National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship
    Week of May 23 - May 27, 2005
    Welcome to the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, an initiative of the Public Forum Institute made possible by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City. Through NDE-news, we bring you short summaries and analyses of various trends driving the innovation economy. Subscribe now to receive your weekly copy. Archived issues are available online. Links to the day's entrepreneurship stories from across the nation and around the world are posted each weekday on the NDE main page - bookmark it and stay informed about the latest entrepreneurship news.
    Capitol Hill Update: Patent Reform Ahead
    We have regularly reported on various studies that examine America's patent and intellectual property protection systems. While these studies frequently differ in their particulars, they all agree that the current system needs fundamental reform. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, led by Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), has been holding an interesting set of hearings on future reforms of the patent system. Congressman Smith has developed draft legislation that would introduce a number of reforms. For example, the proposal calls for a "first to file" system where patents are provided to the first person who filed for a patent as opposed to the first person who invented a new technology, product or service. In addition, the draft would create a post-patent grant time window that would allow others to challenge recently granted patents. Many of these changes are expected to make it easier and cheaper for small businesses to engage in patent-related litigation. These current discussions are the start of a long process, but expect to see more discussion and NDE briefings on patent reform in the current Congress.

    Hearing transcripts, the Subcommittee draft proposal and other materials regarding this patent reform debate are available at the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary website at www.judiciary.house.gov.

    As in Politics, All Angel Investing is Local
    With venture capitalists becoming much more selective, startups and entrepreneurs have had to tap new revenue sources in the past several years, increasingly turning to angel investors to fund new business ventures. As angel investing has increased in importance, groups of angel investors are constantly emerging and new and best practices are being adopted. 'Angel Groups in Action: Funding Early Stage Innovation', a satellite and web broadcast presented by the MIT Enterprise Forum, the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City and its program, the Angel Capital Association, will tell entrepreneurs what they need to know how to gain access to angels, how to understand what they are looking for and how they operate. The program aims to help close the knowledge gap that exists between entrepreneurs and the tech community, and will explain the practices and principles of angel investing, both via the broadcast, and through the in-person networking taking place at each viewing site.

    Angel Groups In Action will be broadcast on June 1st at 7:00 pm (eastern) live from the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To find a viewing site in your area, visit www.mitenterpriseforum.org for a complete list. Or, you can email the Enterprise Forum at mitef@mit.edu if you would like to create a viewing site in your area if one does not currently exist.

    Measuring the Social Impact of Venture Investments
    As the venture capital field has grown, we have witnessed a parallel growth in the field of community development venture capital. While venture capitalists (VCs) are concerned about the financial bottom line, community development VCs pursue a double bottom line: seeking to earn financial returns while also having a positive social impact in the community. Until recently, we have been much better at measuring the financial bottom line. A new Measuring Impacts Toolkit, developed by the Community Development Venture Capital Association (CDVCA), should help in improving our ability to measure social impacts. The toolkit includes a series of surveys that will allow social investors to better understand and track the social and economic impacts of their investments.

    To learn more about the Measuring Impacts Toolkit, visit www.socialfunds.org. To learn more about the Community Development Venture Capital Association, visit www.cdvca.org. A copy of the toolkit can be obtained by sending an email to cdvca@cdvca.org.

    New Data on Lending Discrimination
    A new report from the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Office of Advocacy confirms what many minority business owners have long suspected. Many African-American and Hispanic business owners face significantly higher barriers in accessing capital from traditional sources of business finance. The researchers took a very detailed look at a whole range of finance mechanisms, ranging from traditional bank loans to transaction loans, such as capital leases or vehicle finance. They found that African-American and Hispanic business owners face greater prospects of loan denial than do other entrepreneurs. These trends did not appear to be present for women or Asian business owners. Somewhat surprisingly, the research also indicates that preferential lending is more common in transaction loans than in relationship loans (i.e. more traditional bank lending).

    To access the 2005 SBA Office of Advocacy report, Availability of Financing to Small Firms Using the Survey of Small Business Finance, by Karlyn Mitchell and Douglas K. Pearce, visit http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs257tot.pdf.

    Enterprise Nation 2005
    NDE keeps a close eye on approaches to fostering entrepreneurship overseas, learning from the thinking and research conducted in other nations, and will receive a delegation from the UK next month. With the recent re-election of Prime Minister Tony Blair, we can expect even more news from Britain. Blair's Chancellor of the Exchequer and heir-apparent, Gordon Brown, is widely recognized as a leading champion of Britain's entrepreneurs. One way to keep up on these happenings is to tap into the Enterprise Nation website, which includes lots of interesting information on Britain's innovation economy. In addition to the latest news and data, Enterprise Nation is also sponsoring an upcoming conference - Enterprise Nation 2005: Building a Home for Enterprising Britons. This event, to be held on June 7th in Birmingham, England, will bring together Britain's leading entrepreneurs and advocates for entrepreneurship. 'Building a Home for Enterprising Britons' is being billed as the first ever event to focus on the increasing number of people starting businesses in their home and the significant potential to encourage more people, particularly women, young people and the over 50's to become Home Entrepreneurs.

    For more information on Enterprise Nation 2005, visit www.enterprisenation.com.

    Costs of Doing Business
    A new report from Economy.com ranks US regions in terms of the cost of doing business. The survey assesses regions according to several criteria: labor costs, energy costs, state and local tax burden, and office rents. Boston ranks as the most expensive metro, and California tops the list for high-cost states. In fact, California metro areas dominate the list, accounting for 8 of the top highest cost metros. Researchers attribute this poor showing to California's high energy costs. While business costs aren't the only factor driving economic growth, they do have an impact. The report notes that business costs can explain approximately one-fifth of a region's employment growth over the past 15 years.

    The Economy.com report, Regional Costs of Doing Business, is available at www.economy.com. Registration is required.

      Sponsored by:
        The Kauffman Foundation
          The Public Forum Institute
            National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship
            2300 M Street, NW; Suite 900
            Washington, DC 20037
            Mark Marich, editor - editor@nde-news.org

    All stories © 2005 The Public Forum Institute
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