Angel investors and venture capitalists spend a lot of their time beating the bushes for that next great tech genius and entrepreneur who is destined to change the world. This seems like a pretty good place to get some super-early scouting done: the Washington Technology Industry Association’s award for Technology Leader of Tomorrow.

As a part of the WTIA Industry Achievement Awards, the public actually gets to vote on which one of the student finalists will win a scholarship. This year, the competition focused on building a little Web-based video game—you can play all three of the entries and vote for your favorite at the WTIA’s site.

You’ll need to be at a keyboard to test them out, using the arrow keys to navigate the little characters around. The objective in each is to collect points by running into the icons you do want, while avoiding the enemies who will sap your score.

The finalists are Pablo’s Underwater Adventure by Amanze Oleru and Joanna Wong; The Skateboard King by Biruk Araya and Tyler Lam; and Get Rich by Gizan Gando, who actually won last year’s competition.

Here’s the list of finalists for the boring old adult side of the competition—that voting is done by judges, and the awards will be given out March 15 at what is usually one of the biggest events of the year for the regional tech scene.

Best Early Stage Company:
- Appature
- BigDoor
- GreenCupboards

Best Seed Stage Company:
- Simply Measured
- Spiral Genetics
- Zipline Games

Consumer Product or Service of the Year:
- DocuSign
- Parallels
- Zillow

Commercial Product or Service of the Year:
- EagleView Technologies
- SEOMoz
- Skytap

Service Provider of the Year:
- Founder’s Co-Op
- Lighter Capital
- Opscode

CEO of the Year:
- Ben Huh, Cheezburger
- Steve Singh, Concur
- Bryan Mistele, INRIX

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It’s been said plenty of times: If the U.S. wants to get out of this seemingly neverending economic malaise, we’ll have to innovate our way out.

It’s a good idea, and a great slogan. But actually making it happen is not so easy.

Sean MacLeod, president of Seattle’s Stratos Product Development, sees this kind of conundrum up close. Stratos is a design and engineering shop that other businesses turn to when they need help making a new product come to life, which means that it tends to fly under the broader public’s radar.

But its industrial designers and engineers know a thing or two about putting technology to work in new ways. Notable projects over the years have included the Xbox wireless video game controller and the Apple PowerBook 3400 laptop, plus a wide range of medical devices, sensors, and other gadgets.

Sean MacLeod

“A large number of our clientele are looking at the creative or the innovative process, and it’s very messy,” MacLeod says. “It’s a big pile of spaghetti, and they just don’t know how to pull it apart and organize it in a constructive manner. And what we’ve done here is create a process for dealing with that uncertainty. And it’s a really difficult thing to get your mind around.”

Ken Myer

What it takes is having the right group of people, culture, and systems in place to foster new approaches and ideas. I sat down with MacLeod and former WTIA president Ken Myer a while back to talk about the difficulty of innovation for businesses, and came away with these three big ideas.

HEY, BIG SPENDER
Throwing money at a project is no guarantee that you’ll get something new and valuable. But MacLeod says that’s too often the reflex of executives, probably more pronounced in a period when companies have been piling up cash.

“You get this: ‘We’re going to spend this amount of money in this quarter and we want results, and these results need to have clear and identifiable return on investment.’ And those are not the metrics,” MacLeod says. “The whole process is messy.”

“The attributes of an environment that is highly innovative tend to be almost the exact opposite of what a larger company tends to strive to do,” Myer says. “Because they’re looking for zero defects and scalability and predictability and not a lot of deviation from the norm.”

CAN WE PLUG THIS IN?
“Another thing I see is, ‘OK—we’re going to innovate. Let’s go borrow the innovation process from company XYZ and just plop it into our company, and it should work.’ And the reality is that because every company’s different, how they’re innovating and how that’s put together is different for every single company,” MacLeod says. Otherwise, everyone would just copy what Steve Jobs did, and we’d have hundreds of little Apple clones littering the ground, rather than the opposite.

“Or, you can buy it. There are lots of choices,” Myer says—an attractive alternative for smaller companies, particularly in a time when the IPO market has been an unreliable way for them to reward shareholders and employees.

CULTURE IS KING
The first key to having an experimental, innovative group of people is making it OK for projects to fail. The fear of that is typically what paralyzes organizations and makes it so hard for big companies to actually innovate.

Beyond that, companies need to foster a culture of connection and collaboration that will allow smart people to bounce ideas and approaches off each other, Myer says.

“There’s an expression, that chance favors the connected mind. And I think that’s a good summary of the value of connections,” he says. “Because the ability to see these possibilities often comes in very unrelated spaces.”

That need to connect also goes beyond the walls of any one business, MacLeod says.

“The reality is, to innovate, you are not going to have all of the core competencies within a single organization to truly make all those big, innovative leaps,” MacLeod says. “You either have to partner or you have to acquire. You have to be humble enough to know that you don’t know what you don’t know.”

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The region that pioneered national wireless networks is at a turning point.

Carriers are heading toward more consolidation, piling up tons of user data, and scrambling to build their next-generation networks. Microsoft is battling to be the vital third competitor in mobile operating systems, while Amazon stakes out its own device and cloud services ecosystem to seize greater control of emerging consumer channels.

Woven between these major players are the innovative entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors trying to outmaneuver the Valley and build a rich seedbed for mobile software startups here in the Northwest.

There’s a lot on the line. And that means there will be plenty to talk about Dec. 6, at Xconomy’s latest big event we’re announcing: Mobile Madness Northwest, a half-day forum featuring a fantastic lineup of leading innovators who are tackling these next-wave challenges.

And we’re not alone in bringing you this afternoon of great discussion and networking: Xconomy is joining forces with the Washington Technology Industry Association for this event, adding even more top-notch speakers to the agenda. The event is being hosted by F5 Networks, at the company’s headquarters right on Elliott Bay.

Grab your tickets now to get the best rate. Here’s the lineup of confirmed speakers so far:

Tom Alberg, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group
Tom Huseby, Venture Partner, Voyager Capital
Wesley Chan, Partner, Google Ventures
Bernie Yee, Platform Producer, Bungie Aerospace
Giordano Contestabile, Senior Director of Mobile Product and Business Strategy, PopCap Games
David Bluhm, CEO, Z2Live
Geoff Entress, Venture Partner, Voyager Capital
Bill Bryant, Venture Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Mike McSherry, CEO, Swype
Brian Fling, Founder and Creative Director, pinch/zoom
Chris DeVore, General Partner, Founder’s Co-op
T.A. McCann, Vice President, RIM (Gist)
Ted Morgan, CEO, Skyhook Wireless

We’ll have some more surprise names to add to the list as we get a little closer to the date, and some previews of the topics we plan on tackling. There will also be some demos from startups innovating in the mobile sector, and plenty of time for networking. But mark your calendars and get your tickets now for the best rate. We’ll see you Dec. 6.

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—Swype, one of the most talked-about startups in the Seattle area, made good on all the attention it’s earned by selling to mobile-software leader Nuance (NASDAQ: NUAN) for $102.5 million. Nuance has been gobbling up lots of technology and talent in the past few years, including Tegic Communications, the former home of Swype’s Cliff Kushler.

—The death of Apple co-founder and chairman Steve Jobs was felt far and wide in the tech industry, including here in Seattle. Among the immediate reactions and remembrances from our Xconomist network were pieces from Ed Lazowska and Jeremy Jaech—the latter of which was penned on vacation in Europe, on an iPad of course.

—We also took a more critical look at Jobs’ legacy, pointing out some of the less-than-glowing aspects of the legendary leader’s record. It helps put Jobs in perspective as a person—just as complicated, prickly, and enigmatic as he was visionary and talented.

—Sprint (NYSE S) rolled out its plans for a future fourth-generation network, and Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) was conspicuously absent—a development that sent the Kirkland, WA-based broadband provider’s stock plummeting. It’s increasingly clear that Sprint wants Clearwire to make its own way, and even though it owns a majority stake in the company, the carrier doesn’t seem ready to take a leading role in financing Clearwire’s changeover to newer long-term evolution technology.

—Intellectual Ventures continued its relatively new strategy of heading to court to assert its patent portfolio, hauling Motorola Mobility in front of a federal judge in an infringement lawsuit. That’s despite the fact that Motorola is in the process of being acquired by Google, which is an investor/licensee through one of Intellectual Ventures’ subsidiary funds.

—Varolii detailed a new partnership with Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) that brought the budget carrier’s last-minute scheduling system into the 21st century: Rather than phone trees or website logins, pilots can now be notified of open flights and even book the extra work via text messages. That’s a bit more complicated than it sounds, since Varolii had to make sure it was properly navigating the sensitive territory of union seniority rights.

—Seattle social media firm Spring Creek Group was acquired by media and PR behemoth Interpublic Group. Spring Creek is relatively small, with an estimated $4.3 million in revenues in 2010, but the company made the Inc. 500 this year.

—We cross-posted this piece from Eric Koester of Zaarly, who sketched out what he thinks are the similarities between hackers and lawyers (Koester’s an attorney by training). Of course, some coders took exception with the comparison.

—Kabir Shahani of Appature will be representing Seattle at 6X6, a event that highlights Xconomy‘s national network of innovation coverage by bringing together sharp people from each of the cities we cover.

—Finally, yours truly was asked (for some reason) by the good folks at the Washington Technology Industry Association to lay out some thoughts and observations on the local tech industry as part of the group’s video series leading up to today’s TechNW event at the waterfront. Please ignore the weird pose on the screen grab, which is sadly indicative of all the times my eyes look a little crazy as I tried to think of what to say. And be sure to check out all the other great video interviews they put together.

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It lives! Now that Xconomy Seattle has a full-time tech writer again (yours truly), we’re bringing back a weekly roundup to help our far-too-busy readers catch up with what’s been on our minds and percolating in the Seattle-area scene lately.

Highlights from the past week or so:

—Tippr, the Seattle-based group-deals site that emphasizes its intellectual property portfolio, made news for a pair of lawsuits it has going against competitors. A federal patent-infringement claim against both DealOn and BuyWithMe garnered focus, but there was more cloak-and-dagger in the state-court lawsuit against BuyWithMe and a former employee.

In a nutshell, Tippr’s parent company claims BuyWithMe’s founder solicited a bunch of proprietary information from a now-departed Tippr salesman who was job-hunting. A King County Superior Court judge agreed there was enough evidence on hand this month to issue an injunction against BuyWithMe to secure the information at issue. BuyWithMe answered by demanding a jury trial.

—Xconomy San Francisco’s Wade Roush weighed in with the second installment of his Seven Questions about the future of mobile. It’s a good read that gets you thinking, and is a great preview for our big Mobile Madness event next Wednesday at Microsoft’s NERD center in Cambridge, MA. Seattle-area folks from Clearwire, Swype and Ground Truth are participating in the program—keep an eye out for some interesting reports from what everyone there has to say.

— I unloaded some lingering government knowledge from my previous job at The Associated Press in a story that dissected how President Obama’s threatened ban on earmarked spending in the federal budget could affect innovation in Washington state. I was frankly impressed by the tons of cool-sounding projects and programs that were on the list of earmark requests for this fiscal year, but I had to narrow it down to 25 big items just to make it all fit.

—On the fun side, the Washington Technology Industry Association braved another threatened snowstorm to put on its annual Industry Achievement Awards. It was well-attended and a bunch of fun, even though I spent too much time hunched over my laptop. DocuSign and Isilon split Commercial Product or Service of the Year, and Swype nabbed Consumer Product or Service.

—A pair of companies with strong Seattle DNA were among the many making noise at the DEMO conference this week. Pioneer Square-headquartered PhotoRocket, helmed by Amazon and aQuantive alum Scott Lipsky, wants to be the indispensible utility for pushing photos to websites or e-mail contacts. San Francisco-based SocialEyes, with leadership from a pair of former RealNetworks Robs, is aiming for a higher-quality video chat service by blending it with the social graph on Facebook.

—On the cleantech side of things, we dropped by a Washington Clean Technology Alliance briefing with three companies focused on water: Hydrovolts, WaterTectonics, and Halosource. It was kind of a small-medium-large arrangement: Hydrovolts is a kinetic hydropower startup that’s still testing its technology and looking for big buyers, WaterTectonics is an established commercial water-cleaning company making moves in the oil sector, and Halosource is coming off last fall’s $80 million IPO

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Hundreds of techies braved Seattle’s latest snowpocalypse for one of the community’s biggest shindigs: The Washington Technology Industry Association‘s Industry Achievement Awards.

If there was a theme to Thursday’s speeches, I’d say it was a rousing round of yay-Seattle encouragement for other entrepreneurs to start their companies here—which I guess is kind of the point, but it felt totally genuine.

The whole thing was emceed by Luke Burbank of the Too Beautiful To Live podcast.

Here’s the list of winners:

• Commercial Product or Service of the Year: Judges delivered a tie between DocuSign and Isilon Systems. They beat out third finalist thePlatform.

DocuSign has several e-signature products for business and individual customers, specifically DocuSign for Salesforce, DocuSign Enterprise, and DocuSign Realtor Edition. The company made news in December by raising $27 million in a Series C round.

Data-storage company Isilon (NASDAQ: ISLN) was acquired last year for $2.25 billion in cash by Hopkinton, MA-based data storage giant EMC (NYSE: EMC). Just last month, Isilon announced it was moving to Pioneer Square.

• Consumer Product or Service of the Year: Swype, a maker of text-input software for touch screens, which has inked plenty of deals with … Next Page »

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Last week marked my three-month anniversary here at Xconomy, and as I reflected on my time here so far (which just happens to coincide almost perfectly with the third quarter), I realized there have been so many interesting stories—and important ones at that—that even I have forgotten about. It’s hard to keep up with news, especially in the technology circuit, where the headlines move almost as fast as the latest technology trends and fads. Yet these stories don’t stop being relevant just because they’re yesterday’s news.

With that in mind, Luke and I decided to put together a list of top stories from the last quarter to help readers, and ourselves, stay abreast of interesting deals, trends, new technologies, and innovations that are still making waves long after the news first broke. These lists, divided into our respective sectors of technology and biotech/life sciences, reflect our favorite stories of the third quarter. Some were stories that got lot of attention when they first ran. Others may have slipped under your radar. All of them spoke to trends and analysis we’ve spotted as observers and reporters of the innovation space here in the Pacific Northwest.

We tried to be as comprehensive as possible, but it was tough keeping these lists down to 10 stories each (in fact, I’ve been so excited about the Seattle-area tech scene, I cheated a little, and threw in a bonus story). So dig in, read up, and enjoy.

Thea’s Top 10 technology stories, plus one bonus:

Where Do You Check In? The Northwest’s Location-Based Search and Social Networking Mini Cluster

Seattle’s Deal-A-Day Sites, DealPop and Tippr, Challenge Groupon and LivingSocial

Casual Connect’s Main Theme in 2010: The Intersection of Casual and Social Gaming is a Game Changer

The Northwest Tech Scene, Public Policy, and Collaboration: WTIA CEO Susan Sigl on Her First 100 Days & What’s In Store

Teachers Explore How to Integrate Computer Science into K-12 Curriculum at UW Conference

McKinstry Innovation Center Cozies into Position as Cleantech ‘Accelerator’, Director Elsa Croonquist On What’s Next

Buildings that Act Like Guinea Pigs for Energy Efficiency: The Puget Sound Regional Council Plan for Green Jobs

Wetpaint Rolls Out New Platform to ‘Reinvent Publishing,’ Wetpaint Entertainment

Northwest Energy Angels Executive Director Margo Shiroyama on Her First Six Months, and the Future of the NW Cleantech Scene

Livemocha Seeks to Upend Rosetta Stone, Taking Language Learning to New Heights Online

Bonus story: How Hydrovolts’ $250 Development Deal Could Turn into a $20M Contract and Global Market

Luke’s Top 10 biotech and life sciences stories:

Seattle Genetics, Millennium Generate “Dream” Data With Empowered Antibody Drug for Cancer

Lee Hartwell, at 70, Tackles Personalized Medicine, Education in Latest Career Phase

Seattle Children’s CEO, Between Meetings, Invents Cheap Ventilator to Save Babies Worldwide

Gilead’s Lung Drug Ace, Bruce Montgomery, Hits Free Agent Market, Scopes Startup Ideas

Larry Corey, Virus Hunter with Midwest Roots, Seeks to Unleash Health Innovation at Hutch

ZymoGenetics Reaches End of Road in Seattle, Faces Uncertain Future, Potential Job Cuts

Allozyne, After a Stealthy Year on a Slim Budget, Re-Emerges with MS Drug and Fat Pipeline

Swedish’s Young Social Media Ace Coaches Docs in Ways of the Web

What Will Happen to ZymoGenetics’ Landmark Headquarters When Bristol Calls the Shots?

Immune Design Follows Corixa Playbook, Sees Data, Deals on Horizon in Year Three

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After years in the technology industry, Margo Shiroyama recently made the transition to cleantech. As the new executive director of the Northwest Energy Angels, Margo spends her days meeting with potential investors, coordinating with local cleantech companies, and brainstorming ways to marry the financial side of the industry with the innovation side.

“You’re working during the day, catching up at night, doing events and programs at different hours, having to participate in different organizational meetings or industry meetings whenever it might be,” she says of her first six months on the job. “It’s a big commitment.”

I caught up with Shiroyama a few weeks ago to talk about her first half year in her new role, her experiences taken from years in local tech industry associations, and what she envisions for the future of the Northwest Energy Angels. We sat outside of a coffee shop on a late summer afternoon, and she was all smiles as she spilled about her past work with the Washington Software Alliance (now the WTIA), technology consulting, and learning the ropes of facilitating cleantech investments. If she’s overworked, she didn’t show it. Maybe that’s because she’s used to having her plate more than full, that and there’s no denying she loves what she does.

As for the sustainability of her role, Shiroyama jokes that her workplace footprint is smaller than ever. “I’m very sustainable,” she says. “I walk from my bedroom to my office, and I immediately get to work—no carbon wasted, no commuting time!”

Before joining the Northwest Energy Angels in March, Shiroyama spent 10 years at the WSA, helping to grow the staff from a mere five to 20, and laying the groundwork for its transformation into the all-technology-encompassing Washington Technology Industry Association it is today. By the time she left, she had worked her way up to chief operating officer, and developed a passion working the trade association circuit.

“That was I think where I got this love for innovation, and technology, and working with many companies at one time, versus being in a company where you see R&D for one product, or a suite of products,” she says.

After the WSA, Shiroyama served as interim director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, and did strategy and marketing work for enterpriseSeattle and the Washington Biomedical Device Innovation Zone (both of which she still consults for). According to Shiroyama, making the leap from focusing on software and biotech to clean technology wasn’t as tricky as one might think—over the years she had developed a lot of connections who, like her, had dabbled in many of Washington’s tech-centered industries. And this tight knit network, she says, is advantageous for Washington’s budding cleantech sector.

“It all comes full circle, at least in this town anyway,” she says. “We have a lot of people in the Northwest Energy Angels that come from software and life science, that have an interest in cleantech now.”

In fact, Shiroyama says it was the people already involved in the Northwest Energy Angels that piqued her interest, and ultimately aided in her decision to take on the leading role. The organization, started four years ago by local serial entrepreneur Martin Tobias and state representative Jeff Morris, is dedicated to connecting and facilitating investments in local cleantech startups and companies. The group currently has 53 active members, who have, to date, invested over $3 million in 20 cleantech companies, according to Shiroyama.

“It was something I’d been interested in, the cleantech space—I’d been following it for some time. I had done some work at the WSA with an annual investment forum, I knew the venture community fairly well, but was interested in working in the angel space, kind of really early on in the investment with entrepreneurs,” she says. After she met the board, Shiroyama said she was sold. “I really admired the board, and I saw some opportunity for growing the organization,” she said. “There’s just this idea of a greater good that they have as their mission that was appealing to me.”

Shiroyama says she’s spent the first six months familiarizing herself with the territory—companies, investors, who’s looking for a new deal, and which angels have particular expertise in … Next Page »

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Three months have flown by since Susan Sigl succeeded Ken Myer as the CEO of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA). The 26-year-old organization is the largest statewide association of tech companies and executives in the world, representing some 1,100 members and 125,000 tech employees across Washington, with a staff of just 11. That’s quite a responsibility to inherit. After just a few months on the job, Sigl has settled in, and started talking about her big plans for the future.

Sigl joined the WTIA on April 5, bringing with her a background in venture capital as the co-founder (along with Tom Huseby) of Seattle-based SeaPoint Ventures. After cutting her teeth at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Sigl was recruited away to a Texas oil and gas startup, a sector she worked in for 18 years. She then became an entrepreneur, or as she put it, a “negotiator-a doer of deals,” supporting a number of a number of early-stage companies across the mobile, wireless, and software sectors. Her resume includes a stint as SnapIn Software’s interim CFO, and working with Zumobi, and Ground Truth as part of SeaPoint’s wireless initiative.

When Sigl was appointed to the position in March, she told Greg that she was struck by the mission of the WTIA: working to support, advocate for, and help tech companies across Washington state thrive. And to her own surprise, she’s found the job to be very close to the startup culture she’s so familiar with.

“It’s interesting, because I’ve never worked in a non-profit for salary before, but the mission and the opportunity is so dynamic. It is surprisingly very much like a regular company; in some respects it is kind of entrepreneurial,” she says. “For me that has been one of the biggest highlights—to walk into a door of a nonprofit and see the same kind of motivation and attitude that you see in a startup company.”

Given that I’m new to the local tech scene, I thought it would be nice to catch up with Sigl and hear more about her experiences and plans for the growing organization. I sat down with Susan last week to chat about her first 100 days on the job, and where she plans to take the organization in the future. Almost immediately the idea of change took hold. The WTIA was founded in 1984, around when Microsoft was preparing to go public, Sigl told me. Back then, the local technology sector was heavily embedded in the rise of the personal computer. Today, however, the industry is different, and the WTIA, in turn, has changed along with it.

“It’s morphed, as you can imagine in that period of time as a technology sector has morphed, so we now in the last three and a half or four years have moved from being an organization that represents the software industry in the state to really the whole tech sector,” Sigl says. “We cover mobility, and gaming, and entertainment, and digital media, and e-commerce, and cloud computing—you know, pretty much if you can label it, it’s under our umbrella. It’s huge, and that’s what makes it pretty fun.”

Sigl further discussed some of the biggest expansions in the tech industry, and how that has changed the role of the WTIA moving forward. Here are some of the highlights, edited for length and clarity as always:

Xconomy: When you spoke with Greg a few months ago, you mentioned that one of your primary goals in your new position would be to broaden the WTIA’s sponsorship and membership. The WTIA is already the biggest tech trade association in the U.S.—what would this widening entail?

Susan Sigl: We are the biggest in the country, however in terms of penetration within our own state for membership, we probably have about 10 percent of our market. And I don’t think it works like in a typical private company analysis where’d you say ‘who else has the other piece of the market?’ I think the market is out there—it just isn’t in the fold yet. So there’s a lot of upside. And then, of course, that doesn’t even account for other tech sectors. There’s just a lot of upside to grow the organization and that’s really exciting to me. And of course that’s not just the membership, but the sponsorships, and just the involvement. We have a very sizable board—we have a 40-person board—and it represents some of the top tech leaders in the state. And there are just so many powerful elements to the organization that really have the capacity to have it expand its mission and achieve its mission. And I think there’s no limit to … Next Page »

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Event season is in full swing here in Seattle. I thought it’d be useful to give a quick rundown of some of the gatherings our readers might want to attend in the next few weeks. If you want to know the secret to surviving as a startup (or a big company, for that matter), or want to schmooze with the top tech entrepreneurs and investors in town, or learn about how to market your startup, check out the following events, starting today:

—Technology Alliance’s annual “State of Technology” Luncheon in downtown Seattle today features a keynote by Clay Christensen, a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of such business books as The Innovator’s Dilemma, Disrupting Class, and The Innovator’s Prescription. One of Christensen’s big ideas is that “disruptive” strategies are about entering a market at the low end (with a cheaper and worse product) and gradually working your way up—which goes against the mindset of most startups, which try to develop a better product or service than their competition, and especially the big players. I wrote about an interesting Northwest connection to Christensen’s work on innovation strategy here.

—Seattle 2.0’s annual awards show is this Wednesday evening. If it’s anything like last year’s inaugural bash, it’ll be packed with tech entrepreneurs, software developers, angel investors, venture capitalists, and media. Jonathan Sposato, the former CEO of Picnik (recently acquired by Google), will give the keynote. Sposato and Picnik were the big winners at last year’s event.

—Northwest Entrepreneur Network (NWEN) is hosting an event focused on “brand strategy in the digital age” on May 25. The distinguished speakers will represent the marketing agencies and brand strategy firms Spring Creek Group, Corhouse Branding, Dry Soda, and Jelvetica.

—The Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association is featuring the latest installment of its series of events about how life science innovations can be applied to both domestic and global health problems. On May 25, Lisa Cohen of the Washington Global Health Alliance will moderate a panel with John Kaestle of HaloSource, Karen Hedine of Micronics, and Anne Bugge of SonoSite.

—Twiistup is hosting its second Seattle event on June 2, around “marketing your Internet company.” Neil Patel from Crazy Egg, KISSmetrics, and KISSinsights will go over strategies for boosting your company’s Web traffic through search engine optimization. Listen to the man. Ask him questions. He knows what he’s doing.

—Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) is organizing a program on smart fuels on the morning of June 3. It’s part of a series on cleantech and energy, and will feature talks from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Washington State University, Blue Marble Energy, and Farm Power Northwest.

—A bit further out, TechFlash is putting on an event around VC, entrepreneurship, and financing strategies for startups on June 15. The summit will bring together venture capitalists, angel investors, and tech entrepreneurs to debate the pros and cons of taking outside capital and to explore the future of tech startups.

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Tired of Seattle-area tech startup events? Well, get ready for a whole new one. It’s coming April 26, and it has been a closely guarded secret until now.

The event is called Twiistup, and it was started in Los Angeles by AOL executive Mike Macadaan in 2007. Think of it as a tech conference with Hollywood flair—six-figure budgets, multi-day events, and massive parties—a bit like TED, with star speakers, albeit a heavier emphasis on entrepreneurial networking.

I recently learned that last year, a group of prominent Seattle-area tech investors, including Andy Sack, Geoff Entress, Andy Liu, John Cunningham, Bob Senoff, David Niu, and Neil Patel, bought Twiistup for an undisclosed price. That means they acquired the brand, the website, and, crucially, the e-mail list of participants. Now they are bringing a lower-key version of the event to Seattle, called “startup sessions,” beginning on the evening of April 26 at the Olive 8 hotel. It will start out as a monthly event, aimed at tech entrepreneurs and investors.

Patel, the Internet marketing whiz kid from Orange County, CA, is leading the effort. He has been living in Seattle for the past year, where he is involved in several startups, including BuddyTV, Cheezburger Network, WhitePages, and Liquid Planner. He’s also a limited partner in the seed-stage investment fund Founder’s Co-op, and has invested in about 10 companies overall (at the ripe age of 24).

“Our goal is to really educate” entrepreneurs, Patel says of Twiistup in Seattle. “We want to help different types of companies grow.” He adds, “The goal is to start doing bigger events all around the U.S., where there are strong communities that don’t have enough local events” that emphasize the networking and educational aspects of starting and running tech companies. (The networking should also help potential investors, including the new Twiistup owners, find promising people and companies.)

So far the group has backed two events in the LA area, and is also working on a New York event. I asked Patel what Twiistup can bring to Seattle, to go beyond what is already a crowded tech event field that includes the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, Washington Technology Industry Association, University of Washington, MIT Enterprise Forum, Seattle Tech Startups, Seattle 2.0, Lunch 2.0, nPost, and media organizations like TechFlash and Xconomy. (And add to that the new entrepreneur training sessions from Founder Institute and TechStars.)

“Seattle needs something more educational,” Patel says.

To that end, the April 26 event will feature Entress and Sack—two of the best-known tech investors in town—talking about the crucial steps in how to raise capital from angel investors. They will cover only the most important aspects—including how to get to know potential investors. (Patel says all the deals he has invested in have been either with people he already knew or through his friends.) Attendance is limited to about 90 people, and the event will have an hour-long networking reception with food and an open bar.

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The Washington Technology Industry Association announced today that it has named Susan Sigl its new CEO. Sigl is a former venture capitalist and an expert in mobile technology, financial services, and real estate. She is a founding partner of SeaPoint Ventures and helped found, fund, or manage many Northwest companies, including Ground Truth, SnapIn Software, and Zumobi. Besides the WTIA, she has also been active in the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, Evergreen Venture Capital Association, the Northwest Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, the University of Washington, and Seattle University. Sigl succeeds Ken Myer, who is leaving his post at the beginning of next month.

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The challenge currently before our Governor and Legislature to balance the Washington state budget in the face of declining tax revenues is not an easy one. No one envies the task of either cutting needed state programs or raising new taxes—yet this year we are faced with the prospect of both.

In the past 24 hours, the state House of Representatives has passed a bill that will create a new tax on a whole range of innovative software companies that are at the center of our technology industry. Without any input from industry, the House passed a version of Senate Bill 6143 that includes a new tax on custom software development—a fundamental shift in tax policy that could lead to job losses, business closures and new taxes on other professional services.

There are over 2,500 custom software businesses in our state and most of these are small companies—and many are independent and freelance consultants. These companies and their employees already pay over $150 million in state and local taxes and are held up as the kind of innovation businesses we want to encourage in Washington.

Yet this new tax scheme does just the opposite of encourage. Among the many problems:

* A slippery slope. Custom software has traditionally been considered a “professional service,” similar to attorneys, engineers, management consultants and other similar professions. This tax is a major departure from that classification system and puts us on a slippery slope to tax other professional services.

* New burden on small business. Unlike sellers of digital goods, custom software providers are not set up to take payments from customers by credit card, do not have e-commerce systems, and converting to a sales tax collection system will be burdensome and costly—resulting in frustration and likely business closures.

* Putting economic development at risk. Large customers of custom software companies will surely seek to lower programming costs by going to offshore providers, which could lead to job loss among local custom software providers. Custom software providers may decide to locate themselves in a neighboring state or province, thereby avoiding the burden of being a tax collector for the state, and instead put the burden on the customer to pay use tax, where compliance is traditionally less than for sales tax.

* The language is ill-defined. The technology sector is ever-changing. Is a Web design firm considered a “custom software” provider? Does any service done for a particular customer that uses software to produce that service fall under this provision? Confusion will rein and both the Department of Revenue and taxpayers will have endless discussions and arguments over tax liability.

Again…the challenge before the Governor and our Legislators is not an easy one, but this new tax is not the answer. If you agree with us, then please contact your State Senator and tell them to reject the house version of Senate Bill 6143. To follow our fight, please visit our Government Affairs blog.

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Seattle-based Northwest Energy Angels announced today it has hired Margo Shiroyama as its new executive director. Shiroyama is a veteran of the Washington Technology Industry Association, Northwest Entrepreneur Network, enterpriseSeattle, and the Washington Biomedical Device Innovation Zone. Martin Tobias and Jeff Morris founded Northwest Energy Angels in 2006. The angel group provides early-stage capital to cleantech entrepreneurs and helps connect investors with promising startups. Its members have invested a total of more than $2 million in 16 companies.

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Pardon me if I’m still a little hung over, but last night was a blast. Eight hundred techies packed into the Showbox SoDo in Seattle for the 15th annual Industry Achievement Awards organized by the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA). The awards recognize excellence in local tech companies, and the winners were selected by a distinguished panel of judges too long to list here.

Here’s a quick rundown of the awards:

—Talyst won in the “commercial product or service” category, beating out Apptio and Concur (two very worthy business software firms). As I described in a feature story last summer, Bellevue, WA-based Talyst makes software that helps pharmacies manage the flow of medications in hospitals, clinics, assisted living facilities, and correctional facilities. CEO Carla Corkern also spoke at the WTIA’s healthcare IT event last September.

—Seattle-based Cozi won for “consumer product or service of the year,” edging out Cheezburger Network and Picnik (two of the most popular Web startups in town). Cozi, which raised $5 million from a new strategic investor last month, makes Web-based software to help busy families plan activities and chores, manage to-do lists and schedules, and communicate better. Last summer, CEO Robbie Cape talked with me about some of the company’s big partnerships (with Dell and Gannett, for example) and his startup philosophy.

—Seattle-based VholdR won for “breakthrough startup of the year,” beating some stiff competition from DreamBox Learning and Gist. VholdR makes high-def wearable video cameras and software for skiers, explorers, and other sports enthusiasts to share their stories of action and adventures, through an online video community. The idea for the company dates back to 2003, when founders Marc Barros and Jason Green won third place in the University of Washington business plan competition.

—Amazon Web Services (AWS) beat out Azaleos and Hubspan for “service provider of the year.” Earlier in the day, Steve Ballmer spoke about Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy, but Seattle-based AWS has been leading the field since 2006, at least for startup developers looking to rent flexible Web-based data storage and processing power to run their Web services. Amazon vice president Adam Selipsky talked about how Amazon’s cloud computing platform works, at another WTIA event exactly a year ago.

—Pathway Medical Technologies edged out Neah Power Systems and Powerit Solutions for the title of “innovative manufactured product of the year.” Kirkland, WA-based Pathway sells a device that helps doctors drill through and vacuum out blockages in leg arteries. The company has gone through an up-and-down year, as Luke reported in an in-depth feature last fall, but it seems to be adjusting to a challenging healthcare market. Pathway was co-founded by Tom Clement in 1998 and is now led by CEO Paul Buckman.

—Last but not least, Washington State Employees Credit Union won for “information technology department innovation,” OneBusAway won for “best use of technology in the government, nonprofit or education sector,” and Ruby Damper, a 7th grader at Orca school in Seattle, won for “technology leader of tomorrow.”

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First Rob Glaser, then Ken Myer. Who’s next? (These things always seem to come in threes.)

As a journalist, it can be hard to take off a holiday like MLK Day—you never know what juicy news you’re going to miss. Myer announced yesterday that he’s stepping down from his post as CEO and president of the Washington Technology Industry Association as of early April 2010. During his three years of service, he has presided over the WTIA’s evolution into something that encompasses more than just software companies—it now includes sectors like hardware, electronics, and cleantech, across a diverse membership of about 1,000 (representing some 125,000 employees). He also seems to have injected some fresh ideas and talent into the nonprofit trade organization, whose staff numbers a modest 11.

I caught up with Myer, 52, by phone this morning. The former IBM executive and co-founder of Interval Systems seemed his usual self—in good spirits and focused on the present. We touched on a few issues, including the challenges he has faced as the head of one of the largest statewide tech associations, and his plans to dive back into the commercial sector.

—On the history of his involvement with WTIA: Myer says he was a volunteer with the organization, formerly known as the WSA (Washington Software Alliance), from 1997-2002. (He even met his wife through it.) He also served as a volunteer board member. When former CEO Kathy Wilcox said she was retiring in 2006, Myer thought that was “interesting,” but he figured he wouldn’t go after such a position until he was much older. He changed his mind and submitted his application on the last day resumes were due.

—On running WTIA like a startup: “I thought I’d take a business approach to a trade organization,” Myer says. “And I wanted to give back [to the community]. It’s been really fun. It’s a young staff, and very different from those in the past. People have a lot of responsibility at a fairly young age. I’m running it in some ways like a startup. We took a step back, and said, ‘What are we about?’” Myer says he wanted the WTIA to have more of an impact on the younger generation. To that end, he also recruited startup leaders like Keith Smith, now CEO of BigDoor Media, to the board.

—On the main challenge of trade associations: “Trade associations and chambers of commerce have definitely felt it: the Internet. What an association is, it’s a group of people getting together and talking to peers. If [people] can do that online, you have to be really focused to deliver value,” Myer says. “Every new job, you have to adapt. What are the issues in this business, and what are the rules of the game? You are clearly appealing differently to people when you’re selling a membership in a trade association than when you’re selling a particular product or service. You’re appealing to their community instincts. You appeal to their return-on-investment needs, and their feelings of belonging to the community they’re part of.” At the same time, he says, “there are opportunities to partner [with other organizations] in this world that you don’t have in the commercial world. You’re mission driven, not profit driven.”

—On his timing and the future: “It’s principally time to make a change,” Myer says. “I really like big challenges, big problems to solve, big opportunities to go after. This job is not over. There’s always more that can be done. We’re just at the beginning.”

I pressed him a little on whether he’d return to an executive role at an established tech company. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “There was something very satisfying in doing something very different.” He added that he’ll probably look at both options—trying something new again, and returning to the industry in a more conventional role. “I’ve relied on my gut sense of what feels right. The common thing, as I look at my career, is I view every job as a new tool for my toolbox.”

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The Washington Technology Industry Association announced today that CEO and president Ken Myer is leaving his post at the end of March to return to the tech industry. Myer has headed the WTIA, one of the largest statewide associations of technology firms, for about three years, during which it made the transition from the Washington Software Alliance (WSA) to an organization that includes electronics, devices, and cleantech sectors as well. Executive search firm Herd Freed Hartz is conducting a search for Myer’s successor.

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The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) announced today the finalists for its 15th annual Industry Achievement Awards on March 4. Among the nominees are DreamBox Learning, Gist, and VholdR (for breakthrough startup of the year); Cheezburger Network, Cozi, and Picnik (for consumer product); Apptio, Concur, and Talyst (for commercial product); and Neah Power Systems, Pathway Medical Technologies, and Powerit Solutions (for innovative manufactured product).

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Not to hype this too much, but TechStars coming to town could be the rallying point for a new generation of high-tech entrepreneurship in Seattle—the likes of which we haven’t seen before. At least, that’s the word from two of the main investors responsible for bringing the tech startup program here. (By now, most of our readers know about Boulder, CO-based TechStars, but in case you missed it, here are some stories from earlier about the seed-stage investment fund’s expansion to Boston and Seattle.)

This is the latest intriguing concept we’ve seen from VCs who are going back to basics by focusing on early-stage companies and creating a central nurturing environment (including office space) where entrepreneurs can network among themselves and, most importantly, get mentorship from more experienced people. Polaris Venture Partners, for one, has done this with Dog Patch Labs in San Francisco, Boston, and now New York. Seattle-based Accelerator is one local example where a similar concept has worked for early-stage biotech companies.

Andy Sack, executive director of the new Seattle program, gave me some historical perspective on the tech scene. When he moved to Seattle from Boston in 2000, he says, “there was next to no entrepreneurial infrastructure.” There were investors and startups, sure, but there was no main café to meet at, no hangouts, none of that. In Sack’s view, things have changed a lot in the past three years, for the better. But, despite a lot of grassroots efforts to support tech entrepreneurs, “nothing has really pulled the community together,” he says. Providing that kind of supportive environment, where entrepreneurs can make connections and really think, is one of the key ideas driving TechStars. (Sack, a serial tech entrepreneur and investor, didn’t say yet where TechStars will be located physically.)

“Seattle needs that because it needs to come together to support fledgling seed-stage companies,” he says. It sounds a lot like the motivation Sack had when he and Chris DeVore started Founder’s Co-op, a seed-stage fund and mentorship program, in 2008. Yet TechStars promises to be more than that.

“There hasn’t been something like this in Seattle, or even in the Valley, where literally the entire investment community has come behind something and made it work for startups,” says Greg Gottesman, a managing director at Madrona Venture Group.

What I hadn’t fully appreciated is that virtually every tech investment firm in town has signed on to a three-year commitment to put a small, separate fund into TechStars. That includes everyone from Madrona to Ignition Partners, Voyager Capital, OVP Venture Partners, Maveron, Buerk Dale Victor, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Second Avenue Partners, Trilogy Partners, and WRF Capital, to prominent angel investors such as Linden Rhoads from UW Tech Transfer. Plus heavy hitters Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen are also behind it. (No word yet on whether Bill Gates is in.)

It’s not a lot of money—the fall 2010 session will host about 10 companies (mostly Web focused) with $18,000 max each—but it shows a real commitment to making the program work. “You put it on your books and you’re committed to it,” Gottesman says. “It’s not, ‘Maybe I’ll show up.’ They’re putting money and time into it.” He adds, “Everyone thinks the timing is right. It’s a shot in the arm for really early-stage startups. “

TechStars doesn’t like to be labeled as an “incubator”—probably because so many of those operations have failed—but its essential function is to nurture very early-stage companies along until they can raise enough money to stand on their own feet. If all goes well, local venture firms will be competing for access to the best startups that emerge from the program. To this end, it sounds like a lot of investors around town had to put their egos aside for the greater good, to make the program happen.

“We didn’t want it to be a Madrona thing. We didn’t want it to be a Founder’s Co-op thing. … Next Page »

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It wasn’t so much the predictions as the discussion that was most interesting at last night’s annual predictions dinner, organized by the Washington Technology Industry Association. Will Twitter be acquired in 2010, and why? Who will have the dominant cloud computing platform in the next couple of years? What kind of startup are you looking to build or finance, and which areas are you staying away from?

A panel of Seattle-area tech entrepreneurs and investors gamely took the bait and had some lively exchanges over the course of an hour. OK, these guys all know each other, and we’ll take what they say with a grain of salt since it’s a public forum—but here were some of the most interesting points they made. (You can read more comprehensive recaps of the panel on Brier Dudley’s blog at the Seattle Times, and soon on TechFlash by moderator John Cook.)

The panel was split 3 to 2, with the narrow majority guessing Twitter will get bought next year. Andy Sack of seed-stage fund Founder’s Co-op predicted Twitter will make more money than Facebook in 2010 (surprising, given the current disparity in the other direction). Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, an online real estate firm, said Twitter should charge for search (as it has begun to do in partnerships with Google and Bing). Kelly Smith from Curious Office and the startup Pressplane argued that Twitter could be “absorbed by a big company,” but “it’s going to go nowhere.” By the end of the evening, Sack was predicting that Microsoft would buy Twitter next year.

There was a consensus that 2010 could be a big year for acquisitions. Bill Bryant of Draper Fisher Jurvetson boldly predicted that Amazon will buy Netflix, Blockbuster, and Hulu, while opening brick and mortar “Amazon media stores.” Greg Gottesman from Madrona Venture Group said Cisco might buy EMC (for VMware) and Seattle-based F5 Networks, while Microsoft might buy Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone. Sack predicted Adobe would pick up Seattle photo-editing startup Picnik. Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.) would buy Seattle’s Cheezburger Network, and someone would buy Redfin.

Looking back on 2009 for a minute, the big deals that were questioned by the panel included Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture (Gottesman said it just didn’t make sense strategically) and … Next Page »

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