Innovation Economy

How Awesome Is This? There's a New Foundation in Town

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:55:00 +0000

There's a new foundation in town: The Awesome Foundation is doling out month-long $1000 grants, plus office space at betahouse in Cambridge, to "people doing awesome things in the world."

Founder Tim Hwang, a researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard and founder of the excellent ROFLcon series of events exploring Internet memes, describes the new foundation as "a fast-paced micro-MacArthur Foundation for your flashes of fast-paced micro-genius."

Hwang started hunting for micro-trustees in early June, and within a few weeks had assembled a group of 11 people willing to pony up $100 per month to support the idea. (More trustees are still joining...)

They announced the foundation, and started looking for grantees, yesterday. I'm curious what kind of projects will make the cut...

There is of course a Facebook group and Twitter feed.

Really nifty news to start the Fourth of July weekend with...

July 1st: You May Now Stop Innovating

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:11:00 +0000

First, thanks to everyone who helped out with New England Innovation Month in June...

We started the grassroots project as a way to reboot the conversation, moving it away from the lousy economy and toward the things we can control: new ideas and new ventures and new connections. There were about 25 events on the official calendar, and those I went to were really well-attended and had great energy.

What was especially cool was to have two Left Coast publications take note of what we were doing out here in the colonies: VentureBeat and the San Jose Mercury News, which ran a piece headlined 'Boston tech scene on the rebound.'

I am *sure* this is only the beginning of some great new thinking about how to turbo-charge innovation around our region...

...And there are already some great signs that good things will continue in July:

- The Secretary of Housing & Economic Development in Massachusetts, Greg Bialecki, has just launched his blog with a great "Declaration of Innovation."

- TechStars Boston is going strong, and will present a whole crop of new companies to investors in early September.

- There's been some really constructive talk around how we can connect students to cool companies in our region.

- There are some great events happening in July and August, including WebInno, PodCamp Boston, Mass Innovation Night (hoping to finally get to that next week), CloudCamp, and a Forrester Tweetup (expecting to see Tweeter-in-Chief George Colony there, who purports to be a CEO who understands social technologies)...

Again, big thanks to all of you who supported this idea and came out to the events.

(And yes, I'm joking with the headline of this post. Please continue your innovating -- though feel free to take a short vacation in July or August.)

Update on Zipcar's Forthcoming iPhone App

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:20:00 +0000

Zipcar showed off a new iPhone app last month at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference that got me salivating (I'm a Zipcar member): it offers GPS help finding cars that are available, and can even honk the car's horn to help you locate it in a parking lot. See the video demo below...

Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith told me today that he has already been testing the beta version on his iPhone, with a few of the company's cars here in Boston. "We're finishing the app now, and then we have to do a complete new software download to our whole car network, so that iPhones will have the ability to honk the horn and unlock the car for you," Griffith said. The app will be free. Griffith estimates that it'll be available in about four weeks. Future versions of the Zipcar app, he added, might give Zipcar members discounts on music, or deals on iPhone navigation apps or other travel-related apps.

Two Great VC Posts from Rob Go and Larry Cheng

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Just calling your attention to two VC posts worth reading -- one on how to handle your first meeting, and one on how to tell if you piqued the investor's interest at that meeting:

Passing the Sniff Test: Do's and Don'ts for a First Meeting with a VC

4 Questions and 4 Pressure Tests to Decipher a VC's Interest in Your Company

Connecting Students with Cool Companies: Your Ideas?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:54:00 +0000

One project I'd like to get rolling this coming academic year is a way to enable students from Boston-area schools to visit interesting companies in the area.

The basic idea is that a visit would consist of a tour of the company, a sit-down with the CEO or founder to explain what the company does, some snacks/lunch, and a Q&A session. The objective would be simply to expose students to local entrepreneurs and executives and the companies they run, not necessarily to get students jobs or internships (though if the company was hiring or looking for interns, they could certainly let the students know that.) A visit might last 90 minutes in total.

I'd want to start with some of the area's cooler companies -- those that wouldn't put the typical sleep-deprived undergrad to sleep (no offense if your company makes some really awesome expense account software.) I'd also want to start with companies that are accessible by public transportation, to make sure we have a really strong showing at the first few.

My list would include companies like Zipcar, Harmonix Music Systems, Genzyme, Biogen Idec, Heartland Robotics, Vecna Robotics, Conduit Labs, Brightcove, Ambient Devices, E Ink, HubSpot, Brickyard VFX, IDEO Cambridge, Vlingo, Akamai, Google Cambridge, A123 Systems, Microsoft NERD, EnerNOC, Cape Wind, and Viximo.

Who ought to be added to the list? And what should this be called? "Innovation Field Trips"? "Innovation Open Houses"? "The Innovation Lunch Series"?

It's the sort of thing that might require an underwriter or sugar daddy to make it happen (lining up companies to participate...ensuring that students find out about the events and actually show up...and that companies make the visits valuable), so I'm open to ideas on that, too.

On Deck for Wednesday: LogMeIn IPO

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:38:00 +0000

The Globe has this story about the pending IPO of Woburn-based LogMeIn, a company that makes remote access software for PCs (and also sells a popular iPhone app.) This would be the third venture-backed firm to go out in 2009, following OpenTable and SolarWinds.

Big winners if the company succeeds in raising $100m+ from the public market? Prism VentureWorks and Polaris Venture Partners, two Boston-area VC firms that have been out in the market trying to raise their next funds. Woody Benson represents Prism on the LogMeIn board, and Dave Barrett represents Polaris. And of course, many LogMeIn employees will do well, including CEO Michael Simon.

I mentioned LogMeIn in a Globe column last month about iPhone apps.

Seeking Alpha has this piece analyzing the offering.

Photos, Audio, Video from "What's Next in Tech"

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:49:00 +0000

The "What's Next in Tech" event that I moderated at BU on Thursday was a lot of fun... as was the impromptu after-party at Eastern Standard.

Some links related to the event, which featured a panel of VCs and a panel of entrepreneurs riffing on what's next for our region:

- Blog post from participant Stephen Sherlock

(The next event-related project I'm working on is Future Forward 09, in November. But that will be preceded by a series of breakfast workshops on topics like demystifying term sheets... designing software with purpose... and generating awareness in a social media driven world.)

$8 Million More of 'Under the Mattress' Money for CloudSwitch

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:39:00 +0000

Here's an item that'll spark some jealousy in any entrepreneur who finds it tough raising venture capital in the current climate: CloudSwitch has raised a second round of $8 million in venture capital funding, led by new investor Commonwealth Capital Ventures. This follows a first round of $7.4 million that was first reported here on Innovation Economy in January.

I spoke to founder and VP/products Ellen Rubin late on Friday, as the company was moving into new office space in Burlington. (The funding news was under embargo until this morning.) The company now has 18 people, including new CEO John McEleney (formerly CEO at SolidWorks), co-founder and CTO John Considine (formerly of Sun and Pirus), chief architect Fred Oliveira (who formerly worked on EMC's Atmos cloud offering), VP of product management George Moberly (ex of EMC and BladeLogic), and VP of engineering Sean Henry (formerly of RSA.)

"We weren't really actively looking for money," Rubin said. "But there was a fair amount of pre-emptive interest at attractive valuations. Having John McEleney join was the catalyst. He's pretty well-regarded, and had a phenomenal track record at SolidWorks. He knew the Atlas and Matrix guys [who led CloudSwitch's first round], and has known the guys at Commonwealth for a long time." Eliot Katzman is the partner at Commonwealth who will join CloudSwitch's board; Matrix and Atlas participated in the new round. CloudSwitch's objective is to help make the low costs and flexibility of cloud computing services safe for enterprise use.

"This is one of those funny situations," Rubin told me. "We'd just raised the A, and we weren't going to be looking for more money until well into 2010. This is just money to have, so we can focus on getting the product out the door. You just put it in the bank and let it sit there."

Nice situation to be in...

Oneforty is First Company in TechStars Boston to Get Seed Funding

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:26:00 +0000

TechStars' first-ever summer program for entrepreneurs in Boston started on May 26th. Fifteen days later, on June 10th, the first team got funding. That must be some kind of land speed record.

The funded company is Oneforty, founded by Boston Twitter maven Laura 'Pistachio' Fitton. Fitton, who has 35,000 followers on Twitter, is also the author of 'Twitter for Dummies,' just published. (Makes me wonder if someone has already written 'Twitter for Sophisticates.' Is it really that complex?) Fitton also runs Pistachio Consulting, based in Brighton, Ma.

Investors describe the new company's goal as creating an "app store for Twitter," bringing together in one place all the free and paid apps designed to enhance Twitter's value and utility. Fitton herself isn't wild about the phrase "app store for Twitter," instead describing the company as "a Twitter ecosystem play" that intends to "help people make sense of the Twitter ecosystem, and find, rate and share apps." Fitton noted that she'd started talking with potential investors before the TechStars program began.

Several angel investors have put less than $250,000 into the company, I'm told. They include Jeff Bennett of NameMedia (formerly of Lycos) and John Landry of Lead Dog Ventures (formerly of Lotus). Oneforty is still a bit virtual. Fitton is out in San Francisco developing the site with Pivotal Labs. She has two full-time employees starting next week at the TechStars office in Cambridge, and several others working on the project as contractors.

"I invested very much in [Laura], and her network and her enthusiasm, which is really quite contagious," Landry says. "She believes that Twitter is an infrastructure. She's on a mission, and she will figure out how to make this pay off."

Nice start for TechStars Boston, which wraps up in late August.

(In the video below, shot at SXSW in March, Fitton dodges some questions about Oneforty...starting at about the one-minute mark.)

Helen Greiner's Droid Works Wins First Gov't Grant for Flying Bots

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:21:00 +0000

Helen Greiner's stealthy new start-up, The Droid Works, has said almost nothing about what they're up to, except that they're working in the field of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles.) So far, Greiner has been funding the Framingham-based company herself, so there aren't any VCs to blab about what they're working on. And the company is small -- just a handful of engineers, including one superstar HP veteran who helped develop the inkjet printer -- so employee leaks are unlikely. All this makes a curious journalist sad.

But when I saw Greiner last night at 'What's Next in Tech,' she mentioned that the company had just landed its first government grant through the SBIR program (Small Business Innovation Research.) I did some searching, and discovered that the company is receiving almost $100,000 to develop flying bots that can operate indoors and out. The description of the work is fascinating, so I'll share it here -- and also mention that Greiner's last company, iRobot, was initially funded not by VCs but by government grants from agencies like NASA.

And if you want a window into some of Greiner's current thinking about bots and artificial intelligence, she wrote a piece this month for Forbes titled 'Who Needs Humanoids?'

Audio: EMC CTO Jeff Nick on the Company's Tech Priorities

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:39:00 +0000

EMC's chief technology officer, Jeff Nick, was on the opening panel at the XSITE 2009 conference at Boston University this morning. We sat down for a few minutes to chat about the tech themes currently on his radar screen (virtualization and the "private cloud" among them), and also what's up with EMC's consumer division, Decho (which includes Pi Corp. and Mozy.)

The 13-minute long MP3 is here, or you can just click play below.

CloudCamp Coming to Cambridge, July 29th

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:09:00 +0000

Smart people like Judith Hurwitz, John Treadway, and Mike Werner are organizing the first local CloudCamp at Microsoft NERD on July 29th. It's an unconference, and it's free. Already an interesting bunch of people signed up to participate...

Should We Make Non-Compete Agreements Illegal in Masssachusetts?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:17:00 +0000

I say yes, in Sunday's Globe column, though as always, I'm curious to hear what you think.

If you want to change the status quo, here are a couple sites to know about:

Prohibit Restrictive Employee Covenants

Rep. Will Brownsberger's site

Alliance for Open Competition

Massachusetts Non-Compete Law blog

There were so many great comments that couldn't fit in the story, but just one for the blog from Jeff Anderson, CEO of Quick Hit (and former CEO of Turbine, another local games company mentioned in the column).

"The biggest problem we have as a start-up is attracting and retaining talent. If someone wants to relocate to Massachusetts, they need to feel like if this job doesn't work out, they can find another job. But if non-competes are de rigeur, if not only reduces the number of companies that you have in any given space, like games, but it forces those people to leave." Anderson adds that he has received two or three dozen job applications from talented people working for other games companies in Massachusetts, but says that it would be problematic to hire them because of their non-competes.

"When you think about all the other problems that start-ups have to deal with, from capital and vision to competition, and all the pieces that have to be properly aligned, non-competes just add to that."

Of course, like most companies in Massachusetts, even though Anderson is philosophically against non-competes, he asks employees to sign one, even though he says it is as narrowly-defined as possible.

Catching Up: Convergence, #NEINNO, What's Next in Tech

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:09:00 +0000

- The sixth edition of Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum (an event I help organize) happened last week. Oddly, attendance was up from 2008. Not sure how to explain that. Featured speakers included Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer, Sirtris founder Christoph Westphal, Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charlie Baker, Beth Israel CEO Paul Levy, and cutting edge researchers David Altshuler from the Broad and David Eisenberg from Harvard. Xconomy had some coverage, as did Mass High Tech, and there was a pretty healthy stream of tweets, too.

(Termeer's appearance was followed by a great Sunday Globe story by Stephen Heuser, and then some unfortunate company news on Tuesday, as Genzyme was forced to shut down its Allston plant for decontamination.)

For the first time, we're sharing audio from the event. You can either download the MP3s for later listening, or just click play.

MP3 file.

- I've been psyched to see how many people have been tweeting about New England Innovation Month using the tag #neinno. This coming week wraps things up, so do help spread the word -- and try to get out to an event. (We just added a free event called PitchPub to the calendar.)

- For my part, I'll be dropping by XSITE 2009 and EurekaFest on Wednesday and Friday, and moderating/emceeing things at What's Next in Tech on Thursday evening -- which looks like it is attracting a great group of participants (listed on the registration page all the way at the bottom.)

- I'm also adding the Social Media Breakfast series to the list of regular gatherings (at right)... although I find it impossible to figure out from their site when the next one will be held (!)

(In the photo is Genzyme CEO Henri Termeer being interviewed by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals founder Christoph Westphal, at Convergence 2009.)

VC Larry Cheng on the Facebook Investment That Didn't Happen

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:00:00 +0000

Larry Cheng, a partner at Fidelity Ventures, serves up a blog post well worth reading today, about the early days of Facebook -- and his initial 2004 meeting with Facebook's two founders at Henrietta's Table in Cambridge.

Cheng writes:

As far as I can tell, Cheng was the first VC in Boston to talk to the founders of Facebook while they were still at Harvard, and the firm he was at at the time, Battery Ventures, may have been the only Boston area firm to have had a chance to invest in Facebook. I wrote about what happened in September, 2007.

But the biggest unanswered questions remain unanswered by Cheng's blog post: why exactly didn't Battery invest in Facebook? And if they had invested, would Facebook have stayed in Massachusetts -- or was Zuckerberg determined to build his company in the Valley?

Where the Jobs Are: Insights from Recruiters

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:05:00 +0000

For my most recent Boston Globe column, I spoke with recruiters to ask them where they're seeing demand these days. But I also wanted to provide some bonus material here that couldn't fit in the column.

The premise:

A few recruiters sent along their thoughts via e-mail, and I wanted to share that with you here.

Jim Sullivan, chief executive of JCSI, wrote:

David Hayes, CEO of HireMinds, wrote:

Pearl Freier of Cambridge BioPartners wrote:

One data point that didn't make it into the column is that when jobs disappear, the recruiters' workload drops. Most said their activity levels were down 20 to 30 percent. And that's what they're willing to tell a reporter!

Five Great Ideas from Today's IT Collaborative Event

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:46:00 +0000

There was a whole lot of tweeting going on this morning at the Massachusetts IT Collaborative event at Microsoft's NERD Center in Kendall Square... and the energy level at the event was really high.

One thing that was kind of depressing to me was listening to people like Steven Vinter of Google, Andy Ory of Acme Packet, and Emily Green of the Yankee Group try to sum up what had been discussed over a few hours in just five minutes when Gov. Patrick showed up to "listen." Vinter also showed an egregiously bad slide that tried to, I think, illustrate all the interconnects between various IT clusters in Massachusetts -- but it was one of those slides with an encyclopedia's worth of text on it, bubbles connected to bubbles, arrows everywhere. Rube Goldberg would have been proud, and I suspect it sent the message that the IT industry isn't so sharp when it comes to simplicity or clarity of message.

But there were lots of great ideas in circulation. Here are five that really resonated with me, and a quote I liked:

1. Michael Greeley of Flybridge Capital suggested that CEOs of larger, more successful companies ought to have "office hours" for younger, up-and-coming CEOs, much like college profs do. That could be a nice, low-commitment way of mentoring ... perhaps letting them commit one or two hours a month when they wouldn't have to leave their building. Many people at today's event focused on the issue of mentorship as a key to cultivating a new crop of big, important, sustainable companies here.

2. We need to make federal visa policy an important issue that everyone here in Massachusetts is engaged with. Part of what we do in the state is to make young people smarter. Why do we then allow them to be shipped back home, especially if they'd rather be working (or starting great companies) here? Akamai CEO Paul Sagan paraphrased Thomas Friedman, who has suggested that we staple a green card to every advanced degree we give out in the US.

3. Sagan also mentioned that you can walk or drive through Kendall Square and never know it is one of our region's hubs of innovation. (Perhaps even a denser concentration of smart people, research labs, and cool companies than anywhere in Silicon Valley.) But there are no signs to let you know what's there. If you drive down Highway 101 in California, in contrast, you see all kinds of evidence of the tech economy: Oracle, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, etc. The photo above is the blank sign at the front door to Google's Cambridge office, which perhaps 10,000 people pass by every day.

4. Connecting with students is a big challenge. Let's say you run a trade group and you want to make your annual conference open to students... or you want to organize an open house at your company to attract great students for a summer internship. There's no easy way to communicate with the student bodies of the hundreds of great schools around Massachusetts. I wonder how tough it would be to create a wiki that lists the contacts at every school's career office, and perhaps the e-mail addresses of the students who run the entrepreneurship/tech/business club on campus, and a few profs interested in helping be liaisons to industry. This wiki might also list tech companies willing to send speakers onto campuses for classes or club meetings, along with the relevant contact.

5. Tod Loofbourrow, founder of Authoria, had a great take during the session on communication... something that came up in last month's brainstorming session on how we can better communicate the innovative stuff that happens in our corner of the world. He said that pioneering work is being done here on healthcare IT, and making the healthcare more efficient, and that we should commit to saving the U.S. X number of dollars and X number of lives with our innovations. That got us all talking about how Massachusetts is focused not on tech-for-the-sake-of-tech, but technology that solves real problems... whether in healthcare, energy, business, or other spheres. That strikes me as really good positioning.

Finally, I liked Andy Ory's comment that we're still haunted by the ghost of Rout 128 past...and the ghost of California present...but what we really should be focused on is the ghost of Massachusetts' future.

What'd you hear that you liked? Did you post about the event? Feel free to add something in the comments...

Gov. Patrick on Non-Compete Agreements in Massachusetts

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:01:00 +0000

I had the chance to chat with Governor Deval Patrick for a few minutes today at Microsoft's NERD Center, toward the end of the Innovate MassTech meeting (aka the IT Collaborative Study Group Meeting.) So I asked him about non-competes.

Paul Sagan, the CEO of Akamai, had just said on stage that he is in favor of keeping non-compete agreements legal and enforceable in Massachusetts, and that he'd seen no data that says that non-competes have any effect on making us less competitive. (The best data I've seen comes from this excellent paper written by three folks at Harvard Business School.) Another CEO told me he liked the fact that employees were more loyal (or less mobile) than in California, so you didn't have to worry about constant turnover here.

Yet at the event, I also spoke with a number of people who'd either been prevented from hiring someone they wanted to hire because of Massachusetts' stance on non-competes, or who knew first-hand of someone who'd been prevented from moving from one company to another.

I asked Gov. Patrick whether the non-compete issue had shown up on his radar screen, and he said it had -- he'd heard about it here in Massachusetts and on a recent trip to California. "I don't have a stake in the status quo," he said. He'd heard arguments from individuals who have been prevented from taking jobs because of non-competes, and also from executives who feel that keeping employees from jumping to other firms in their industry helps them stay competitive. "There's not a consensus view" of whether they're a positive or negative thing in Massachusetts, he said. I suggested that larger companies would love for non-competes continue to continue to be enforceable, while many small start-ups would like to get rid of them -- and that the bigger companies have more political throw weight. The governor didn't agree that things break down so neatly between big and small.

He seemed like he's still in listening mode, willing to be persuaded: "If there's consensus in the industry [as to whether they're a good or bad thing], I'm happy to support that."

And then he went off to be pounced upon by the rest of the media mob... (see pic above)

A Few More Innovation Month Events ... And, Stealth Companies Revealed?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:19:00 +0000

Just added a couple new events to the Innovation Month calendar, including Games for Health 2009 (June 11 -12) and a Transatlantic Pitching session at Swissnex, held in conjunction with TechStars Boston, on June 18th.

I'm also told by Mark Horan from MassNetComms (they have a big conference coming up on June 17th) that they'll be featuring six stealth companies on a 'Stealth Panel' moderated by Oscar Jazdowski from Silicon Valley Bank. Not sure how much will be revealed, but the companies are:

Buzzient

Geocade

Scvngr

NorthEnd Technologies

MoFuse

I'm also psyched that the events that have taken place so far in June have been plugging the concept of Innovation Month, and letting their attendees know about all the other events taking place.

I'll see you out and about...This week I'm attending the IT Collaborative Dialogue in Cambridge and The Convergence Forum in Newport, RI (which I help to organize.)

Video of A2a's New Mediamesh Screen in Miami

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Cool video from Boston-based A2a Media ... they've just installed a permanent "Mediamesh" display screen at the American Airlines Arena in Miami (not only is it my home-town, but my cousin works for the Miami Heat.)

I wrote about A2a last summer in the Globe.

Audio Conversation: 'Bricklin on Technology'

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:49:00 +0000

Dan Bricklin is a software industry pioneer, best known as the co-creator of VisiCalc, who has a new book out called "Bricklin on Technology."

We talked last week about a few of the topics he addresses in the book, including how content will be monetized in the future, how creators (whether musicians, writers, or software developers) ought to deal with piracy, and how Dan is promoting and selling his new book (including on Twitter and YouTube). The MP3 is here, or you can just click 'Play' below. (It runs about 25 minutes.)

(Dan is also the host of Mass TLC's monthly Tech Tuesday event. There's one coming up on June 9th in Cambridge.)

Todd Hixon on Strengthening the Innovation Economy in Mass.

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:49:00 +0000

Todd Hixon of New Atlantic Ventures just posted this great slide presentation which looks at Massachusetts' innovation economy relative to California's, and asks how we can do better. Well worth a look.

Strengthening The Ma Innovation Economy V1

View more Microsoft Word documents from Todd Hixon.

Check Your Calendar: It's Now Innovation Month in New England

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:17:00 +0000

June 1st: That could only mean the start of Innovation Month in New England.

Check out all the tweets on the topic... (and if you tweet or blog about Innovation Month, use the tag #neinno.)

Mass High Tech and Xconomy have also written stories.

And my Globe column yesterday also dealt with how we might leverage Innovation Month to defibrillate the economy. (That's a word, right?)

Here's the opening:

(Thanks to Metropolis Creative for the great logo... more available here.)

Sayonara, SiCortex

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:15:00 +0000

I was sad to see the news this week that Maynard-based SiCortex is shutting down and selling of its assets after investors decided to turn off the tap. The ambitious maker of high-performance computers had raised $42 million, and CEO Chris Stone told me they'd shipped 60 of the machines in 2008 when we spoke late that year. (More coverage from Xconomy, GigaOm, and HPCwire.)

Some famous last words from my December 2008 chat with Stone:

The shut-down is bad news for local VC firms Flagship Ventures, Prism VentureWorks, and Polaris Venture Partners. (Bob Metcalfe was the Polaris partner who served on SiCortex's board; another of his portfolio companies, Greenfuel, also shut down in May.)

Ex-employee Jeff Darcy has an analysis of what went wrong on his blog:

Here's some video I shot at SiCortex's HQ in December 2008:

June is Innovation Month in New England: What Should We Do to Make An Impact?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott Kirsner) — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:30:00 +0000

Why declare that June 2009 is Innovation Month in New England?

My take: innovation -- new products, new companies, new ideas, new investment themes -- is what will enable our region to recover from the recession. Innovation has always been an inherent strength in these parts, but we can and should do better.

So here's my challenge to you...

What we've done so far is set up a Web site to list just a few of the innovation-oriented events taking place in New England in June. It'd be great if you could come to at least one of them to contribute to this concentrated, month-long conversation about innovation, and also help spread the word through your network. (Maybe you'll also let people know which events you plan to attend... I'll be at the IT Collaborative Dialogue on June 10th, Convergence on June 11-13, the MassNetComms Innovators Summit on June 17th, What's Next in Tech on the 25th, and possibly more.)

What else should we do to kick-start things in June ... to get people talking, connecting, collaborating, and thinking in new ways about how we launch and grow innovative ventures here in New England? To spotlight important research and development initiatives? To make students more aware of opportunities in the innovation economy here?

I'm eager to hear your ideas, big and small ... especially ones that are cheap/free, don't require much coordination, and can at least be started or announced in June. I may use a few of these in a column soon, so if you'd like, include your real name and affiliation in the comments.

(Oh, and if you blog or Tweet about Innovation Month, or post notes from any of the events that are part of it, please use the tag #neinno.)