Newsmaker: Generation Y are hitting the workplace (CNET News.com)

They are young, talented and immersed in technology!

Generation Y are now hitting the workplace mixing in with Generation X, Baby Boomers and even a few of the World War II generation. Gen Y are kids born from 1980 - a digital elite, continuously checking their MySpace and Facebook accounts, wearing flip-flops to work and listening to their iPod while working.

Those techie savvy youngsters want to take the fast-track thinking they’ve already accomplished a lot, and that the company which hires them should be happy to have them. But they’re at the same time hard-working and willing to learn if they’re empowered, engaged in and given responsibility. They have the future in their hands and will be the ones molding innovations and changing the companies and the society.

They’re said to take for granted the attention and feedback they think they’re worth. Entitlement seems to be a keyword. Words on F – freedom, flexibility and free time, seem to be needs.

I interviewed psychology professor Larry D. Rosen at California State University, Dominguez Hills who has been studying this group. While Rosen has studied the impact of technology on people for 20 years, he specializes in the effects of technology on kids and parents.

Read my newsmaker here, which was on CNET News.com's front door a few weeks ago.

New cleantech buzzword

Ethonl is already in our tanks as we drive to work. The next biofuel might be butanol (today used as a solvent in the chimcal industry). A new startup is working on new bugs to take on the job to convert sugars to butanol with money from Branson's Virgin Fuels.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22917&hed=Virgin%e2%80%99s+Branson+Likes+Biofuels

Dealing with Nanosafety

Little is known on what happens when some materials engineered on a nanoscale enter our bodies or escapes into the environment. Berkley is the first city in the word to require from companies that produce nano-sized particles to report to the city council. Chemical giant DuPont joins an environmental group to issue guidelines for nanosafety.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22692&hed=DuPont+Addresses+Nano-Safety

Cleantech bubble?

Cleantech is here to stay investors claim and vc-money is still flooding into the sector. Here are some recent examples of companies that attracted the investors:

Silicon
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22834&hed=Startup+Gets+%246M+to+Do+the+Dirty

Biofuels
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22765&hed=VC+Puts+Double+Bet+on+Biofuels

Solar
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22705&hed=Funding+Dawns+for+Solar+Firm

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22649&hed=Advent+Solar+Secures+%2470M

Big companies are also interested
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22411&hed=GE+to+Double+Cleantech+Investments

Patent office goes 2.0

A working patent system is essential for the Innovation ecosystem. With tools borrowed from social networking, some tech giants want to fix the bugs.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22581&hed=Social+Networking+for+Patents

Green data centers

With more video and tv on the net, it-companies are running into a global warming problem. The increasing numbers of servers, switches and routers, that are handling all the data-packages at ever increasing speeds at data centers eats up as much as two percent of the total US energy. When IBM launched a plan to spend $1 billion a year on “green” data centers, they used the word “energy crisis”. In this story I talked to startups that deal with this problem.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22320&hed=Startups+Aim+for+Green+Data+Center#

Creating web apps at iPhone camp (CNET News.com)

Innovation at its highest level -- The iPhone Developer Camp this weekend was all about innovation and processes to get there. About 300 Web developers, testers, designers and people with or without an iPhone gathered in San Francisco to hack into Safari and create new apps for the iPhone. The outcome of the weekend was more than 50 new applications.

I went there Saturday and Sunday and talked to techie people about software, coding and hacking. Read my article here!

I also took pictures that were published in a photo gallery (look at it here) in CNET's front door.

People against Dirty

So I've started doing a series of video podcasts at PodTech on Green Design, i e where sustainability and design converge. In a way design is very much an innovation-process. And - for most of the time - design is visual too. In this first story - about San Francisco-based company Method who makes biodegradable cleaning products, soaps and detergents that come in beautiful and funky bottles (created by award-winning industrial designer Karim Rashid) - I tried to touch upon the innovation eco-system by talking about the product, the creative process behind it and what it was like to enter it into the market when it came to funding and policies. I know it could have been more analytical but it is a start..

Analysis and assimilations

After about 60 analysis and/or assimilations on the Silicon Valley-world of tech, business and media we decided that I should move on to do more online video producing. But all the texts I wrote are on PodTech's blog - view them here. Thanks to PodTech's CEO John Furrier for coaching me on to this assignment that turned out to be both fun and interesting.

The wild mind of the Entrepreneur

Some time ago I did a video podcast with Swedish career coach Max Samuels, when he passed through California. We spoke about the wild mind of the entrepreneur and the importance of having a vision when you create something new.

See it here:


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