Q&A: Collier talks entrepreneurs, innovation MDBIZNews

By Nick Sohr, Managing Editor, MDBIZNews

Shirley Collier is a serial entrepreneur. She has six startups under her belt and runs three companies now. One, called techGrowth, is developing software that will allow businesses to more easily tap and commercialize government research and patents. Another licensed laser communications technology from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Collier can?t divulge much about the work. (?We?re trying to defy the laws of physics, so it may take us awhile,? she said.) Collier can, and does, however, speak often on the topics of entrepreneurship and technology transfer, issues she has taken a keen interest in as an entrepreneur and advocate. She has led both the Howard County Economic Development Authority board and the International Alliance of Technology Integrators. Collier recently sat down with MDBIZNews to talk about entrepreneurship in Maryland. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.

Q: I?ve heard you say the entrepreneurial ecosystem locally needs work. How did it get that way?

A: Innovation really has been the basis of our country. Pioneers came over here because they had a different idea and they took chances. They took risks. They risked their lives and they went west. Taking chances and being innovative is in our constitution. It?s in our DNA. I think we lost that for a couple of years, in the mid- to late 20th century. The emphasis was on getting a steady job at a big company where you would get retirement in 30 years and that was it. Obedience was rewarded.

Q: When did that change?

A: I think it started to erode with the advent of the personal computer. That technology freed up so many people that you had for the first time at your fingertips capability only large companies had before. Now, people could start small businesses, grow small businesses. So, mid- to late ?80s. Of course, when the entrepreneurs became rock stars ? Bill Gates and Steve Jobs ? then a lot of young people started to aspire to do that and not just what their fathers did.

Q: What does the ecosystem need?

A: It needs a lot. In order for entrepreneurship to thrive, we need culture. The definition of culture in this context is that starting and growing a company needs to be seen as desirable and cool and fun. When I tell people I?ve started six businesses, sometimes their reaction is ?Oh, I?m so sorry.? That would never be the response if you were on the West Coast. Never, never, never. In order for there to be an ecosystem, it has to be something that people want to do and that behavior has to be rewarded in our society. That?s kind of an overarching philosophy. There are some nascent entrepreneurial [support] activities going on in the region. I think TEDCO is very good at what it does. DBED is good in terms of its funding programs. But we do need the private sector to step up to the plate. We need to get some deal flow going and the money will be there.

Q: What can we do increase that deal flow?

A: The whole area of tech transfer probably represents the biggest area of opportunity for us in this region. We have, within these institutions, a lot of barriers. There are policy barriers that prevent employees from collaborating with outside entrepreneurs. In universities, there?s not an equal amount of importance placed on entrepreneurial activities as opposed to publishing. In some government agencies, the employees are prohibited from working with technology businesses. The president signed an executive order last October to to begin placing pressure on federal laboratories to come up with better [tech transfer] procedures and measure their effectiveness. I?m already seeing some changes from that perspective. This intellectual property, these disclosures and patents, have been accumulating and accumulating. There are patents worth trillions of dollars that are sitting on the shelves, collecting dust, because they cannot get through the tech transfer pipeline and into the marketplace. If the federal government really does pull back on their spending, we?re going to see a lot of mid-career and early retirees available. That?s the opportunity to mine the intellectual property available in the universities and labs in the region.

Source: http://mdbiznews.choosemaryland.org/2012/07/11/qa-collier-talks-entrepreneurs-innovation/

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