EngenuitySC Kicks Off Competitiveness Workshop

The Columbia Regional Competitiveness Workshop series kicked off by mapping a strategy to improve the competitiveness of the Columbia region through an emphasis on entrepreneurship. We had folks like Lexington Mayor Randy Halfacre, BB&T President Mike Brenan, COR Executive Director Katherine Swartz, and more. If you couldn't make it, here's a recap of what you saw: 

George Hutton, Executive Director for EngenuitySC, kicked off the series by highlighting the challenges Columbia faces, the opportunities for economic growth through a focus on competitiveness, and the Columbia Regional Competitiveness Workshop series' goal to bring together key stakeholders to capture opportunities. Hutton laid the groundwork for the goal of the series, its impact on Columbia, and how we stack up quantitatively and qualitatively against peer regions like Austin, Texas, Raleigh, N.C., and Charleston, S.C.

We hosted a fantastic panel of keynote speakers moderated by Bill Kirkland from the new USC Office of Economic Engagement. Speakers and panelists included Dirk Brown from the Faber Center for Entrepreneurship at the Moore School of Business, Greg Clark of SCRA, Greg Hilton from CETi, and Tom Ledbetter from Midlands Technical College. Here are some of the main highlights from their talks:

Dirk Brown:

• We can be more productive when we engage in conversation like this
• We need to strengthen our ecosystem for new ventures and differentiate our offerings
• How do we keep successful startups like RidePost and Watsi in the Midlands?
• We need money, talent, and suppliers/support/anchor customers
• They need resources here to grow here

Greg Clark:

• Proper economic development can lead to a return on investment
• There is a lot of opportunity in commercializing intellectual property
• Licensing and formation opportunities
• Challenges
• Lack of angel investors and venture capital
• Lack of experienced c-level talent to manage and grow startups through investment periods
• Opportunity
• Influx of mentors and retired executives to the area

Greg Hilton/Tom Ledbetter:

• We have interest in really getting something done, not just talking about it
• We are creating our own environment rather than being just like every other city. Embrace our culture and uniqueness!
• Goals/opportunities
• Create an environment to grow
• Develop a killer startup environment
• Change the culture to take more risks
• Build better entrepreneurs & talent
• Be able to say "no" to certain startups and nurture the "winners" - It's okay to be selective

Here's some area where you can help - Have a solution? Want to get involved? Drop us a note a ghutton@engenuitysc.com.

• We need more risk capital flowing through Columbia
• Development and recruitment of local talent is key to our growth and success
• We need the community to come together and want startups to grow and thrive - We have to celebrate our successes!
• Our community should be committed to being the welcoming party for a company visit - We need to own creating a group dedicated to dropping everything to welcome a new company
• We have strategies to accelerate the startup process
• Greg Hilton needs mentors for his incubators companies - people willing to spend a few hours for open office hours
• Investors need to be connected with talent they may not know of
• A unified group of business people is vital
• We need to talk up the future of Columbia and create a buzz

Thank you to all who attended and keep an eye out for our next event in September! 

Improving Drug Safety with Dr. Charles Bennett

Event Details Improving Drug Safety Featuring Dr. Charles Bennett Smartstate Endowed Chair in Medication Safety & Efficacy University of South Carolina When Tuesday, June 11th 6:00pm-7:30pm Where Speakeasy 711 Saluda Ave. Columbia, SC 29205 Improving Drug Safety with Dr. Charles Bennett Join us at Science Cafe EngenuitySC's popular networking event and lecture series continues this June as we pay tribute to National Safety Month and Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention Week.  We will be raising our glasses with Dr. Charles Bennett, Smartstate Endowed Chair in Medication Safety & Efficacy and founder of RADAR, which investigates and disseminates information about adverse drug and device reactions. Join us for the ninth installment of our Year of the Smartstate series where Dr. Bennett will discuss his current work toward preventing adverse drug events and improving medication safety.   Come grab a drink in one of our smart-looking Science Cafe pint glasses, and mix and mingle with fellow science-oriented Columbians. Get excited, get your questions - And join us! Dr. Charles Bennett, Smartstate Endowed Chair in Medication Safety and Efficacy  Dr. Bennett is the SmartState Endowed Chair in Medication Safety and Efficacy at the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy. A hematologist and oncologist, Dr. Bennett’s research focuses on ways to make drug information more consumer-friendly and creating new training tools for healthcare providers. Dr. Bennett has first-hand experience with commercializing technology and starting new companies. In 1998, he founded internationally known RADAR (Research on Adverse Drug events And Reports), which investigates and disseminates information about adverse drug and device reactions. During the last decade, the company’s work has identified potentially fatal and previously unreported side effects associated with more than 40 drugs.  Dr. Bennett has also had a well-supported career, receiving more than $4.2 million in federal research grants. To learn more about Dr. Bennett, visit smartstatesc.org/charles-bennett.     Learn more about Dr. Charles Bennett's background and register for the event at engenuitysc.com/sciencecafe.

DOE initiative aims to support hydrogen fuel infrastructure

DOE initiative aims to support hydrogen fuel infrastructure

Hydrogen fuel has become a major focus for the global auto industry and this focus is likely t transform the transportation sector around the world. As automakers put more emphasis on clean transportation, global markets are beginning to respond by supporting the promotion of hydrogen fuel in the transportation sector. Much of this support comes in the form of governments working to establish a working hydrogen fuel infrastructure that will be capable of supporting a new generation of fuel cell vehicles. This is the case in the U.S., where the Department of Energy has launched a new initiative with infrastructure as its primary focus.

H2USA partnership brings private companies and federal government together

The Department of Energy has announced the official launch of the H2USA initiative, a public-private partnership that aims to promote and establish a working hydrogen fuel infrastructure throughout the U.S. The partnership has brought together the federal government and several automakers, gas suppliers, and fuel cell developers for this endeavor. Among those participating in the H2USA partnership are Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Hyundai, and Toyota, as well as various state-based agencies and private companies from around the country.

The Department of Energy had once considered hydrogen fuel to be an inadequate solution to the environmental issues associated with transportation. This was largely due to the perceived faults of hydrogen fuel cells. In recent years, the federal agency has been warming to the concept of hydrogen fuel and has begun to consider this form of renewable energy as a promising alternative to traditional forms of power.

Availability of natural gas makes hydrogen fuel more attractive

According to the Department of Energy, hydrogen fuel has been growing more attractive due to the rising availability of natural gas. Natural gas can be used to power hydrogen fuel production, and the U.S. has an abundant supply of this fuel. Using natural gas is somewhat less expensive and more efficient than using other fossil-fuels to produce hydrogen. Backed by new technologies from the industrial gas sector, the agency believes that a large-scale hydrogen fuel infrastructure can finally take form in the country.

H2USA to examine market trends and support adoption of fuel cell vehicles

The initial goal of the H2USA initiative is to identify the measures that can be taken to encourage the early adoption of fuel cell vehicles. The initiative will also be responsible for examining market trends and determining how to improve infrastructure efforts throughout the country. With the federal government showing stronger support for hydrogen fuel, clean transportation is expected to become a much more feasible reality in the near future.

A Conversation with Dirk Brown, Ph.D., Director, Faber Entrepreneurship Center, CEO/Co-founder, Pandoodle

As Director of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center at the University of South Carolina Moore School of Business, Dirk Brown has a broad mandate to facilitate new venture formation across the state of South Carolina. As CEO of Pandoodle, he is developing state-of-the-art technologies to allow us to dynamically customize video. He sat down to talk with MidlandsBiz to about the state of the knowledge economy in South Carolina.

What's Your Resolution for 2013?

Calling all science enthusiasts for the for the first Science Cafe of 2013! If your new year's resolution was to expand your knowledge base, get involved in your community, or to try something new, then join us for the next installment in the Year of the SmartState.  We're talking tech in healthcare with Dr. Jay Moskowitz of the University of South Carolina. Join us for this pressing topic as the country transitions into the Affordable Healthcare Act changes for 2013. Advanced registration is always encouraged to save your space at each event. We've partnered with the South Carolina's SmartState Program(S.C. Centers of Economic Excellence) to bring the top experts in state, region, and nation in their field. Head over toEngenuitySC.com/ScienceCafe to learn more about this month's speaker and venue. Get excited, get your questions - And join us! Dr. Jay Moskowitz, James Buchanan Duke Smartstate Endowed Chair for Healthcare Quality Dr. Moskowitz has forged numerous and meaningful collaborations with organizations that include the South Carolina Hospital Association, the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the office of Research Statistics, insurance companies, physicians and rural health groups, and private business. His innate ability to bring people together to the table paved the way for more than 100 organizations and individuals to develop a single, unified plan for securing federal funding for and the implementation of a statewide health information technology strategy. Dr. Moskowitz is working with information technology companies, healthcare systems, physicians, and researchers to create a  statewide health information exchange, which will not only support clinical research but also enhance the quality and safety of patient care.  This effort includes helping physicians adopt electronic medical records systems and achieve "meaningful use" per federal mandates.    Learn more about Dr. Moskowitz's background and register atEngenuitySC.com/ScienceCafe. When and Where  Improving Healthcare Quality for South Carolinians at the HCQ Center and Health Sciences of South Carolina Featuring Dr. Jay Moskowitz  James Buchanan Duke SmartState Endowed Chair for Healthcare Quality Speakeasy 711 Saluda Ave. Columbia, SC 29205 Tuesday, January 8th - 6:00pm-7:30pm

The Science of Santa: Understanding the Technology of Shipping & Logistics

The Science of Santa: Understanding the Technology of Shipping & Logistics Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday season - What do they have in common? Shipping, logistics, and a whole lot of science to make it happen. Join us at Science Cafe during our Year of the SmartState as we take you behind the scenes of how the world's biggest shippers use incredible math, science, and technology to deliver over 125 million gifts in 5 days.  Advanced registration is always encouraged to save your space at each event. We've partnered with the South Carolina's SmartState Program (S.C. Centers of Economic Excellence) to bring the top experts in state, region, and nation in their field. Head over toEngenuitySC.com/ScienceCafe to learn more about this month's speaker and venue. Get excited, get your questions - And join us! PS - We may even have some warm drink specials! Cider anyone? Dr. Scott Mason,  Endowed Chair Supply Chain Optimization and Logistics With its deep-water port in Charleston, five major interstates and rail system, South Carolina has a well-established transportation system that has attracted major companies like Amazon.com and Target. Yet the supply chain and logistics industry is highly competitive. To remain a top destination for distribution centers, South Carolina must continue to enhance its transportation infrastructure. Dr. Scott Mason, an expert in large-scale supply systems modeling, optimization and algorithms, is theFluor Endowed Chair in Supply Chain Optimization. He brings to the South Carolina and private industry partners, extensive experience in his field, particularly in the area of capital project supply chains. Learn more about Dr. Mason's background and register atEngenuitySC.com/ScienceCafe.

When and Where The Science of Santa: The Tech of Shipping & Logistics Featuring Dr. Scott Mason Flour Smartstate Endowed Chair in Supply Chain Optimization and Logistics Clemson University Speakeasy 711 Saluda Ave. Columbia, SC 29205 Tuesday, December 11 - 6:00pm-7:30pm

12 "Must-Watch" TED Talks for Entrepreneurs

By Mark Hayes
TED is a circuit of highly popular conferences that present "Ideas Worth Spreading" - which have quickly grown to become some of the most well known conferences around the world. TED has attracted presenters such as Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Larry Page, and a large handful of Nobel Prize Winners.  Many of the presentations, known as TED Talks, present ideas that are particularly valuable to entrepreneurs. I put together a collection of TED Talks that all entrepreneurs should find interesting and worthwhile.

Entrepreneurs can learn a lot by studying behavioral economics. Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather (one of the biggest marketing/advertising agencies in the world), makes the assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value. The idea that intangible value can strongly influence opinion (and purchase decision) is evidenced in Sutherland's humorous and deeply insightful presentation that every entrepreneur - certainly every marketer - should watch.

People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Simon Sinek is an author, motivational speaker, and strategic communications professor at Columbia University. Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership that starts with his famous "golden circle of motivation" and the question "Why?" 

The decisions we make are not only inevitable, but they're also extremely predictable. Dan Ariely is a behavioural economist, professor, and author. He uses his own shocking research findings to show how we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions. 

Be remarkable. Safe is risky. Being very good is one of the worst things you can do. Everyone has heard the expression "The best thing since sliced bread" but did you know that for 15 years after sliced bread was invented it wasn't popular? The success of sliced bread, like the success of anything, was less about the product and more about whether or not you could get your idea to spread or not.

Marketing guru and author Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. Godin has published almost a dozen best-selling books, some of the most popular being: "Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable,"  "All Marketers Are Liars,"  "Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?"  and "Poke The Box."

The food industry used to determine what people want to eat by asking them - as you may have seen in the focus groups portrayed on Mad Men. Fact is, people don't know what they want. Ask people what kind of coffee they like and they'll say a "dark, rich, hearty roast" - in fact, most people actually want milky weak coffee.

Malcolm Gladwell, author, journalist, thinker, gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce, and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness. 

Unilever (they own 400 brands, including: Dove, Lipton, Becel, and more) hired some of the most brilliant engineers in the world to design the perfect nozzle to squirt out laundry detergent. No one could get it right. So they used trial and error instead. They created ten random variations of a nozzle, and kept the one that worked best. Then they created ten variations on that one, and kept the one that worked best, and so on. After 45 generations Unilever developed a perfect laundry detergent nozzle with absolutely no idea why it works.

In this TED talk, economics writer Tim Harford studies complex systems and finds a surprising link among the successful ones: they were built through trial and error. He asks entrepreneurs to embrace our randomness and start making better mistakes. Check out Tim Harford's books "Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure" and "The Undercover Economist."

Entrepreneurs often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. Steven Johnson doesn't think it's that simple and shows us how history tells a different story. Steven Johnson is a best-selling author of seven books all on the intersection of science and technology woven together by personal experience. Johnson's book, "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation" digs deep on the topic introduced in his TED Talk above. Also check out his most recent book which is only available for pre-order "Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age."

Cameron Herold thinks weekly allowances teach kids the wrong habits - by nature, they teach kids to expect a regular paycheque, something to which entrepreneurs usually don't get. Herold's two kids don't get an allowance. He's taught them to walk around the yard looking for stuff that needs to get done, then they negotiate a price. In his TED Talk above, Herold makes the case for a new type of parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish.

Cameron Herold is an entrepreneur through and through. He's been building businesses since he was born - moved on to create 1-800-GOT-JUNK, now he coaches CEOs all around the world. His book "Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years or Less" came out last year, and is a step-by-step guide to grow your business.
Physics and marketing don't seem to have much in common, but Dan Cobley (one of Google's marketing directors) is passionate about both. Using Newton's second law of motion, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the scientific method, and the second law of thermodynamics, Cobley explains the fundamental theories of branding.

The office isn't a good place to work, meetings are toxic, and ASAP is poison. In Jason Fried's TED Talk, he lays out the problems with "work" and offers three suggestions to fix a broken office. 

Jason Fried is the co-founder and president of 37signals, a company that builds web-based productivity tools. Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson wrote the book REWORK, which is about new ways to conceptualize working and creating. 

Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Sometimes using money as motivation does more harm than good - and people perform far worse when motivated with cash. Daniel Pink is a best-selling author, journalist, and the former chief speechwriter for US Vice President Al Gore. If you enjoy Pink's TED Talk, check out two of my favorite books by Daniel Pink, "Drive: The Surprising Truth Abou What Motivates Us" and "The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need."
Why do people succeed? Is it because they are smart? Or are they just lucky? The answer is neither. Success Analyst, speaker, and author Richard St. John asked over 500 extraordinarily successful people what helped them succeed. He analyzed their answers and discovered eight traits successful people have in common. His book "The 8 Traits Successful People Have in Common: 8 to Be Great" goes into further detail on each of the traits that are briefly outlined in his TED Talk above.