What Innovation Economy is All About

Welcome, fellow Bloggers! (And thanks to Google for including this as a blog of note for July.)

Innovation Economy covers the entrepreneurial ecosystem here in New England... it's the companion blog to a weekly Boston Globe column that I write, also called Innovation Economy. There's also a video series that goes along with the column.

Some posts that might interest you:

- Getting to know Craigslist founder Craig Newmark

- How can Massachusetts do a better job of holding onto all the smart kids who come here to get an education?

- My take on the fifty coolest companies to work for in the Boston area

- A Polaroid spin-off is making a nifty new kind of photo printer that'll fit in your pocket, and doesn't need ink cartridges

- Are you familiar with Zipcar and the concept of car-sharing?

- Some warehouses, like those that serve Walgreens, Staples, and Zappos.com, now employ an army of robotic workers

- Would you pay $600 for a baby stroller? Lots of people, including some celebs, are...

- Meet the founders of Chestnut Hill Sound, a company that makes the popular 'George' iPod dock.

- Debating the impact on non-compete agreements on the Massachusetts economy

If this kind of stuff interests you, there are a few ways to subscribe to Innovation Economy via e-mail or RSS, up in the upper right corner of this page.

I also run another blog that focuses on how new technologies are changing the entertainment industry... that one's called CinemaTech, and it's also hosted on Blogger.

Back in 02140

I moved back last weekend from San Francisco to Cambridge after a two-year sojourn. (I still expect to be making about a half-dozen trips a year to California, and blogging about the convergence of technology and the entertainment industry at CinemaTech.)

But I'm switching gears at the Globe once again, starting a new column this Sunday called "Innovation Economy," which will focus on start-ups, venture capitalists, research labs, inventors, and big companies here in New England.

It's a patch of ground that I haven't been roaming much since my @large column ended in November 2005...but one that I've really loved exploring in the past. Some ancient history:

From 1995 to 1997, I was part of the founding team of Boston.com. At Boston.com, we also worked with the first generation of Internet companies in Boston (a few I remember were net.Genesis, Net Daemons Associates, Firefly Networks, and VirtuFlex.) Occasionally, I contributed to a Globe column called Boston.comment that ran Thursdays on what was then called the "Plugged In" page. (Frank Hertz and Chuck Chow were my co-conspirators who, luckily, knew how to write.)

In 1997, I started covering New England-related stories for Wired Magazine and Wired News. (Here's one of my first pieces for Wired, about Forrester Research, and a piece of similar vintage from Wired News, about Cambridge's annual IgNobel Prize ceremony.)

In 1998 and 1999, I started a monthly column called "Tech Talk" for Boston Magazine and wrote a series of features for the monthly about local Internet celebs like CMGI chairman David Wetherell. (That job was where I met my wife, Amy -- who just this week began working at Boston Magazine once again.)

From 2000 to 2005, I wrote the weekly @large column on Mondays, which covered tech, biotech, medical devices, and venture capital throughout New England. We also ran a series of panel discussions at the Globe's auditorium called ".COMversations," which were excerpted in the Globe. (Here are the first and last columns in that string.)

My goals for the Innovation Economy column are to tell the most interesting and important stories about what's new in New England -- and to provide some added context here.

I'm eager to hear about the stories *you* think ought to be told. (My e-mail is scott - at - innoeco.com.) My bias, as always, is toward stories that haven't already been told elsewhere.