When university employees choose to start businesses, they create a channel for technology transfer from university to industry. This talk presents findings from an empirical study of such academic entrepreneurship. We will address the following questions: What is the academic background of these entrepreneurs? What industries do they enter? Do they start businesses close to their universities? And what kind of universities tend to generate more academic entrepreneurs? We find that most of the academic entrepreneurs come from an engineering or medical science background. Entrepreneurial activities among university employees concentrate in biotech and information technology industries. About two-thirds of the academic entrepreneurs locate their businesses in the same state as the universities. National academy membership, a measure of a universityπs research quality, is the only variable that explains a large proportion of the variations in the number of academic entrepreneurs at the university level. The abundance of venture capital near the university has no significant effect on academic entrepreneurship once we control for university characteristics.

E-mail has the potential to facilitate direct communication between constituents and local public officials, who (unlike members of Congress, governors, etc.) usually lack the staff and other resources to engage in extensive mailing, faxing, in-person visits, and other communication. However, many local officials do not have the technical resources or support to use e-mail extensively. Furthermore, even when sufficient technology and resources are present, prevailing attitudes and perceptions about e-mail may still prevent local officials from using electronic methods to engage with, or respond to, constituents. This "disconnect" constitutes an important problem since younger adults tend instinctively to reach for the keyboard, rather than the telephone or mailbox, to communicate.

Using survey data collected from mayors and city council members from 50 cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, I examine how e-mail is used to communicate with constituents, in comparison with other forms of communication. I also discuss the main problems and concerns experienced by local officials with regard to e-mail use.