The National Science Foundation is seeking proposals for Manufacturing Innovation grants. Companies with technologies aimed at increasing the competitive capability of manufacturing firms are encouraged to apply.
From VC Experts
"Angel investing has long been an important source of financial support and mentoring for new and growing businesses bridging the gap between individual (friends and family) and institutional venture capital rounds of financing. Over the past several years, this sector of the private capital market has been formalizing in response to both growing demands and complexity.
According to research conducted by Jeffrey E. Sohl at the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research, there were approximately 50 formal business angel groups in the United States five years ago. He now estimates that there may be as many as 170 formal and informal organizations located throughout leading technology and business regions in the US and Canada. These groups have several characteristics: loosely to well-defined legal structures; part-time or full-time management; standardized investment processes; a public face usually with a Web site and public relations activities; and, occasionally a traditionally structured venture capital/angel investing fund.
This week, the Kauffman Foundation reports on best practicesfor Angel Investing groups on topics as diverse as membership and staffing to deal flow and deal terms."
The Pittsburgh Technology Council is calling for nominations for chief information officers and senior ranking information technology executives in the 13 counties of southwestern Pennsylvania to be considered for honors at its premier technology executive recognition event, the Pittsburgh CIO of the Year Awards.
Co-hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council and the Greater Pittsburgh CIO Group, the CIO of the Year Awards program honors individual technology executives from industry, non-profit, academia and government. Nominees, including chief information officers or those in equivalent positions, are recognized for their innovation and creativity in planning and deploying their enterprise systems, future IT goals, management philosophy and service to the industry and community.
From I/P Updates:
"According to the Dial Coporation Partners in Innovation Website,
'If you are an inventor and have a patented or patent-pending product that you would like The Dial Corporation to review, please follow the carefully established guidelines and process. Dial will only accept your idea if it is covered by an issued patent or if your patented application has been published by the US Patent Office. (Applications are typically published approximately 18 months after the initial filing date.) Our guidelines may be strict, but we want to clearly communicate the expectations from this process. We want you to know where you stand from the start so you can protect your interests.'
The site goes on to describe a simple four-step electronic submission process."
The following are the details on this link from JBoss:
"Recorded event:
Legal Issues Impacting Open Source: Expert Roundtable Discussion
Date of recording:
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Panelists Info:
Marc Fleury, Paul Arne, Larry Rosen, David Byer, Jim Harvey
Play time:
1 hour, 13 minutes
Description:
Marc Fleury, founder and CEO of JBoss, Inc., moderates a discussion on the major issues impacting open source today. Panelists include Larry Rosen (of Rosenlaw & Einschlag), Paul Arne (of Morris, Manning & Martin), David Byer (of Testa, Horwitz & Thibeault), and Jim Harvey (of Alston & Bird, currently representing AutoZone against SCO)."
Frank Hecker writes:
"Commercial software companies face many challenges in growing their business in today's fast-moving and competitive industry environment. Recently many people have proposed the use of an open-source development model as one possible way to address those challenges.
This document investigates the business of commercial open-source software, including why a company might adopt an open-source model, how open-source licensing works, what business models might be usable for commercial open-source products, what special considerations apply to commercial products released as open source, and how various objections relating to open source might be answered.
The target audience is commercial software and hardware companies and individual software developers considering some sort of open-source strategy or just curious about how such a strategy might work. "
Links from the internet archive:
"One-Day Conference Sponsored by Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration
And The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
7 videos or segments in this conference"
From web-site-evaluations.com
"There are several advantages that companies with advisory boards have over their competition. A board offers your business:
• An unbiased outside perspective.
• Increased corporate accountability and discipline.
• Enhanced CEO and management effectiveness.
• Greater credibility with investors, vendors and customers.
• Help in avoiding costly mistakes.
• Rounding out skills and expertise lacking in current management team.
• A sounding board for evaluating new business ideas and opportunities.
• Enhanced community and public relations.
• Improved marketing results and effectiveness.
• Strategic planning assistance and input.
• Centers of influence for networking introductions.
• Crisis and transition leadership in the event of the death or resignation of the CEO.
• Help anticipating market changes and trends."
Some of the advice offered in this excellent article may be sumarized as follows:
Steps to Creating an Effective Board of Advisors
• Analyze the strength and weaknesses of your current management team
• Set clear, written goals and objectives for your board of advisors
Recruiting Candidates
• Develop a candidate profile.
• Seek out experts.
• Ask for recommendations.
• Find your candidates motivation.
• Have variety in your board
• Look for a proven track record.
• Clearly communicate your goals and objectives.
Pitfalls to Avoid
• Members missing meetings.
• Insecurity of senior managers.
• Incompatible personalities.
• Excessive number of board members.
• Lack of CEO communication.
• Inadequate compensation.
Keys to Board Effectiveness
• If you build it, use it
• Value their input, even when they disagree with what you want to do.
• Communicate with your advisors.
• Hold regular meetings.
• Have an objective for each meeting.
• Annual assessment of board performance.
How to Sell Your Boss
"Selling your boss is critical to your success. If you can’t get your boss’s approval when you need it, you are not going to go very far in your career...Here are six keys to getting your boss to say yes.
1. Meet your boss's needs...
2. Pick your battles...
3. Do your homework...
4. 'Bullet proof' your proposal...
5. Make the pitch...
6. Accept responsibility for the outcome"
From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:
"From alpaca farms in Peru to fish farms in Indonesia, microcredit has gone where no bank has deigned to tread. In extending loans to so-called risky business, microcredit programs have lifted thousands of small ventures up from the dirt floors of the developing world.
One of those, Oikocredit, has its largest U.S. support group based in Pittsburgh. The Western Pennsylvania Support Association will have invested in small-scale entrepreneurs to the tune of $3.5 million at the end of this year.
'We have a 92 percent success rate' on repaid loans worldwide, said Mary Pardee, a founder of the Western Pennsylvania group and a one-time member of the international board. 'It's just wonderful to see how people respond to opportunities.'"
Laurel Delaney in her blog focusing on women entrepreneurship:
"Transformational leadership begins with different beliefs about oneself and others. The first changing belief is that leadership isn't a job but a way of being. The second is that, whereas in the past leadership meant power and control over others, today leadership beliefs begin with a desire to enable others to realize their own power and leadership potential. Thirdly, leadership in the past was based on believing it made people do things that you wanted done whereas, today, leadership is about a mutual relationship where each can transcend to a worthy purpose and behave with moral fibre, courage, integrity and trust. "
From TJ's Weblog:
"Forming a helpful board of directors for your start-up can be a puzzling task. First you have to check legal requirements in the country the company is registered in. Germany has a two-board system with well regulated requirements for the roles of directors (you may check the GmbHG and AktG with Google). The UK and the US states mostly do not specify the roles and requirements for a board member at all. So it's up to your creativity and negotiation skill to find people that a) have strong credibility b) can leverage your business and c) are no cost killer for your business, In search for more in information Google lead me to this helpful site with a good overview what directors can do for you: "
This article from Mondaq (free subscription required) offers ten do's and don't for IP licensing, stating:
"To create effective licenses for both licensors and licensees, it is important to have an understanding of the common legal and business issues that arise in negotiating licenses by following these "Top 10" tips. Software, Web sites, e-commerce transactions and information technology generally can involve many different forms of intellectual property (IP). On a Web site, for example, copyrights can exist in software, content, multimedia and databases. Patent rights may exist in processes used in software, Web sites and e-commerce. And, trade-mark rights may exist in software product names, domain names, hyperlinks that reflect business or product names, logos, word designs or even sounds used to distinguish goods or services."
The tips are:
1. Do Your Due Diligence
2. Don’t Take "Who" & "What" in a License Grant for Granted
3. Do Know the Difference Between Sole, Exclusive & Non-Exclusive
4. Do Sweat the Small Stuff in License Grants
5. Don’t Blindly Agree to Restrictions on Licensing
6. Do Beware of Representations & Warranties
7. Do Structure Compensation Strategically
8. Do Consider Bankruptcy & Insolvency
9. Don’t Underestimate the Term & Termination
10. Be Choosy About Choice of Law
From The Kept-Up Academic Librarian:
"Patents that result from collaboration between universities and companies won new protections from legal challenge under legislation that passed Congress over the weekend. If signed by President Bush, the bill would defuse a federal court ruling that many researchers said jeopardized patents growing out of joint scientific research conducted by public and private institutions, especially in such relatively new fields as biotechnology"
My view is that because God is God and we are not, we, as imperfect beings, can not perfectly understand God's nature. Imperfect beings can not understand perfection perfectly. My belief is that one of the least imperfect ways of conceiving of God is that "God is Love".
In my view, other conceptions of God, such as that of God as a relationship among three persons, as a supreme being, as father, as mother, as creator, as spirit, all are valid, and, that all such conceptions, taken together, show us that God has many natures.
This thought provoking article by Meredith Jordan from beliefnet.com eloquently expresses similar ideas, stating:
"Most religious traditions teach that God is a living being—the Father or Mother of us all—who lives outside us, takes personal interest in each of us, and has a direct influence on the events of our lives. Is it possible this is an outdated conceptualization of the magnificent Mystery that lives at the exact epicenter of all life? Possible that, in our attempts to maintain the illusion of order in a troubled and turbulent world, we try too hard to force the Mystery of God into names, forms, images, or even belief systems? And while these attempts to pin God down may offer small measures of comfort, they may also fail to convey the complex nature of Ultimate Reality...
Isn’t it possible that the One of Many Names is even more complex and intricately designed than we human beings are, never revealing itself in its totality, but rather revealing its many different aspects to each of us at different times and in different ways?...
It’s said throughout the great wisdom traditions that God names God by saying only: I am that I am. This statement points strongly to the possibility that the Sacred Mystery is consciousness or essence rather than person or being. By using names for God that, while comforting, may limit the depth and breadth of our experience of this Mystery, we may unintentionally close our eyes and hearts to that which is attempting to reveal its ever-developing nature to us...
It seems plausible that we’re being challenged to revise our understanding of God. Could God be something other than what religious doctrine tells us? Could God be evolving and changing in the same way humanity is evolving, and therefore be different today than God was two thousand years ago? Questions like this fascinate me.
I take the position that God’s nature is always changing, continually growing and revealing itself to us in new ways. In my opinion, I’m the one who must develop my own relationship with, and understanding of, the nature of the Divine Mystery...
I have come to believe that God, the one I call Mystery, is also changed by its relationship with me. I have no way to prove this belief so that you, the reader, might believe it along with me. Yet it’s consistent with all we as a people are learning about the interactive nature of reality.
Everything changes as a result of our paying attention. It’s just common sense that there exists a great feedback loop operating throughout all of creation. In the way a friend’s insight suddenly inspires an insight in me, I wonder if we grow more conscious in spiritual tandem with God-Consciousness, and if God-Consciousness expands because we make efforts to awaken.
Can it be that God and humanity assist each other in the process of expanding, transforming, and ultimately evolving into more of what we are intended to be? Perhaps as the Sacred Mystery widens, broadens, and deepens its experience of reality, there’s a corresponding expansion in human awareness. And as human awareness or consciousness grows, it’s possible there is a corresponding flutter in the heart of God-consciousness..."
Meredith Jordan, MA, is a psychotherapist and spiritual director and a co-founder of Rogers McKay, a multifaith educational organization that provides resources for spiritual seekers. She lives in Maine.
From Dave Pollard:
"Hierarchy, our cult of leadership, and the inflated egos of managers, combine to make collaboration in most businesses almost impossible.
Collaboration could be improved by (a) creating a lot more opportunities to practice it, (b) speaking out when supposedly or potentially collaborative activities aren't, and fixing them so they are, and (c) ousting the egos and outing the wallflowers in collaborative groups so participation is equal.
Caroline Allen, who lives and breathes this stuff, provides this additional wisdom:
Infrastructure -- support and facilitation services, coaching, technical resources -- helps to keep collaborative efforts from going off the rails.
Open communication and collegiality among participants, so that the work that needs to be done can be equitably apportioned, appreciated and respected, is essential to the process.
Diversity of process -- using different techniques to jump-start or enhance collaboration -- is as important to effective collaboration as diversity of people."
From businessweek.com:
Seeking funding from family and (often, soon to be former) friends is often a key part of a startup's bootstrapping strategy. This article stresses caution in this regard, stating:
"Money from family and friends can be a blessing. They're an easy and trusted source of investment for your burgeoning small business. But it can also be a curse, given the additional stress that the emotional and relational ties put on the transaction. Having a serious plan ahead of time can save you much acrimony later, whether the business is a success or bust. "
From Small Business Brief
From Feld Thoughts:
"Adam Bosworth - one of the dudes behind a bunch of software products (including Borland Quattro, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Internet Explorer and BEA WebLogic application server), gave a brilliant speech at ICSOC04 which he posted on his weblog. He espouses his idea of KISS as it pertains to the Internet (and modifies it to 'keep it simple and sloppy.') It's a must read for any exec of a software company."
From BeyondVC:
"Early stage companies have to be nimble and disciplined when creating and releasing product. One of the important decisions a startup can make is how it chooses to manage its product releases. In a software company a product release affects everyone. A mistimed release can severely impact sales, cash flow, and the company."
Read this post and its comment for a discussion of "date driven" releases versus other alternatives.
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