Generational splits are nothing new; throughout time those under X have clashed with those over X.

While the typical under/over split is alive and well, there is a new dimension in the world of technology and it’s clearly on view in Silicon Valley.

In pursuing the latest and the coolest, young engineers ignore opportunities in less-sexy areas of tech like semiconductors, data storage and networking, the products that form the foundation on which all of Web 2.0 rests.

This is far more serious than differences in fashion and music; this split has serious implications for the economic future of our country. (Read the article; it’s important)

Building the latest, greatest app might make the creator rich, but even a few Google’s and Facebook’s aren’t going to do much to rebuild the middle class.

Doing that takes thousands of jobs at a multitude of skills and levels

The kind of jobs created by breakthrough technologies that create entire new industries as did semiconductors.

But that kind of innovation requires focus and time—not just a few months to a fast cash out and bragging rights.

So what’s the answer?

Somehow we need to find a way to make that kind of work cool.

Flickr image credit: opensourceway

I read about a lot of startups, but the ones that really resonate with me are the ones that are doing more than creating a business.

I can’t write them all up, so I though I’d give you the links to a few favorites along with my reasons.

For Israel and Palestine, entrepreneurial passion may do what so-called diplomacy has failed to do.

Even by Middle East standards, the scene in a Dead Sea restaurant, situated within a “green zone”–a no-man’s-land claimed by neither Israelis nor Palestinians–was surreal.

What do you get when you combine an Israeli Special Forces commando, an Arab investor and a religious Zionist? An ultra hot startup called Webydo.

Webydo has removed software code developers and programmers from the picture – enabling professional graphic designers to create sites on the fly for ten times cheaper, and far faster.

I am a dedicated recycler, so you can imagine my feelings when my grocer stopped taking plastic bags for recycling. When I asked why he said that China wasn’t accepting them for recycling, so there was no place to send them. Terrific! We use all that energy to send them to China, so they can ship back whatever they made from them.

I much prefer a solution being developed by Sierra Energy called the FastOx Pathfinder.

The centerpiece, a waste gasifier that’s about the size of a shower stall, is essentially a modified blast furnace. A chemical reaction inside the gasifier heats any kind of trash — whether banana peels, used syringes, old iPods, even raw sewage — to extreme temperatures without combustion. The output includes hydrogen and carbon monoxide, … can be burned to generate electricity or made into ethanol or diesel fuel.

As you can see, the apps that entrepreneurs and investors seem to love aren’t on my interest list; they mostly solve the imagined problems of “affluent and hyper-connected 20-somethings in cities with great cell service and ample Wi-Fi” who prefer impersonal sex-without-strings, bargains and inane pastimes.

But there’s finally an app a parent can truly love—especially when separated from their children in a war-torn country—from an entrepreneur who had the sense to avoid the bleeding edge.

According to UNICEF,  RapidFTR’s ability to photograph, record and share information about lost children has reduced the time it takes to reunite families from over six weeks to just hours. The app was not particularly complicated, from a technical standpoint, but Mr. Just wanted to make sure it was something aid organizations would actually adopt.

Personal annoyance, in this case with charging wires, has always been an innovation driver, but stubbornness and a silo-breaking mentality also help. And even after all that, Meredith Perry still had a difficult time getting uBeam funded—well, of course SHE did.

Her idea, she discovered, meant marrying the fields of sound, electricity, battery technology and other subspecialties. (…)  Each expert seemed to dwell in his own private silo, so that whenever she crossed from one discipline to another, she would run into the same wall of constricted thinking.

Finally, on a lighter note, another woman is out to abolish the need for the underwire that provides all that lift that women tolerate and men crave.

In this case, 3-D has nothing to do with 3-D fabric printing, but rather with the way the Curvessence technology used in the brand’s lingerie works. Cohen says the nylon polymers sculpt to conform to a woman’s torso, and “remembers” its shape over time, slowly returning to its original form if it is temporarily stretched, for instance.

Flickr image credit: Seth Waite

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Do you recommend sharing entrepreneurial skills and experience with others?

Are you willing to put you’re money and time where your mouth is?

Creativity, innovation, focus and execution are as much key factors in crimes as diverse as financial scams and drug dealing as they are in entrepreneurism.

Defy Ventures is the name of a non-profit in New York.

Defy (v.): To challenge or dare a person to do something deemed impossible.

Defy Ventures shows felons how to pivot and put their entrepreneurial skills to work legitimately.

Today, whether you are an entrepreneur or investor, I defy you to start a similar effort wherever you live.

And if you choose to accept the challenge, please let me know and share your experiences here.

Option Sanity™ defies conventional ISO allocation.

Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock allocation system.  It’s so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.”
Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist

A lot of stuff circulates on the internet and by email and I normally don’t use anything I’m pretty sure is copyrighted, but being as weak as the next guy I’ve occasionally given in to the urge—as I have today.

This is great innovation and a terrific solution to the bane of most people’s existence, but considering it’s 2012 there should be an app for that!

Here’s all you need to apply it.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: SharonaGott on flickr

How much longer do you think it will take corporate Earth to get off their terrified, or comfortable, collective asses and embrace a real, live, authentic, proven solution to most of their problems?

Jaideep C Prabhu, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise at Judge Business School, Cambridge University, and innovation fellow at the Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) Research, is the latest to write passionately about the need for a culture of innovation.

“But businesses bold enough to develop a forward-looking, risk-taking corporate culture and brave enough to cannibalise existing successful products, in order to commercialise radically new ones, are more likely to dominate world markets and increase the competitiveness of their national economies.”

Bold and forward-looking, aren’t those the traits that every over-paid CEO on the planet claims to be their expertise along with how they will ‘lead’ their company into a bright new world…blah, blah, blah.

Are you as tired of hearing them as I am? They talk and talk…and talk.

Or they’re replaced by an impatient Board running from Wall Street’s demand for short-term profits.

Prabhu, along with a host of other experts, says his research shows that “Innovative companies appear to have a similar corporate culture, wherever they may be located in the world.”

“We have identified three specific attitudes and three practices within innovative firms that make them special and drive radical innovation. These are

• risk tolerance,
  
• a willingness to cannibalise existing products,
  
• future market orientation,
  
• empowering product champions,
  
• fostering internal competition and
  
• providing incentives for enterprise.”

Attention Wall Street, this stuff is not implemented overnight—or in a quarter.

Whoa. Do you think it’s possible that the silver lining in the current mess that was started and facilitated by Wall Street denizens might be a return to long(er) term thinking?

That CEOs will get canned for embracing quarterly numbers a la Jack Welch in place of radical innovation.

That investors will actually take Warren Buffet’s philosophy to heart and quit putting their faith in hedge funds, day trading and fast profits?

Whee, wanna share the stuff I found?

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: flickr