Today quite a variety of entrepreneurs presented their business ideas at my Online Strategy Roundtables. Several times I brought up how precious our time is and we need to treat it as such. So many people become enamored with technology and the building of the product before they ever think to validate that this is a business service or product that a customer wants to pay for.

I've seen too many entrepreneurs wasting precious years of their lives, and I sincerely try to discourage anyone from wasting his or her time on an idea that does not have legs based on concrete customer feedback. One of the entrepreneurs said he thinks of me as the Simon Cowell for entrepreneurs after listening to some recordings of previous roundtables. I think my advice is only valuable if I'm being honest and direct. Plus, I don't want to waste my precious time either!

NASA_logoNASA has launched an initiative that will help reach tomorrow’s leaders and innovators and get a younger generation to consider the space agency as a first choice for employment.

On OpenNASA.com, a collaborative blog written by NASA employees  and occasional invited guests, Nick Skytland, a project manager within the Space Life Sciences Directorate at the NASA Johnson Space Center, writes how tomorrow’s leaders want to work for the “cool” company, the next Google, or a company that is open to new ideas.

“And so I wonder, how do we make NASA cool again? How do we use our space program as a catalyst to pass along that innovative, entrepreneurial, American spirit that got us to the moon in less than 10 years and launched a generation of innovators?” Skytland asks. “Or better yet, how do we communicate all the cool things NASA is actually doing?”

In the wake of the Gulf oil spill atrocity, both The Colbert Report and The Huffington Post did bits on "wind spills." The jokes were especially topical because -- almost, it seemed, in coordination with the oil spill -- the Interior Department announced it was clearing the way for final approval of Cape Wind, the long-beleaguered Nantucket Sound offshore wind project.

The Obama Interior Department is pushing as hard as it can to create opportunities for offshore energy. By approving Cape Wind, the Administration demonstrated that it is willing to put the nation's energy needs ahead of resolvable environmental and aesthetic objections. So, will the U.S.' first offshore "wind spills" be in Massachusetts waters?

Frank Maisano, an energy expert with Washington, D.C. law and lobbying firm Bracewell-Giuliani who has worked on behalf of offshore wind projects for years, says developers face three significant obstacles: (1) economics, (2) transmission and (3) technology.

A new way of printing and folding ceramic and metal lattices into miniature structures could lead to novel lightweight engineering structures. The technique involves making latticed sheets from ceramic ink, then folding and heating these sheets to create intricate shapes. The method could be used to make lightweight parts for aerospace applications, complex scaffolds for tissue engineering, and filters and catalysts for industrial chemical production.

"We can make complex, three-dimensional shapes that can't be made in other ways," says Jennifer Lewis, director of the Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Lewis developed the technique with Illinois researcher Bok Ahn and David Dunand, a professor of materials science at Northwestern University. The researchers say it fills a need for a way to fabricate complex structures on the centimeter scale--too small for conventional molding or machining, and too big for lithography or similar techniques.

Lewis has previously created new kinds of inks and printing methods for making two-dimensional structures. Her approach involved squeezing inks containing ceramic or metal particles out of a print head, similar to the way toothpaste would be squeezed from a tube. With these inks, Lewis could make latticed patterns, one layer at a time. The lattices could then be heated to fuse the particles together and remove the ink solvents.

Can people learn or be taught to be more creative? Creativity is valued in many areas of human activity, including scientific discovery, technological invention, artistic imagination, and social innovation. I know of no studies that show that creativity is teachable, but history provides some interesting suggestions about the habits of highly creative scientists.

In an article called "How to be a Successful Scientist", I compiled a set of suggestions about what contributed to the great success of leading scientific researchers. (The article can be found on the Web, and is reprinted in my book Hot Thought.) My sources were a group of psychologists, philosophers and historians at a conference on scientific thinking, as well as writings by three important scientists: Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Peter Medawar, and James Watson. Here is the resulting list, organized into 6 categories.

One of my blog readers – Boaz Fletcher – sent me an awesome video this morning from RSA Animate. It’s 11 minutes long and is a fascinating lecture by Dan Pink about The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I love the RSA Animate format – an artist animates the talk on a giant whiteboard in real time.

In this case Pink takes on the question of “Does More Money Motivate Higher Performance?” In the first few minutes he shows that while this works for tasks requiring mechanical skill, this does not work for tasks that require even rudimentary cognitive skill. In fact, in these cases there is an negative correlation between greater monetary reward and increased performance. It’s counterintuitive, but the talk illustrates it beautifully with several examples that will appeal to any technology entrepreneur.

Whales are remarkably diverse, with 84 living species of dramatically different sizes and more than 400 other species that have gone extinct, including some that lived partly on land. Why are there so many whale species, with so much diversity in body size?

To answer that, UCLA evolutionary biologists and a colleague used molecular and computational techniques to look back 35 million years, when the ancestor of all living whales appeared, to analyze the evolutionary tempo of modern whale species and probe how fast whales changed their shape and body size. They have provided the first test of an old idea about why whales show such rich diversity.

I’ve had this conversation so many times it’s painful. A friend calls me up from “you name it” city: Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and says, “I’m thinking about moving to Los Angeles (or SF, NY, etc) and I’d love to start interviewing. Let me know if you hear of anything interesting.”

I guess when I hear things like this I revert back to my shock jock instincts and say, “Don’t bother. If you’re committed to living in New York then move there. Otherwise you’re not serious and you’ll never get the right job so don’t bother.” Definitely gets shock value. At least I have their attention.

Why do I give this blunt advice?

As you explore the Green Economy Map and consider your green career options, keep the following points in mind.

1)The green economy is made up of over 50 industries and sectors. Each one is making concerted efforts to make their business practices greener, cleaner, and more sustainable.

The takeaway for you: To get a sense of where your skills may fit within the green economy, click on each segment of the Green Economy Map to discover which industries fall into which sector. Pay attention to the industries that look interesting to you.

The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), celebrated the funding of its 200th company. American Dynamics Flight Systems (ADFS) in Jessup, Md., which received $75,000 from TEDCO's NAVAIR Technology Insertion (NAVTI) program was lucky No. 200. Over the course of TEDCO's 12-year history, the organization has provided more than $8.5 million in funding to Maryland businesses through its signature Maryland Technology Transfer and Commercialization Fund (MTTCF), which makes up over 75 percent of TEDCO's portfolio.

"TEDCO's has done an outstanding job in making Maryland one of the premier locations for technology-based economic development, bringing high-skilled, high-paying jobs to Maryland," says Senator Benjamin L. Cardin. "Today, I join TEDCO as it features its 10 most innovative companies and celebrates the funding of its 200th company, American Dynamic Flight Systems. TEDCO understands the importance of nurturing high-tech companies with the capital they need to succeed so that we can ensure good paying jobs for Marylanders."

Either you lead or follow and Chinese manufacturing houses have been chasing Apple’s designs for years. The iPad is just their latest victim. You can’t blame them, really. It’s the hottest device since the rotary phone.

We’ve seen a steady stream of clones flowing onto the web for months. Here’s the seven best starting with the just-found iPed.

Cities cover only 3% of the world's land mass, but they house 50% of the world's population, consume 75% of the world's resources and emit a corresponding proportion of greenhouse gases.

Statistics like that make a convincing case for green innovation.

But can planners, engineers, politicians and bureaucrats create a culture of learning and innovation focused on sustainability? There are daunting barriers to overcome - lack of time, funding, human resources, clarity, passion and cooperation, to name a few.

Yesterday, the Air Force announced that its Waverider aircraft set the rec rd for hypersonic flight -- it reached Mach 6. Which is impressive.

But some other world records were also broken yesterday: Fastest Time to Name All James Bond Movies in Chronological Order (9.9 seconds). And Most Beer Bottles Balanced on Chi (12 bottles).

These records were featured on one of my favorite websites, the Universal Record Database . If you're not familiar, it's a Youtube-like version of world records, where anyone can upload their feats of human achievement -- no matter whether they're inspiring or absurd, athletic or intellectual.

Clifford Krauss of the New York Times reports on BP’s latest effort to cap the oil leak, called ‘top kill’. He notes the following:

“The consequences for BP are profound: A successful capping of the leaking well could finally begin to mend the company’s brittle image after weeks of failed efforts, and perhaps limit the damage to wildlife and marine life from reaching catastrophic levels.

A failure could mean several months more of leaking oil, devastating economic and environmental impacts across the gulf region, and mounting financial liabilities for the company. BP has already spent an estimated $760 million in fighting the spill, and two relief wells it is drilling as a last resort to seal the well may not be completed until August.”

Entrepreneurs’ quest for capital is never ending. Capturing this capital is part of the challenge of building a sustainably profitable company. So even after you pitched your business plan and outlined all the reasons why angel investors should invest in your company, obtaining angel financing isn't easy. So then, what is the best way to secure angel investment?

Start by networking. Seek out the right connections to potential investors by attending investment forums, small-business education programs, business-plan competitions, social gatherings and other events where individuals interested in inventing congregate. Most of these activities and events are in your backyard, so you’ll find them by staying local. It is appealing to go elsewhere where the grass (i.e., “money”) is perceived to be greener and more plentiful. With some exceptions, angel investors tend to invest close to home. They do so because they want to provide guidance, provide help when and where they can, and keep tabs on their investment.

Last year I had the opportunity to visit or speak to 24 organizations around the globe, for my research on open innovation practices. These companies included Philips, Kodak, Nokia, Telefonica, Siemens, Xerox and Dupont, but also highly innovative Brazilian firms such as Natura (cosmetics) Embraco (world leader in refrigeration) and Petrobras (one of the largest energy companies in the world) that have been implementing very successful innovation practices. When doing such research one always looks for good practices common between the companies, but also for the practices that make them stand out or be very successful through open innovation.

Here I am sharing seven successful practices that resulted from this research and I would highly recommend implementing:

Have you ever heard of "Penny Auctions"? If you haven't, but you're the type always looking for bargains and amazing deals, then you're in luck! Penny auctions are a new auction model that are rapidly becoming very popular in the US and Europe. Penny auctions allow individuals to do just what it implies, win popular products for pennies on the dollar. Leading the way in this new auction model is QuiBids.com, an Oklahoma based company. QuiBids auctions off brand new popular products such as iPads, Macbooks, HDTVs, Digital Cameras, Gaming Consoles, and more for steep discounts of 75%, 80%, or even 85% off retail price.

ON Friday consumers across Europe will finally be able to get their hands on Apple's long awaited iPad. The 9.7-inch touch-screen device allows users to play games, listen to music, check emails and even read newspapers. Gadgets such as the iPod and iPhone have helped Apple post record earnings and the next chapter in its redefinition of the multimedia landscape promises to be as lucrative as the last. Sales of iPads are forecast to add around $1 billion of revenue to the company's next quarter.

Apple has already secured a reputation for extraordinary innovation but in reality much of its success lay not in traditional Research and Development (R&D) but in fields such as complex system integration, design, marketing and integrating the hardware it created with the software it assembled. In the case of the iPod Apple was hugely successful in persuading the music industry, in particular the big record labels, to allow them to put their songs in the iTunes music store.

Rochester, NY, May 28, 2010 – High Tech Rochester’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) program was one of three EIR programs recognized as an industry best practice at last week’s International Conference on Business Incubation, held in Orlando, Florida. The other two organizations recognized in this category were Cleveland JumpStart, and the Oregon Technology Business Center. In addition, HTR’s EIR program is featured in a new book from the National Business Incubation Association entitled “Best Practices in Action: Guidelines for Implementing First-Class Business Incubation Programs (Revised 2nd Edition).”
 
“We are honored to have our EIR program recognized as one of the best in the nation,” said James Senall, president of High Tech Rochester. “This program has been a hallmark of HTR for many years, and has directly contributed to the growth of many local companies. We are eager to continue to expand and evolve this program going forward, to generate an even larger impact on job and wealth creation here in the Rochester region.”

The passengers at a station embarks onto to a connector cabin way before the train even arrives at the station. When the train arrives, it will not stop at all. It just slows down to pick up the connector cabin which will move with the train on the roof of the train.

While the train is still moving away from the station, those passengers will board the train from the connector cabin mounted on the train's roof. After fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof.