'Tis the Season for accolades coming our way. We tend to overlook the good news in these trying times but that doesn't mean major progress isn't happening.

In case folks missed any of these news announcements, here is a recent recap of good news happening in RI--

•  Rhode Island was cited as a top performer in the 2008 State New Economy Index, a report published by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Released today, the 2008 Index ranked Rhode Island 11th in the nation in a state-by-state analysis of how state economies are transitioning to economic development strategies that focus on the creation and retention of high-wage jobs in growth industries. Rhode Island has moved up four places from its 2007 Index position, and has moved up from 29th when the Index was first issued in 1999. See http://www.riedc.com/news/2008/11/ri-named-top-performer-in-the-2008-state-new-economy-index

• For the second year in a row, Bryant University's chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization (CEO) was named the nation's Best Overall Chapter. It is the first time any chapter has won back-to-back top honors. See http://blogs.bryant.edu/newsroom/?p=147

• (RIEDC) has reorganized the management of the state's Renewable Energy Fund, making what officials called a "new commitment to stimulate job growth in green technology (and) green energy sectors of Rhode Island’s economy." See http://riedc.com/news/2008/11/riedc-seeks-job-growth-green-sectors-focuses-renewable-energy-fund-create-energy-independence

• In his new book, “Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently” (Harvard Business Press, 2008), Emory University professor Gregory Berns commends Rite-Solutions CEO Jim Lavoie and his partner for creating a company culture that he says promotes innovative thinking. See http://www.pbn.com/stories/36449.html;

• Peter M. Collins, Founder and President of A2B Tracking Solutions Inc. in Portsmouth, RI, has received the prestigious ID People Leadership Award from the ID WORLD International Congress. The winners of this year’s ID People Awards – the Oscars of the Auto ID industry – were revealed during the seventh ID WORLD International Congress, held in Milan, Italy in late November. Awards were presented at the annual ceremony in recognition of the contribution made by leaders, innovators and pioneering adopters who have distinguished themselves by their achievements during the past year.This comes on the heels of another recent big win for the firm--In late October, they announced that they had been awarded a contract to implement the UID systems and services for various DoD departments that is worth up to $70 million.

This isn't all the good news we have seen in the Ocean State lately, but it is a good representation of some of the great stuff going on here.

Global Entrepreneurship Week is a new event celebrating entrepreneurship around the world and engaging youth in the entrepreneurial movement.

Here's some information from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation on this week's activities I thought you may be interested in seeing (see below)--

From hip hop to public policy, innovative minds at every age will enjoy first-ever global celebration

Washington, D.C. (Nov. 14, 2008) — Global Entrepreneurship Week, a worldwide, open-source movement that celebrates entrepreneurship, continues to grow its list of interesting events, celebrity ambassadors and challenges for entrepreneurs. Check out www.UnleashingIdeas.org for all the details.

The Week, Nov. 17-23, celebrates the spirit of entrepreneurship and encourages young people to become more innovative and entrepreneurial. More than 600 activities are being organized across the United States. Founding sponsors for Global Entrepreneurship Week are the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the United States and Make Your Mark in the United Kingdom.

“Innovation is the key to propelling nations beyond current economic conditions,” said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. “The Week will offer education, inspiration and fun for aspiring entrepreneurs of any age, and anywhere in the world.”

The open-source nature of the Week has given local organizations license to create and promote fun events in their cities and towns. Two weeks ago, the Week’s leaders offered 10 cool things going on during the Week.

Here are 10 additional cool things to do during Global Entrepreneurship Week:

Speednetwork the Globe
Plan a speednetworking session in your community to share ideas and make connections – fast. All that is needed is a group of people, a whistle and a topic. Organizers hope that those participating in networking sessions will start talking about ideas to address some of society’s biggest issues. Speednetworking will give every participant the opportunity to create a new network of useful contacts with this event. Partners hosting the speednetworking session can customize it to their group. To learn more, visit www.unleashingideas.org/speednetwork.

WomenSpeak
National sponsor, IBM, is presenting two WomenSpeak Live Webcasts with a renowned panel of women business owners and women business leaders focused on "Women Entrepreneurs Leading Innovation Globally". The event includes a pair of global Webcasts, moderated by Marilyn Johnson, IBM, VP, Market Development, featuring top women business leaders highlighting leadership roles women are taking in bringing innovation to the marketplace. A 10:15 a.m. (EST) Webcast on Nov. 19 will feature: Maria Contreras-Sweet, PROMERICA Bank; Virginia P'an, China Pacific Partners LLC & TransCapital Group LLC; Bola Olabisi, Global Women Inventions & Innovation Network; and Marsha Firestone, Women Presidents' Organization. A 7:15 p.m. (EST) Webcast features: Chin-Ning Chu, Asian Marketing Consultants; Sharon Hadary, Center for Women's Business Research; Hiroko Tatebe, Global Organization for Leadership and Diversity; and Elizabeth Thornton, Entrepreneurship Faculty Babson College.

Entrepreneurship Gets its Groove
The Hip Hop and Entrepreneurship Forum at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City, Mo., will examine hip-hop's cultural impact on U.S. business. The discussion, which features hip-hop pioneers Chuck D and P. Miller (formerly Master P), will focus on the cultural transformation hip hop has generated through music, fashion and lifestyle. The town hall meeting will also highlight the entrepreneurial opportunities that hip-hop has created.

The Chicago Forecast
Sponsored by Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, the inaugural Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Forecast will discuss next year’s economy for Chicago’s entrepreneurs, the outlook for raising capital, international opportunities for local entrepreneurs and Chicago’s positioning for technology entrepreneurs. The panel discussion, at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 18 at the Park Hyatt Hotel, includes Steve Kaplan, University of Chicago’s Neubauer family professor of entrepreneurship and finance; Anil Kumar, president and co-chairman, Quinnox; Cheryl Rosner, president and CEO, TicketsNow. Visit www.chicagolandchamber.org for details.

Entrepreneurship Unleashed - Chapman and Beyond!
Chapman University, in Orange, Calif., is sponsoring a week-long celebration of more than 20 events, including discussions for young entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs and a film festival dedicated to entrepreneurship. For the entire list of Chapman University events, visit www.unleashingideas.org.

$5 Challenge
In this competition, sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Entrepreneurs’ Society, teams of students will have three days and $5 to generate as much money as possible. Students can register at noon on Nov. 17 in the William Pitt Union Ballroom. Teams will document what they do with pictures and present their success at noon on Nov. 20. For more information, visit www.pittesociety.com.

From Poverty to Entrepreneurship
Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC) encourages students from around the world to find creative, unorthodox solutions to problems of poverty in the developing world. GSEC will engage creative minds across disciplines and encourage less conventional business solutions to global poverty. GSEC, which began on Nov. 12 and concludes on Nov. 21, is open to all students at accredited academic institutions around the world. GSEC teams receive guidance from mentors, coaches and judges, and compete for prize money. For details, visit http://foster.washington.edu/gsec/index.shtml.

YES to Entrepreneurship
The Aspen Institute Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy Group (YES Group) and NFTE Office of Public Policy will launch the I SAID YES! campaign of national leaders saying YES! to entrepreneurship in America's Schools at 8 a.m. on Nov. 18 at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2661, in Washington, D.C. The launch will include offering a Policymakers Action Guide to assist policymakers in bringing youth entrepreneurship education to their cities, states and nationally. The goal of the YES Group is to develop a concrete, viable strategy to advance the teaching of youth entrepreneurship education in high schools of low-income communities nationwide, while prompting public discussion and action at the city, state and federal levels on teaching youth entrepreneurship in our nation’s schools. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org/yesg.

Innovative Storytelling
The Innovation & Collaboration Learning Cafe Series encourages participants to share success stories of creative ideas that have been transformed into innovations in their workplaces, their classrooms, their communities and their lives. The first session in the series is at 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 18 at the Pyle Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For more information and to register for the first of the three-part series, visit www.ohrd.wisc.edu/reg/catalog_course_detail.asp?course_key=22307.

More … Mad Mentor
The New York Stock Exchange, one of the Week’s global sponsors, will host Mentoring Madness at 10 a.m., Friday, Nov. 21. The event will include a panel with Russell Simmons, music mogul and entrepreneur; Linda McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment; and Peter Thum, co-founder of Ethos Water. They will discuss how they got started, their challenges and advise the next generation of entrepreneurs. Alexis Glick, from Fox News, will moderate the discussion. The event will be Webcast at www.unleashingideas.org/mentor....

For a complete list of activities, please visit www.UnleashingIdeas.org.

About Global Entrepreneurship Week
With the goal to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity, Global Entrepreneurship Week will encourage youth to think big, turn their ideas into reality, and make their mark. From Nov. 17-23, 2008, millions of young people around the world will join a growing movement to generate new ideas and seek better ways of doing things. Thousands of activities are being planned in more than 75 countries around the world. Global Entrepreneurship Week is: founded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Make Your Mark campaign; sponsored by NYSE Euronext, IBM and Ernst & Young; and, supported by JA Worldwide, Endeavor, Entrepreneurs’ Organization, DECA, YPO-WPO, National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, Young Americas Business Trust, YES - European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs, Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, AIESEC, Youth Employment Services, The Prince’s Youth Business International. To view a complete list of participating countries and organizations or to learn more, visit www.unleashingideas.org.

This just in from Friday's edition of the Boston Herald:

WELLESLEY, MA - Babson College plans to establish an institute for social entrepreneurship after receiving a $10.8 million gift, its second largest individual donation ever.

The school announced Friday that the gift from the Lewis Charitable Foundation will fund the Lewis Institute at Babson College. The institute will be charged with training leaders to use the skills and attitudes of an entrepreneur to tackle tough global issues, such as poverty and energy.

The institute will provide seed money for social ventures and host a "green collar venture competition" that supports environmentally sensitive projects.

Donor Alan Lewis, a travel company executive, said he’s proud to team with Babson to teach entrepreneurs to incorporate social responsibility into their future businesses.

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This may represent a new opportunity(ies) for Rhode Island institutions and entrepreneurs interested in social entrepreneurship (to partner with Lewis Institute).

How many of us have gone to conventions, conferences, panel discussions, forums, etc. only to observe that those presenting are not engaging, inspiring, motivational or even fun to listen to?

The sad part of that equation is that we may have been that crummy presenter at times. 

Whether that conference has cost you a lot to attend or was free, the thing they have in common is your time. The time you have given to be somewhere when you could have been somewhere else or doing something else that supports your bottom-line is hard to measure, but it's real.

Check out Guy Kawasaki's recent article in the October issue of Entrepreneur entitled, 11 Public Speaking Pointers: A successful speech should always end with a standing ovation--here's how to get yours.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/magazine/entrepreneur/2008/october/197100.html

His tips are excellent for any aspiring entrepreneur looking to make their next presentation no matter the setting.

Guy is co-founder of Alltop.com, a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, former chief evangelist for Apple and author of eight books--most recently, The Art of the Start.  

In addition to his "11 Points" I would add the following:

• Communicate with the audience before the event, if possible. Check with conference organizers to see if you could communicate directly with several of the participants who will be attending your presentation. It will never give you a full picture of who is in the audience, but will allow you to adjust your comments accordingly ahead of time particularly if certain themes come up again and again from individuals you have reached out to;
• Don't make the same mistake others make by using technology platforms like PowerPoint and Keynote, only to read off of your bullet points one by one. B-O-R-I-N-G! If you have never read Cliff Atkinson's, Beyond Bullets, don't worry; he has a great web site that gives you excellent tips for your future presentations (http://www.beyondbulletpoints....); 
• Be an efficient speaker. Find out how much time you have to give your presentation and finish 5-10 minutes ahead of schedule if at all possible. People, no matter the audience, will always appreciate the fact that you respect their busy schedules. This will also force you to be even more succinct in your presentation which is a good way to edit your presentation (and yourself). Plus, this may also give you more time to interact with audience in the form of a Q&A session;
• NEVER take on a speaking gig if you can't prepare for it properly. We all live busy lives, but that is never an excuse for taking on a presentation gig and thinking you can wing it, or that you are so good at preparing last minute presentations/speeches that people will love what you are feeding them. These delusions of grandeur and lack of preparation will show just about every time unless you are gifted in a way that 99.999% of us are not. Are you? Highly doubtful. Better to say no and protect your image and reputation than to say yes, and have them sullied. 

Now you have 15 tips. Get out there and knock 'em dead!

This just in from www.entrepreneur.com (from late last week)--

Entrepreneurs Ask McCain and Obama: What Will You do for Small Business? 

Entrepreneur.com Gets Business Owners the Answers

Starting September 5, entrepreneurs can find out straight from the source by submitting their questions on the homepage of http://www.entrepreneur.com.

Of the questions submitted, Entrepreneur.com editors will select the top inquiries relating to small business and go straight to the source to get the answers. Whether it's about tax matters, regulations or policies, business owners will know exactly where McCain and Obama stand. The candidates' responses will be posted on Entrepreneur.com beginning the week of September 17.   "The next president will have a big impact on small business, and yet nowhere can business owners get their questions answered by the candidates," says Amy Cosper, VP/editor in chief at Entrepreneur. "It's natural for us to be the source that offers this opportunity. Entrepreneur.com is all about answering business owners' questions. For well over a decade we've been at the forefront of what our visitors want to know -- whether it's about getting licenses, growing their companies, managing daily operations, or anything else."   To submit a question to the presidential candidates on the topic of small business, go to http://www.entrepreneur.com.

On a recent trip to the Bay Area I had the "pleasure" of having to take a roundtrip flight that had not one, not two, but three legs to the trip (each way). In those travels, I quickly became aware (and appreciative of those airports) that had free Wi-Fi connectivity for travelers; namely, Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport. It prompted me to do a little research and found this link that has a listing of free Wi-Fi ariports around the U.S. for RI-Nexus members to be aware of for future travels--

http://www.wififreespot.com/ai...

Hope this helps!