Microsoft is turning the tables and asking the younger generation to come up with new technology and social media ideas. At the Microsoft Imagine Cup, held in New York City this year, 128 teams made up of high school and college students had to come up with social media devices and strategies to help solve important medial information. Nine teams of #Innovators were given cash out of a $25,000 pool and the bragging rights that they potentially could have made a difference in someone's life.

Interest in Ohio State University’s 10x accelerator, supported by a $200,000 state Third Frontier grant, has prompted the Ohio Department of Development to ask who else in the state wants their own startup boot camp.

The department announced this week it would accept “statements of interest” from existing or potential business accelerators that might also want funding from the Ohio New Entrepreneur fund.

But it’s just a toe in the water, according to the notice: “This is not a commitment by Ohio Third Frontier to extend the pilot program or take any action regarding the statements.”

At universities and research centers worldwide, increasing emphasis is being placed on developing technology transfer. IPBlog receives recruiting ads daily, and, unfortunately, technology transfer is often promoted in the mistaken belief that it will lead to substantial additional income for an institution. While it is important to appreciate and protect the value of intellectual property originating from ideas and efforts of an institution’s researchers and to facilitate the transfer of research results, generating income should not be the primary objective of the transfer of technology.

As discussed in Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation, the job of the Technology Transfer Officer is to create the incentives needed to move discovery into the product development arena, motivating academic researchers not by the sole promise of high profits—which rarely appear (AUTM’s statistics indicate one in 200 licenses reaches the $1M in revenue mark) —but by applying royalty benefit streams towards further research in the inventor’s laboratory, and by balancing some financial reward to the inventor with the satisfaction of seeing his or her work used for public benefit. (Mike Moberly refers to that relationship-building process as “onboarding,” and IPBlog and BVR will be exploring that in detail at a later date.)

It’s a widely held belief that the European venture capital scene is poor relation to the US. Given how important such finance is to the continent’s technology startups, this has long been a sore point. However, a new report (embedded below) from German VC firm Earlybird states that the opposite is now true.

The report argues that European venture capital has reached an “inflection point” and that it now offers better real performance than the US for the first time. The report argues that the past two years has seen $15bn in venture capital liquidity in Europe – half the figure for the US over that period, but based on only one fifth of the funding.

Earlybird’s report goes on to state that proportionally, Europe is producing higher exit multiples than the US, due to an overproportional share of successful exits in Europe.

Hypochondriacs, rejoice. Toyota is reportedly working on a steering wheel with an electrocardiogram (ECG) built in. In the future, your car will be able to tell you if you have arrhythmia--or even if you're having a heart attack.

The setup is simple: Contact sensors embedded in the steering wheel detect abnormal heart rhythms via the driver's hands. Toyota recently showed off a Prius outfitted with the steering wheel to a group of reporters at one of its Japan facilities, according to Medgadget. The ECG info was shown on the in-car navigation screen--meaning that one day, you could casually check your heart rate along with the weather and local news.

The economic deep freeze is thawing for IPOs on U.S. exchanges, according to a quarterly report issued today by the Ernst & Young accounting firm.

The number of companies in registration for an initial public offering increased to 140 during the three months that ended June 30, according to the latest the “Ernst & Young U.S. IPO Pipeline” study. That’s almost 24 percent more than the 113 companies that were registered during the same quarter last year, according to Ernst & Young’s data. Beneath story, I’ve put together a list of companies in the IPO pipeline for each Xconomy city as of June 30.

ASHWUABENON — The new Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. can promote job growth in the state by helping develop a qualified manufacturing work force, board members were told Monday.

The 13-member board of directors of the new public-private corporation, which on July 1 replaced the disbanded Department of Commerce, met at the Department of Motor Vehicles complex in Ashwaubenon.

All board members, including Gov. Scott Walker, who is chairman, attended the quarterly meeting. Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who met with women business owners later at Advance Business Center in Green Bay, also attended.

Six Northeastern Wisconsin business owners who participated in a roundtable discussion were posed three questions by Paul Jadin, CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.: Why are their businesses in Wisconsin, what are their growth opportunities and what are their challenges?

Demand for private company shares declined in the second quarter versus the first quarter but was up sharply year-over-year, according to a new report released today by SecondMarket. The market for private company stock saw $112 million in transactions last quarter, versus $156 million in the first quarter, or down 39 percent sequentially. On an annual basis, however, it was up 120 percent over the second quarter of 2010, which saw $51 million in transactions. And the $268 million worth of transactions in the first half of 2011, was up 75 percent from the first half of 2010 .

Some of the tempering of demand over the past couple quarters can be attributed to the fact that two of the previous most popular stocks on the market, LinkedIn And Pandora, went public so investor demand simply shifted to the public markets. Demand for shares from new startups filled much of the gap, but was not enough to keep transaction volumes growing compared to the previous two quarters.

For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. In fact, the Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers. While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing -- the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Carl Jung (who studied under Freud) also believed that dreams had psychological importance, but proposed different theories about their meaning.

Fundraising is a tough name for one of the most important, and sensitive, ways to engage people. Raising funds for your venture really isn't about the money. If you want to be successful in this money business, focus on people, not funds.

One of my greatest funders has been with me for the better part of 10 years. We started out slow at $5,000 and it grew to a consistent, annual six-figure support. Our first big jump in investment was when he funded two new hires, bringing them on board to join our team.

Next year, thinking he might want a creative change, I presented an aggressive marketing plan which could take UniversalGiving to exciting new levels of brand awareness.

He turned me down, not funding a dollar. "I don't like marketing, Pamela," he said. "It's not something I invest in because it's not easy to measure."

I should have known this due to our conversations, if I had taken more time.

Every organization has a diverse group of personalities that respond differently to particular management styles. The creatives of an organization are often the group that stands out and may be misunderstood. How are creatives perceived in your company? What is the nature of the creative type, and how can they best be managed for the purposes of achieving Innovation?

First, let’s describe what creatives are like. Highly charged creative types may act out or resist when they feel restricted by the confinement of corporate culture. Some creatives may prefer to work alone, in the refuge of their own private work space until they emerge with an “Aha!” moment or solution to a vexing problem. In meetings and NPD ideation sessions, true creatives are the ones that are not afraid to ask the most challenging, thought-provoking questions to dive head-first into a problem. They do it out of sheer intellectual curiosity and the thrill of probing a conundrum – that is where they work best. It is that kind of curiosity that leads to Innovation for a business, and in turn brings profitable growth and shareholder value for the company.

Since 1979, the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation has made equity investments in start-ups that might not have found funding otherwise — mainly relying on taxpayer money. The goal of the quasi-public corporation is to nurture entrepreneurship and create jobs in Massachusetts. and the MTDC says that its portfolio companies today employ 7,500 people in the Commonwealth, with a payroll of $612 million. But while the MTDC hasn't invested a staggering sum over its lifetime (about $83 million in 133 companies), and it boasts a 16.5 percent internal rate of return, its future always seems to be in doubt, given its reliance on money from Beacon Hill.

This summer is no different, says Jerry Bird, who took over last month as executive director. "The legislature approved $5 million for us about a year-and-a-half ago, but it's not yet in our bank account," says Bird. The hang-up? While the state has already issued bonds to raise the money, there's a technical issue related to freeing up that money to make equity investments, Bird says.

Anyone can build web apps with Flotype.

Date Founded: October 2010

Founder: Darshan Shankar, Sridatta Thatipamala, Eric Zhang

Concept: Web technology that enables everyone, from startups to enterprises, to easily build large-scale, real-time web applications.

Location: Berkeley, CA

Funding: Y-Combinator invested $20,000, plus additional financing from others

Why You Should Care: Flotype was a Y-Combinator winter 2010 company. NowJS is its main product. The startup is just six months old, but it's on track to generate $1 million in revenue. The founders are young and scrappy too. All three are 19-year-old UC Berkeley engineering dropouts.

Every so often a promising entrepreneur seems to freeze in the oncoming headlights and gets run over by his competition. Why is it that his idea which seemed so fundable only months ago fails to dazzle investors today? The team is the same. The company's market is the same.

The only difference might be the start of another recession like the last one, resulting in a lower valuation for Internet ventures, and that makes all the difference. Herein lies a key principle of decision making - “Any decision is better than no decision.”

Even better than any decision is a good decision made quickly. What separates good decision-making from bad decision-making? H.W. Lewis, author of “Why Flip A Coin? The Art and Science of Good Decisions,” summarizes good decision making as:

Identifying all reasonable actions. Listing the potential consequences of each action and the utility of each consequence. Evaluating the probability that each action will lead to a given consequence. Choosing the action quickly which has the best expected outcome or positive contribution.

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook all compete for top talent. In doing so, they lure and acqui-hire the brightest minds in tech — who, unfortunately for them, later go on to trade these cushy jobs for the rough-and-tumble life of a startup founder.

Which of these four mega powers in tech (at one point or another) has produced, and hence pushed out, the top talent in the industry? A little analysis of the startups that have come from the former employees of these tech heavy-hitters, and a look at the funding these startups have raised, might shed some light on the answer.

TopProspect to the rescue. The startup, a site that helps you get hired through your social network friends, fashioned the infographic below after analyzing data, dating back to 2006, from its users and their social connections — that pool includes more than 3 million folks mostly in the Silicon Valley area.

A reader asked:

Where can I get funding for my business idea?

The truth is, ideas don’t get funded, businesses do. Budget your savings and sell, sell, sell! Once you’re up and running, then you can think about approaching lenders and other entrepreneurs about additional expansion capital.

It has all of the excitement of the big game, the high school play, and your first illicit smoke wrapped up in one. It’s “all-you-can-eat night” at the adrenaline junkie café.

I’m talking about the night before the pitch for the big piece of business — it could be the final interview in an RFP process, a proposal meeting with the big prospect, or the next step with your biggest client. Regardless, it is show time and you and your team, (your team could be no bigger team than your pet, yourself, and your coffee pot), are up late getting ready with all of the final details.

I have been through it a ton of times and I have watched dozens of clients go through it. This experience has taught me some key things that you should do to get it right in getting ready.

Oklahoma Department of Commerce Secretary Dave Lopez and the U.S. Treasury Department announced today that Oklahoma has been approved to receive $13.2 million in State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) funds.

The SSBCI funds will be allocated by the U.S. Department of Treasury through the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and managed by i2E, Inc. The Commerce Department and i2E have partnered in a joint initiative called “Accelerate Oklahoma!”, which provides three distinct investment funds targeting the formation and expansion of high growth businesses.

“It is good to learn that Oklahoma is among the first few states to complete this process and that these funds will be available to our small businesses,” Lopez said.  “We appreciate working with the U.S. Treasury, and we now look forward to positive outcomes as i2E works with companies in Oklahoma to drive innovation and grow jobs.”

There’s been a lot of debate about the role of VC backing for startups in Europe recently, not least because we’ve been pushing the issue to try and provoke a response from European VCs who – with notable exceptions of course – tend not to come out fighting quite as much as their US peers. The majority of European VCs tend to blog less, tweet less and, as a result much of the debate about VC comes from disgruntled European entrepreneurs. But now one really has come out fighting.

German VC firm Earlybird has produced a long slide presentation and written notes – written by Hendrik Brandis and Jason Whitmire – that argues that although the European venture industry is a quarter of the size of the U.S. market, proportionally speaking it is outperforming the US VC industry in returns. As a result, Limited Partners (LIPs) – the funds that invest in VCs – should start sitting up and taking notice. It has to be said of course that as VCs across the globe battle for funding, it is in their interests to come out swinging from their corner to fight for these funds. But let’s hear them out.

Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development, Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a “science,” and anyone could do it.

I’m beginning to suspect this assumption may be wrong.

It’s not that the tools are wrong, I think the entrepreneurship management stack is correct and has made a major contribution to reducing startup failures. Where I think we have gone wrong is the belief that anyone can use these tools equally well.

For the sake of this analogy, think of two types of artists: composers and performers (think music composer versus members of the orchestra, playwright versus actor etc.)