I had the pleasure of attending a meeting at the Chicago Chamber of Commerce on Thursday. It involved about 10 entrepreneurs, 10 venture capitalists and about 10 of Chicago agency officials interested in business. It was convened by Lance Pressl, Foundation President of the Chamber and leader of the Innovate Now initiative. The guest of honor was Steve Chen, co-founder of Youtube. Steve grew up in Chicago, attended the innovative Illinois Math and Science Academy, and then U of I in Champaign. He moved out to Silicon Valley and this discussion was about why and how to retain entrepreneurial talent.

In a surprise to all, Mayor Daley showed up! It was a real treat for all except the people from the city that report up to him. It was chaired by a gentleman from the MacArthur Foundation who handled the group superbly. Steve Chen talked about joining Paypal and Facebook prior to founding Youtube. His comments were straight forward — the valley is the place to be to start and grow a startup. The talent that has been or wants to be part of a startup is there as well as a high concentration of venture capital.

In many ways, it reflected the perfectly capable talent and resources of the midwest, but also highlighted the fact that we have no where near the critical mass to be a dynamic hub of venture backed startups. There was a great conversation and a gentleman from the Chicago Entrepreneurial Center emphasized the BIG events they do just to get the press and awareness of something happening.

I suggested to Mayor Daley that the MARS Center in Toronto was a good example of a city outside the valley building something important to foster innovation. He seemed genuinely intrigued, we engegd in a short conversation, and then asked for my card after the meeting was over. Let’s see where this goes!

According to Jeff Hawkins, in his book On Intelligence, one of the things that make us able to function on a daily basis is a MASSIVE feedback and feedforward pipeline between our brains and our body. Its interesting that we don’t perceive this information going to and from our brains, but it is necessary for the everyday, but deceivingly complex behaviors we exhibit in the world. Feedback (and feed forward) is a very important concept to innovation. Too many people fail because they do not get the feedback they need prior to launching their assumed revolution. Dean Kamen, in spite of his technical and management genius, kept the Segway (or Ginger for those who remember) so secretive that the company was could not have imagined such a tepid market launch. They continue to search today for a viable and lucrative market for their “revolutionary” human transporter.

The question for business leaders, or even the individual inventor, is how to foster MASSIVE feedback for any given project you have in the pipeline. Your attitude and values should drive for feedback rather than spurn it. At every opportunity, look for ways assemble those who are not a part of the effort to review your work. It doesn’t matter they have little knowledge of what you have done — it only matters if they understand and value what you have created. Open your ears and listen to their feedback with no defense. For any criticism, ask them to say more. Enjoy the naive, neutral, unimpassioned response to your idea. And then go make your idea better.