Here’s a great article from Anya Kamenetz in Fast Company opining on why education focused on STEM, without an accompanying focus on creativity and innovation, is a fruitless long-term strategy for our economy.  It makes some great points about the jobs at the top of the pyramid…the ones everybody wants…

“Why Education Without Creativity Isn't Enough”

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Over the last several months, I have had the opportunity privilege to work on a project for the National Energy Policy Institute (NEPI). 

The City of Tulsa requested a report on the unique attributes of Tulsa’s energy sector that contribute to the region’s expertise in both legacy and emerging energy technologies, and NEPI agreed to provide financial support for the project.  The project’s sponsor at the City, then-Intergovernmental & Enterprise Director Chris Benge (he’s now at the Tulsa Metro Chamber) gave me a sense of what he might be looking for – but no definitive requirements.  So – off I went to learn about Tulsa’s energy community, and the requirements and possibilities evolved over the course of the project.

A few months, several interviews, tours, a mostly-full Moleskine notebook, and several pots of coffee later, I’m proud to have researched, written, and managed the publication of “Tulsa: 2^nd Century Energy.” 

Tulsa: 2^nd Century Energy

"2nd Century Energy" provides an accessible overview and high-level analysis of Tulsa’s energy industry, highlights area businesses on the leading edge of the new energy economy, and provides details about the region’s energy-focused intellectual capital.

Along the way, I uncovered some fascinating resources and research under way in Tulsa, and came away with a new appreciation for how much the energy industry – both old and new - means to this region.  I’m also very pleased to see that Tulsa’s Mayor, Dewey Bartlett Jr., is featuring 2^nd Century Energy in his public speaking, and on the website of the Office of the Mayor.

I met some great, passionate, and innovative people in the course of researching and writing this report, especially the professionals that helped make publication possible.  Graphic design and printing management was provided by Greg Rex and Nicole Morgan of Tulsa-based Rex PR.  Both Greg and Nicole were great collaborators to help bring the project to completion – I hope we get a chance to work together on future projects, and I highly recommend their work.

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I posted about Third Way’s “Taxpayer Receipts” project back in October.  Since Tax Day is fast approaching, it seemed like a good time to go back and see where the project stands.  Third Way – moderate-progressive think tank, if you recall – built a calculator which, when you to plug in your 2010 Federal taxes paid, shows you a breakdown of where your money went.  When I last checked, it was a policy paper and a good idea.  Now, it’s operational:

Taxpayer Receipt Calculator

The receipt is ordered by percentage of where your money goes, with Social Security (20.4%) and Defense (20.2%) claiming the lion’s share, and Medicare close on their heels.

Clicking on a major category shows you some sub-categories and breakdowns in the same family.  For example, clicking “Arts and Culture” ($7.20 for the year for me) yields that I contributed something like $1.44 to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  The Economic Development Administration – under the “Trade and Economic Development” header – got $1.01 from me. The striking information from the receipt is really that $.537 of every $1.00 remitted via Federal taxes is going to pay for the first three items on the list.

So – take your Form 1040 and drop in the “Total Tax” number from Line 60.  Then maybe we can have a reasonable conversation about where our money goes.  Take “Foreign Aid” – a January 2011 Gallup Poll found that 59% of Americans think the US should cut foreign aid.  Another poll (this one by CNN in mid-March 2011) found that respondents thought the US was spending about 10% of its annual budget on foreign aid.  We actually spent…  0.6%.  That’s the difference in an informed public with an easy-to-read receipt: closing the knowledge gap without making a value judgment about whether or not that percentage is appropriate or represents too little or too much, and showing us where to get the most “bang for our buck” when it comes to reducing item 6 – “Net interest payments” – the amount we spend to service our debts.

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  Image from “Pearl District Design Plan.”

The Pearl District – a near-downtown neighborhood with a lot of history and a lot of lingering challenges here in Tulsa – is working hard to reinvent itself.  Convenient to downtown, highways, and entertainment districts, the neighborhood has struggled for years to reestablish itself as a mixed-use, pedestrian friendly place to live and work.  Organizers see it as a vital addition to downtown revitalization projects, providing some continuity and a landing place for people who don’t want to live downtown per se, but who frequent the ongoing developments there. 

Take a look at the satellite image of the district currently, and the planned use map provided by the Pearl District Association.  The “6^th Street Infill Plan” is available here from the City of Tulsa, but the PDA and the City have gone even further, with a design plan including a canal feature.  There is a pilot project for a form-based code (a personal favorite idea) - creating a look and feel without dividing usage zones like current zoning requires.  They’re stretching, but people thought that turning a disused warehouse district with a drainage ditch into an entertainment area in Oklahoma City was a stretch too... 

I’ve posted about the Better Block project in Oak Cliff  a couple of times – this looks to be Tulsa’s experiment with the idea. Tulsa’s Young Professionals “Tulsa Urbanists” work crew has a take on the Better Block planned: “Polishing the Pearl” – coming up in April.

From distressed neighborhood to vibrant place to play and live – improving property values, generating sales taxes, and reusing valuable space…  This is the heart of economic and community development.  It's going to take some time, but this is going to be fun to watch.

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The Brookings Institution’s “Hamilton Project” is sponsoring a competition to encourage new and innovating thinking on economic policy which focuses on US job creation and / or enhanced productivity.   $15,000 for the winning proposal, and a split of $10,000 to place and show isn’t a king’s ransom, but the incentive is real, and the prestige of winning the competition is likely the greater payoff.

From the competition site:  “The competition is open to academic, business and policy professionals who can demonstrate an original policy solution for increasing employment and productivity within two years of its implementation.”  This kind of competition has the potential to generate unique ideas from outside of typical policy circles – here’s hoping that some much-needed innovations result from the scrum of ideas.  If I think of something good, maybe I’ll apply.  Anybody want to share an idea, the writing duties, and perhaps some prize money?

Competition Details

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Back in September I posted about the Better Block Project in Oak Cliff - the Dallas neighborhood that is shaking up the status quo with a focus on redeveloping a "cool" community in a formerly dilapidated neighborhood.  Since then, BetterBlock.org has come online as a stand-alone home for the project, and the "how-to" pointers are still easily accessible. Better still - the blog on the front page updates news from Better Block projects and experiments around the country.

It's catching on - Houston, New York, Boston projects are all coming up, according to the news feed - and it represents a real potential for demonstrating citizen-sourced redevelopment plans for our cities. Place matters, and these guys are helping to show the way.

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Tools You can Use

I thought I’d share some of the tools and services that I use to make my working life run just a tad better.  You may have better ideas – and if so, I hope you’ll leave a comment and point me in the right direction.

Google Chrome (with extensions)

NitroPDF Reader

Evernote 

TaDaLists 

LastPass

Paint.Net

Posterous

Google Chrome 

Chrome is light, fast, and reliable.  After a few days of using it, both Firefox and Internet Explorer will likely seem ponderous. Like most, but not all browsers, Chrome offers a family of extensions from a crowdsourced development community – some useful, some not.  I’ve loaded these five:

1.    “Awesome Screenshot” – useful for quickly capturing, editing, and exporting browser screen captures.

1.    “IE Tab” – lets you run a Chrome tab that mimics Internet Explorer – since some pages will only work when viewed with IE.

2.    “Evernote” – I’ll talk about Evernote later, but this extension lets you quickly capture selected text and drop it into an Evernote note.  Useful to help you ingest little tidbits of information that you might want access to later without bookmarking a whole page or site.

3.    “LastPass” – I’ll talk about LastPass in a minute, too.  This is the browser plugin for a password vault.

4.    “HoverZoom” – This just enlarges pictures on some sites when you mouse over them. Seems especially handy on e-commerce and social networking sites.

Nitro PDF Reader 

Adobe cooked up PDF, so we all went out and downloaded Acrobat Reader.  But, unless you want to spend the money on Adobe’s pay-to-play products, reading PDFs is about all you can do.  Enter “Nitro PDF Reader.”  For a free reader, it is feature rich.  You can add text to pages, place sticky notes, stamp signatures, and export text and images.  There are some nice collaboration tools too.  So far – Nitro’s PDF writer seems to be a bit behind, but not dramatically so – and they’ve got some work to do on the browser plugin and snapshot tool.  For a free, early release, it is worth your time.

Evernote

Evernote is a digital pad of Post-It Notes on overdrive.  You can capture quick notes, clips from around the web, and retain them in organized, searchable  “notebooks.”  Since it is cloud-based, you can access your notes anywhere, including over all the major smartphones via custom (and free) apps.  You also get a customized email address with your Evernote account.  Add this to your email address book, and you can fire off a quick note to yourself from wherever inspiration strikes you. The free version has a 40MB monthly upload limit (which don’t seem to be a problem for mostly text-based notes) – and a premium service is available for $5 per month.

Ta-Da Lists

Ta-Da Lists is a dead-simple free web-based to-do list organizer.  You make a list, add items, and check them off when they’re done.  You can keep multiple lists, and edit items as necessary.  Like I said – simple, but useful! 

LastPass

LastPass is a password vault.  You remember your LastPass master password, and then use it to fill in password for individual sites.  It has a built in password generator, so you can change your site passwords to something secure like a 10 or 12 character random combination of upper and lower-case letters, and numbers.  In all honesty – it takes a little messing around with it to get comfortable with how to use it properly – but with browser plugins for easy access, once you have it up and running, you’ll likely enjoy having the kind of control it offers.  There is a premium service ($1.00 per month) for those that want to use LastPass on a smartphone.

Paint.Net

Paint.Net is a free Windows-based photo editor.  It is fully functional, and the interface is much easier to use than GIMP.  For fast editing, quick graphics, and the non-professional user, Paint.Net is probably all the editor you’ll need.

And – of course:

Posterous

Posterous hosts this site.  It is simple to get started, and robust enough to handle all sorts of uses, from personal blog to project team website.  I’ve used it for both, and have been very satisfied.  Once established, you just email your post to your Posterous blog, and the site uploads your newest entry.  It does a good job of handling attachments for text, photos, and documents as well. 

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I was fortunate to attend the Tulsa Town Hall lecture by eminent astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, today.  Tyson is an engaging speaker, and provides a manageable point of access to the cosmos, physics, and the sheer vastness and mystery of the universe as we currently understand it.  Besides that, he’s kind of funny, to boot.  If you get a chance to check him out – you should. Tyson is also an outspoken advocate for increased investment in science and engineering, as well as “STEM” education – science, technology, engineering, and math.  He closed his presentation with a couple of maps.  I had to go track them down – they were compelling.

Tyson provided a slide that showed the scientific output of the world – as gauged by peer-reviewed scholarly articles.  The relative outputs of various nations are shown stretching the size of their country of origin’s boundaries in proportion to the outputs of other nations (source after the jump):

The map is striking.  Africa almost disappears – and South America and Central Asia don’t fare much better.  Japan, Europe, and the US loom large.  Check out the supporting data HERE. Dr. Tyson pointed out an interesting correlation – the places with high output also tend to have much higher standards of living – it makes sense.  It is, however, the second map he shows that tells the more interesting story.   The map below shows the growth in science output from 1990 to 2001.  It shows who is make more recent investments in science.   

Where the top map shows China in a smaller role – the bottom map shows Chinese scientific output exploding.  Europe appears even bigger than before – South America returns to the map (thanks to Argentina and Brazil).  You might notice – the US shrinks in relative importance.  So – while the US is still putting out a vast amount of science – others are coming on strong – and picking up the pace faster than the US.  Source for the growth map is HERE.

So – where did this map come from? Check out WORLDMAPPER.  This is an intriguing way to look at data on a global level. They’ve got around 700 maps which “distort” borders to relative sizes on various subjects: from human poverty, to container ports, torail networks. For something equally striking – take a look at the comparative map for numbers of illiterate women.

This is indeed the “World as you have never seen it before” – Worldmapper’s tag line, not mine – and perhaps it brings some clarity beyond our usual view of the world as shaped by familiar borders.

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It is political season of course, with election day less than a month away.

I found this "robocall" waiting for me when I arrived home.

VN00001-20101008-1455.mp3 Listen on Posterous

You just don't mess with a cowboy's guitar.  Drunk or not.

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Moderate-progressive think tank “Third Way” has an interesting proposal:  provide taxpayers with an itemized receipt for the taxes they pay.  Here is an example, based on the breakdown for the “median income” taxpayer in the US (earning $34,140 per year):

The authors note that the Social Security Administration already produces something like this for individual taxpayers each year – so it is both feasible, and readily attainable.  This strikes me as good, transparent public policy.  Pushing aside the partisan rhetoric that would inevitably accompany this kind of “full disclosure,” (imagine the wrangling over what makes the list, and the wording!) it brings perspective to our national spending priorities. 

The authors point out the pervasive and persistent belief that the US spends excessively on foreign aid – more than Social Security or Medicare, when in fact it appears in 11^th place on the example receipt.  Interestingly, in their example it also appears directly above “Education Funding for Low Income K-12 Students.”  It isn’t a stretch to see how this kind of information could lead to better discussions about how we spend our money, and the relative importance we’ve placed on one set of programs and services versus another.

The idea brief is here.

One additional thought:  I would love to see this implemented at a state level as well.

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I’m a proud TCU alum and avid Horned Frogs fan - I even used to work in City Hall for the City of Ft. Worth.  While I spent a lot of time boosting Ft. Worth (and, I’ll admit, occasionally disparaging Dallas), good things can and do happen there, too.  

For Example: an innovative and inspiring project (movement?) taking place on the other end of the Metroplex in a neighborhood called Oak Cliff – specifically, North Oak Cliff.   A few years ago, Oak Cliff was consistently mentioned in a list of places to avoid in Dallas.  You drove through – if absolutely necessary – but didn’t stop…and really, driving through wasn’t all that advisable, or so we were told.

Oak Cliff is an old neighborhood just south of downtown Dallas.  Full of  pre-WWII and mid-century homes, its location is also quite convenient to…well…all sorts of things, but perhaps most significantly the central business district.  With relatively low housing costs, and short commute times, close-in neighborhoods all over the country have experienced renaissances at various times, usually driven by young professionals and older hipsters looking for a urban feel in someplace besides New York.  Oak Cliff, too, is in the midst of its own renaissance – bootstrapped by some dedicated relative new-comers and some long-time residents who are carving out a name for their community based on tenacity, energy, and creativity.

You just have to check out the “Better Block Project” for yourselves.  The first project created a pop-up demonstration of what is possible: street-scaping, outdoor cafes, public art…the things that make PLACE matter.  They’re getting national coverage as a result (and deservedly so).  They intend to go again with a second project:  this time, a whole plaza, and the idea continues to draw ever-widening attention.  Dallas is even looking into making some of these improvements permanent.

Here’s the “After” and “Before” of the first Better Block Project demonstration on 7^th Street in Oak Cliff:

Image from CooltownStudios blog:  http://www.cooltownstudios.com/2010/04/27/crowdsourced-street-to-become-permanent

The project’s founders are central to Go Oak Cliff – a local community development not-for-profit, where they have included a page on How to Build a Better Block – taking the framework that made the first project a success and breaking it down into a brief “how-to” for the rest of us.

This is Economic and Community development 101:  involving the community in finding new ideas (in this case, a return to some old ideas!) about how to make a place vibrant and attractive again…thinking differently about the assets and resources available, and getting something done instead of waiting on “them” to come around and fix the problems.  It is art, culture, community development, urban planning, business development, and FUN rolled into one. And – proof positive – it works.  Vacant properties were used to become art galleries in the demonstration project with the blessings of their current owners.  Afterwards, “…immediately following our original better block, these vacant spaces were leased.”

Well done, Oak Cliffers.  Well done.

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Beloit College – a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin – releases an annual “Mindset List” to remind faculty of the world as it appears to new students each year. Freshmen entering college this year comprise the class of 2014. The first thing I note is that these students were largely born in 1992…  I recall standing on the steps of the Old State House in Little Rock, Arkansas on a night in November of 1992, as then-Governor Bill Clinton emerged for a victory lap upon winning the presidential election…  ouch.

The list is below – but what does this have to do with economic development or public policy?  It drives home the message that we must be designing programs, services, and the business environment in a way that is respectful of what has come before, but relevant to what comes next. 

From Beloit’s introduction to the 2014 list:

“They will now be awash with a computerized technology that will not distinguish information and knowledge.”

And:

“A generation accustomed to instant access will need to acquire the patience of scholarship.”

The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014

1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.

2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.

3. “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”

4. Al Gore has always been animated.

5. Los Angelinos have always been trying to get along.

6. Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High.

7. “Caramel macchiato” and “venti half-caf vanilla latte” have always been street corner lingo.

8. With increasing numbers of ramps, Braille signs, and handicapped parking spaces, the world has always been trying harder to accommodate people with disabilities.

9. Had it remained operational, the villainous computer HAL could be their college classmate this fall, but they have a better chance of running into Miley Cyrus’s folks on Parents’ Weekend.

10. A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigration debate is not a big priority…unless it involves “real” aliens from another planet.

11. John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.

12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.

14. Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.

15. Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

17. Trading Chocolate the Moose for Patti the Platypus helped build their Beanie Baby collection.

18. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.

19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.

20. DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.

21. Woody Allen, whose heart has wanted what it wanted, has always been with Soon-Yi Previn.

22. Cross-burning has always been deemed protected speech.

23. Leasing has always allowed the folks to upgrade their tastes in cars.

24. “Cop Killer” by rapper Ice-T has never been available on a recording.

25. Leno and Letterman have always been trading insults on opposing networks.

26. Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.

27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.

28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown.

30. “Viewer Discretion” has always been an available warning on TV shows.

31. The first computer they probably touched was an Apple II; it is now in a museum.

32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.

33. Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.

34. “Assisted Living” has always been replacing nursing homes, while Hospice has always been an alternative to hospitals.

35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.

36. Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.

37. Whatever their parents may have thought about the year they were born, Queen Elizabeth declared it an “Annus Horribilis.”

38. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

39. Pizza jockeys from Domino’s have never killed themselves to get your pizza there in under 30 minutes.

40. There have always been HIV positive athletes in the Olympics.

41. American companies have always done business in Vietnam.

42. Potato has always ended in an “e” in New Jersey per vice presidential edict.

43. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.

44. The dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.

45. They have always had a chance to do community service with local and federal programs to earn money for college.

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.

47. Children have always been trying to divorce their parents.

48. Someone has always gotten married in space.

49. While they were babbling in strollers, there was already a female Poet Laureate of the United States.

50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.

51.  Food has always been irradiated.

52. There have always been women priests in the Anglican Church.

53. J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn’t he? 

54. The historic bridge at Mostar in Bosnia has always been a copy.

55. Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.

56. They may have assumed that parents’ complaints about Black Monday had to do with punk rockers from L.A., not Wall Street.

57. A purple dinosaur has always supplanted Barney Google and Barney Fife. 

58. Beethoven has always been a dog.

59. By the time their folks might have noticed Coca Cola’s new Tab Clear, it was gone.

60. Walmart has never sold handguns over the counter in the lower 48.

61. Presidential appointees have always been required to be more precise about paying their nannies’ withholding tax, or else.

62. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine. 

63. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as movies.

64. The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.

65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.

66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church.

67. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.

68. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.

69. The Post Office has always been going broke.

70. The artist formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg has always been rapping.

71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.

72. One way or another, “It’s the economy, stupid” and always has been.

73. Silicone-gel breast implants have always been regulated.

74. They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi Channel.

75. Honda has always been a major competitor on Memorial Day at Indianapolis.

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Industry Week has a blurb about a new partnership between Ford and TechShop.

TechShop is a membership-based workshop (originally in the San Francisco area) which provides access to specialized (read: Highly expensive) tools to inventors and do-it-yourself-ers like CNC machines, lathes, and precision plasma cutters.  TechShop is opening a facility in the Detroit area focused on automotive industry innovation.  The Big Blue Oval is signing on as a sponsor of a new location in Michigan– with the obvious benefit that it will have access (and cache) with inventors pushing the “bleeding edge” of development.  Ford has shown a recent ability to adapt and innovate, and this partnership seems to follow the storyline that the company is open to new ideas, and to taking input from external sources.

While TechShop is itself an interesting example of a business finding an un-filled niche, this is also a really interesting use of “crowdsourcing,” and holds great potential for growing local businesses in an area suffering from near-catastrophic decline.

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Not sure how I missed this, but back in February the NYT provided a fantastic interactive graphic (screen shot below) showing how the proposed FY2011 Federal Budget shakes out. The rectangles in the chart show the relative size of spending for that particular category, the color indicates a percentage change from the previous year’s budget, and you can click on a smaller section to zoom in for details.

The Times continues to provide truly impressive data visualization, and this chart packs a huge amount of information into a relatively simple-to-grasp format.

Bonus Exercise 1:  Select the “Hide Mandatory Spending” option from the blue buttons at the top of the graphic.  This eliminates the entitlement programs, debt service, and the like, and leaves the “discretionary” portion of the budget visible.  There is a shocking amount of white space when you select that option. 

Bonus Exercise 2:  Let’s say you were interested in finding Small & Minority Business Assistance on this chart…  You would have to use the zoom functions, and look carefully…waaaaay over here:

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The NYT has an interesting article up discussing a new study, out this week, presenting the findings of research on the long-term earnings prospects of students vis-à-vis their participation in early-childhood educational programs.  Previous studies have focused on the relative effects using test scores, and showed little long-term gains into high school using that metric, as the effects seem to fade out over time.

From the text:

“Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.

“All else equal, they were making about an extra $100 a year at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up the test-score distribution over the course of kindergarten. A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average. Over time, the effect seems to grow, too.”

I am fortunate to know  a few people (and managed to marry one) who make foundational, beneficial impacts on children, and who would definitely agree that the real measure of a teacher’s success can’t be captured solely by test scores – a major hurdle for real “Pay for Performance” initiatives, and cause for countless debates over how to measure teaching efficacy.  At least in this case, the researchers are pointing the way to adult outcomes that have real meaning and economic impact:  earnings potential.

The study findings are here.

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Re-posted from AmEx's OPEN Forum -- Original Link HERE

Jul 08, 2010 -

Anyone who's ever had to form a company can sympathize with how difficult it can be to create a company name that is descriptive yet unique. 

However, some companies have gone a less-traditional route and used some pretty unique naming conventions. 

Here are some examples of interesting company names and the backstories behind them.

1. Google

The name started as a joke about the amount of information the search engine could search, or a "Googol" of information. (A googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.) When founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin gave a presentation to an angel investor, they received a check made out to "Google."

2. Hotmail

Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith had the idea of checking their email via a web interface, and tried to find a name that ended in "mail." They finally settled on hotmail because it had the letters "html," referencing the HTML programming language used to help create the product.

3. Volkswagen

Volkswagen literally means "people's car." Adolf Hitler initially came up with the idea for "cars for the masses," which would be a state-sponsored "Volkswagen" program. Hitler wanted to create a more affordable car that was able to transport two adults and three children at speeds of 62 mph. He choose the car manufacturer Porsche to carry out the project, and the rest, as they say, is history.

4. Yahoo

The word "yahoo" was coined by Jonathan Swift in the the book Gulliver's Travels. The term represented a repulsive, filthy creatures that resembled humans (think: Neanderthal). Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo considered themselves yahoos, and thought the term would be appropriate for their joint venture.

5. Asus

The consumer electronic company is named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The founders dropped the first three letters for the high position in alphabetical listings. In 1998 Asus created a spinoff company named Pegatron, using the other unused letters of Pegasus.

6. Cisco

Contrary to popular belief and theories, Cisco is simply short for San Francisco. Their logo resembles the suspension cables found on the Golden Gate bridge.

7. Canon

When Canon was founded in 1933 under the name Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory. Two years later they adopted "Canon" after the company's first camera, the Kwanon. Kwanon is the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

8. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola's name comes from the the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring in the soft drink. Eventually Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' to create a more fluid name.

9. FranklinCovey

The planning product line was named after Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Covey. The company was formed in 1997 from the combining of the two companies FranklinQuest and the Covey Leadership Center.

10. IKEA

IKEA is simply a random collection of letters, based from the first letters of founder Ingvar Kamprad's name in addition to the first letters of the names of the Swedish property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

11. Lego

Lego is a combination of the Danish phrase "leg godt," which translates to "play well." Initially the company built wooden toys, and later switched to making plastic bricks. Lego also means "I put together" in Latin, but the Lego Group claims this merely coincidence and the origin of the word is strictly Danish.

12. Reebok

Reebok is simply an alternate spelling of "rhebok," an African antelope. The company founders found the word in a South African edition of a dictionary won by the Joe Foster, son of the Reebok founder J.W. Foster.

13. Sharp

The Japanese consumer electronics company is named after its first product, an ever-sharp pencil that was created in 1915.

14. Six Apart

Six Apart's name has one of the most interesting origins. The web company's co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born six days apart.

15. Skype

The original prototype of the company's flagship product had the name "Sky-Peer-to-Peer," which was shrunk down to Skyper, then finally Skype.

16. Verizon

Verizon is a combination of the words veritas, which is Latin for "truth," and horizon.

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The world isn’t that big of a place anymore.  In economic development circles, you often hear about competing in the world marketplace, and the pressures that communities and regions face to develop capacities to think and act globally.  New Scientist published a set of maps and charts in 2009 that demonstrate just how connected we really are.  To begin, here’s a heat map showing the travel times (by land transportation) to major population centers, and the darker the color, the more remote the area.  The remainder of the charts show road, rail, water, and travel time information, presented in graphical form. 

BONUS:  Google Docs has a Heat Map gadget!

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In a previous post, I discussed a study linking job creation to “young” firms.

Now, the Kauffman Foundation has issued an update on entrepreneurship for 2009: their excellent Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.  Surprisingly, the index shows that 2009 yielded a larger number of business startups than either of the previous two years, and ranked Oklahoma and Montana as the states with the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity, followed by Arizona, Texas, and Idaho.  Further, 2009 had the highest rates of activity in the last 14 years.  So – when larger firms and established industries are shedding jobs, perhaps there are fewer obstructions to people striking out on their own.  This seems to bode well for our future – if we can connect these entrepreneurs with the support and environment they need for their businesses to reach maturity.

The study is HERE.

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The US Census Bureau is in the midst of collecting mail-in forms for the 2010 decennial census.  If you haven’t filled out your form – do so today and get it in the mail!  The Census provides valuable information on community demographics, trends and patterns, and areas of focus for services and development.  Our country has conducted a census every ten years since 1790.

The Census Bureau reports that the current participation rate for the mail-in portion of the effort is 34%. 

For every 1% increase in mail participation, the Bureau will save $85,000,000 of taxpayer funds required to field census-takers on the street. (source)

The Bureau provides an interactive mapping tool where you can see response rates from a national level:

You can use this map to drill down further to a local level:

Economic development (and representative government) lives and dies by the quality of the data used to derive decisions and set priorities.  The Census is the cornerstone of our country’s attempt to understand who is here, where people live, and the general make-up of our nation.  Participate!

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Last November, The Kauffman Foundation issued a great report entitled “Where Will the Jobs Come From.”  In a novel approach to reviewing job creation data, the researchers (Dane Stangler and Robert Litan) examined the data looking for firm age, rather than size, and emphasized job creation rather than current employment.  In their words: “Let’s not ask where people work, but where each additional increment in net job creation occurs” (pg 4).  They’re using Census Bureau data, so of course, there is some latency in the information.  The study’s research data focused on 2007.  Several interesting points worth noting:

“…without startups, net job creation for the American economy would be negative in all but a handful of years.”  (pg 5)

Given that roughly half of start-up companies fail, the authors posit that some number of those gains are included in subsequent years’ losses.  But they’re more interested in the 50% of start-up companies that survive from year 1 to year 5:

“[in 2007] young companies, those aged one to five, had been the most dynamic in adding new jobs to the economy.  OF the entire pool of new jobs added in 2007, about two-thirds was generated by these young companies.” (pg 6).

So what?  The authors put their most important point in large-font, bold type, so I will too:

ENTREPRENEURS = RECOVERY

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