U.S.SourceLink Blog

Mobs Swarm Small Business

New mobs armed with cash in hand are swarming small businesses coast to coast.  Their purpose?  To support small business, while having a little fun along the way. 

What is a cash mob?

The idea behind a cash mob is to encourage people to go into locally owned small businesses and spend a few dollars, en masse.  The mob-leader picks a date and time to swarm a small business (or businesses).  Word is typically spread through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets.

Armed with some cash in hand the mob descends…and buys. 

Why mob with cash?

Besides the guilty pleasure of meeting up with friends for a $20 mini-shopping spree, cash mobs can have a very positive impact on small businesses.  A recent Ohio cash mob descended on Chagrin Hardware, a family owned hardware store in the small village of Chagrin Falls.  In business since 1857, the store has seen its share of tough times, the Associated Press reports. Road construction has crippled business.  Big box stores and a weakened economy have also taken their toll. 

Photo from USA Today

According to a USA Today article, the idea for the cash mob started with local resident, Jim Black.  He first sent an email to a group of friends, " Let's show our support for one of our local businesses," he wrote. "I challenge everyone to spend AT LEAST $20 at the hardware on the 21st".  As with other cash mobs, word quickly spread further through Facebook and Twitter.

By 10 a.m. on the day of the cash mob, the place was jammed. By 1:30 p.m., the credit card machine was overloaded and had to be reset.  The line at the checkout stretched in two directions . 

As the USA Today article reports, mobster Chad Schron came with his 8-year-old son Robert. "We didn't have anything we had to get, but we found things we had to get," he said. As he spoke, Robert clutched an Ohio State desk lamp and two flying monkey toys to his chest.

To mob one, or many

Cash mobs don't always target just one business. A Kansas City cash mob recently targeted a small cluster of shops in suburban Westwood, consisting of a coffee shop, florist, picture frame shop and a chocolatier.

The Kansas City area's first cash mob was organized by Burton Kelso, Kelly Ziegler and Jennifer Franz, the Kansas City Star reports. The trio initially came up with the idea after reading about cash mobs in other cities. The goal is to get people to spend at each shop, meet new people, and have fun.

Start your own cash mob

According to the cash mob website, cash mob events have appeared in nearly 40 cities in the United States and Canada since first occurring last summer.  The website provides a simple step-by-step set of suggestions to help people start their own cash mob.

So what do you think?  Have you participated or heard of a cash mob?  Do you see one shaping up in your neighborhood?

Content contributed by Jeremy W Hegle, U.S.SourceLink,
MOSourceLink is a proud affiliate of U.S.SourceLink , America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs

PowerUp was the theme of the 4th Annual U.S.SourceLink Conference, held April 23-24, 2102 in Kansas City.

Representatives of the 34 U.S.SourceLink affiliates from across the country learned how to strengthen the entrepreneurial support ecosystems they lead in their community. The conference was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and was sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. U.S.SourceLink is America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs.

The power-packed agenda focused on bringing national entrepreneurship resources to local communities and innovative practices and tools for promoting entrepreneurial success. Tammy Edwards, assistant vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank, provided the conference opening. Presenters included national experts, area practitioners and local entrepreneurs.

• Dell Gines, community development advisor of the Federal Reserve Bank, provided data and trends to emphasize the importance of entrepreneurs to a community and local economy.
• Thom Ruhe, director of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation, showed how to bring the heavyweight classes and resources of the Kauffman Foundation to entrepreneurs and the small business community.
• Accomplished entrepreneur Toby Rush gave the inside scoop on what entrepreneurs really need to make an impact, power success and create jobs.
• Bob Buchanan and Cynthia Laufer of the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership helped participants craft a Community Benefit statement to drive fundraising. 
• Dr. Michelle Robin, chief wellness officer at Your Wellness Connection, shared tips on stress-free working.
• A panel of affiliates offered tried and tested social media tips to engage clients and ignite fans; some affiliates increased website traffic by 100% or more.
• Success stories, best practices, fresh U.S.SourceLink tools, networking and more.

For more photos from the conference, visit: www.flickr.com/ussourcelink

In a close finish, Lemonade Day Alaska won this year’s U.S.SourceLink Innovative Practices Challenge and the grand prize of $2,500. The winning entry was announced and featured at the U.S.SourceLink Power Up! Conference on April 23, 2012, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

U.S.SourceLink hosted the video contest among its affiliates and their resource partners to highlight the best economic development practices that support entrepreneurs in their local communities.

Four finalists competed for the $2,500 grand prize in the final voting round:

• Whitewater Incubation Program from Whitewater, Wisconsin
• Connect Arkansas Entrepreneur/eCommerce Education Program
• Operation JumpStart Missouri
• Lemonade Day Alaska

About Lemonade Day Alaska

Submitted by the University of Alaska Center for Economic Development, Lemonade Day Alaska is a free experiential program to teach youth about entrepreneurship by giving them the opportunity to start and run their own small business.

The goal of Lemonade Day is to give children of all socio-economic backgrounds, in all areas of Alaska, the opportunity to learn about starting and operating their own business. Lemonade Day reaches out to neighborhoods where children wouldn’t have an opportunity to learn the basic skills of being an entrepreneur.

In its first year, Lemonade Day registered 941 youth who sold 91,000 cups of lemonade, yielding  $149, 000 in profits. The youth donated $19,000 of their earnings to various local charities.

View All the Innovative Practices

View the finalists’ videos and innovative entrepreneurial practices on the U.S.SourceLink website.

Content contributed by Sarah Mote, U.S.SourceLink, America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs

This Monday U.S.SourceLink launched its Innovative Practices Challenge. We're looking for what works in supporting entrepreneurship in communities and we're letting you be the judge. Several of our affiliates' partners have provided short videos and descriptions of innovative programs in their communities. Go to U.S.SourceLink Innovative Practices Challenge and cast your vote for the most innovative program. The top vote-getter will receive a $2500 prize and recognition at the annual U.S.SourceLink conference April 23-24 in Kansas City.

With two days of polling, early returns show Lemonade Day Alaska pulling 65% of the votes and Whitewater Incubation Program has 31%. Polling closes April 13, 2012 at 4 p.m. Central time. 

If you're interested in supporting rural entrepreneurship, join a like-minded group at the annual FRED Conference May 3-5 in Fairfield, Iowa. FRED (Focus on Rural Entrepreneurial Development) features best practices and case studies from innovative communities across the country. Folks from Alaska to Australia and everywhere in between have attended past conference.

I attended FRED a few years ago and thought it was well worth the time. It's a great place to network, learn and just get re-inspired about changing the economics of rural communities.

For more information about the 2012 conference, go to FRED Conference ( http://www.fredconference.com/FRED_Conference/FRED.html )

Starting a business is challenging enough. Starting a life sciences business can be downright daunting.

Life science startups must face complex regulations and funding challenges, on top of the usual registration, licensing, human resources and strategic planning hurdles that all small businesses must jump.

The Kauffman Life Science Ventures Summit, held on June 22-23, 2012 at the University of California-San Francisco, is ready to help aspiring and early-stage life science ventures clear those obstacles.

This first-time conference will answer the critical questions that founders of life science companies must address to start and grow viable companies.

Program Highlights

Industry experts and successful entrepreneurs will provide practical guidance on how to commercialize innovations in each of four sectors: medical device, therapeutics, diagnostics, and digital health.

Speakers include, among others:

• Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur and author
• Stephen Spielberg, deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco at the Food & Drug Administration
• Paul Yock, founder, Stanford Biodesign
• Karl Handelsman, managing director, CMEA Capita
• Kim Popovits, CEO, Genomic Health

Call for Applications

Up to 200 life science entrepreneurs will be selected based on two factors:

• how much they will benefit from the experience based on where they are in their early-stage entrepreneurial journey
• the commercial viability of their plan

The application deadline is April 2, 2012. Selected applicants will be advised by April 13.

Visit www.kauffman.org/lifescienceapp to learn more information and to apply.

Content contributed by Maria Meyers, U.S.SourceLink, America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs

MVP: if you’re a sports fan (and who isn’t in March?), it means Most Valuable Player. If you’re Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, it means Minimally Viable Product. And come to think of it, the way Ries describes it, a minimally viable product could be a startup company’s most valuable asset.

The Lean Startup promotes a methodology to fail quickly and cheaply…and then describes just how to do that. Ries says to test your vision quickly by building a product and getting it into the hands of real customers, who can like it, hate it and give you a roadmap for improving it. Instead of crafting elegant architecture for your new technology or building a beautiful business plan, Ries suggests building minimally viable products…what’s the lowest cost thing you can do that looks and acts like a real product…and then put that through a series of rapid scientific experiments.

Many entrepreneurs may not have the discipline for following Ries’ methodology. He advocates setting up very structured experiments, learning specific lessons from each experiment, and then using that knowledge to build the next experiment that moves toward a final product. He borrows heavily from the lean manufacturing movement, with small batches, scientific approaches to decision making and measurement.

If you’re looking for another perspective on building your company, check out The Lean Startup.

If you’ve already read it, what did you think?

Content contributed by Jeremy Hegle, U.S.SourceLink, America's largest resource network for entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship is local.

It’s built from the ground up, relying on a local ecosystem that inspires entrepreneurs, supports startups and sustains small business growth. And a key to the vibrancy of those ecosystems and the local economies they support lies with state and local governments, reports the Kauffman Foundation.

Two of the Kauffman Foundation’s recent reports—"Startup Act for the States" and “License to Grow”—focus specifically on recommendations for state and local governments to create new companies and new jobs. "State Startup Act" lays out an agenda for state-level policymakers to foster entrepreneurship, and "License to Grow" showcases barriers to entrepreneurship imposed by state and local governments.

Those recommendations include, to highlight a few:

• Reform occupational licensing, which acts as a barrier to entry for entrepreneurs who seek to provide services to consumers at the state and local levels through new business models at lower cost and/or higher quality.
• Allow university faculty to retain licensing rights to the technologies they develop, without having to gain university approval, and/or to more rapidly move innovations from the laboratory to the marketplace.
• Reduce state-level paperwork, time and effort required for firm formation.
• Make state-level business shutdown and liability costs as low as possible, because not all new ventures succeed.

What are your thoughts about the Kauffman Foundation’s recommendations?

You grow it by strengthening local economies—by fortifying existing small businesses and inspiring people to take that leap into entrepreneurship. 

Improving the Odds for Startups

Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) are an essential part of that hard work, confirms a report by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Located in nearly 900 communities nationwide, SBDCs use their direct, face-to-face counseling not just to strengthen existing small businesses—their coaching and counseling actually helps improve startups’ odds of survival.

The report, The SBDC Program: An Indispensable Partner in America’s Economic Development, focuses on SBDCs’ impact on small business access to SBA’s programs and services, including SBA capital, procurement, disaster and international trade programs. The results statistically demonstrate the prolonged impact that SBA-funded SBDCs have on the formation and growth of small businesses. 

Check the numbers. Last year, more than 557,000 entrepreneurs received business advice and technical assistance through their local SBDCs.  In its more than 30-year history, SBDCs have assisted millions of small business owners and entrepreneurs to successfully start and grow small firms by fostering entrepreneurship and growth through innovation and efficiency.

From Surviving the Startup Phase to Securing Loans

“SBDCs,” the report says, “are solely focused on creating and supporting small businesses which in turn pay taxes, provide employment and diversify the economic base for their states. . . The businesses that work with the SBDCs are the job creators and enterprises that have the potential for survival and growth.”

The report also highlights the effectiveness of SBDC counseling in improving the chances of small businesses that seek small business loans.  With their intimate knowledge of what lenders really want and their expert coaching through the lending process, SBDCs help borrowers leverage that knowledge, increasing the likelihood of getting a loan.

The SBDC program, for which the federal government covers half the cost, remains one of the government’s best investments because of its close associations with other SBA resource partners, federal, state and local government small business assistance programs and service providers; universities and community colleges; and private enterprise and local nonprofit economic development organizations.

The E-Community partnership emphasizes development of community resources to create a flourishing entrepreneurial environment; of which financial capital is an important component. The participating communities were awarded a combined total of $900,000 in tax credits, enabling them to raise $1.2 million to be loaned to local businesses in their communities.

"It is exciting to see our E-Community partnerships expand. The injection of capital is certainly important, but, just as importantly, we are beginning to work systematically with our partner communities to learn about best practices that generate startup activity and business expansion, introducing youth to entrepreneurship, and how to engage the banking community and share what we learn with our E-Community partners," said Erik Pedersen, director of E-Communities.

About E-Communities

Network Kansas’ E-Community program, now in its fifth year, has grown from 6 communities in 2007 to 30 in 2011 and has raised more than $5.9 million for loan funds for Kansas entrepreneurs. These funds are estimated to generate more than $34.9 million of investment in rural businesses across Kansas.

Since 2007, NetWork Kansas E-Communities have loaned or granted $1.6 million to more than 70 businesses in their communities through this funding source and leveraged an additional $9.3 million dollars of investment, for a total investment of $11 million dollars into businesses in E-Communities. This funding has spurred the creation or retention of 386 jobs in these same communities and has immeasurable positive effects on the entrepreneurial ecosystems of these participating areas.

Kansas entrepreneurs who are not located in one of NetWork Kansas' 30 E-Communities may be eligible to apply for low-interest loans through the statewide StartUp Kansas loan program, which is also funded through the Kansas Entrepreneurship Tax Credit.

Since 2006, the StartUp Kansas program has raised a combined total of more than $6.77 million in donations, which will generate an estimated $47 million of investment in Kansas businesses. StartUp Kansas has awarded a total of $3.58 million to businesses, leveraging an additional $25 million for a total of $28.7 million in total investment in Kansas businesses. Fifty-eight percent of businesses who have been awarded NetWork Kansas funding are located in communities with fewer than 5,000 residents.

Combined, the NetWork Kansas E-Community and StartUp Kansas programs have stimulated the creation or retention of more than 1,200 Kansas jobs.

NetWork Kansas facilitates the development of a network within participating communities that grows and connects various factors proven to be vital to the establishment of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Some of these factors include availability of financial capital, support by local leadership, and development of educational resources. All of these factors combine to increase entrepreneurial activity in participating towns, leading to increased startup activity, business expansion, job creation, and more.

Funding for the establishment of a local loan fund for E-Communities is generated by using Kansas Entrepreneurship Tax Credit allocations, which are then distributed in the form of matching loans and grants to new and expanding businesses through a competitive application process administered by a local leadership team.

To learn more about the E-Community Partnership, contact:
Erik Pedersen, Director of E-Communities
316.978.7310
epedersen@networkkansas.com

“The next great entrepreneur is out there. Will it be you?”

That’s the question that the Kauffman Foundation asks with their microsite, www.willitbeyou.com, and their 30-second spot that will run during the Super Bowl this Sunday.

Get a sneak peek of the Kauffman Foundation’s Super Bowl ad below—and then visit the microsite to find resources and tips for entrepreneurs: www.willitbeyou.com. There, you’ll find Kauffman programs, including U.S.SourceLink, that help entrepreneurs of all ilk get inspired, network, create, find mentors and find capital. You’ll find U.S.SourceLink under “Network,” “Mentor” and “Capital.”

The ad can also be seen on Kauffman's YouTube network.The spot will air in New York City, Washington, San Francisco and Kansas City, hometown to both the Kauffman Foundation and U.S.SourceLink.

The Greater Des Moines Partnership, Iowa, has announced that they will adopt the U.S.SourceLink® model to bring together the fragmented resources that support small business and entrepreneurship in Des Moines.

Des Moines joins America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs, encompassing more than 4,000 entrepreneurial support organizations that serve established businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs. The mission of U.S.SourceLink is to match aspiring and existing entrepreneurs to the resources they need to grow by uniting existing business development programs into collaborative networks, providing a highly reliable and visible source of business startup and growth information.

To date, U.S.SourceLink has helped build about 20 of these collaborative economic development support networks across the country, and that number continues to grow.

The Des Moines project is scheduled to launch in 2012.

The Tri-Cities area of Washington State is the newest community to adopt the U.S.SourceLink® model for linking entrepreneurs and small business owners to the resources they need to start and grow successful businesses.

The Tri-Cities Business Builder will bring together all the resources to support startup and business growth throughout region, and make those assets easily accessible through a web portal and a hotline, using the U.S.SourceLink model and The Resource Navigator® technology.

“A strong business environment is vital to a healthy community,” said Trisha Herron, project coordinator. “The Tri-Cities Business Builder provides one location for businesses at all maturity levels to find pertinent information to help their business grow and succeed.”

The program is funded by the cities of Richland and Kinnewick, the Tri-Cities Research District and the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce. Other supporters include the cities of Pasco and West Richand, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and WSU-Tri-Cities.

Discussions of the project began in 2008. Organizers chose U.S.SourceLink because, according to Herron, “the U.S.SourceLink staff understands business development. Our community could have chosen any technical support team, but U.S.SourceLink was the only provider that understood the dynamics of the business community.”

The website launched last fall. Small business owners and entrepreneurs seeking assistance can visit the website at www.tri-citiesbusinessbuilder.com or call the hotline at 509-942-7725.

“The Tri-Cities business assistance community is speaking with one voice for the betterment of all businesses in our region, regardless of where they are physically located. By working together, we will be able to better serve our businesses in a more timely and efficient manner,” Herron said.

That’s a question that’s sparked the interest of political leaders, entrepreneurs, economic developers and civic champions—from the Office of the President of the United States through local communities.  We’re all looking for the best ways to tap the resources in our universities and bring their research, education and community service to the innovation economy. 

In the past 10 years, in fact, entrepreneurship coursework has grown exponentially in the U.S. higher education system. With that growth, we’ve also seen an increased emphasis in connecting local communities to both the students and the research embedded in these institutions to drive innovation and new business. 

To further examine this trend, the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer surveyed vice presidents of research and deans of the schools of medicine, business and engineering at the top 200 research universities to further understand their institution’s engagement in the economy. 

The Presidents-Investors Summit Survey on Innovation and Entrepreneurship asked participants 54 questions about their schools’ engagement in innovation and entrepreneurship to capture a baseline of best practices in technology transfer, entrepreneurship and economic engagement on campus and in communities. 

Among the results, the survey revealed that of the schools and communities surveyed:

• 71.4% offered innovation/entrepreneurship programs beyond the university campus
• 69.8% offered entrepreneurship courses to non-business students
• 81.1% provided experiential learning in entrepreneurship, innovation and/or research commercialization
• 52.9% support student internships at SBIR companies
• 45.3% allocate financial incentives for faculty who have innovations
• 42.0% have an incubator for community entrepreneurs
• Less than 30% provide a research park for students, faculty or community entrepreneurs

Click the link to see all the survey results.

How does your community compare?

We’re thrilled to welcome two new affiliates to the U.S.SourceLink family:  Arkansas SourceLink, another statewide implementation of the U.S.SourceLink model that will connect and improve access to small business resources, and State of Ingenuity, an innovative bi-state collaboration between southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

Arkansas SourceLink Builds Entrepreneurship across the State

With resources spread out across the state, Arkansas entrepreneurs had difficulty finding the resources they needed. The challenge: bring cohesion to that fragmented support system, facilitate growth and create more opportunities for small business.

U.S.SourceLink gives them that visibility and cohesion. Arkansas SourceLink found out about U.S.SourceLink through discussions with the Kauffman Foundation.

Sponsored by Connect Arkansas, our newest affiliate will bring together all the small business resources to support startup and business growth throughout Arkansas, and make those assets easily accessible through a web portal and a hotline, using the U.S.SourceLink® model and The Resource Navigator® technology.

Arkansas SourceLink’s early supporters include the Arkansas Capital Corporation and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission. The project is funded through the National Telecommunication Administration’s broadband stimulus funding grant.

Southeastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois Join to Support Entrepreneurship

There’s a new state between southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois called the State of Ingenuity, created to foster economic recovery and entrepreneurial activities in the region—where the convergence of ideas, intellect, investigation and investment fosters economic opportunity.

The “State of Ingenuity” resulted from a collaboration of organizations from southeastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. The six-county region served has been hit hard by the recent economic downturn, the problems in the auto industry as well as devastating floods in 2008 that negatively affected infrastructure. The founding partners decided to bolster the area’s economy by developing a comprehensive entrepreneurial system to support business development at every stage.

The U.S.SourceLink model was chosen as the backbone of the program for our proven success in creating entrepreneurial ecosystems in communities and regions across the country. The “State of Ingenuity” will use U.S.SourceLink processes and technologies to develop a seamless network of entrepreneurial support and cross-county/cross-state collaboration.

Funding for the project comes from the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Association to the lead partner, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (UWW).  Partners involved in the creation of  the “State of Ingenuity” network include UWW’s Global Business Resource Center, GIS Center, Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and the Wisconsin Innovation Service Network;  Gateway Technical College;  Wisconsin Business Incubation Association; Northern Illinois University; Growth Dimensions for Belvidere and Boone County; Rockford College; Rock Valley College/EIGERLab; Rockford Area Economic Development Council; and Blackhawk Technical College.  Economic development specialists from all six counties (Racine, Kenosha, Rock, and Walworth in Wisconsin as well and Boone and Winnebago in Illinois) also serve as key collaborators/leaders.  

A new web-based tool is currently being designed that will help assess the impact of economic development projects across three dimensions: economy, social well-being and environment.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) has partnered with Portland State University to develop this online tool. Sample their Economic Development Assessment Survey.

More degrees isn’t the answer to economic growth. Tailoring higher education to industry needs—that’s where we can make a difference in our state economies.

That’s the core finding from “Degrees for What Jobs?”, a recent report from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices. The report underscores the importance of linking students’ academic training to marketplace needs and discusses how governors and policymakers are preparing their state’s workforce for twenty-first century jobs.

“Degrees for What Jobs” recommends five action steps:

1.  Set clear expectations for higher education’s role in economic development 

2.  Emphasize rigorous use of labor market and other data to define priorities 

3. Encourage employers’ input in higher education  

4.  Require public education institutions to collect and publicly report impacts 

5.  Emphasize performance as an essential factor in funding

The report highlights a few states already moving in this direction. How does this relate to what’s happening in your state?

After a somewhat brutal Midwest winter, thinking back to a couple of trips to Puerto Rico warms the heart.

I was invited to speak at a conference in Puerto Rico during Global Entrepreneurship Week.  I asked around to find out what I should definitely see if I visited the commonwealth. First answer: Puerto Rico is home to the only true rainforest in the United States. So I found a way to experience it by spending a night at a small business: a bed and breakfast—in the rainforest. 

My one-night stay at Casa PicaFlores was a delight. Those plants that are growing out of pots in my family room are growing out of the ground on this small acreage.   One can pick the starfruits and bananas off the trees.  And the coqui (very noisy frogs) sing a chorus at night.  The proprietor of the inn, Barbara Rogers, is working to serve not only clients looking for a place to rest, but utilizing the environment to create a fruit farm that can send dried organic produce to other areas of the world.

Dana Montenegro with Seriously Creative was a tremendous help to me during the conference, acting as an interpreter both in language (Puerto Rico’s official language is Spanish) and culture.  Dana grew up on a tiny island off the coast of St. Thomas.  He took the boat to the bigger island each day to attend grade school.  His high energy and creativity led him to spend time as Driver of Culture, Innovation and Inspiration for Red Bull Energy Drink for Latin America.  Today, he operates an innovative business in San Juan that includes not only services that help businesses think outside the box but a box to think in―a meeting space designed specially to bring out creative thinking.

Angel Santiago has taken advantage of the climate of Puerto Rico to build a coffee business. He and a group of very young entrepreneurs acquired a 320-acre coffee plantation in 2005.  Encantos de Puerto Rico is now the leading supplier of specialty coffee and espresso equipment for the foodservice industry in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.  In addition to growing coffee, the plantation is managed with the environment in mind.  It was declared an Auxiliary Forest by the Department of Natural Resources because of its conservation and reforestation efforts and certified by the Fish and Wildlife Agency due to its effort to plant “specific trees in a particular pattern that provides shade to the coffee plants and shelter to endemic and migratory birds.”

The really fun part was that I was able to introduce one of our local Kansas City coffee roasters, Danny O’Neill from The Roasterie with the coffee growers in Puerto Rico.

I had the opportunity to join north Texas in celebrating the World’s Best Technology Innovation Marketplace Conference this spring. Hosted by the Center for Innovation at Arlington, TX, the conference brings together industry, government, technology transfer agents, businesses and investors to move innovation to market.

For the past nine years, this conference has selected companies and technologies from across the country and the world to present their hot, emerging, and disruptive technologies.

Interesting fact: Conference leaders told me that one in three, a full third, of WBT presenters go on to license, secure venture funding or sell their IP outright. That’s a powerful conference.

In addition to the technology presentations, the conference also holds a series “what’s next” sessions. One called “Hot Investment Markets and Sizzling Sectors” provided this interesting list of technology hot spots:

1.   In the health care/medical device market, disruptive technologies that respond to the downward pressure on health care costs will win. Devices that perform existing functions at less cost, e.g. mobile phone applications that allow doctors to perform sonograms by plugging a device into their phone, will be well positioned to take the market.

2.   Gallium nitride (LED) lighting will replace existing lighting as a cheaper, cleaner (less mercury), and longer lasting lighting solution. Today only 1 percent of illumination is LED based. In addition to the strong potential for gains in market share, more than 5,000 traditional lighting manufacturing will need to know more about semiconductor-based lighting manufacturing in the near future.

3.   Web 2.0 social media and mobile applications will continue to dominate the information technology space.

Emerging Technologies and Key Market Needs

• The aging population and health care cost curve is creating massive dislocation in the health care market. Reducing the cost of care and making health care more accessible, especially to the elderly, will be a necessity.
• Energy storage at the grid scale is needed.
• Reducing the size and weight of power storage for consumer electronics continues to be important.
• Improvement of the human/machine interface in robotics is needed.
• Microbial fuel cell development for long interplanetary fights will occur.
• Hybrid power for airplanes will reduce expense.
• Cloud computing will grow providing the ability to purchase hardware, platform and software as a service.
• Behavioral analytics will consume big data.
• Speech recognition will replace the need to use keystrokes for texting on mobile phones.

That makes for a lot of opportunities. Are you ready? As America’s largest resource network for entrepreneurs, how can we help people get there?