Check Your Calendar: It's Now Innovation Month in New England

June 1st: That could only mean the start of Innovation Month in New England.

Check out all the tweets on the topic... (and if you tweet or blog about Innovation Month, use the tag #neinno.)

Mass High Tech and Xconomy have also written stories.

And my Globe column yesterday also dealt with how we might leverage Innovation Month to defibrillate the economy. (That's a word, right?)

Here's the opening:

If you want to understand real economic pain - and how it is alleviated - you have to rewind the tape a little more than two centuries.

Most people remember that when George Washington and his Continental Army drove the British from Boston in 1776, it was one of the first victories of the Revolution. It was also the start of "the most significant depression in Boston's history," says Bob Krim, executive director of the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative. "Eighty-five percent of the population left," and because of the war, the merchants of the city could no longer trade with Britain or the West Indies. The foundation of the city's industry crumbled overnight.

But within a decade, Boston had discovered a new business opportunity - shipping otter skins from the Pacific Northwest to China and importing products like silk and tea - and figured out how to dominate it. "Trade with China had been barred by the British, and it was such a long trip, no one thought it would be worth it," Krim says. "But these merchants had some seed capital, and they took the incredible risk of figuring out what could be sold in China."

Creating new industries is what we've done in these parts to deal with economic disruptions for more than 200 years. From textile mills to nanotubes, mutual funds to medical devices, the people of New England know, deep in our DNA, how to come up with the new ideas, products, and businesses that make economic rebounds possible.

(Thanks to Metropolis Creative for the great logo... more available here.)

All About Stimulus Funding

My most recent Globe column was about how cleantech companies are chasing stimulus funding that's just starting to flow from DC. From that piece:

"Emerging technology companies in the energy space are landing in Washington like locusts," says Mitch Tyson, chief executive of Advanced Electron Beams, a Wilmington start-up that is just now hiring Holland & Knight LLP to handle its lobbying.

Hemant Taneja, a venture capitalist at Cambridge-based General Catalyst Partners, says that all of the energy-related companies in his portfolio are hiring government relations specialists and lobbyists: "This is a $10,000-a-month expense that could yield significant capital for our businesses, which are really capital-intensive."

Mass High Tech did a similar story recently, which was part of a much bigger package on stimulus funding. Lots of great advice and resources there...