JOHN GREATHOUSE: As noted in “You’re Never To Old To Learn To Surf,” I came to surfing late in life. In the course of becoming a (barely) proficient surfer, I realized that surfing and venture-capital investing share some surprising corollaries—corollaries that I find useful as both a venture capitalist and a surfer.

On Sept. 29-30, the Utah Science Technology and Research Agency will hold its second annual two-day research and commercialization workshop, 2015 Confluence: Where innovative ideas seed, grow and thrive, at the James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building on the University of Utah campus.

The event seeks to stimulate economic and commercial excitement within Utah, while providing USTAR researchers the opportunity to share their work and projects, and will also give stakeholders, investors and the public an opportunity to engage in the unique work of USTAR.

Edinburgh University has launched 44 student startups and three spinouts over the 2014/15 academic year, bringing the university’s total haul to over 400 new firms since it launched its first spinout four decades ago.

Edinburgh also reported £237m ($372.1m) invested into its startups and spinouts over the past year, £175m of which came via sports predication startup Fanduel. Formerly known as Hubdub, the Edinburgh firm closed $275m in its series E, which was backed by Google, numerous media companies, venture firms, and owners of NFL and NBA teams.

Today the bar for creativity is extremely high. It starts with people. Anyone can use the phone in their pocket to shoot and edit high quality video – something that would have been unthinkable even ten years ago. Anyone with a mobile phone has a computer in their pocket — from shooting and editing video on a smartphone to banking on a feature phone. Small businesses can shoot a video of their product, market it and accept payment all online. Brands and consumers now exist side to side, and often face to face, in a vast digital landscape. The distance between brand and consumer has all but disappeared, and the resulting intimacy — combined with the ongoing explosion of new technologies – has changed our understanding of what creativity is, and what it can achieve.

We recently released our seventh annual list of the 50 best colleges in America.

To create this list, we asked more than 1,000 of our readers to weigh in on which schools best prepare students for success after graduation.

Put away your sad sand bucket.

These artistic sandcastles totally trump the ones you built as a kid at the beach. But maybe their intricate designs will inspire you to build something magnificent with sand before summer comes to a close.

Image: @WHOOVER77 ON INSTAGRAM

Computer science is one of the most valuable college majors. The skills acquired by graduates of top computer-science programs attract desirable employers such as Apple, Intel, and Google.

We recently released our list of the 50 best computer-science and engineering schools in America. We surveyed over 400 Business Insider readers to find the best schools, and cross-referenced the results with the average SAT scores of the students at each school from College Board.

“Entrepreneurship is an experiment — if you know the results, it’s not entrepreneurship,” said Oren Simanian, who heads Tel Aviv University’s esteemed entrepreneurship center StarTau.

Entrepreneurship is ingrained in Israeli culture because people had to create — to establish the country and to defend it. But today, residents have other options, such as working for Apple or Google or another multinational with facilities in Israel, Simanian said recently at Miami Dade College’s Idea Center. The occasion was an event announcing a knowledge-sharing partnership between the two entrepreneurship centers.

Image: From left, Matt Haggman of the Knight Foundation, Jaret Davis of Greenberg Traurig, Ben Wirz of Knight Foundation, Felecia Hatcher of Code Fever and Leandro Finol of Miami Dade College’s Idea Center discuss ecosystem building with the audience and Oren Simanian (seated), head of Tel Aviv University’s entrepreneurship center. Simanian gave a talk about Israel’s tech ecosystem, and the two entrepreneurship formed a knowledge-sharing partnership. Cristian Lazzari, MDC Wolfson BY NANCY DAHLBERG 

Millennials are now the largest segment of the U.S. labor market according to Pew Research, and they are pushing back on “business as usual” in corporate America today, says a recent article featured on MPR News. Profit, profit, and more profit is not a good enough motive for this new professional generation.

Millennials want meaning both at work and at home. In fact, they demand it and will quit if they don’t get it. Let’s face it, this all makes sense and we Baby Boomers know what the effects of the corporate rat race had on us. We’ve been chewed up and spit out at work, and by the way, our Millennial kids saw us suffer at the whims of “The Man.”  It’s not a big surprise to hear MPR News say, “The American workplace is the greatest cause of stress and costs corporations up to $300 billion a year in lost productivity.”

These days, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, pitching their latest and greatest new idea, and looking for someone to give them money. Angel investors, like me, have long figured out that asking to see the prototype is a quick way to separate the ‘wannabes’ from serious players. Talk is cheap, but entrepreneurs who show you a working model of their idea know how to execute.

Earlier this year UK equity crowdfunding pioneer Crowdcube proudly announced that JustPark, a company pitching for investment through its platform, had raised a record breaking £3.7m. It was one the many success stories that have helped place crowdfunding squarely on the collective radar screen of startups and early stage companies. In deal terms, crowdfunding in Britain was worth about £84m in 2014 with further growth to the tune of 40% expected in the current year, according to UK innovation agency NESTA. Meanwhile across the rest of Europe the market is worth around £82m.

If the thought of crowdfunding conjures notions of converting untold masses, it might be helpful to envision the process as slightly more personalized.

“The number one myth (about crowdfunding) is the word ‘crowd’ itself,” says Sally Outlaw, CEO of Peerbackers, a consulting firm. “You have to go out there really one-to-one. It comes back down to personal relationships -- the success of a campaign.”

 

This year we rank the 50 best small cities in the country—places with great jobs, strong economies, affordable homes, excellent schools, and that special something that makes it a great place to live. Just ask the Wilson family of No. 1 Apex, N.C.

The business world moves so rapidly these days it’s a wonder anyone can keep up. While this create stress, it also opens up a host of opportunities for those with the vision and passion to pursue them. However, like a kid in a candy store with only a few dollars to spend, it can be very difficult to sort through all the opportunities and choose the right one.

Lately, I’m hearing about more and more organizations establishing internal startups — separate units to build new business models, pursue new markets, create whole new divisions. 3M has one. General Mills does too. Because you’re a reader of Innovation Excellence, chances are good that you could be asked to lead one. Are you ready? Earlier this week I explored the finer points of leading a startup with Pam Moret, the driving force behind brightpeak financial, a startup that provides affordable financial services to young Christian families in the United States. When the call came, Pam was ready.

Twenty-four-year-old Brian Liou was a little nervous. But he had to focus. His turn was next. Liou is the cofounder of Leada, a startup to help businesses train better data analysts, and he had a lot riding on this. After all, his company had just pivoted two weeks ago. So, no pressure.

Image: The Y Combinator partners at the program's summer 2015 demo day Image Credit: Ken Yeung/VentureBeat 

Every big thinker who's made a difference in our lives, from Thomas Edison to Bill Gates, has had a high degree of mental toughness—or what you might call a thick skull. It isn't just about being stubborn, although that's part of it. These tough-minded sorts make for great leaders and entrepreneurs because they keep moving toward their goals despite ridicule from naysayers who can't appreciate what they're trying to achieve. But mental toughness isn't necessarily something we're born with, as many believe. It's a set of characteristics we can all learn. Here are some habits the most tough-minded leaders have developed.

Raising capital sucks.

Fundraising is an inevitable task that plagues most startup founders, especially those in Canada who are once, twice removed from the silly money that resides in and around Silicon Valley.

As water cooler conversations in the tech community often center around the progress of your current “raise," the topic regularly turns to stories of how investors south of the border move quickly, with the notion that startups boasting a solid business idea, a prototype and a semblance of being able to execute should get a shot at finding product market fit or die quickly.

Enterprise Florida on Aug. 20 released updates on economic development efforts in its 2014-15 fiscal year, which included the creation of more than 33,0000 total jobs and $2.74 billion in capital investment in the state. Additional highlights for the past fiscal year included: Projected export sales of $906.4 million, a 10.5 percent increase over fiscal-year 2013-14.

Image: New Enterprise Florida CEO Bill Johnson 

Entrepreneurs and business executives seem to be even more focused on their technology than the rest of us, and less inclined to listen to the voice of the customer, even if they remember to ask. Real two-way conversations with real customers, including the all-important body language, are unheard-of these days. Being connected to the Internet many hours a day is not enough.