Chicago-based  Healthbox is now accepting applications for a new,  $50,000 three-month  health tech business accelerator program  to start August 13,  in Cambridge.

In the program, up to ten  selected New England-based companies will receive: $50,000 in seed capital;  collaborative workspace;  access to a mentor network of industry experts  and strategic guidance, according to Dan Phillips, a director of  Sandbox Industries, Healthbox’ parent company, who attended Venture Cafe in the Cambridge Innovation Center last week.  The  program will conclude with a high-profile conference in November at which each participant will pitch to an audience of investors and healthcare leaders from across the country.

Healthbox  is one of the first business accelerator programs in the healthcare industry to support a platform for  innovation among seed-stage companies, according to the Sandbox Website.

“Massachusetts’ world-renowned academic institutions, cutting-edge provider systems and strong investor community make it an ideal location for a healthcare accelerator to stimulate the ecosystem and support new ideas,” said Healthbox founder Nina Sharif, in a press release.  “We are looking forward to working with New England’s most promising healthcare entrepreneurs to help them gain traction in the industry and develop sustainable businesses.”

Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield Venture Funds will be among those providing financial support for the Cambridge program, according to Ryan Boxill of the BCBSMA Finance Development Program.

Earlier this year, Healthbox hosted its first program in Chicago.  According to a company press release, ten healthcare technology startups were selected from hundreds of applicants and, within three months,  the teams were able to evolve their business models and establish new partnerships and pilots. The program was supported by strategic partners including  Boston-based HLM Venture Partners; Ascension Health;  BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners; California HealthCare Foundation; Merge Healthcare;  Merrick Ventures; Sandbox Industries and Walgreens.

David Nichols of CareWire, a Minnesota-based company that participated in the Healthbox Chicago program said: “This program has helped us really focus in on our core value, rapidly test assumptions and launch pilots with new customers.”

Mark Hall, the CEO of New Jersey-based United Preference, another Healthbox Chicago participant, added “Things that take 6 months or 12 months in other environments, we’ve been able to achieve in 2 to 4 weeks here.”

According to its Website, Sandbox Industries creates, invests  in and explores new businesses that it believes could change markets. Through a new model of business development that “helps rather than harass entrepreneurs,”  it aims  to “grow successful companies through collaboration and knowledge sharing…redefining the way great ideas are generated and transformed into successful companies.”

Applications are currently being accepted on the Healthbox website at www.healthboxaccelerator.com/apply. For information and announcements about the program, visit www.healthboxaccelerator.com and follow the Twitter feed – @health_box

—Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris is a writer and journalist based at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

Newspapers have long kept tabs on the changing world–but have themselves been slow to modernize. To  flourish these days,
when anyone with a computer can be a publisher,  news organizations must develop a “culture of innovation. ”

So said Richard Gingras, the head of News Products at Google,  on May 11, 2012 in a talk at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation.

Gingras, a founder of Salon.com and long-term media technologist , said “I push people to rethink every aspect of what they’re doing”–including their mission, ethical guidelines, how they interact with their audiences, transparency regarding sources,  and even whether reporters divulge their personal political positions. In light of today’s powerful new technologies and human interactions,  “innovation  must be part of an organization’s DNA,”  at the core of newspapers’ culture, and  incorporated into “the role of every member of the team.”

Gingras pointed out that this by no means the first “disruption” time for the media.  With the advent of television,  for example, newspaper advertising declined and in some cities, the number of newspapers went from five to one or two.   This was not great for the newspapers that went out of business and  led to monopolitistic control by the  survivors. But it also led to    “40  golden years of profitability” for those survivors.

Today, the Internet has “disaggregated” the advertising economy., he said.  No longer do consumers look to their local newspapers for car ads, for example: rather, they search the Internet for information and deals.  “In the past, you could have an ad in the New York Times for Tiffany’s near an article on starvation in Darfur… or articles for garden centers in  the Lifestyles section,” Gingras said.   But on the Internet, such “vertical models” for advertising  are not effective.  ” Might news organizations’ Web sites do better as “a stable of focused brands with independent business models?” he asked.

Gingras also suggested that news organizations:

• Optimize news Web sites for multiple entry points,  because individual story pages are, today, more valuable than first or home pages. These individual pages should be updated so that urls remain constant–thus optimizing search engine results.

• Include more “computational journalism”–in which reporters post interactive information tables that would allow readers to answer their own, individualized questions.  For example, in a story on the state of education, provide tables showing student progress in school districts across the city–so that parents could assess statistics on their own children’s schools

•  Leverage the assistance of  “the trusted crowd”  (interact with readers and keep them involved)

•  Make reporters responsible for updating their own stories–with “constant” urls  to encourage multiple visits to their pages

Gingras also said that  in a culture of bulletpoints, updates and posts,  there  is low return on investment for long articles–and advised keeping articles  under 500 words.

So  I’ll quit here–at 494.

A video of the complete talk  is posted at: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/newsitem.aspx?id=100198

–Anita M. Harris

Anita Harris, a former national journalist and Nieman Fellow,  is president of the Harris Communications Group, a marketing and communications firm located in Cambridge, MA.

Alvin Ailey’s performance on Friday was spectacular: riveting, creative, beautiful and…fun!

                 The  program, one of several in new director Robert Battle’s first directorial season,  opened with Arden Court,

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Antonio Douthit and Alicia Graf Mack in Paul Taylor's Arden Court. Photo by Paul Kolnik

Photo by Paul Kolnik

set to the baroque music of Richard Boyce and the most “classically” patterned of the evening’s  pieces.

Described  as “an unfolding petal” by Dance Magazine and as  “lush”  and lauded by the New York Times for “the irresistible pleasure of its dancing,”  it  is replete with big movements,  high jumps, and  elegant formations.  This is the first season the Alvin Ailey company, founded in 1958,  has performed a work by Paul Taylor.

Video: at http://www.alvinailey.org/arden-court

The second piece,  Minus 16, by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin has been widely performed but it was a first for me–and  one of the most unusual dance compositions I’ve ever seen.

It began during what seemed to be an intermission…with  a dancer (Samuel Lee Roberts),  wearing a poorly fitting black suit, seeming to be  lackadaisically fooling around on stage..shuffle step, tap,  to rumba and cha cha music… as if there were no audience. Gradually, more men in hats, black pants and  T-shirts joined him.

In another part of Minus 16,  members of the company dressed in black suits white t shirts sat on folding chairs in a semi-circle– swooping forward and leaning back,  one after the other, in a clockwise wave– to a souped-up version of the passover song Echad Mi Yodea (one who knows). At the end of every repetition, and there were many,   the dancer in the chair farthest right  fell to the floor, taking longer and longer to return to his chair as the “wave” began again.    Part way through, the dancers removed their jackets, and, at the end,  they piled  most of their clothes, including their shoes, at the center of the stage.

In the final  piece of Minus 16,  the dancers walked somberly and silently off the stage and through the performance hall–  returning to the stage,   still silent, escorting  people from  the audience who were then incorporated into the performance.

At first, I thought the audience members on stage were plants: some were great dancers; some were hams; some were both–and many of the women selected wore red tops or scarves  and black skirts or slacks. But  not all were so dressed and not all seemed comfortable being led by their professional partners,  on stage.

The piece ended with all but one of the performers lying down on stage. The one left standing,  a slightly overweight middle-aged blonde  woman,  bowed gracefully.  The lights dimmed, and  a spotlight shone on  her as she walked across the stage,  down the steps  and through the hall to her seat.  The audience–including me–loved it.

I’ve since read in Dance Magazine that  if you want to be chosen to go on stage,  you should wear bright colors; if not, bring a pen and pretend to be a critic by taking notes.  And the Alvin Ailey Web site quotes Battle as saying that  Minus 16  “offers surprising new experiences for the company and our audience,”   and that it will be “both a great joy and a challenge for the dancers to improvise, break the fourth wall and invite the audience in.” So–the audience participation was for real.

The closing piece, Alvin Ailey’s 1960 Revelations, set to  familiar “traditional” songs such as “Wade in the Water,”  “Sinner Man,” and “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,”

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Briana Reed and Yannick Lebrun in Alvin Ailey's Revelations. Photo by Gert Krautbauer

brought an encompassing sense of history to the entire performance.   I had seen Revelations as a teenager…and now, as an adult, the variety of periods, costumes it incorporated  got me thinking about the importance of art in integrating  the past and present–and escorting us into the  future.

–Anita M. Harris

Anita M. Harris is a writer and consultant based in Cambridge, MA. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a   PR and marketing communications firm.

For entrepreneurs seeking venture capital funding, there’s good news—and there’s bad news. The good news is that  it’s easier now than at any time in the last ten years to get relatively small amounts of seed money. The bad news is that it’s harder to obtain “A Round” or additional series funding after that.

That was the consensus of  three Boston area venture capitalists who spoke at the Cambridge Innovation Center on  Wednesday, May 2.  Moderator Ben Hron of  law firm McCarter -English, which sponsored the event, asked the VCs  how the 2008 economic downturn  has impacted the VC industry;  where things stand now,  and what they foresee for the future.

Impact of the recession
A changing industry
Jo Tango, founder and partner of Kepha Partners, which invests in early stage companies, said that for many VC firms, this is a period of innovation. “We call it VC 2.0,”  he quipped to the audience of  entrepreneurs.  The VC industry, which started in about 1980, used to be dominated by approximately 20 major firms; today, there are more smaller, more specialized VC firms, he said.

David Beisel, co-founder and partner of  NextView Ventures, a dedicated seed-stage venture capital firm focused on Internet startups, said that the downturn has “facilitated a  maturation process,” which he likened to what happened in the beer industry in the 1990s.

That is, “You had to be either one of the biggest, like Anheuser-Busch—or a microbrewery.” Mid-size companies like Genesee fell by the wayside.

Likewise,  today,  he said, “VC firms are no longer trying to be all things to all entrepreneurs; they’re taking a dedicated approach.  Recently, four or five firms raised more than $1B but mid-sized firms are struggling.”

CA Webb, Executive Director of the New England Venture Capital Association, said that considering this a time of “introspection and innovation” is “optimistic…The reality is that the industry is taking a hard look at itself. Some say that the ‘sky is falling,’ because there’s less money being invested; this means that some firms will shut down. Those that succeed will need to articulate clearly just what they are willing to offer and to whom.”

Tango pointed out that “Innovation [in the VC industry] creates a challenge for entrepreneurs because VC firms are “all over the map,” and “it’s difficult to know which one is right for [a particular startup]. It’s easier now to get seed money–but terms are often more difficult to distinguish.”

Current trends
In asking the panelists for their views on the current venture funding situation, Hron shared Q1 2012 statistics showing  a large number of deals but a drop in total funding compared with previous quarters– in indicating fewer “megadeals.”  “Should entrepreneurs should be optimistic because of the number of deals or pessimistic about the size of the deals?” he asked.

Fewer large deals
Tango responded that one reason for the decline in large deals has to do with the number of deals VCs have previously closed.  In the current economic climate, he explained, it’s difficult raise a stream of money. In a recent study of five VC Web sites, his firm found that many VCs are already sitting on the boards of 10-17 companies in which they have invested. “If you’re fundraising…if you’re already on 15 boards, you need to spend your time fund raising,” not sitting on additional boards.

Smaller investments
Beisel described what he called a longer term trend:  in some sectors, especially digital media, companies don’t need to raise as much money for initial funding as in other sectors–so at earlier stages, the venture community is reacting by not writing $5M checks but rather $1M or .5 M.

In Webb’s view, “seeding is now like the old Series A funding: there is a lot of seed money to go around but Series A is now looking like the old series C “(IE–difficult to come by).

Follow-on funding can be problematic.
Tango agreed –describing a firm that backed 20 companies with seed money but told him it will provide only 2 % of those with Series A funding.  He added that the situation is even more complicated because even at the “seed stage,”different VCs require different terms.

In fact, he recommended, “Ninety per cent of startups should be bootstrapped (funded by self, friends and family) because other investors expect that they will get their money out within a few years. “With VC funding, you’re becoming a fiduciary…taking on ‘credit card debt’ that you will need to pay back.”

In Beisel’s view, before taking any money from VCs, an entrepreneur needs to know how outsiders view the firm, the reputation of the VC firm, which partner will be best for the company, and whether the firm usually adds to series funding or “will you be one of the 98% that get dropped?”

Health care vs. other  investment
Citing a decline in financing for health care ventures in Massachusetts compared with increased financing for Internet and mobile technology, Hron asked if investors are seeking short-term gains as instead of  taking the long view required for biotechnology and pharma payback.

Webb responded that one reason for the slowdown in health care company funding is that the US Food and Drug Administration is taking longer to approve products so the horizons for investors are longer. As a result, investors are shifting toward healthcare technology, “big data” and products that will bring a quicker return.

In Beisel’s view, “Over the last ten years the returns for health care investment have not been that great; health care is now even more challenging. But VCs won’t shift to other spaces; the money just won’t get raised.”

Long -term trends
According to Hron, the data suggest a rise in VC investing in Washington State, Texas, and Illinois. “Are we seeing the rise of a national VC community or is this a blip?” he asked. “And will VC investors look at companies nationwide?”

Tango and Beisel agreed that large investors are looking at companies nationally and internationally–especially in the Internet space.

They also agreed that it’s unlikely that VCs will spring up in Kansas or in “third-tier American cities,” as Beisel; put it.  In Tango’s view, “they will still be centered in Boston, NY and California.”  Beisel pointed out that that VC firms are on the rise in nations like Argentina and Eastern Europe.  According to Webb, “Capital clusters around academic institutions: You won’t see much density elsewhere.”

Crowd sourcing
Regarding the  recent passage of legislation allowing corporate fundraising through crowd sourcing, panelists expressed concerns about possibilities for fraud and entry of organized crime; and also  that unsophisticated investors might not know that seasoned professionals expect to lose money on most  investments—in hopes that a few will have big payoffs.

Asked by Hron if VCs will look askance at companies raising initial funding through crowd sourcing, Beisel said  that it’s fine to get seed money wherever you can but a “real company” will need institutional investors in order to grow large.

In Tango’s view, “Your source of funding depends on what you want to accomplish: Do you just want to get money…or are you looking for series of VC rounds, advice and support?”

PANELIST BIOs

David Beisel – David is Co-Founder and Partner of NextView Ventures, a dedicated seed-stage venture capital firm focused on investments in internet startups.  Previously he was an investor at both Venrock and Masthead Venture Partners, where he served on the boards of BlogHer and Gazelle.  Prior to joining Masthead, he co-founded Sombasa Media, an e-mail marketing company which was successfully acquired by About.com and subsequently became a division of Primedia (NYSE: PRM), where he served as Vice President of Marketing.  He is also the founder of the Web Innovators Group, a quarterly entrepreneur-focused event which attracts nearly a thousand attendees.  David blogs atwww.GenuineVC.com.

Jo Tango – Jo is Founder and Partner of Kepha Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm.   Previously, Jo spent was a General Partner at Highland Capital Partners, where he worked for nearly nine year, and before that he spent five years with Bain & Company.  Jo has invested in the e-commerce, search engine, Internet ad network, wireless, supply chain software, storage, database, security, on-line payments and data center virtualization spaces.  He has been a founding or first institutional investor in Azuki Systems, Bit9, ExaGrid, StreamBase Systems, Vertica Systems (acquired by Hewlett-Packard), Virtual Iron (acquired by Oracle) and VoltDB, getting involved nearly always at the company inception phase. Other investments include Ask Jeeves (Nasdaq: ASKJ), Digital Market (acquired by Agile Software), and NextCard (Nasdaq: NXCD).

C.A. Webb – C.A. became the Executive Director of the New England Venture Capital Association in January 2012.  Members of the NEVCA include more than 700 venture capital professionals from over 100 firms that collectively manage more than $50 billion in capital.  C.A. has spent her career in entrepreneurial roles with mission driven, early stage and high growth organizations. Her work has focused on breakthrough business models in a diverse array of industries including retail and packaged goods (Whole Foods Market), consumer internet technology (Care.com), sustainability (Preserve Products), historic preservation (Trinity Boston Foundation), public education (Boston Collegiate Charter School), and publishing (Fast Company magazine

Earlier this week,  I had the privilege of attending the tenth annual “BIO-IT World Conference and Expo,” at which some 2500  information technology professionals participated in a 12-track program featuring more than 200 presentations on scientific and technologic developments.

From  keynote speakers Jill Mesirov, PhD, and Martin Leach, PhD,  respectively the Associate Director and Chief Information Officer  of the Harvard-MIT Broad Institute,  I learned that exponential increases  in computing power promise to bring personalized medicine –allowing highly individualized diagnosis and treatment –to doctors offices within ten years. I also learned how hard it is to keep track of the petabytes  ( a PBs is a unit of information equal to one quadrillion  bytes, or 1024 terabytes )  used to keep it all going.

Mesirov announced the upcoming launch of “Genome Space“–a new Web-based technology to help scientists make sense of and collaborate in using such data.

And in a talk entitled “BIG,”  Leach described the difficulty of defining “big data,” because the amount of available information is growing so rapidly.   He described an event held recently at the Broad to celebrate the Institute’s ability to store and analyze ten pedabytes of data –his glee soon tempered by  his recollection that in 1993, NIH’s Institute of Medicine was thrilled with its ability store 16 gigabytes–which anyone can now do on a cell phone.

Today,  Leach said, we are  seeing “increasing big data with a decreasing footprint.” [that is, smaller systems needed for gathering and retrieval].

Mentioning that he has an autistic son and would like to be able to figure out what causes the disorder, Leach  asked, “Why is there no Google search for data, no way to access thousands of data repositories?

“We need a new application ecosystem and a breed of data scientist who knows how and where to push this data, ” he said.  He predicted that there will soon be 50 thousand jobs in the  “big data” arena.

In the exhibit hall,  I was pleased to see that  see that Wingu, headquartered in the Cambridge Innovation Center, where I work, had been nominated for a best of show award for its pharmaceutical, contract research and academic collaboration software.

The winners, announced last night, were Recentris, Opscode, Clear Trial, and Cambridge Semantics. [More info at http://www.bio-itworld.com/2012/04/26/2012-best-of-show-winners.html]. Best Practice Grand Prizes went to big Pharma: Merck, Pfizer, and Merck KGaA (Germany)  went to and two genomics organizations, BGI Shenzhen and the University of Utah/Omicia. http://www.bio-itworld.com/2012/04/25/bio-it-world-announces-winners-2012-best-practices-awards.html.

BIO-IT World is sponsored by  Insight Pharma Reports, Samsung, and the Portland Group. It runs through April 27, 2012.

—Anita M. Harris