Most entrepreneurs think that risk is just an “occupational hazard” that can be minimized or eliminated by a smart businessman. That way of thinking is simplistic and wrong. In reality, some risks are good and should be embraced for growth and a competitive edge, while others are bad and should be avoided completely.

Traditional risk management focuses only on bad risks, and seeks to contain losses. But if you want growth and sustainability, you need to create good risks, which means intentionally taking a risk to grow your business or gain competitive advantage.

More than ever, the capacity to innovate is a fundamental resource of organizations as well as the true wealth of a society. To contribute fully to the prosperity of an organization, region or country, the innovation process requires the implementation of knowledge dynamics between domains that are often treated in isolation.

This dynamic is based on a synergy between humans and intelligent machines. More broadly, ‘knowledge innovation’ is a combination of knowledge, imagination and experience, the ability to transcend the boundaries between domains, to make linkages and operate as interdependent parts.

Ecosystems of innovation include diverse facets. They bring out the concept of “e-co-innovation”, which – far from being a fad – brings a better understanding of the successful transition from idea to reality and ultimate value. Among some aspects of e-co-innovation: e- as economic, educative, environmental, electronic and ethics; co- as collaborative, co-design, common values, collective intelligence, knowledge and experience, convergence of intelligences – human and artificial; eco- as ecosystems – those of enterprise, regions and countries.

THE second annual Australian Innovation System report released by Innovation Minister Kim Carr yesterday is dry as a lizard's tongue at Longreach. Over 157 pages, it pulls statistics in from all over the world to position Australia on the global innovation league table. There are no specific policy prescriptions, no lofty conclusions, and the numbers often lag because of the complexity of the benchmarking process.

The picture it paints each year is destined, however, to become an increasingly important guide to innovation policy, particularly if the Australian dollar stays high, putting a premium on unique products.

There are already fascinating pointers in the data, and one of them is that Australia's innovation tends to be second-hand: companies are much more likely to take something that has already been developed and adapt it than invent something themselves. That in turn means we are still not getting significant ''first mover'' dividends from our rapidly expanding R&D budget.

One of the greatest joys of running a business online is the ability to measure results. Yet the very metrics that are supposed to help define the success or failure of your Web efforts are often poorly understood.

The most famous part of Google’s ranking algorithm, PageRank, has been confusing website owners for years. By itself it can’t do very much.  But it can be useful if you understand how it works and recognize its many limitations.

However, even Google suggests you’re better off not focusing on it too much. Here are five reasons why (below I’ll tell you what you should focus on instead):

Let's be clear from the beginning: America is at a precipice. Sitting still is not an option.

Our problems, while not hopeless, are urgent. And they require rediscovering something fundamental that we have lost: our shared sense of purpose.

Before 12 million of our soldiers began returning from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific in 1945, America passed the GI Bill to open the doors to college education and homeownership. After the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, America set its sights on sending a man to the moon - and marshaled its brains and resources to make it happen.

These were meaningful and long-reaching decisions inspired by national purpose, a public will to action and, yes, an awareness that our survival was at stake. They ushered in an extraordinary period of prosperity and innovation.

But that was then.

What does it take to be a great artist?

Richard Russo evokes this question near the end of his 2007 novel, Bridge of Sighs. In it, he chronicles Lou Lynch, Jr. (Lucy) and his friend Bobby Marconi, who grew up together in a small town in upstate New York. The two friends couldn’t be more different. In sixty years, Lucy has never left his hometown, but Bobby on the other hand, leaves as soon as he graduates high school, fleeing Thomaston never to return. He eventually becomes a world-famous artist and lives the rest of his life in Venice. After Bobby passes away, a reporter interviews Lucy to learn more about his friend’s childhood.

On Saturdays, the two friends took turns surfing in the back of Lou Sr.’s milk truck. The thrill came when the truck, turning unexpectedly, caused one or the other to lose his balance and crash into the side.  Unlike Lucy, who braced himself before turns, Bobby let go and even shut his eyes. In Lucy’s words, “Bobby wanted what was coming down the road to be a surprise, even if it meant he got hurt.”

Business incubators and business accelerators provide advice, guidance and various forms of support for businesses in the startup phase. The key difference between them is that business accelerators, as the name suggests, compress the timescale for starting up by operating as a type of boot camp. Business accelerators claim to help entrepreneurs hit the ground running; business incubators nurture the business in its startup phase, allowing it to develop at its own pace.

Incubators Business incubators provide new businesses with office space and shared facilities, such as telecommunications systems and Internet connections, in a dedicated building. According to The New York Times, there are around 1,200 incubation centers in the United States, as of 2011. Entrepreneurs can also access advice and guidance from professionals such as accountants, marketing consultants and business advisers who are associated with the incubation center and act as mentors. Entrepreneurs typically stay in an incubation center for three to five years, although there is no maximum period.

Our friends at Causevox published a very helpful free ebook called “7 Habits of Highly Effective Personal Fundraisers.”  Get it Here: http://ebook.causevox.com/7habits/.  We couldn’t have said it better.  A must download for anyone running a fund-raising campaign.

Here are some of our favorite online fund raising platforms:

• Spot.us http://spot.us/ hyper local community funded journalism
• Emphas.is http://emphas.is/ specifically for visual journalists doing image based projects anywhere
• Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/
• IndieGoGo http://www.indiegogo.com/
• Chipin http://www.chipin.com/ this is a widget that can be installed on one’s own blog or website.
• Invested.in http://invested.in/

Colony collapse disorder first appeared in 2006. But while the North American honeybee population has dropped precipitously recently (one beekeeper tells Fast Company that his 2010 honey crop was the smallest in 35 years of beekeeping), honeybee populations had been declining for decades due to insecticide-resistant mites and viruses. Instead of trying new insecticides, researchers are trying a different approach: breeding stronger bees.

Viruses and mites have, according to the U.N., killed 85% of bees in the Middle East, 10% to 30% of bees in Europe, and nearly a third of American bees each year. This is a big deal--over 70 of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world's food are pollinated by bees (that's $83 billion worth of crops).

In an iconic moment of 1960s cinema, a young Dustin Hoffman is given one-word career advice by an officious party guest: “Plastics.” While the word was supposed to represent the horrors of the suburban lifestyle, it was still damn good career advice.

Plastics did indeed become a boom industry in the late 60s and 70s, and if the hero of “The Graduate” had followed that advice, by this time he might be an overpaid CEO married to his third trophy wife.

If that movie were made today, the good career advice would be a different word entirely: “Healthcare.”

There is simply no industry in the United States that has a better record of success.  Not in saving lives or keeping people healthy!  When it comes to results of that kind, the U.S. healthcare system is among the worst in the industrial world.  No!  Where the U.S. healthcare industry is successful is where it count: the bottom line!

This week, I’ve had several meetings with venture funds, incubators, corporate accelerators and other significant players in the startup eco-system. One theme seems to come up over and again, especially from geographies outside Silicon Valley: lack of a reliable pipeline of deals. On July 1, 2006, commenting on the Indian startup scenario, I had written a blog post called Too Much Money, Too Few Deals . Today, the Indian scenario has improved greatly, but still the issue of lack of a mature deal flow remains. The same applies to Malaysia, where our partner, the MAD Incubator, is in search of 10 good deals to put through the 1M/1M program. And it also applies to many different parts of the United States where startup activity is still a relatively small portion of economic development.

In many of these cases, the funds or the accelerators want to put in $100,000 to $500,000 in select ventures but are having a hard time finding mature entrepreneurs to support.

Silicon Valley was born in an era of applied experimentation driven by scientists and engineers. It wasn't pure research, but rather a culture of taking sufficient risks to get products to market through learning, discovery, iteration and execution. This approach would shape Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial ethos: In startups, failure was treated as experience (until you ran out of money).

The combination of Venture Capital and technology entrepreneurship is one of the great business inventions of the last 50 years. It provides private funds for untested and unproven technology and entrepreneurs. While most of these investments fail, the returns for the ones that win are so great they make up for the failures. The cultural tolerance for failure and experimentation, and a financial structure which balanced risk, return and obscene returns, allowed this system flourish in technology clusters in United States, particularly in Silicon Valley.

Blogging yesterday, Ian Smith, chairman of Young Enterprise , wrote: "What I see in the new government’s approach is an alarming lack of focus on the skills, attitudes and behaviours that young people actually need, and understand they need, to be successful in their working lives. Skills like teamwork, presentation, reliability, honesty, integrity, and punctuality, which employers like me look for when taking on new recruits."

Smith says he fears the Department of Education is ignoring the "enormous amount of evidence that young people can also learn by doing" – giving them the opportunity to run their own real businesses while they are still at school and college.

Smith also takes a swipe at senior managers who “blame the attitude of British workers for their own failures.”

Thirty-two-year-old Roman Beranek studied Interaction Design at Zurich’s University of the Arts before founding Projektil, a dynamic visual arts collective in which design, technology and communication effortlessly coalesce into something both mind-bending and beautiful. Whether they’re draping Eindhoven’s Saint Catherine’s Cathedral in a psychedelic kaleidoscope of colors, or turning Beesenstedt Castle in Germany into a live, 3D concert with mobile interaction, Projektil is responsible for some of the world’s most innovative projection mapping events and has helped to define a uniquely twenty-first-century digital art form.

What does innovation mean to you? Innovation is the freedom of creativity. It’s about understanding the actual possibilities of what you’re able to do.

MADISON—As Governor Scott Walker continues to highlight the need for venture capital legislation, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Paul Jadin announced today that Tim Cooley has been named Director of Capital Development for the state’s lead economic development organization.

“Access to venture capital for an early-stage business is critical for Wisconsin companies to grow and create jobs in our state,” Governor Walker said. “The WEDC is well-positioned to lead a discussion with a broad spectrum of lawmakers, industry leaders and start-up companies who already agree that the need is urgent.”

HARRISBURG, Pa., July 28, 2011 -- /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New state investments in Pennsylvania's technology sector will help bring innovative products to the marketplace and strengthen Pennsylvania's energy industry, Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary C. Alan Walker announced today.

The $30.6 million investment was approved today by the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority (BFTDA) to support the four regionally based Ben Franklin Technology Partners. A portion of these funds, $16.6 million, will focus on development of alternate energy start-ups and new product innovations. The Technology Authority is designed to help Pennsylvania entrepreneurs build globally competitive technology companies.

Many high-end cars today come equipped with brake assist systems, which help a driver use the brakes correctly depending on particular conditions in an emergency. But what if the car could apply the brakes before the driver even moved?

This is what German researchers have successfully simulated, as reported in the Journal of Neural Engineering. With electrodes attached to the scalps and right legs of drivers in a driving simulator, they used both electroencephalography (EEG) and electromyography (EMG) respectively to detect the intent to brake. These electrical signals were seen 130 milliseconds before drivers actually hit the brakes—enough time to reduce the braking distance by about 12 feet.

U.S. manufacturing is in trouble. Technological innovation, particularly in new process technologies, can play a key role in spurring a revival, but that won't happen without a coherent and well-funded national manufacturing technology strategy.

First, some background. From January 2000 to January 2010, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs fell by 6.17 million, or 34 percent. It would be one thing if this job loss were due solely to superior productivity. But output declined as well. From 2000 to 2009, 15 of the 19 U.S. manufacturing sectors shrank in terms of real value added (gross output minus the cost of inputs), and overall manufacturing output declined by 10 percent during a period when U.S. GDP grew 15 percent. Had manufacturing output maintained its share of GDP, we'd have two million more manufacturing jobs and eight million more jobs overall.

There has been a lot of dialog about whether all the hype around all things social represents a bubble similar to the dot com bubble in the beginning of 2000.

The dialog is likely to continue and heat up as companies such as Linkedin go public with the share price and P/E ratios defying historical market logic.  Others like Facebook and Zynga will follow form and subsequent share prices and P/E ratios will set new records.

Here's something to keep in mind as you follow this evening's congressional debate over the debt ceiling.

According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday.

Apple's last earnings report (PDF here) showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June.