Intel announced a $3.5 billion initiative “to support investment in U.S.-based growth-oriented industries and detailed a commitment to significantly increase jobs available this year for recent college graduates.”

The headline of Intel’s press release says, “Invest in America Alliance to Fund American Technology Companies, Create Jobs for College Grads.” The story was covered bytechnology reporter Claire Cain Miller in the  New York Times, as well as by many others.

Miller begins her article by saying, “Technologists have been worrying aloud for years that America is losing its competitive edge as other countries invest more heavily in technology education and innovation.”

The alliance is led by Intel and is supported by 24 leading venture capital firms and corporations, aims to further anchor America’s competitiveness on the global stage. Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said the announcement represents ”an investment in the country’s innovators and a signal to the global marketplace about America’s commitment to innovation and future competitiveness.” (read the full transcript of Otellini’s speech).

Venture Capital firms joining the Invest in America alliance include:

• Advanced Technology Ventures
• Braemar Energy Ventures
• Bridgescale Partners
• Canaan Partners
• DCM
• Draper Fisher Jurvetson
• Flywheel Ventures
• Good Energies
• Institutional Venture Partners
• Investcorp Technology Partners
• Khosla Ventures
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Menlo Ventures
• Mohr Davidow Ventures
• New Enterprise Associates
• North Bridge Venture Partners
• QuestMark Partners
• Sevin Rosen Funds
• Storm Ventures
• Telesoft Partners
• Updata Partners
• U.S. Venture Partners
• Venrock and Walden International

Companies joining the Invest in America alliance include:

• Accenture
• Adobe Systems Incorporated
• Autodesk
• Broadcom Corporation
• CDW LLC.
• Cisco
• Dell
• eBay
• Inc.
• EMC Corporation
• GE
• Google
• Inc.
• HP
• Liberty Mutual Group
• Marvell Semiconductor Inc.
• Microsoft Corporation
• Yahoo!

In a blog post that could only have struck the most resonant chords in my heart, Jeffrey Phillips writes, “Innovation does not equal technology.”

Phillips isVP of Sales and Marketing at OVO, the innovation consulting division of NetCentrics. He blogged that while giving a speech recently to a university audience, he was confronted by a senior staff member who argued that innovation was equated to technology, and only scientists and engineers could bring new technologies to life. 

Phillips argument in response was (rightly!) that “that definition of innovation is awfully narrow.” Readers of this blog, and anyone who has taken my “Markting Complex Innovation” course will know that my cardinal equation is:

Innovation = Invention + Marketing

As I tell my students, and as I frequently tell our clients, transforming inventions into innovations is how money is made. And those transformations are not just the responsibility of your technical staff. To quote myself (because I can), “Without great technology PR, every great innovation is worth less, and maybe even worthless.” That is to say that innovation management is not only about creating a technology for the market, but also about creating a market for the technology, or what I like to call “engineering perception.”

Phillips says, “Technology innovation is a subset of innovation generally, and while all technology innovation is innovation, all innovation is not technology innovation.” Well put. And it’s because I love engineering and the technological invention it produces that I’ve spent most of my adult life dedicated to giving a voice to those technologies. Because that’s how invention turns into innovation.

Readers of my blog know I’m an unabashed fan of NYT columnist Thomas Friedman. Why? Because he consistently gets the world of innovation and how innovation drives, is driven by, and interconnects with so many aspects of geopolitics and economics (from micro to macro).

In his latest column, “More (Steve) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” Friedman says President Obama should launch a “moon shot” initiative to get millions of American kids excited about innovation and entrepreneurship again. Friedman calls for the President ”to make 2010 the year of innovation, the year of making our pie bigger, the year of “Start-Up America” (a veiled reference to “Startup Nation” perhaps?)

Obama should bring together the country’s leading innovators, Friedman advocates, and ask them: “What legislation, what tax incentives, do we need right now to replicate you all a million times over” — and make that his No. 1 priority.

Friedman’s line in the sand (and I would dearly love it if someone would put this on an index card and put it on the President’s desk tomorrow morning) is this: “Inspiring, reviving and empowering Start-up America is [Obama's] moon shot.” Readers of this blog will not be surprised to know that I LOVE IT.

Let us, the innovators, the entrepreneurs, and yes even (or especially?) the marketers, endorse Thomas Friedman’s epic call to action. Let us tell the President we stand ready to help launch a year, a decade, a century of innovation. Let us ask for his leadership, and then let’s march forward to ride the twin rocket engines of innovation and entrepreneurship to all the economic recovery this world needs.

Certainly no calendar flip would be complete without a laundry list of predictions for the new year. FierceWireless has put together a compelling predictions for the wireless industry. To summarize:

• Net neutrality will pass, but with exceptions for wireless
• Palm will be purchased by another handset vendor
• Pricing, coverage issues will hinder cable companies’ wireless offerings
• Sprint Nextel’s 4G leadership will help revive the carrier
• Huawei will get one LTE deal in North America
• At least one wireless carrier will experiment with usage-based data pricing
• Motorola will show some signs of recovery thanks to Android (last year, FierceWireless predicted “Motorola’s handset division will cease to be“)
• Computer makers’ attempts at Android smartphones will flounder

Read the full FierceWireless report here.

 

Meanwhile, Juniper Research has drawn up a list of predictions for the coming year, all neatly wrapped up as the top ten predictions for the mobile and wireless industry for 2010. Summarized as follows:

 

• Mobile Data Traffic Explosion to strain 3G Networks, spur data pricing overhaul
• Mobile Ecosystem starts to go green
• Mobile Heads for the Cloud
• New Category of Merging Smartphone Functionality and Netbooks to Emerge
• Apps Stores All Round
• Mobile Social Networking to Integrate with other Applications including M-Commerce
• NFC phones appear in the shops
• At least 10 LTE networks to be launched into service
• Smartphones to Get Augmented Reality Makeover
•  Christmas Kindle sales expected to herald the rise of the connected embedded consumer devices

The first prediction is one I’m hearing a lot about from our infrastructure clients. As Juniper says, although 3G is less than ten years old, 2010 could be the year when 3G networks begin to fall over under the burden of mobile data, due largely to some 33.8m iPhones that have been sold since launch.

 

Then there’s Dean Bubley‘s predictions from his Disruptive Wireless blog. Dean lists “heroes, zeroes, and no-surprises” as follows:

 

Heros

• HSPA+
• Apple iPhone
• Android
• Augmented reality
• Facebook
• Consumer femtocells
• Huawei
• “Comes with data”
• Connection-sharing
• Operator-on-operator applications

Zeros

• Mobile IMS and RCS
• LTE
• Virtual conferences
• NFC
• Twitter
• Enterprise femtocells
• Embedded 3G netbooks
• Smartphone profit margins
• Operator AppStores
• Aggregated social networks
• The terms “dumb pipe” and “over the top”

No surprises

• WiMAX
• Open network APIs
• WiFi
• Nokia
• BlackBerry
• Consolidation
• Mobile TV (“Was dead, is dead, will stay dead.”)
• Data roaming prices

And finally, WirelessWeek compiled its list by soliciting input from “industry leaders” on the following topics for 2010:

• Prepaid & data
• Net neutrality & mobile web
• Emphasis on competition, emerging devices
• Race to converged connectivity
• Wireless in the enterprise
• Content & apps purchasing on rise
• Video optimization as prevalent as web optimization
• Synthesis for M2M services
• Mobile money expansion
• Smartphones for more people
• M2M is major growth area
• Large brands recognize value of mobile applications
• Mobile backhaul providers embrace COE to meet needs

Lots of predictions in a volatile industry. I came away from the holidays with one prevailing observation – as we turn the decade clock to 2010, one thing is far different than ten years ago. My extended family had a lovely time together as always, but everyone sure spent a lot of time on their various mobile devices. At one point, I looked around the table at more than a dozen siblings, children, neices & nephews and saw why the room was so quiet – everyone had a mobile device in their hands.

My prediction: This mobile thing is going to be big.

Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of (MIT’s) Technology Review, has written an important essay titled “On the Evolution of Technology.”

The second sentence in the essay articulates the very reason I founded Rainier back in 1993: “When a technology first appears in the world, it is not understood: no one knows what to do with it.”

Pontin discusses Brian Arthur‘s book The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, and Arthur’s explanation of why truly new technologies are so slow to be adopted. New technology domains, he says, betray “missing pieces” that technologists must develop before useful applications can be successfully commercialized. One of these missing pieces, I believe, is the ability to clearly communicate new technologies to the market.

Pontin says the real economic value of new technologies is almost always imperfectly understood because the technologies’ markets do not yet exist. It’s been interesting for me to note over the years how true this is for so many of the technologies we are involved with bringing to market – especially those which are truly disruptive, or don’t quite fit into existing market categories.

Brian Arthur’s question, “What [does the new technology]allow people to do that could not be done before?” is one we ask our clients all the time.

The answer(s) are so crucial to successfully marketing a product, that we won’t even agree to launch a new technology until we’re satisfied the disruption, and all its necessary ecosystem components of success (what Arthur calls the “missing pieces” technologists must develop before useful applications can be successfully commercialized), has been thoroughly and defensibly defined.

Reading Dana Mattioli‘s article in the Wall Street Journal today about R&D spending. She cites a recent Booz & Co study of 1,000 of the world’s biggest R&D spenders – the study finds that most companies have stuck with their innovation programs despite the recession — and many are boosting spending to compete more effectively in the upturn.

Mattioli’s article is a nice summary, but the Booz report itself (written by Barry Jaruzelski and Kevin Dehoff)is highly recommended reading for anyone involved in innovation.

I like the tone and content of many of the executive quotes in the report like:

• “Innovation is what drives our competitive position in all three of our markets — automotive, professional, and consumer — and therefore we can’t back off,” says Robert Lardon, corporate VP for at Harman International Industries.
• Adalio Sanchez, GM of IBM’s System X server business, echoes that point of view: “I would argue that the recession is a catalyst for increased innovation.”

Booz cites three primary reasons companies are so reluctant to cut innovation spending when times are extremely tough.

1. Innovation has become a core component of overall corporate strategy. Given the fierce nature of business competition in recent years, a reduction in innovation efforts would be akin to unilateral disarmament in wartime.
2. Companies in most sectors are typically committed to product development cycles that extend for many years — well beyond the length of an average recession. If they are suppliers, they have often already contracted to help develop their customers’ next new model; if they sell to consumers, missing an innovation cycle can mean being put out of the game entirely.
3. Many companies see the recession as an opportunity to build their advantage over their competitors
   — especially weaker ones that may have to skimp on R&D for financial reasons. If the stronger companies can maintain the pace of innovation, the thinking goes, they may be able to gain market share quickly once the upturn gets under way in earnest.

Judging from the data in the Booz study, the results of their survey, and their conversations with executives, innovation has become central to every company’s efforts to compete. And the degree of competition has been in no sense reduced by the downturn.

If anything, concludes the Booz report, it has been heightened, and most companies are fully aware of the need to be in position to profit from the coming upturn.

This includes, of course, keeping up a steady flow of PR to ensure a relentless brand presence, as well.

The Booz report: Profits Down, Spending Steady: The Global Innovation 1000

The book “Startup Nation” by Dan Senor and Saul Singer is climbing the bestseller charts these days.

It’s certainly a great read, and confirms so many of the observations I’ve had the privilege to make first-hand over the past two years since Rainier opened its Israel office (I travel to Tel Aviv again in about 10 days…).

And now the authors have an article in Newsweek – “Soldiers of Fortune: How the Israeli Army became the most prolific innovation engine on earth.”
The article focuses on one key aspect of the book – the Israeli military’s role in becoming a boot camp for new tech entrepreneurs.

I remember coming home from my first formal business trip to Israel in 2007, and saying (regarding the breathtaking innovation I’d seen over 25+ meetings), “There’s something about the army background that’s driving all this…”

 
Please don’t get the mistaken impression though, that Israel’s entrepreneurial success is solely about the military. As Yaron Samid says in his TechAviv article, “Without stealing the thunder from this uniquely well written book, here are a few of the observations Dan and Saul present from detailed case studies and interviews with Israel’s top innovators:

• Israeli immigration and assimilation policies bring and support a highly motivated, diversified pool of talent into the country.
• Israel spends more as a percentage of our economy on R&D than any other country in the world and knows how to make that money relevant to startups.
• Israel actively cultivates a culture of entrepreneurship and leadership in the military. Teenagers are not only given the responsibility to make life-saving decisions, typically with little data, but to question authority regularly in doing so.
• The Israeli economy respects and knows how to integrate the unique talents and “chutzpah” developed by soldiers in the military.

Next month I’ll make my 20th trip to Israel. I’ll meet with somewhere around 25 Israeli high-tech companies and many of the VCs who are driving this unique innovation engine. It’s an absolutely fantastic phenomenon, and a thrill for anyone like me who thrives on being around technology (and, of course, helping to bring technology to the market!).