Are 18 to 35 year-olds the innovation generation? - SmartPlanet

A widely-held belief is that younger generations drive innovation, but new evidence suggests that people aged 18 to 35 are impacting technology far more than the teenage generation that follows them.

An article in the New York Times details the immense growth of Twitter, which many falsely believe is the result of adoption by the text- and instant-message-happy generation who are currently teenagers, sometimes called Generation Z, or the “Internet Generation.”

How Long Does It Take To Build A Technology Empire? By Scott Austin

Oracle Corp., one of the world’s largest software makers, reached $50 million in revenue in its 10th year. It took software king Microsoft Corp. eight years to hit that milestone.

Yet many technology start-up business plans typically project revenue of $50 million in the first five years. The reality, according to new research from data visualization company Tableau Software, is that most tech giants come nowhere near those numbers in the first five years.

Venture capital shortage may stunt innovation, [Bendis] says in Cedar Rapids

Young business enterprises need financial investors to help them grow.

But the recession has slashed early-stage angel and venture capital investment in the United States, threatening a generation of innovation and eliminating the chance of creating thousands of jobs.

Richard Bendis, president and chief executive officer of Innovation America in Philadelphia and keynote speaker for the Entrepreneurial Development Center Client Expo on Tuesday in Cedar Rapids, says the situation is dire and needs federal government action.

An Entrepreneurial Silver Lining - SODA Inc

The SODA Inc focus is on entrepreneurship - specifically fostering the traits of entrepreneurs which allow them to grow sustainable businesses. Within the small business context this growth is what creates a business which stands firm through downturns and recessions. Although one doesn’t have to build a multi-national conglomerate, some small growth is necessary to cross the divide between ‘business owner’ and ’self employed’.

In Jonathan’s article below, he covers some of the advantages of entrepreneurship and the benefits of being entrepreneurial in a recession. entrepreneurial

Nine characteristics of an Entrepreneur - Stephen Mitchell

Someone has written on wikipedia.com that the standard entrepreneur has these nine characteristics. I’ve added appropriate links to key words, in the hope that it takes your entrepreneurial skills further along your journey.

Create meaningful change through Innovation Circles

If you asked anybody to identify the country most renowned for the quality of its products, almost without exception, the answer would be Japan.

For anybody old enough to remember, in the mid to late 1950s, anything coming from Japan was considered to be cheap junk. The early plastic injection-molded toys, dolls, water pistols and games all came from Japan.

13 Sites for Human Interest, Business, Innovation and Emerging

Staying relevant takes observation, insight, and action. It requires you to look beyond the issues that impact this month’s billings. Ironically, it demands that you stay in the present, otherwise you may overlook the threats your customers face today.

When the Internet breaks, who ya gonna call? | csmonitor.com

At this point, it’s hard to imagine life without the Internet, at least in the developed world. But buried underneath the breathtaking Web applications and streaming media that we use on a daily basis, the actual software that makes the Internet work is starting to show its age.

As recent events have demonstrated all too clearly, the Internet is especially vulnerable to deliberate attacks. Massive networks of hijacked computers, known as “botnets,” can be used to deluge target websites with enough traffic to essentially shut them down, much as a radio station running a call-in contest will have a constantly busy phone number. These attacks succeed, at least partially, because they are able to exploit weaknesses in the existing Internet protocols.

How to Build a Culture of Innovation BusinessWeek

It's not that there had been no innovation inside Tata Group, the 117-year-old Indian powerhouse responsible for that nation's first steel mill, power plant, and airline, among other achievements. But when India's long protected economy was opened in 1991, Chairman Ratan Tata decided that for his companies to survive and thrive in a global economy he had to make innovation a priority—and build it into the DNA of the Tata group so that every employee at every company might think and act like an innovator.

All European Roads Lead Back to Skype

As eBay Inc. looks to offload Skype, the executives who sold the Internet telecom firm to eBay have formed the hub of a European network of investors and executives that they hope will rival and even exceed the one in Silicon Valley.

The sale of Skype to eBay for an estimated $3.3 billion in 2005 became renowned as one of Europe's great venture-capital successes, with more than half the sale price going to employees, according to estimates based on filings for the Securities and Exchange Commission and in Luxembourg. While those kinds of gains have been seen in Silicon Valley, ...

The Daily Start-Up: Will VCs Actually Use This Term Sheet?

Last week we mentioned how angel investor and entrepreneur Chris Dixon detailed on his blog the terms he thinks are ideal for first-round financings. Venture capitalist Fred Wison came out in support of the simplified term sheet, writing that the industry needs “to eliminate a lot of bad terms that have caused a lot of harm” and “converge on a set of standard Series A terms that everyone uses.” These posts inspired Adeo Ressi - the founder of The Funded, a site where entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists - to dream up the “Plain Preferred” term-sheet template that “aligns the investor and the entrepreneur incentives.” The Series A term sheet is designed to protect founders and save tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Let’s see whether venture capitalists will actually agree to such scaled-down deal terms, and if Fred Wilson and Brad Feld, another VC who supports the idea, will put their money where there mouths are. Earlier this year, Ressi came out with legal documents he believes will protect start-up founders from the “atrocities of investors.” Ressi tells us those founder-friendly incorporation documents are being used by about 50 start-ups….

Video Takes Behind-the-Scenes Look at Economic Bloggers

Some of the country's most widely read economic bloggers share their insights in a newly released video produced by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Economic Bloggers and the Renewal of Entrepreneurial Capitalism , offers the experts' perspectives on the business of blogging, traces the steps leading to the economic meltdown, and gives their views on the role innovation and entrepreneurship will play to lift the global economy out of recession.

Seize the Moment: Tech-based Economic Development for the Next Economy

SSTIs 13th Annual Conference

Oct 21-23, 2009

Overland Park, KS

http://ssti.staging.10floor.com/email/422464.1/LH/www.ssticonference.org

SSTI is so excited about this years conference that were providing Digest subscribers the first peak at the 28-page, full-color brochure while its still on the presses. It will be arriving in mailboxes by the end of the week, but is available now as a PDF by clicking either of the links below or by email request.

Tips on Innovation & Entrepreneurship From Jeff Bezos ...

Listening to Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive officer of Amazon, is like going to startup school where you learn that failure is part of entrepreneurial growth. Whenever I have talked to Bezos in the past, the things that have stuck in my head have been his willingness to be wrong and his unflinching abhorrence of the status quo. At the Wired Business Conference in New York City, Bezos reiterated some of those points in a conversation with writer Steven Levy.

Government Technology Experts to Examine a New Era of Innovation...

FAIRFAX, Va., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Senior government and industry officials will examine "A New Era of Innovation" at the Executive Leadership Conference (ELC) of the American Council for Technology and the Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) in Williamsburg, Va., on Oct. 25-27.

The conference will feature government technology experts discussing forward-thinking themes and reviewing the Obama administration's stated priorities of enhancing collaboration, transparency, and accountability.

Icelandic people turn towards more innovation | eNewsWire

Iceland’s economy may be struggling, but regular Icelanders are trying to find new ways to fend for themselves and their families. Innovation centres have been formed in many towns and the low value of the Icelandic krona helps exporting companies.

Some years ago, many firms in Iceland had to watch as the country’s largest banks literally sucked talent from them, with stellar salaries dwarfing those in regular companies.

Venture Model Makeover & Diet Plan-Step One

A lot of people have been asking lately if the venture model is broken. But it seems to me that it’s just decrepit. Like an aging, rotund former football star, the venture industry is scratching its head and realizing that its glory days are long past. The industry collectively doesn’t really know how to handle its new reality. In the heyday, top-quartile funds might have gotten away with treating their important stakeholders arrogantly, but given that even top-quartile firms have not provided great returns over the past 10 years, venture GPs will need to make herculean efforts and adhere to a strict regimen in order to make the upcoming cut. With almost the entire industry needing to raise new funds over the next two years, there may be few survivors. I propose a three-step makeover plan for those paunchy firms that are on the edge.

$2.0 BILLION IN FISCAL 2010 FOR TECHNOLOGY IN PENNSYLVANIA STATE GOVERNMENT

Decrease in state funding offset by federal economic stimulus spending

August 24, 2009 - pjmathison today released its 2009-10 Pennsylvania State Government Technology Investment Forecast, which provides advanced details on more than $2.0 billion in upcoming tech-related consulting, procurement and economic development spending by PA state government for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009.

Patents: Horizontal vs Vertical Innovation

I am a long time opponent of patents and Intellectual Property rights (to a great part because of your work), but something always bothered me and that was the ‘innovation’ argument by the patent supporters. I could always see both the sides of the arguments, yet was never sure which side is right. I can see that without patents there is no incentive to develop a technology with a large investment, on the other hand, without patents, there is probably no need of a large investment.

Tools for Innovation I: Normal psychology and economic recovery ...

Business magazines like Forbes, newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, and economic forecasters are united in their belief that economic growth in the US will be driven by innovation. That is, the US and other major economic players will not grow by developing new products and key refinements of existing products that will drive new consumption. This is not news, really. Bringing new ideas to market has long been a centerpiece of economic growth. And that means that Psychology is crucial to the economy.