Fledgling Irish firms pitched for international investment in London this week, writes MARK HENNESSY

MICHAEL KATZ of Arizona-based venture capital (VC) firm, TCF Capital spends his time hearing presentations by developing companies seeking investment, often from up to 60 firms in the course of a single day.

This week, he was one of 90 venture capitalists brought together by Enterprise Ireland in a Hilton Hotel in the City of London to listen to 25 Irish software and medical devices companies. Like others, Katz was impressed.

Despite Ireland’s economic woes, Katz, speaking during a break in the presentations, said he sees potential: “Ireland seems like a great stepping-stone for us. We were there a few weeks ago and we liked what we saw.

“We are still looking at it, so we are getting our bearings about the landscape. But we would hope to be quite aggressive. We are always looking for interesting companies to help with our US portfolio (for investors),” he told The Irish Times.

Landmark research led by Dr. Leo James from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge UK has discovered that antibodies can fight viruses from within infected cells.

This finding transforms the previous scientific understanding of our immunity to viral diseases like the common cold and gastroenteritis. It also gives scientists a different set of rules that pave the way to the next generation of antiviral drugs.

Viruses are mankind’s biggest killer, responsible for twice as many deaths each year as cancer, yet they are among the hardest of all diseases to treat. Previously scientists believed that antibodies could only reduce infection by attacking viruses outside cells and also by blocking their entry into cells.

Last week, we introduced you to a robot that could grab anything utilizing a balloon filled with some coffee grounds. It is a simple--almost genius--innovation in robotic design. And now, you can build your own coffee balloon robot and have hours of fun lifting thimbles, dreidels, paperclips, and other small objects from one location to another.

Mr. Wizard would be proud.

Of course, the original universal gripper was connected to a complex automated robot arm that could maneuver some precarious choreography. The video demonstration of the homemade incarnation (available after the jump) is a poor man's coffee balloon robot, for sure. But still, this is a lung-powered proof-of-concept that this design can be recreated anywhere which could spawn a whole industry of homemade robots and other gadgets.

Consultants to industry are in a unique position to understand the site selection requirements of their corporate clients. Taking this into consideration, the editors of Area Development magazine decided to conduct a “flash survey” of a select group of highly respected consultants who work with a nationwide client base. We asked the consultants to name their top-10 state choices for meeting eight site selection criteria:

1. Lowest business costs
2. Most business friendly
3. Corporate tax environment
4. Overall labor climate
5. Work force development programs
6. Fast-track permitting
7. Rail and highway accessibility
8. Shovel-ready sites

A while back, I wrote about the importance of a “sustainable competitive advantage,” and outlined the business plan value and limitations of patents and competitor feature comparisons. But once you start selling products, all of these pale in comparison to your level of customer service.

I agree with John Spence, in his book “Awesomely Simple,” that in a world of nearly limitless product options and highly educated consumers with instant access to price, features, and benefits of almost every product, delivering consistently superior customer service is the only differentiator left for creating loyal and engaged customers.

Here are the top ten suggestions from John and others for how to create a culture of extreme customer focus in your organization:

1. Create a customer service vision. Much like creating a vision statement to direct the organization, you should also create a clear and compelling “customer service vision” that describes the level of service your organization aspires to deliver.
   
   
2. Exceed customer expectations. Show a relentless commitment to exceeding, not just meeting, expectations. Customers can’t tell you how to exceed their expectations, but they know it when they see it, they remember, and they tell their friends.

"The things we fear most in organizations -- fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances -- are the primary sources of creativity." - Alfred North Whitehead

"The chief enemy of creativity is 'good" sense.'" - Pablo Picasso

"Everyone who's ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference." - Nolan Bushnell

"As competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases. It is no longer enough to do the same thing better . . . no longer enough to be efficient and solve problems." - Edward de Bono

"I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them." - Thomas Edison

"Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things." - Theodore Levitt

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Like most other undergraduates, Anish Patel likes to sleep in. Even though his Principles of Microeconomics class at 9:35 a.m. is just a five-minute stroll from his dorm, he would rather flip open his laptop in his room to watch the lecture, streamed live over the campus network.

On a recent morning, as Mr. Patel’s two roommates slept with covers pulled tightly over their heads, he sat at his desk taking notes on Prof. Mark Rush’s explanation of the term “perfect competition.” A camera zoomed in for a close-up of the blackboard, where Dr. Rush scribbled in chalk, “lots of firms and lots of buyers.”

The curtains were drawn in the dorm room. The floor was awash in the flotsam of three freshmen — clothes, backpacks, homework, packages of Chips Ahoy and Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries.

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) is the toast of conservatives across the country, but he will soon have to confront some difficult decisions that will go a long way in defining his Speakership.

Boehner has said he has learned from prior Speakers from both sides of the aisle, and has vowed to run the House in a much more open manner than his predecessors. Keeping that promise will be difficult, though that is only one of many challenges the Ohio Republican will face over the next couple of months.

Here are the top 10 challenges the soon-to-be-Speaker will confront.

One mistake I see startups make a lot is getting too focused on what is going on around them. They spend too much time trying to figure out what their competitors are going to do. They watch the next hot startup with jealousy and it reminds them of when they were that "shiny new thing" and they want that back.

The reality of startups is that there is so much opportunity out there that if you just focus on what is in front of you, your company will do fine. But focusing on what is in front of you means not focusing on what is going on around you. You need to put blinders on and execute. Do not let what is going on around you whipsaw your strategy and your team.

“Free” is a word that gets lots of attention. Buy one and get one free, win a free IPad and other “free” marketing messages surround us on-line and off line. Most if not all of the social sites and tools are “free” for use. But the reality of “free” is that it does cost the user, the buyer and the supplier sooner than later.

With the exponential growth of all things social businesses and individuals have flocked to use of social media as a means for generating new revenue. While the sites and tools appear to be “free” using them wrong can cost you dearly. The data you produce creates cost that far out way any of the benefits of “free things” you use or think you obtained. Yet “free” continues to be the lure that pulls many to an engagement.

Not many people think about their social profiles as assets. Yet social network operators understand very well that every persons profile is in fact an asset they leverage for economic gains.

In an earlier article titled: Security: The Weakest Human Link” we highlighted how Facebook, Google, Apple and others leverage the human networks interactions (assets) and third party developers (assets) to create and sell the related data to eager marketers.

This is the data game afforded by the introduction of social technology that engages the human network.  Facebook and others know that data represents significant economic value and when the human network volunteers their data that represents a “free supply” of valuable assets that can be used and sold to a world of suppliers wanting to reach the human network to sell them something, anything and everything.

Many small businesses are innovating but lack the money and information to get their innovations to the market. Yet regional authorities could help to detect these "sleeping innovators," experts told a European Parliament hearing recently.

Micro-enterprises in the EU – those employing less than 10 people – struggle to get their innovative products to the market and regional authorities are often unaware of what they are doing, said Hubert Delorme of UEAPME, the European association of small and medium-sized enterprises.

EU cohesion policy and the regions themselves could play a big role in spotting these "sleeping innovators" through detection and assistance programmes, he said.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is well known for his electrifying presentations. Communications coach Carmine Gallo discusses the various techniques Jobs uses to captivate and inspire his audience — techniques that can easily be applied to your next presentation. For more tips on presenting like Jobs, read our Crash Course.

Is your company seeking capital? Maybe you should join Sam’s Club. The warehouse shopping centers, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., have announced the test launch of a small-business loan program in partnership with Superior Financial Group LLC. Qualified small business members of Sam’s Club will be eligible for loans of $5,000 to $25,000 from Superior Financial.

Sam’s Club said the program will focus on serving “Main Street minority-, women- and veteran-owned small businesses as well as micro-entrepreneurs.” Sam’s Club appears to be onto something. According to a survey conducted by the company, and reported by Bloomberg Businessweek, nearly 15 percent of Sam’s Club business members said they had been denied a loan during the month of November 2009.

New Enterprise Associates wrote more checks than any other U.S. venture capital firm through the first three quarters of this year. That makes sense, given it manages the largest venture capital fund at $2.5 billion.

But in terms of making first-time investments, rather than follow-on commitments to existing portfolio companies, NEA doesn’t rank in the top 10 of those that made at least 20 U.S. venture deals during the nine-month period.

That top honor, according to industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource, goes to a rookie firm: Founder Collective, which formed last year with a $40 million fund to made seed-stage investments. The East Coast firm made 26 investments through the third quarter, with 24 of those, or 92%, in new companies. Unlike NEA, Founder Collective doesn’t have an established portfolio to make follow-on investments, and the firm makes many small bets as a seed investor.

Clint Wilder of Clean Edge gave a talk on jobs in the cleantech sector at Tuesday's Cooley cleantech event.  Wilder presented data based on the findings in their recent report (downloadable here).

Greentech is one of the "bright spots for the U.S. economy," according to Wilder, and the sector will factor as a key part of "the battle for global economic supremacy in the next century."

This week 37 states held gubernatorial elections. In many states, technology-based economic development took on a central role in the campaign as candidates put forth their ideas on how to create jobs in a difficult economy. SSTI has collected some highlights from proposals put forth by new governors-elect that address topics related to TBED.

NEW DELHI -- The single most important trend unfolding in the world today is globalization -- the distribution of cheap tools of communication and innovation that are wiring together the world's citizens, governments, businesses, terrorists and mountaintops -- and it is going to a whole new level. In India alone, some 15 million new cell phone users are being added each month.

Having traveled to both China and India in the last few weeks, here's a scary thought I have: What if -- for all the hype about China, India and globalization -- they're actually underhyped? What if these sleeping giants are just finishing a 20-year process of getting the basic technological and educational infrastructure in place to become innovation hubs and we haven't seen anything yet?

Here's an example of why I ask these questions. It's a typical Indian startup I visited in a garage in South Delhi, EKO India Financial Services. Its founders, Abhishek Sinha and his brother Abhinav, began with a small insight -- that low-wage Indian migrant workers flocking to Delhi from poorer states like Bihar had no place to put their savings and no secure way to send money home to their families. India has relatively few bank branches for a country its size, so many migrants stuff money in their mattresses or send cash home through traditional "hawala," or hand-to-hand networks.