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Week of July 12 - July 16, 2004Welcome to the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship and e-News, an electronic newsletter sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City for followers of the entrepreneurial economy. Through e-News, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving the innovation economy. Please feel free to share this with friends and colleagues. To subscribe, visit www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde/join/ Did you know that links to the day's entrepreneurship stories from across the nation and around the world are posted each weekday at www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde? Bookmark it and stay informed about the latest entrepreneurship news. Current and archived issues of e-News are available online at www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde/news/enews.htm |
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National Entrepreneur Education Standards Released As more schools begin to integrate entrepreneurship education into their curricula, clear standards for what can and should be taught to budding youth entrepreneurs must be developed. That’s why the development of new national entrepreneurship education standards is so important. Last week, a national expert’s group, sponsored by the Consortium on Entrepreneurship Education, released the first such set of national standards. The standards specify the key skills that must learned in the entrepreneurship education process; they also include sample curricula and an extensive bibliography of readings about entrepreneurship education. The publication of these standards will have a huge impact in improving the quality of entrepreneurship education and making it easier for more schools to teach these important skills. |
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Does More R&D Lead to Better Technology Ventures? In our admiration for new technologies and innovations, we can sometimes come to believe that more is always better, i.e., more technology and R&D necessarily lead to better outcomes for businesses. That is not the case according to a new research paper by Wharton’s Ian MacMillan and Columbia’s Rita McGrath. MacMillan and McGrath took a detailed look at managers in leading technology firms and tried to gauge what strategies were linked to business success. Throwing more money at R&D was clearly not a winner. As “speed to market” becomes a key differentiator, technology managers must focus on business building first, and R&D second. The best technologies will not be profitable if they cannot be easily commercialized and diffused into new markets. These findings shouldn’t be a huge surprise to technology entrepreneurs, but the article also includes a number of other useful tips for those trying to build new businesses based on innovative technological breakthroughs. |
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Predicting Nanotechnology Hotspots Many communities across the US are hoping to become the next “Silicon Valley” of nanotechnology, but getting there is easier said than done. For the past several years, two UCLA researchers, Michael Darby and Lynne Zucker, have been studying the nanotechnology industry as part of a wider research program to better understand how and where new industry breakthroughs will emerge. Their research shows that cutting edge research innovations generally occur in communities that combine a major research university with a large pool of skilled workers. Other assets, such as venture capital availability, are not a key factor at this early stage. However, such capital pools do become important as a more structured industry develops. This pattern seems to apply to both biotechnology and nanotechnology. The authors use a variety of measures, but do not attempt to rank regions in terms of their strengths for future nanotech development. However, regions that do perform well on some key metrics include Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Silicon Valley, Boston, Research Triangle (NC), Champaign-Urbana (IL). |
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New Training Program in African-American Entrepreneurship As more African Americans take the leap and start their own businesses, many of America’s leading colleges and universities are looking for ways to support these new ventures. The latest initiative comes from Babson College and Ford Motor Co., who have announced the creation of the nation’s first academic program to focus on African-American entrepreneurship. The program has been developed in coordination with several leading historically black colleges and universities, including Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, Jackson State, North Carolina A&T, Southern and Grambling. In addition to developing new curricula (such as case studies of successful black entrepreneurs), the program will also build a national faculty and student network among the participating schools. |
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An engaged and civic-minded business community is a critical component of any regions’ economic and civic health. Few would disagree with that statement, but getting from here to there is often easier said than done. MetroBusinessNet, a Ford Foundation-funded program, is offering some useful guidance. MetroBusinessNet is run by Future Works, a Massachusetts-based consulting firm. It is an action-learning network of civic organizations from five regions (Austin, TX; the Bay Area, CA; Chicago, IL, St. Louis, MO, and Washington, DC) who share best practices and learn from each other about effective tools for dealing with pressing problems such as poor schools, a lack of affordable housing, and regional development. The program has produced a number of interesting reports, including its latest: Imagine A Region, that provides detailed case studies of how civic leaders in these communities have worked to collaboratively build healthy communities. |
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