreneur looking to grow a community and following. I’m no more special than you (even though my mom told me so) and the principles below I bet you can apply to your business and online strategy.

A reader asks: I’m the founder and CEO of a successful startup and we’ve been trying to sell certain non-core assets (including some IP) to a competitor. Their CEO sent me a letter of intent, which I signed and emailed back to him last week. Now I just received a much better offer from another company and was wondering if I can back out of the first deal. I’ve seen some articles that imply letters of intent are non-binding – so I just wanted to make sure.

Answer: Whether a particular letter of intent (LOI) – sometimes referred to as a “term sheet” or “memorandum of understanding” – is binding or not depends upon the precise language used and the actions of the parties. Many companies typically do not want an LOI to be binding because many of the material terms of the deal have not been negotiated (and they do not want a Court to start filling in those terms in the event of litigation).

Venture capital database VentureDeal has just released its quarterly funding report, which takes a look at the investments in the world of the Web, digital media, software and ecommerce. During the Q3 of 2010, VentureDeal reports that 343 companies raised $1.8 billion in venture capital funding which is down 14% in total funding versus Q2 of 2010 and down 6% in the number of companies funded.

Three of the four sectors showed a decrease in funding amounts and the number of companies funded. Only the Software sector showed an increase in funding amounts, jumping 19% in terms of actual investment amount.

SEATTLE – For eons, powerful tides have raged through Puget Sound, ripping along at 11 feet per second at their peak, predictable as the phases of the moon.

Three years from now, a local utility hopes to begin converting a portion of that raw energy to electricity, part of a growing effort to harness the tides to power homes and businesses miles from the smell of salt air.

The Snohomish County Public Utility District's pilot project is small – two turbines with 500 kilowatts of total capacity and an average output of 50 kilowatts – hardly a panacea for all that ails the United States' energy portfolio. But tidal power is garnering increasing attention as a niche supplier of renewable alternative energy in Washington, Maine and Alaska. The tides, some say, have the potential to light five percent of the nation's homes – nearly nine gigawatts of generating power.