NBIA releases new rural incubation book

After more than two years in development, NBIA has officially released Best Practices in Rural Business Incubation: Successful Programs in Small Communities. Created in cooperation with the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Tennessee Valley Authority, the book presents statistical analyses of incubation policies, practices and demographics in addition to nine probing case studies, which describe in detail how different programmes implement highly influential management practices identified in the statistical evaluation. As a collection, the cases show that, although successful incubation programmes share many best practices, they customise their implementation based on community needs, market, resources and programme mission. NBIA surveyed more than 200 rural and urban incubation programme managers to evaluate whether certain incubation best practices influence incubator success and if those practices vary by region. The analyses indicate that no one incubator policy or practice leads to business incubation success. Instead, combinations of incubator policies and practices are related to client outcomes and incubator success. These findings complement those identified in a 2011 US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration report, Incubating Success: Incubation Best Practices That Lead to Successful New Ventures, which reveals that business incubation policies and practices are better predictors of success than facility size, age or budget. Best Practices in Rural Business Incubation is available for purchase through the NBIA Bookstore. For more details visit: www.nbia.org/store and www.edaincubatortool.org.

New workshop examines entrepreneurial ecosystem

Because the entrepreneur support field is increasingly diverse and expanding, NBIA's 23rd Training Institute in Fort Worth, Texas, October 7-9, introduced a workshop on The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: Building a Comprehensive Venture Development Program. In 1990, there were fewer than 1,000 incubators globally; today, an estimated 7,500 programmes serve start-ups and entrepreneurs on every continent, save Antarctica. Incubation programmes are facing market pressure from other enterprise development providers, both for clients and for the attention of stakeholders. Many programmes, however, are embracing the challenge by collaborating with these other service providers, or in some cases, creating their own auxiliary programmes to complement their incubation programmes and serve a greater number of entrepreneurs. For example, the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center in Fort Wayne, Ind., manages a coworking space (called Destination: Your Future) and has affiliated with the business accelerator brand Tech Stars. Other programmes have led their community in the development of pre-seed and seed funds. The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem workshop examines components of the expanding entrepreneurial ecosystem and how incubators can engage and, in some cases, create their own network of services. Topics include coworking space, student entrepreneurship, international incubation, economic gardening, seed acceleration and angel networks.

Year's first Soft Landings designees chosen

Four incubators - two new designees and two renewals - are joining and continuing, respectively, in NBIA's Soft Landings International Incubator programme following this year's first round of applications and appraisals this summer. The newly chosen Soft Landings incubators are: Industrial Technology Research Institute Incubator Center, Hsinchu, Taiwan and Purdue Technology Center of West Lafayette, West Lafayette, Ind. The incubators continuing in the programme are University City Science Center - Port Business Incubator Center, Philadelphia and Louisiana Business and Technology Center, Baton Rouge, La. The NBIA Soft Landings designation lets non-domestic firms know these designated incubators offer specialised programmes and/or facilities that help companies enter into new markets in a safe and comfortable environment. To learn more about NBIA's Soft Landings program, visit www.nbia.org/member_services/soft_landings/