Energy Policy Blog: Stephen Stoft's Venture Capital and Energy Innovation enlists aid from numerous sources to help explain how venture capitalists manage to stay alive in the ever-changingcleantech energy business, despite problems with funding, governmental or otherwise. Stoft quotes famous VC Vinod Khosla on the difference between Federal and private investment in the emerging electric car sector: "Taking risk with your own money, which venture capitalists do, is much better talked through than the risk that government will take. They [government officials] listen to pundits and pontificate without understanding the technology." Khosla surely knows that of which he speaks with millions invested in various green technologies and a track record of success to back up his thoughts. The principle problem with the government getting involved in any business venture is that it is not nimble, nor "hungry" enough to take the kind of risks and invest the amount of lifeblood necessary to truly bring about a revolutionary change in the way cars are fueled. Plus, the Feds are spending our money and there's not much pain associated with losing it for those that made poor choices!

dBusinessNews: The recent ruling on In re Bilski continues to astound and amaze experts from all corners and John Harris, a Partner in the intellectual property practice at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, and a patent attorney, is no exception. Patent Decision Means Tough Times for Many Tech Companies, Attorney Says takes us inside Harris' thought process on what the case means, or doesn't mean: "There’s an old saying that the best ideas are stolen,” says John Harris, a Partner in the intellectual property practice at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, and a patent attorney for over 28 years. “This ruling makes it easier for some good ideas to be stolen, because process patents will be harder to get. Unless companies that specialize in data processing technologies immediately examine and adjust their patents and patenting strategies, their competitors can start using their ideas." Harris also recommends companies review their intellectual property policies and existing patent portfolios for possible changes due to the Bilski ruling, "ASAP."

PEHub: Dave McClure, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and general geek about town in Silicon Valley is the subject of a quick interview by Connie Loizos wherein the constant reader learns about the latest Startup2Startup dinner in Palo Alto, California. An excerpt from the piece about a topic of conversation at Dave's dinner table at the meetup: "I think there was probably cautious optimism around Facebook at our table. The current trendy opinion is that the bloom is off the rose, but I personally can’t see how you can look at a 100 percent or greater annual growth and not think that’s a great thing, even if they’re upside down on infrastructure costs. Monetization is very good from what I understand and if they figure out better models in the future, they’ll be very, very profitable." For more, read the rest here.

OpenForum.com: Guy Kawasaki recently penned a piece on the benefits of literature in the medical practice, and by proxy, business practice that should give English majors a glimmer of hope for future returns on their liberal arts degree. Kawasaki gives one instance of the unexpected results of reading finely-crafted words: "For example, for over a year at Saint Barnabus Medical Center, a doctor named Richard S. Panush has been incorporating literary discussions into his internal medicine residents’ daily rounds. This includes a daily routine in which he and his colleagues discuss poetry, short stories, and essays with their residents in the context of their patients. As a result, they found significantly better scores on patient evaluations of residents and of quality of life." The residents also tended to touch the patients more, explain what was happening during the course of treatment, and generally acted more human after a dose of high-falutin' reading matter. Literature and Narrative Management also includes a book reference that provides deeper inquiry into this interesting development.

BusinessPundit.com: Ryan hits the proverbial nail on the head with his 10 Money Saving Tools For Small Businesspiece as entrepreneurs struggle to keep the balance books in the black by any means possible. Why not try some of these free ways to keep your startup going? Here's just one way you can use the power of the Internet to make things easier and cheaper: "Paying a technician for every little thing that goes wrong was the expensive but only way for small businesses that don’t have in-house tech support. Now you have an alternative: a brilliant site called Tech Support Guy. It’s filled with technology prodigies who are willing to offer their help for free. I’ve used Tech Guy’s assistance for so many different things - from office printer issues to my rebellious iPod. The answers you find in their forums are so professional it’s really hard to believe there’s no money involved." Check out the Tech Guy site for yourself here and start using "free" to your benefit.