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Week of May 12 - 18, 2008 |
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The World’s Top Business Gurus
The Wall Street Journal has
recently published an interesting ranking of the world’s 100 top
“business gurus,” i.e., the most influential writers and thinkers on
today’s business issues. The list, which was last published in 2003, was
compiled in collaboration with Babson College Professor Thomas H.
Davenport, and it ranks individuals by academic citations, Google hits,
and other media citations. This year’s list includes an eclectic mix of
people and is people by journalists, psychologists, authors, and fewer
business school professors than in past rankings. It appears that
producing new ideas in an easily digestible form is as important as
developing new ideas alone. This year’s top five business thinkers are
(in rank order): Gary Hamel, author of, among others, The Future of
Management; Thomas Friedman of The New York Times; Microsoft’s Bill
Gates; Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point; and
Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychologist best known for the theory of
“multiple intelligences,” and the editor of Responsibility at Work. |
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Boosting Canada’s Innovation Performance
While Canada remains a prosperous nation,
its productivity growth record has been poor when compared to other
developed economies. A new study from Canada’s Institute for Research
and Public Policy seeks to understand why and to see whether any
potential solutions are available. The author, Donald McFetridge,
fingers the business sector’s lack of innovation and entrepreneurial
spirit as primary cause for Canada’s productivity lag. While the
Canadian government has introduced multiple programs to stimulate
innovation, the national innovation culture is still quite weak.
McFetridge contends that new innovation policies should focus on
supporting “market incentives for entrepreneurship” through reduced
taxes and regulation. This effort would also entail support for “higher
quality venture capital,” which in practice means ending subsidies for
Canadian investors and opening up local markets to foreign venture
investors. While critical of many Canadian government initiatives,
McFetridge does recommend continuation of efforts to fund technology
commercialization from universities, to build university-business
partnerships, and to enhance technology training opportunities across
the education spectrum. |
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The Importance of Technology Diffusion
While the creation of new technologies is
essential, the diffusion of technology also matters. After all, the
benefits of new technologies are limited if they cannot be widely used.
A new Harvard Business School research study takes a closer look at the
processes of technology diffusion. The authors, Diego Comin and Bart
Hobijn, develop a model that helps trace the path of new technology
adoption across countries. More specifically, the researchers assessed
the technology diffusion paths of fifteen technologies across 166
countries between 1820 and 2003. They find that technology adoption lags
can be quite long. On average, countries have adopted technologies 47
years after their invention. Not surprisingly, adoption lags have grown
shorter over time. Reducing adoption lags, as has occurred in East Asia,
can have a big impact on a country’s economic prospects. Cross-country
variations in the adoption of new technologies accounts for about
one-quarter of the difference in national per capita incomes. |
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Future Directions for Nanotechnology
President Bush’s National Nanotechnology
Advisory Panel (NNAP) has recently released its latest recommendations
for how US government agencies can most effectively support new
innovations in nanotechnology. The NNAP, first chartered in 2003
regularly reviews and reports on the state of Federal support for
nanotech research and development. The latest review focuses on the
potential health risks from nanotechnology, and finds that nanotech
research does not raise any unique or especially challenging ethical
issues. In fact, the NNAP report is quite positive on the state of
nanotechnology research, applauding current Federal programs that
support R&D and needed infrastructure investments. The NNAP recommends a
continued focus on key infrastructure, such as research centers,
instrumentation, and equipment. It also recommends a renewed commitment
to developing consensus national and international standards for
nanotechnology. Finally, the NNAP encourages expanded investments in
technology transfer so that new products and technologies can be
commercialized in a more efficient manner. |
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Venture Capital Industry Slowing
The latest data (from the first quarter of
2008) indicate that the venture capital (VC) industry is slowing along
with the rest of the economy. Venture capitalists invested $7.1 billion
in 922 deals during the first quarter of 2008. This figure, while
impressive, still represents an 8.5% drop from the previous quarter. VC
fundraising slowed even more. The total amount raised in the first
quarter of 2008 ($6.3 billion) was down 31% from the same period in
2007. Finally, VC-backed exits slowed even further, with only one
initial public offering and 56 mergers and acquisitions in the beginning
of 2008. These figures represent the lowest quarterly exit levels since
2003. |
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Leader in Women’s Investment Movement Honored
Stephanie Hanbury-Brown – founder of a
network of angel investors who identify and invest in women-led ventures
– was named as the recipient of the 2008 Hans Severiens Award. The
award, presented by the Angel Capital Association (ACA) and Angel
Capital Education Foundation (ACEF), recognizes individual
accomplishments in the advancement of angel investing in expanding
entrepreneurship. Hanbury-Brown founded Golden Seeds LLC in 2005 to
identify and invest in women-led ventures with the potential to grow
into multi-million dollar businesses and to provide women entrepreneurs
with strategic business advice and the tools they need for growth. Since
its inception, Golden Seeds has invested in 18 companies for
approximately $6.7 million. Hanbury-Brown also serves as chairperson of
the board of Count Me In, a non-profit involved in online micro-lending
for U.S. women entrepreneurs, and a source of inspiration and mentorship
inspiring women to “Make Mine a Million Dollar Business.” |
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The National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship is an initiative of the Public Forum Institute made possible by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Through NDE-news, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving entrepreneurship around the world. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online. |
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National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship
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stories © 2008 The Public Forum Institute
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