SubscribePaper 15: New Year’s Resolutions 2010
‘Tis the season – for resolutions. We love to make em; we tend to break ‘em. But what if people got a gift to help them keep their resolution? We’ve arranged ten gifts with ten key NC innovation players for 2010 in mix ‘n match format. See if you can guess which gift goes with which person or organization — and what resolution we are hoping they make:
GIFTS RECIPIENTS
- Bully pulpit a. University faculty and innovators
- Wii Fit tightrope program b. NC Gov. Bev Perdue
- Three-legged stool c. NC Chamber
- Fishbowl d. NC General Assembly
- Chips ‘n dip e. NC Treasurer Janet Cowell
- SBIR grant f. Frustrated company workers
- Legos g. North Carolina universities
- Student loan, spouse, child h. NC Rural Center
- Carbonated beverage i. Entrepreneurs
- Weakened immune systems j. NC Department of Commerce
1. A bully pulpit for Governor Bev. Perdue – The idea of the “bully pulpit” was birthed 100 years ago not by guilt-inducing evangelists trying to beat some morality into us, but by Teddy Roosevelt, who felt the power of the presidency gave him a “bully good” perch to push his favorite programs. Let’s hope Gov. Perdue uses her gubernatorial pulpit to push innovation to the forefront this year. She could start by using the 20 pound state seal that sits in her office to declare 2010 “The Year of Innovation.”
2. Wii fit tightrope for State Treasurer Janet Cowell — The Treasurer’s proposed $250 million program to invest a small amount of state retirement assets in high-growth, primarily North Carolina-based companies will require some careful stepping to balance the need of NC pensioners for good return on investment and the needs of NC innovative fast-growing companies for critical growth funds. Wii Fit has an excellent game to practice walking the tightrope. She’ll need it.
3. Three-legged stool for the NC Department of Commerce – 2010 could be the year the North Carolina Department of Commerce finally balances the “three-legged stool” of economic development policy (recruitment, existing business, startups) from one that heavily tilts toward recruitment to one that pays equal amounts of attention to encouraging existing companies to innovate and finding ways to get new, innovative companies started. There’s nothing wrong with recruitment, but with 98% of the state’s businesses less than 500 employees (officially “small”), we need to see more emphasis on Commerce programs like BLNC and BizBoost that help ensure young innovative companies make it through the “valley of death.”
4. Fishbowl for NC Universities – This idea from Mark Rostick (through the changepapers “comments” section) gets at a key communications gap — between companies and investors (that are looking for increasingly looking to buy innovation rather than develop it internally), and universities (that are better at developing innovative ideas than bringing them to market). Mark’s suggestion — create a better “fishbowl” for outside people to “look in” on ideas being developed. In 2010 the UNC system will be rolling out an improved version of a look-in function; it will be up to businesses and investors to determine if it works.
5. Chips ‘n dip for the NC Chamber — the entire responsibility for marketing innovation can’t fall on the shoulders of NC universities. As corporate R&D investments increasingly move out of company and out-of-country, NC’s historic success in attracting corporate R&D (the state ranks #1 nationally, with 13.6% of total university R&D sponsored by industry) is a strength to be developed further. If groups like the NC Chamber could sponsor forums for companies and investors to “look in” at university-conducted research, they might well find new ideas they could bring to market (if they serve chips ‘n dip, maybe there will be more energy!). The energy to find and bring to market innovation needs to be going in both directions.
6. SBIR grant for faculty members or entrepreneurs ready to take innovations to the next level — NC’s One NC Small Business Program provides matching funds for the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) that help innovators figure out whether their ideas have any commercial merit. State funds match federal grants of up to $100,000 for ideas selected as worth further exploration, making it easier to figure out if they can “turn new ideas into new services or products of value” (our definition of innovation). Those sorts of programs, especially if coupled with an organized commercialization fund (as we described in the “Priming the Pump” section of Paper 14), really increase our chances of turning dreams into realities.
7. Legos for frustrated company workers – Everyday tens of thousands of us gripe and grouse about how our workplaces could save money, improve efficiency, make smarter stuff. But most of us are more comfortable talking about what’s wrong than what could be different. We need to fundamentally flip our perspective. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “some men see things as they are and ask ‘why?’: I dream things that never were and ask ‘why not?’” What about if every one of us working for someone else started putting energy into fixing the old broken widget or process instead of complaining about how they don’t work? Into creating the next new thing rather than complaining that nobody else is? Into making new lego creations instead of tearing other people’s lego’s down? Chances are a lot more of our companies would become a lot more innovative. And if we make a good faith effort to try innovation within and it fails, we always have the option to out-ovate!
8. Student loan, spouse, child for entrepreneurs -- If we want to become the most innovative place in the world, we don’t just need new innovators, who come from anywhere. We also need entrepreneurs who can translate those innovations from idea to market. And while those entrepreneurs can come from anywhere, statistically speaking the people most likely to start high-growth companies are college educated, married with children. Research by Vivek Wadhwa at Duke for the Kauffman Foundation finds in a survey of 549 high growth businesses that 95% of founders held a bachelor’s degree or higher, that 69.9% were married and that 59.7% of them had at least one child. Of course we can’t force anyone into marriage or parenthood, but we can help more people complete degrees — right now there are 38 million people in the US that started college and didn’t finish — we need to reach out to those people and help them finish, and support those currently in school to help them finish. Even if they don’t start an innovative company, they will be more helpful to their companies, and on average they will earn more too.
9. Carbonated beverage for the Rural Center – If the idea of a “free innovation zone” (see Paper 05) a place that has adopted a series of policies and made a serious commitment to gets adopted in NC it will likely come easiest in an urban area that already has many of the assets that make innovation easier — a university, venture capital funds, a critical mass of industries. But finding a place with the energy and assets to make innovation FIZ in a non-metro setting is the kind of work the NC Rural Center is uniquely qualified to do.
10. Weakened immune systems for the North Carolina General Assembly — Without the support of the NC General Assembly, any innovation effort won’t get very far. The Governor and Treasurer may support it, businesses may get behind it, universities may back it, but it can’t truly go viral until it infects the General Assembly. Here’s hoping for an NC1 I1 (NC #1 in Innovation) outbreak in the state in 2010.
What are your top resolutions this New Year to make your company more innovative? Your agency? Your school? What’s it going to take to get you there? Or what innovation resolution would you like to make for someone ELSE in this New Year? Send us your thoughts, comments, corrections, analysis as a comment below, or Email or twitter us.
Tags: BizBoost, BLNC, entrepreneurship, Gov. Bev Perdue, innovators, Kauffman Foundation, NC Chamber, NC Department of Commerce, NC General Assembly, NC Rural Center, One NC Small Business Fund, R&D, SBIR, Treasurer Janet Cowell, UNC, Vivek Wadhwa, Year of Innovation