With Facebook poised to go public, the attention of the tech world, and Wall Street, is firmly focused on Silicon Valley. Without question, the west side of San Francisco Bay is by far the most prodigious creator of hot companies and has the highest proportion of tech jobs of any region in the country - more than four times the national average.

Yet Silicon Valley is far from leading the way in expanding science and technology-related employment in the United States.

To determine which metropolitan areas are adding the most tech-related jobs, my colleague Mark Schill at Praxis Strategy Group developed a ranking system for Forbes that measures employment growth in the sectors most identified with the high-tech economy (including software, data processing and Internet publishing), as well as growth in science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related (STEM) jobs across all sectors. The latter category captures tech employment growth that is increasingly taking place not just in software or electronics firms, but in any industry that needs science and technology workers, from manufacturing to business services to finance. We tallied tech sector and STEM job growth over the past two years and over the past decade for the 51 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States. We also factored in the concentration of STEM and tech jobs in those MSAs. (See the end of this piece for a full rundown of our methodology.)

Nonprofit business development group TechColumbus has hired a new CEO from a similar organization in Oklahoma.

Tom Walker, who began his career as a research scientist at Battelle, takes the reigns of TechColumbus. TechColumbus had been led by interim CEO Tim Haynes since the group's former leader and founder, Ted Ford, announced his resignation in October.

Walker comes to TechColumbus from Oklahoma City-based i2E (innovation to enterprise), a nonprofit that aims to grow companies in the state. The group credits itself with "dramatically increasing" the amount of risk capital available for entrepreneurs in Oklahoma.

PAUL CLARKE
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
17 MAY 2012 03:16AM

A shallow talent pool and a lack of good ideas may be a hindrance for New Brunswick's technology sector, but greater co-operation between players is the key to spur growth, according to some of the province's leading technology companies.

"Certainly there is a constant challenge with respect to skills and experience, but I think the fundamental factor in truly making a strategy like this effective is the degree to which everybody rallies around it," said Douglas Robertson, president and CEO of Tech South East.

He was referring to the province's new innovation strategy announced in a report on Tuesday, which outlines how the province can foster greater innovation in the province.

Published by a 12-member innovation working group, the report provides 38 strategic recommendations.

Most of you who have read my posts know that I am a strong advocate of open innovation and its application in conjunction with tech transfer efforts. I truly believe it is through the combining of diverse interests and capabilities that meaningful innovations are developed and important impacts can occur.

So today I want to summarize what I see as the most important things to keep in mind as you consider open innovation partnerships in your tech transfer work.

If you're thinking about starting a business, you may have heard that some states are better locations for your company than others. Let's examine some of the factors behind these rankings and whether the state really matters.

SEE: Starting A Small Business

Small Business Climate "Austin is a wonderful, burgeoning city," says Chuck Gordon, CEO of Austin-based tech startup SpareFoot, the world's largest online marketplace for self-storage. "The creative atmosphere and a young, proactive workforce give Austin plenty of imagination and gumption to overcome its obstacles."

Some entrepreneurs start polling venture capitalists for that multi-million dollar investment before they even have a business plan. That's like trying to sell part of something to a stranger for big money when you haven't fully defined it yet. It won't work, it costs time and money, and hurts your credibility for when you need them later.

Every entrepreneur needs help and support along the way, from developing the initial idea, to selling off the successful business (exit strategy). The challenge is finding and using qualified affordable support organizations for each stage. Don't waste your resources on the wrong ones.

Cancer or heart disease? Diabetes or Alzheimer's? Arthritis or alcohol abuse?

Every year, the process of setting budget allocations for the National Institutes of Health involves a complicated meld of congressional politics, patient lobbying, and scientific soothsaying. And it's only getting tougher as the NIH budget tightens.

Richard Florida warns that too much density can undermine, rather than promote, creativity:

Stop and think for a moment: What kind of environments spur new innovation, start-ups and high-tech industries? Can you name one instance, one, of this sort of creative destruction occurring in high-rise office or residential towers, in skyscraper districts? The answer is no. High-rise districts typically house either corporate office functions or residences. During the post-war era, while they were building these towers for their corporate functions, large U.S. companies housed their research scientists in green, low-rise R&D campuses, where the scientists could interact more freely.

Florida and I are both fans of Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of Great American Cities. In that book, Jacobs postulates four principles for vibrant cities, one of which was that "new ideas need old buildings." That is, the most interesting activities in a city rarely occur in gleaming new office towers. Rather, they occur in slightly run-down parts of town where rents are cheap enough that ambitious 20-somethings can afford to live there while working on their startup or novel.

Top American universities attract some of the planet's brightest minds to pursue graduate and doctorate degrees in the U.S. But thousands of those best and brightest head for the exits almost immediately after they complete their academic programs.

Why? The American student visas only allow foreigners to stay in the U.S. for the duration of their education program and no longer.

Two lawmakers are fed up with that rule, arguing that kicking highly skilled, entrepreneurial people out of the U.S. and back to countries such as China and India is costing jobs and hurting the American economy.

The most-funded project in Kickstarter history, the Pebble smartwatch has become an example of the power of crowd-sourced funding to turn an entrepreneur's dream into reality.

Designed by California-based startup Allerta under founder University of Waterloo grad Eric Migicovsky, the smartwatch became a near-instant success on the popular crowd-funding website when it launched in April, hitting $1 million in 28 hours and surpassing the $3.8 million mark in less than a week.

If you want the world to crowdfund your project, it helps to offer something in return. Rewards and perks are a driving force on sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

For instance, if you contribute $25 to the Ever Lovin' Jug Band's campaign, you'll get a copy of their debut album on vinyl.

In today's Silicon Valley, engineering talent is as sought after by companies as gold was by the first prospectors in the Wild West. Talent is a company's most important asset, so we decided to use LinkedIn's data insights to discover which startups are grabbing the attention of San Francisco Bay Area engineers.

In the Bay Area alone, there are more than 240,000 professionals on LinkedIn in engineering and related roles. They use LinkedIn to establish their professional profiles, build their networks and get the insights they need to be great at their jobs. They also use LinkedIn to learn more about companies of interest and their employees. This includes visiting profiles of employees looking for common connections, checking out LinkedIn Company Pages, and following companies using the LinkedIn Company Follow button to keep up to speed with relevant news and career opportunities.

It may not have the ubiquity of Facebook or the scale of Wal-Mart, but NuMat Technologies someday could change the world just a little bit. At least that's what the audacious student entrepreneurs behind it believe. NuMat is a university spinout that aims to revolutionize clean tech by making natural-gas vehicles more practical. The Northwestern students behind the startup have come up with algorithms that design nanomaterials that could disrupt the gas-storage industry. Liquid gasoline is expensive. Natural gas is cleaner and cheaper, but it's hard to squeeze much of it into a tank in a car. NuMat says it can do that at low pressures, increasing capacity by a factor of five. The secret: a proprietary kind of metal-organic framework (MOF), which is a type of remarkable crystalline material with a vast internal surface area; if all of the tiny walls on the inside of a single gram were unfolded, the structures would cover a football field. NuMat's nanomaterial is ultraporous and, as the plan goes, will hold natural gas the way a bath sponge contains water. The vision is ambitious. Says chief technology officer Christopher Wilmer, a 29-year-old Ph.D. candidate in chemical engineering: It's "the majesty of self-assembly on the molecular scale."

The United States is now home to 214 bicycle-friendly communities in 47 states, according to a new list released Monday by the League of American Bicyclists.

Municipalities are evaluated based on their efforts to promote bicycling, investments in bicycling infrastructure and bicycling education programs, the league said in a news release. They must apply to be considered for the list. Localities are also divided into four categories: platinum, gold, silver and bronze.

Boulder, Colo., Davis, Calif., and Portland, Ore., remained the only three communities to earn the platinum distinction on the 2012 list. All three ranked in the top 10 for their percentage of commuters who bike to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 American Community Survey, as Governing previously reported.

It's said that with all of our technological advancements, the world is getting smaller and smaller, but it sure doesn't feel like that when you have to travel for business frequently. It's difficult to be away from home for long periods of time, but fortunately those aforementioned technological advancements are pretty helpful for staying in touch with your loved ones, even when you're hundreds of miles and many time zones away.

Frequent business travelers probably already know the classic tips, like using a calling card to save cash or getting an international SIM card to cut down on the wireless bill, but there are several other things you can do to keep in touch while far from home.

How do you price a round?

Its one of the most often asked questions and yet I've never seen a great answer given. It seems to me that the most important factor in pricing your round isn't your progress or your idea. It seems to come down to two things:

1) How much do you want to raise?

2) Supply and demand of capital willing to invest in your company.

The second is pretty obvious, but what about the first? So the more you want to raise, the more your company is worth? Kind of, actually...but how much money a team gets has to do with a number of factors that reflect things like trust in the team, risk, etc. So instead of pricing that into how much a company is worth, they tend to price it into round size.

What characteristics do you think describe an entrepreneur?  I'm pretty sure your list, and mine, would include some of the following: persistent, driven, independent, creative, hard working, inquisitive, focused, curious, competitive, decisive and a desire to succeed.  These are all generally considered desirable traits.  Who wouldn't want to be around someone that works hard, wants to succeed, is driven, creative and focused?

At times, I wouldn't.

Why? Because those are the nice versions of these same descriptions: unrelenting, controlling, loner, kooky, imbalanced, questioning, flighty, annoying and worldly.  Those don't have quite the same ring to them as the previous bunch.  Nor should they.  That doesn't make them any less accurate though. If you are in a relationship with an entrepreneur, or you are one, many of the same qualities that help you in business can also make you hard to be around in your personal life.

You need a top-notch team to do your best work--but you need to hire them first. Here's half a dozen common ways managers shoot themselves in the human-resources foot.

If you can recruit people who are talented, brilliant, natural leaders, it can make all the difference to your organization's success--and your sanity as a leader. There is nothing that improves your chance of success more than having a strong, trusted team.

But even with the best intentions, you can choose badly. Particularly if you get really excited about a candidate and hire for the wrong reasons.

Here are six mistakes--some of which I've also made myself--that executives make when their misplaced enthusiasm for a candidate causes a superficial, rushed, and ultimately bad hiring decision.

Technology is meant to serve us. Instead it increasingly runs us - and runs us down.

Where we put our focus shapes our agenda and defines our experience in every moment. More and more, we're turning over this precious resource to our digital technology, allowing it to define the depth and span of our attention, and to seduce us into operating at such high speeds that we don't notice the insidious toll that's taking.

I see it in myself, as I fight to stay focused on what's most important, and to resist the urgent, addictive, Pavlovian pull of my digital devices. At times, I feel like a lab rat, mindlessly pushing levers in search of the next source of instant but fleeting gratification. I see it, too, in my colleagues and our corporate clients, each of them struggling to manage what feels more and more like a tsunami - information coming at us in wave after wave, threatening to overwhelm everything else in our lives.

Allow me to introduce you to 3 of the most powerful "friends" an entrepreneur can have.

No, it's not an angel investor, an attorney, or even a CPA (yes, they are quite helpful though) - the friends I'm referring to are a bit different.  These friends have been my greatest allies during the past 3 years as I've built a 7 figure business online - from scratch.  I'm confident they will have the same impact on your life as they've had on mine, but that's only if you choose to use them.

The first friend you'll meet has been a catalyst for my most profitable relationships, teaching me how to strategically interpret any situation or introduction with confidence.

The company: Gust

What it does: Offers entrepreneurs a chance to submit requests for funding to investors around the world.

How it's doing: The company has grown to employ 33 people; about 35,000 investors are on its platform, and 185,000 entrepreneurs are registered users.

Just as Mark Zuckerberg turned to private investors when he launched Facebook, countless entrepreneurs have gotten early cash infusions from wealthy backers known as "angels." But, as many founders discover, getting these folks to say "yes" to a deal can require a lot of legwork.

You've come up with a brilliant idea--it could be the next Facebook social network, the next Tesla automobile, the next Half-Life videogame--but you need seed capital to get the project off the ground, and venture capitalists won't give you the time of day. What's an aspiring entrepreneur to do? You could give crowdfunding a shot.

SIMILAR ARTICLES: How to Buy a Smartphone for Your Business How to Buy a Desktop PC How To Update Your PC's BIOS How To Get Windows 8 Features Now How to Carry Any Operating System in Your Pocket How to Embed a YouTube Video What the heck is crowdfunding, you ask? It's a means of raising capital, usually over the Internet, from people who believe in what you're trying to accomplish. Technology consultant Scott Steinberg co-wrote the The Crowdfunding Bible to guide could-be tycoons through the process, and we interviewed Steinberg to help PCWorld Business Center readers emulate the success of such ventures as the Wasteland 2 videogame project, which has raised nearly $3 million through crowdfunding; or the PebbleE-Ink watch project, which has raised more than $10 million.

I visited P&G office in Tel Aviv. Lital Asher-Dotan, who established Procter & Gamble first R&D hub in Israel called "P&G Israel House of Innovation", explained why P&G calls Israel a "startup nation."

 Image of P&G office in Tel Aviv by Shannon Reaudeau

In the entry lobby of P&G office, which is 20 minutes away from Google's office in Tel Aviv, there are a few samples of different products sold by P&G in Israel. Among the usual health and beauty brands (Head & Shoulders, Pantene, Oral B, Gillette, Tampax, Pampers ...) and brands of household cleaners (Ariel, Lenor, Swiffer, Tide ...) there were also different prizes and trophies P&G Israel has received for the development of innovative products. However, what surprised me the most was that besides all these products and prizes there was a copy of the acclaimed book Startup nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.

Startup Outlook Report by Silicon Valley Bank Reveals Startups Nationwide See the State of the Innovation Economy at a Crossroads

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Silicon Valley Bank, financial partner to innovation companies and venture capitalists worldwide, released Startup Outlook 2012, an annual survey of perceptions by startup CEOs in software, hardware, life science and cleantech sectors nationwide.

The survey revealed that the tech sector in the U.S. is healthy, hiring, has great business qualities and that startups are optimistic. At the same time, entrepreneurs and startup managers questioned whether the network of policies that support the U.S. innovation economy is optimized for growth. In particular, startups prioritized six government policies that could help them grow:

As a child I can still remember the musical strains of Broadway plays wafting through our home. My mother seemed to believe that all children should be continuously exposed to such music. To this day it amazes me that little pieces of those songs still march their way across the screen in my mind. Why is that important? Because the foundation, or the start, of an entrepreneurial venture is forever tied to the initial vision of the prospective enterprise. And much like the old refrain "let's start at the beginning, a very good place to start," you only get one shot to create the first impression.

Most people view vision as a big picture. They also see it as an approximation with pieces not fully defined because it's the first thing you do. But there are specific building blocks that are very concrete that you would ignore at your own peril.

New York venture capitalist Fred Wilson recently pointed out that the VC industry is at risk of being marginalized by the emerging crowdfunding industry. I agree that the provision of capital for entrepreneurs is about to change in a big way, but my sense is that the change is not going to hurt VCs.

Venture capital has always been geographically concentrated, resulting in the emergence of a few hubs of VC and entrepreneurial activity and support services - Silicon Valley being the best example.

But the majority of US entrepreneurs have not been able to benefit from the venture capital industry because they live in the wrong parts of the US. This wasn't an issue in the early days, when VC was novel. But over time, this geographic concentration has become a limitation.

Scott Shane seems to delight in sharing harsh realities about entrepreneurship and economic development.

Shane, a Case Western Reserve University economics professor who authors a regular column for Business Week, castigates a culture that promotes a "naive view of entrepreneurship and starting businesses" in his 2008 book "The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By."

The reality is very, very few entrepreneurs are successful. "We overinflate the positives and talk only about a small group of extremely successful start-ups like Apple, Google and Federal Express, but ignore the much larger number that fail," he said in an interview with Case's news center to promote the book.

People often say Silicon Valley is not like the rest of the world. We're more tolerant of failure, embrace risk-taking more eagerly, get more enthusiastic about technical solutions, and have a huge, deep pool of engineering and marketing talent to draw from.

As a result, the region has produced some of the most disruptive, world-changing ideas: The semiconductor, the integrated circuit, the PC, the Internet, and the search engine, to name a few.

Recognizing opportunities to invest, change or innovate is now a fundamental part of business. Whether you're a business strategist, an entrepreneur or an investor, innovation is part of your livelihood. The ability to recognize opportunities must be matched with the ability to experiment and ultimately contribute to the adaptation of current business models.

Yet, moving at the pace of real-time isn't fast enough anymore. By looking ahead and studying emerging trends, you will have the insights necessary to introduce change into the organization - before "what's next" becomes the new reality. So how do you recognize those opportunities before they arrive?

Programs are popping up across the U.S. encouraging high-tech entrepreneurship in new and unlikely places.

From Denver to Des Moines, incubators and initiatives are popping up all over the country to encourage high-tech entrepreneurship. What does it take to create the "next Silicon Valley"?

Many ingredients go into the cocktail of creating a Silicon Valley environment:

- Desirable area: It helps if your city has good weather, an affordable cost of living, and fun things to do.

- Colleges and universities: Schools provide opportunities for technology transfer, partnerships and business plan competitions. They also attract young people and churn out skilled labor.