We once thought venture capital was one box we could check on St. Louis' to-do list. It turns out to still be a piece of unfinished business.

Local people created several high-octane investment funds in the early years of this decade, and they and others were regularly pumping money into promising St. Louis companies. The hope was that we could just sit back and watch these investors work their magic, creating wealth and jobs.

What is a cultural entrepreneur?

New fields of development begin with ideas and then need the practical applied. With the practical comes the need for definitions. Over the last couple of years my definition for a cultural entrepreneur has evolved and I would like to share it with you now.

Cultural Entrepreneurs are cultural change agents and resourceful visionaries who organize cultural, financial, social and human capital, to generate revenue from a cultural activity. Their innovative solutions result in economically sustainable cultural enterprises that enhance livelihoods and create cultural value and wealth for both creative producers and consumers of cultural services and products.

Welcome to the website for the Innovation Economy Conference, a day-and-a-half of conversation on what American policymakers, business, NGOs, and private citizens can do to maintain the innovation that can drive economic recovery and ensure long-term sustainable growth.

As part of a yearlong, multifaceted commitment to galvanizing thought leadership around the “innovation economy,” the conference is presented by the Intel Corporation with the Aspen Institute, PBS’ “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” and Democracy: A Journal of Ideas as content partners to help the conference discussions.

I [Author] have been doing quite a bit of research, reading, listening, and watching when it comes to what successful entrepreneurs do and how they differ from the masses. Sometimes they are not visible changes and sometimes they are. What it really comes down to is they are willing to do whatever it takes to get to where they want to be. Are you willing to live in your car; homeless for months in order to keep your business above water? What about not taking a paycheck for years on end? There are several things successful entrepreneurs do that distinguish them from everyone else, and here they are broken down for you in 5 steps or principles:

When should companies try to come up with new ideas themselves—and when should they give the job to outside experts?

It's a question many companies are facing these days. As budgets tighten, businesses are outsourcing research and development and the creation of new products as a way to slash costs, speed development time and tap into top talent outside the company.

But it can be tough to strike the right balance between internal and external efforts at innovation. How much outsourcing is too much, or too little? What amount produces the best results?

KOLKATA: When Scott Adams, famed creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip, recently told ET that recession is often a perfect spawning ground for serious entrepreneurs, he may have been alluding to what he saw back home in the US. But India may also have gravitated to the same league, according to the venture capital flock.

So much so, the number high-value business proposals have actually surged in India since slowdown began. Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA)—the apex organisation of venture capital and the private equity industry in India—estimates that if, in the pre-recession era, average seed funding size was around $1.5-2 million, it has now risen to $2.5-5 million.

London, England (CNN) -- Coming up with brilliant, game-changing ideas is what makes the likes of Apple's Steve Jobs so successful, and now researchers say they have identified the five secrets to being a great innovator

Professors from Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs, that included interviews with high-profile entrepreneurs including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell, founder of Dell computers.

In addition to generating financial returns for the investors, VC investments contribute significantly to the economic growth as well as creation of new industries. In fact many industries such as Information technology, biotech, medical devices, clean tech etc have been created through VC investments. This post makes an attempt highlight the contribution of VC investments to the economic growth. As US VC industry is the oldest and most successful, the data outlined in this article is from the US. As the VC industry build scale outside US, one could expect similar trends.

Here are some interesting facts about the contribution of VC investments to the US economy (Source of the data: Venture Impact, 5th edition, NVCA/IHS Global insight study)

UK based Legatum Institute conducted an annual prosperity survey of 104 countries and measured countries on prosperity – not just wealth, but factors such as health, education, safety, governance, support for entrepreneurship/innovation etc.

The nine sub-indexes/parameters are:

The board meeting at the startup was underway and the CEO proudly highlighted what he considered to be the most successful initiative of the company. The initiative had been embraced by customers and partners whole-heartedly and the signs of continued growth were very visible.

The head of business development, present in the meeting and responsible for that initiative was understandably delighted at the acknowledgement by the board. He subsequently made an unusually peppy presentation on his department to the pleasant surprise of all. Later on, the CEO explained about business development and its head:

Do you know about the Small Business Administration’s Emerging 200 (e200) initiative? The program identifies 200 inner-city businesses across the country that show high-growth potential, and then gives them the resources and motivation they need to take their businesses to the next level.

The e200 initiative has been so successful that the SBA just announced plans to expand e200 in 2010. Twelve new communities, emphasizing those areas with Native American business owners, have been added to the 10 markets e200 currently serves.

I [Author] went to Dubai about a year and a half ago, at the apparent height, we now know, of their bubble. This week they crashed, and it is almost fun to watch. Do you remember the story of Icarus, the character in Greek mythology that built wings of wax to fly? His ego allowed him to soar to the heavens, but the sun melted the wax, and he plummeted to Earth.

Entrepreneurship can be an emotional roller coaster. However, much like life itself, if you develop the right relationships, it is reassuring and comforting to know that you are not heading out on the journey alone (unless you’re a jerk).

Share your enthusiasm and sell your vision to friends and family. It can be infectious (but not in an H1N1 kind of way).

At first, you may feel like you are the only person who sees the “brilliance” of what you are creating. And that’s ok. Just remember that your enthusiasm is infections. If you wear your heart on your sleeve, others may not fully grasp your vision, but they will sense that something is brewing and will become your biggest supporters and most effective marketers.

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Britain makes more money from music than from its car industry. In the United States, the core copyright industries achieved foreign sales and exports of $60.18 billion-a figure that surpasses, for the first time, every other export sector, including automobiles, agriculture, and aircraft. Howkins sets out to explore how we can harness creativity and the industry it sustains to our common interests. The Creative Economy is not about information and the information society. It is about more basic matters, what we humans want and what we are good at.

Managing creative people will be fundamental to business success in the next century, and this book is the first to address the whole business of the creative economy-its importance, and how to manage it. A landmark in business books.

Professors from Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs and have identified five skills that drive innovation:

We are entering a renewal in the work force. The global imperative is for the United States to become an innovation economy now. This is an entirely different animal than the Industrial revolution; I have long argued that the résumé system is by far the most archaic knowledge management “currency” of trade in use today.

The entire premise of the résumé is destitute, if not destructive, in the modern world. Words on a computer screen are a very low level ‘media form’ being used to describe a very high ‘media form’; social, creative, and intellectual capital. It’s like using crayons to design an aircraft.

NEW DELHI — When 7-year-old Shiva Ayyadurai left Mumbai with his family nearly 40 years ago, he promised himself he would return to India someday to help his country.

In June, Mr. Ayyadurai, now 45, moved from Boston to New Delhi hoping to make good on that promise. An entrepreneur and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a fistful of American degrees, he was the first recruit of an ambitious government program to lure talented scientists of the so-called desi diaspora back to their homeland.

Current Misconceptions of Innovation: Time to Paint by the Numbers

Innovation is such a broad term, and can be used in so many ways, that it is hard to pick out the top five misconceptions, let alone focus on the biggest one. Is it the battle between the innovation process people and the innovation creativity people? Is it the use of consultants to support one-off innovation projects rather than investing in organization-wide innovation capacity? Is it the impending IT stampede towards innovation software tools, with the likely neglect of the human beings needed to support the process? Or is it the persistent view that companies are 'close to the customer' when in fact they are about as close as a Hollywood star to a burning car on a movie set?

Ireland's incoming EU commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has been given the research and innovation portfolio.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who had been campaigning for the powerful portfolio, made the announcement at the Intel facility in Leixlip, where he was attending an event to celebrate 20 years of Intel in Ireland.

“I am delighted to announce today that we have secured the hugely important research and innovation portfolio, which resonates very strongly with our own Smart Economy agenda,” Mr Cowen said. “It is testament to the calibre of Máire Geoghegan Quinn that she has been allocated this portfolio.”