Tom Still's - Inside Wisconsin

By Tom Still

So long, 2011, a year in which the economy flirted with recovery, and welcome to 2012, a year that may spring out of the blocks but encounter hurdles down the track. Here are some trends worth following.

The 250 or so people who gathered this month for the 40^th annual meeting of the La Crosse Area Development Corp. aren’t without their differences. The crowd included business leaders and educators, Republicans and Democrats, “townies” and academic gowns, and even a few politicians who have butted heads in recent elections.

Click here to read Tom Still's Dec. 4, 2011, column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in which he describes the phenomenon of business clusters in Wisconsin.

One study after another has lamented the fact that America is producing fewer scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians than our competitors in Europe and Asia. As the baby boom generation begins to retire, that’s a threat to the economy and to national security.

Stratatech is a Wisconsin company at the forefront of efforts to develop substitute skin. It’s also a prime example of how emerging companies with innovative technology can compete for, and win, federal research grants that speed discoveries into the marketplace.

With the Wisconsin Legislature huddled in the Capitol to debate ideas for improving Wisconsin’s economy, it’s only fitting that some of the companies actually shaping the state’s future will be gathered two blocks away next week.

Delore Zimmerman likes a lot of what he sees in Wisconsin’s economy: its tradition of high-performing, globally competitive companies; its above-average export growth; and what he describes as a “robust” tech-based ecosystem driven by business, university and government.

Connecticut launched the nation’s first state-leveraged venture capital program 35 years ago. Today, more than 30 states have similar funds, including many of Wisconsin’s neighbors and peers.

The story of Connecticut’s success in building its supply of venture capital is among the reasons why Wisconsin should also embrace a bipartisan approach to developing sources of capital for its high-growth, early stage companies.

Google has acquired 103 companies in roughly 10 years, including three – Zave Networks, Zagat and Daily Deal – this month alone. Does that make Google a menacing threat to consumers, or a wildly successful company that knows innovation when it sees it?

Ten years ago, America was under attack from suicidal zealots who turned hijacked airplanes into bombs. Today, the threats to the nation’s security might just as easily come from cyber-terrorists or biological weapons no larger than a few molecules.

For 50 years or more, researchers in Wisconsin and around the world have used cells derived from human fetal tissue to pursue cures for chronic diseases, to develop and produce vaccines and to conduct basic research on a wide range of human health issues.

Toni Sikes delivered more than 100 investment pitches on behalf of early stage companies – including her own – to venture capitalists over the course of a dozen years. During that time, Sikes recalled, she met two women venture capitalists, one in New York and the other in Seattle. “All the others were men,” said the Madison-based entrepreneur. Today, Sikes is just another one of the boys.

If you didn’t know that Exact Sciences was on the verge of a breakthrough in the war against cancer, you might conclude it’s a company on the ropes. The Madison-based firm reported earlier this month that it lost about $6.6 million in the latest quarter and about $11 million for the first six months of 2011, numbers that could signal trouble for most publically traded companies of its size.

The high-stakes fight for control of Wisconsin’s state Senate is over. The even higher stakes debate about securing the state’s economic future should resume now. With Tuesday’s recall elections keeping Republicans in control of the Senate, albeit with a thin 17-16 margin, an opportunity exists in Madison to get back to the business of governing and rebuilding Wisconsin’s economy.

Name the industry in which you would expect to find the following science and technology professionals: Chemical engineers, computer programmers, computer systems analysts, electrical engineers, environmental scientists, geochemists, geo-engineers, geophysicists, drafting technologists, metallurgical engineers and quality control engineers.

It’s hard to think of an academic research field today that isn’t driven by the ability to analyze, send and receive huge sets of data. From genomics to astronomy, and from biotechnology to medical imaging, scientific research today is inexorably linked to high-end computing and network connections.

By Tom Still

San Francisco tech tycoon Peter Thiel is paying people not to go to college. He may be on to something. Thiel isn’t paying just any bunch of slackers to avoid ivy-covered walls, however. He’s awarding $100,000 each to two-dozen young entrepreneurs whom he believes will help society more by chasing their dreams than by chasing a diploma.

By Tom Still

The numbers are hard to dispute: Kids who attend organized but relatively inexpensive pre-school programs are more likely to graduate from high school, to earn more as adults, to stay off welfare and to avoid spending time in jail.

By Tom Still

MADISON – Here’s a quick geography quiz. Where is the “Valley of Death” located?

 (a)    Some place faraway and biblical
 (b)   Some place in southern California
 (c)   Someplace in Wisconsin

If you’re a Wisconsin entrepreneur in search of venture capital, the “Valley of Death” is a bit too close to home. That forbidding term describes the funding gap for early stage companies caught between their initial rounds of investment – family, friends, founders and angel investors – and follow-up rounds from venture capitalists.

Members of the Legislature’s budget-writing committee have signaled they’re approaching information overload when it comes to the proposed separation of the UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System. Is there a way, key lawmakers have asked, to construct a phased plan for giving the university more freedom to run its own affairs?

“All rise, the Court of Public Opinion has convened in the Case of the People vs. the David Prosser-JoAnne Kloppenburg race for Wisconsin Supreme Court; Judge John Q. Public presiding…”

The federal Small Business Innovation Research conference is coming to Wisconsin in April. Don’t be shocked if it’s one of the last to be held – anywhere.

If the bill reauthorizing federal Small Business Innovation Research grants doesn’t pass before the 112th Congress takes office Jan. 4, the whole process starts from scratch and the program will expire Jan. 31, 2011.