J. Brian Anderson, Guest Blogger

J. Brian Anderson is an associate with the Innovate Indiana Fund.  The $10 million fund, managed by the IU Research and Technology Corporation, provides pre-seed and seed stage equity capital to support development and growth of IU-affiliated startup ventures in new technologies. 

After making my second trip to Austin, Texas for the annual South by SouthWest (SXSW) interactive business, music and film festival, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the deep representation of the Midwest at the conference.

No matter where I went, I was running into dozens of Midwesterners whether I was joining our friend Kristian Andersen founder of Indianapolis design firm KA+A at a Crawfish Boil, or randomly running into fellow Hoosiers now at iSocket in California, catching up with Cincinnati Brandery graduates Nick Tippmann (IU) of Nibletz and Michael Bergman of MyRepp or generally associating with well over 60+ Indiana representatives including Matt Hunckler of VERGE and Social Reactor, needless to say they were everywhere.

Keynote Stage SXSW13

The outside consensus was in, the Midwest is more than just well on its way to becoming a technology ‘hot spot,’ even Entrepreneur magazine knows about Indiana and our startup and business friendly environment.  Without prompt, even coastal residents recognized the tech and startup environment that the entire Hoosier community has worked hard to create in its backyard.  I believe this is due to the cascading effects of the ‘wins’ the state has experienced because of highly successful technology-enabled content and channel marketing companies like ExactTarget and Compendium, social platforms like Raidious and search engine ChaCha, as well as recently IPO’d First Internet Bank founded by entrepreneur David Becker.

(This list is entirely too long to do everyone who deserves to be mentioned justice… apologies)

Indy Invasion
Dozens of Hoosiers descend for a Friday dinner.

Back to SXSW — It’s tough to describe what the interactive portion of the event is really like, perhaps it’s like a frantic, caffeine fueled, 24/7 intellectual blitz of bright people and new ideas.  Imagine New Years Eve for technologists…  for 5 days straight.

What were the major themes at South by Southwest this year?

• Hardware: Google Glass & ‘The Talking Shoe’, $2500 consumer-grade 3D printing, Leap Motion visual hand recognition ‘mouse.’  All these amazing hardware/software combinations are officially upon us and this is only the beginning of Act 1

• Ambient/Location aware takes the next step: Services like ‘Google Now,’ Foursquare, and Highlight - make mobile productivity, discovery and finding new friends easier than ever – there is an absolute critical mass in this category even if there is still uncertainty about successful business models.

This years themes would not be reality without highly portable computing, deeply personalized data, a new hardware interface (or way to collect data) and a unique user interface, in fact without all these innovations there could be no innovation like Google Glass.  What good would the MakerBot 3D printer be without an open user community sharing ideas and designs as well as a moderately inexpensive piece of manufacturing hardware?  While web software has exploded over the last 20 years, to push beyond the traditional laptop, new interfaces and hardware are being employed in brand new environments.  It’s the combination of disparate technologies at the edge of interaction that creates unexpected and often disruptive value.  Easier said than done, no question.

30,621 for SXSW interactive up 25% since 2012

As important as hyper-focus is to developing deep expertise, SXSW really showed that tech leaders are great because through experimentation and collaboration they are able to invent new category-defining technology.  Only together can we allow our individual arithmetic knowledge to achieve geometric power and audience where we meet our environment.

Read the full BTOWN Banter story here

And like a year ago, a considerable list of things could adversely upset their expectations, chief among them and most immediate, the “fiscal cliff,” a potential economic growth-killing combination of higher taxes and government spending cuts.

Other ongoing concerns include Europe’s lack of progress in dealing with its sovereign debt problems and China’s transitioning to a slower growth path. The Business Outlook Panel sees these problems as chronic.

The panel expects the national economy overall will expand by about 2.5 percentnext year — if the economy does not go over the fiscal cliff. This will bebetter than the 1.7 percent so far this year, because of somewhat better household spending, improvements in the housing market and less drag from the government sector, but not enough to make much of a dent in unemployment.

They forecast modest employment growth, with the national economy generating about 2 million new jobs. The unemployment rate will remain above 7 percent. Inflation will remain close to 2 percent.

In Indiana, the employment story has been somewhat better than expected. Jerry Conover,director of the Indiana Business Research Center, said the state’s economicrecovery made notable progress in 2012.

“From the peak just before the recession to the trough, Indiana payrolls shrank by 200,000 jobs. Since then, they’ve grown slowly but steadily by 150,000. So far this year, payroll employment is averaging more than 52,000 above last year’s levels, and the growth is accelerating,” Conover said. “This growth rate is comparable to the heady days of the late 1990s.

“This is a more appealing picture than we painted last year for Indiana, and for the year ahead our forecast calls for sustained growth — payroll job growth ofmore than 50,000 jobs in 2013,” he added. “At this rate, we’re still about two years away from our pre-recession employment level.”

Real personal incomes in Indiana will rise a bit less than 2 percent in 2013, with per capita incomes growing by about $1,500. The state’s overall economic output will grow by about 2.3 percent, comparable to the national rate.

Read the full story here

Indiana University is proud to join the sponsor lineup for Powder Keg which includes, among others,  ExactTarget, DevelopIndy, and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC).  Collaborating under the Innovate Indiana banner, IU’s sponsoring groups include: The IU Research and Technology Corporation, the Office of the Vice President for Engagement, the Kelley School of Business, IU University Information Technology Services, and the School of Informatics and Computing.

Powder Keg will feature more than a dozen inspiring keynote speakers and presenters as well as the nation’s most innovative new companies in a “startup bowl” competition.  The dynamic format, venues, and interactions of the conference promise to showcase Indianapolis’ continuing emergence as a vibrant hub for technology collaboration and startup activity.

A limited amount of tickets for Powder Keg remain available and are going fast.  Get $50 off with promo code: SPONSORPRO

Leading Index for Indiana, September 2011 to September 2012

The Leading Index for Indiana (LII), defying the generally poor economic news, edged up slightly in September, moving from 99.5 in August to 99.7 this month.

The LII, developed by the Indiana Business Research Center, is designed to reflect the unique structure of the Indiana economy. It is a predictive tool that signals changes in the direction of the economy several months before the economy has changed. In contrast to economic forecasts, which use sophisticated statistical models to foretell particular levels for a wide variety of economic activities and outcomes in the future, a leading index is a simple construct that indicates a general direction of future economic activity expected in the next five to six months.

The LII in September tells much the same story as in previous months: inconsistent economic signals, an economy that has lost any mojo from earlier in the year, but an economy that does not yet appear to be on the precipice of a double-dip recession.

The Center for Econometric Model Research forecasts that, without the fiscal cliff, economic growth for 2013 would be about 2.3 percent, but if the economy is driven off the fiscal cliff, the economy is expected to shrink by about 0.5percent in the first two quarters of 2013.

Drivers of change

The expectations of home builders gave the LII another boost this month with the National Association of Home Builders’ Housing Market Index increasing 3 points,from 37 in August to 40 in September. Unlike last month, however, the gainswere shared across all four regions, with the Midwest increasing from 41 inAugust to 45 in September. The 3-point rise in the HMI was sufficient to give the LII lift.

The Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index moved into the “economic contraction” zone in July and fell further in September to 49.6, putting downward pressure on the LII. A PMI reading of below 50 signals contracting economic activity in the manufacturing sector.

The transportation and logistics component of the index — the Dow Jones Transportation Average – deflated slightly more in August, retreating another 1.6 percent and putting downward pressure on the LII. The August “waste economic index” measure for rail traffic that tracks well with current economic output — not future economic output like the LII — was 15 percent lower compared to last year, an indication that third-quarter GDP will likely show an economy that has lost steam.

Read the full article here

IU Army ROTC

In addition to providing top notch academic instruction to soldiers and airmen, Indiana University supports the Indiana National Guard through research and service. The goal is to assure Camp Atterbury and the Muscatatuck Center continue to be vital to our national security while supporting the Indiana economy. Go Hoosiers and Guardsmen!

Read the full article about IU’s new study revealing that Indiana military installations boost state and local economy.

Each project is broken down into a problem, solution, results, and future considerations for the attendees to vote upon. The problem presented by IU Kokomo’s Regional Transformation Initiative case study is centered around a shift from an economy of traditional industrial manufacturing, based on natural resources and labor, to an economy of knowledge, driven by innovation and entrepreneurship; further complicated by intense global competitiveness and uncertainty.

Read the full case study here

Employment in Indiana’s social assistance industry grew almost every year from 1995 to 2009, even during recessions in the early 2000s and the Great Recession that began in 2007. This growth, however, can be attributed more to growth in the for-profit sector than to increases in nonprofit employment.

“Indiana Nonprofit Employment: Historical Trends in Social Assistance, 1995-2009″ is a joint project of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the Indiana Business Research Center at IU’s Kelley School of Business, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies.

The data show that nonprofit employment in social assistance grew by about 44 percent over the 1995-2009 period, and for most of the period, nonprofits accounted for about 70 percent of total industry employment. However, beginning in 2004, nonprofit employment growth stopped and the nonprofit share of total industry employment decreased to 62 percent by 2009.

Changes in nonprofit social assistance employment by county, 1995‐2009

By contrast, for-profit employment grew every year, especially after 2006, and more than doubled over the 1995-2009 period. By 2009, for-profit establishments accounted for 38 percent of private-sector employees and 33 percent of private-sector payroll in social assistance. Government agencies accounted for less than 1 percent of direct social assistance employment.

Overall, this research confirms the important role of the nonprofit sector in providing social services for the well-being of residents of Indiana. Social assistance employment accounted for about 11 percent of all nonprofit employment statewide from 1995 to 2009 and was the second-fastest-growing major nonprofit industry, after health care services. However, the increasing competition from the for-profit sector may require nonprofits to adapt to meet new challenges.

Read the news release

A short summary and the complete report are both available online.

Christopher Soghoian

Congratulations to Indiana University’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research fellow Christopher Soghoian for being recognized by MIT’s Technology Review as a 2012 TR35 Honoree!

The designation recognizes the world’s top young innovators under the age of 35, spanning biotechnology, computer and electronics hardware and software, energy, the Internet and nanotechnology, among other fields.

Soghoian, a privacy researcher and activist, earned his Ph.D. from IU this summer. His multi-disciplinary research is focused on the role that third-party Internet and telecommunications service providers play in assisting law enforcement surveillance of their customers. His research has been published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal and cited by several federal courts.

Previous TR35 honorees have included notable innovators like Google co-founder Larry Page and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning.

Soghoian is well-known among academia, his colleagues and the media for his dedication to consumer privacy, especially as it relates to surveillance. In a profile published last fall, Soghoian was described by Wired magazine as the “Ralph Nader of the Internet.” From 2009 to 2010, he served as the first in-house technologist at the Federal Trade Commission’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection. There he assisted with investigations of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Netflix.

Before joining the FTC, Soghoian co-created, along with IU alumnus Sid Stamm, the Do Not Track anti-tracking mechanism now adopted by all of the major Web browsers.

Read the full article here