New York Entrepreneur Week (NYEW) held November 16th-20th, 2009 was an unprecedented success. The week featured over 120 speakers from 18 states and 3 continents. Over 2,600 attendees ventured to Columbia University throughout the week alongside more than 7,500 online viewers.

The movement was featured in over 70 media outlets and publications including Crain’s New York Business, Young Upstarts, News on Women and the Hartford Business Journal.

New York Entrepreneur Week is about celebrating entrepreneurship and the transformational role we play in building economies. There’s real power in coming together to talk about business, to hear other perspectives, and to connect with people who have bold ideas and personal stories about how entrepreneurship transforms our world.

For entrepreneurship to become the powerful force it can be in driving the economy, we need to break down barriers and build platforms that connect us. We need to support each other, help build each other’s visions, and leverage our collective strengths.

Right now is a critical time in our economy, and the stage is ripe for a fundamental change in how businesses are founded, built and scaled. The truth is that unstable times create incredible opportunities.

But we’re facing our own challenge. Former Sovier President Mikhail Gorbachev once said, “It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemd to work in the past.”

There’s no doubt that entrepreneurship innovates, changes and grows business. But if we keep doing what we did before, we’re going to get what we always got- and if there’s one message we should all have loud and clear by not, it’s that we’re all accountable for the economic challenges we’re facing.

When we look at what’s happening in New York, there’s an important lesson to be learned. 89% of all venture capital funds residing in New York are invested outside of the state. THIS is a red flag and signals a critical dislocation in our ecosystem. If we really want to have an impact, and harness the power we possess, we have to eliminate the silos and fragmentation we all experience within the entrepreneurial sector.