Most of us hate preparing presentations. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 74% of adults suffer from speech anxiety.

Dan Roam, author of Show and Tell and The Back of the Napkin says there’s a good reason many of us fear public speaking. It’s because words aren’t the best way to express ideas and says the solution is to talk less and draw more. By using visuals, we can not only make presentations more powerful but transform ourselves into better public speakers.

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Here are five tips to help you write the ultimate B2B press release:

Develop and tell a coherent, compelling story. What makes your company tick? How do you delight your customers? What sets you apart from the pack?

Paul Graham:

One of the most common types of advice we give at Y Combinator is to do things that don’t scale. A lot of would-be founders believe that startups either take off or don’t. You build something, make it available, and if you’ve made a better mousetrap, people beat a path to your door as promised. Or they don’t, in which case the market must not exist.

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Every startup with any traction quickly reaches a point where they need to hire employees to grow the business. Unfortunately, this always happens when pressures are the highest, and business processes are ill-defined. At this point you need superstars and versatile future executives, yet your in-house hiring processes and focus are at their weakest.

The result is a host of hiring mistakes that sink many young companies, or take years to fix. The solution is to never forget that hiring is a top priority task for the CEO, which should never be delegated, and which often has to supersede the urgent crises of the day.

Many people consider pogo sticks a children's toy — think again.

With a few upgrades, pogoing can bounce from a mildly dangerous childhood activity into an a treacherously awesome extreme sport.

In the most-watched TED talk of all time—viewed, as I write this, more than 26 million times—Sir Ken Robinson says the following:

There’s a shaft of nerves that joins the two halves of the brain called the corpus callosum, and it’s thicker in women. … I think this is probably why women are better at multitasking. Because you are, aren’t you? There’s a raft of research, but I know it from my personal life.

He goes on to mention how his wife can cook dinner while doing a million other things. This is the go-to example when people talk or write about gender and multitasking.

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I am sitting in my office on the second floor of MaRS Centre and watch people coming and going. If I get out of this room and walk downstairs, like I do a few times a day, I will surely experience random collisions with fellow entrepreneurs, investors, advisors and frequent visitors whom I may know from previous lives. These random collisions create conversations that lead to ideas and potential opportunities. For me, this is the single most important benefit, among many others, to spend time here at MaRS, the largest innovation cluster in Canada. I have been a resident here for about six months and these happy collisions almost always bring me some kind of call-to-action.

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In a recent interview, John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, stated that the major hurdle for the Internet of Everything is the underlying architecture or it will not happen, as too much effort will have to be spent on systems integration. As with most technical hurdles, this will likely be addressed, sooner or later.

Many people are just figuring out Web 1.0, mastering their web browsers, email and the like. Others are getting into Web 2.0, using social media to connect to people and join communities of practice.

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Like other high-tech entrepreneurs and would-be Mark Zuckerbergs, we were tempted by the siren call of Silicon Valley, but chose Cleveland  -- to launch BoxCast, our live HD video-streaming company.

Why Cleveland? The primary challenge for us - and many startups - is having enough money to pay the bills that seem to drop faster than Justin Masterson's sinker.  Our investors' cash just goes so much further in Cleveland compared to more fashionable locales. Office space, housing and employee costs are much more reasonable here.

Image: Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have won a $2.3 million grant to study the causes of child abuse and neglect in Cleveland neighborhoods. The four-year study, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will begin in May. (Lonnie Timmons III, The Plain Dealer) 

Coding is a big deal right now. Worldwide, 36 million kids have taken part in “Hour of code” activities, helping them become active, rather than passive users of technology and starting learning that might one day help secure a job in our increasingly tech-driven world.

Even if your kids don’t go on to code for living, a basic understanding of programming concepts improves problem-solving and thinking skills which are both transferable and empowering. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates says that: “Learning to write programs stretches your mind and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.“

Missed Apple’s developer conference yesterday? Here’s everything you need to know, packed into a two-minute video.

Although OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 ran the show at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), the company’s latest attempts to one-up Google and its new efforts in health are equally intriguing. Instead of sitting through a two-hour keynote, kick back for two minutes and watch the highlights:

Virtually the only startups that get serious press are the ones that raise large rounds. As entertaining as it is to follow the rock-star fundraisers, what about the founders who bootstrap their way to success?

This article is not a dig on people who raise money for their venture; it is also not meant to say that bootstrapping is definitely better than raising capital. Instead, these are four arguments for why not taking on early investors could also be a smart path to take.

Our society is at a crossroads. Within the next two decades 20% of the U.S. population will be over 65. This causes great debate when it comes to aging and driving. Is there ever a point where someone is too old to drive? Before you answer, consider how giving up the car keys means giving away freedom.

Think back to the last time your car was in the repair shop. Chances are you felt left out, isolated, and perhaps guilty for asking friends, family, and loved ones to change their schedules to help you get around. If you were one of the lucky ones, your car was fixed the same day, but, for senior's giving up car keys, the loss of freedom is permanent.

Increasing countries’ ability to adopt and adapt existing technologies is critical; strong innovative capacity is far more important than what particular combination of goods countries produce.

To spur innovation, investments in R&D are insufficient—they must be matched by a private sector that has the capacity and demand for technological upgrading

Hence, our conception of the National Innovation System and of innovation promotion policies must go beyond a narrow focus on universities or R&D and cover access to finance, managerial capacity, and a business environment that encourages risk taking.

The Intelligent Community Forum will hold its annual Summit this week in New York City and will name the 2014 Intelligent Community of Year. The three-day event is an international gathering of mayors, chief administrative officers, chief information officers and economic development officers from cities, states and regions around the world that are designated as Intelligent Communities by the Intelligent Community Forum.

Main Speakers at the Summit include:

Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of DataWind, Ltd, will speak at the Awards Dinner on the evening of Thursday, June 5 and accept the 2014 Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year Award.

Ryan Holladay, TED Talks Alumnus and BLUEBRAIN Partner, will deliver the annual Revolutionary Community address during the opening of the Plenary on Thursday, June 5.

Last month, we proudly launched our new brand and with it, a new and refined program offering. Venn Innovation Inc. is focused on businesses in early stages of growth, and companies working to strengthen and diversify their markets, or scaling operations to the next level. Venn will promote and support the early stage of business development through career preparation of our youth and developing young entrepreneurs. Through an extensive network of regional, national and international partners, Venn will provide members with access to strategic connections and collaborations needed to empower innovation and support their growth.

Venn is your connection to the tech community, a navigator for the innovation ecosystem, and an advocate for your interests.

Two weeks ago the Federal Communications Commission proposed new regulations that, if passed, would dramatically alter the Internet as we know it. The proposal, which would permit Internet service providers (ISPs) to set up “fast lanes” that Web sites could pay to access for speedier content delivery, has attracted widespread, vocal opposition from advocates who say that it will strangle the free flow of information around the Web.  

The FCC has left itself a way out from this debacle—Chair Tom Wheeler announced that the commission invited comment on whether it should reclassify the Internet as a public utility, a move that would sidestep the need for the proposed regulations—but it is unclear if the FCC is actually willing to take it.

Since its independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has moved decisively to be among the top 50 economies in terms of the ease of doing business and overall economic freedom. On May 23, I joined President Nursultan Nazarbayev of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Prime Minister Dato Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak of Malaysia and Muhammad Yunus, professor of economics, founder of the Grameen Bank and laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 in Astana for a discussion about future prospects in Kazakhstan for entrepreneurs.

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Saudi Arabia’s government and one of the country’s biggest banks plan to start a venture capital fund of as much as 1 billion riyals ($270 million) to invest in new technology companies.

Riyad Capital, the investment banking arm of Riyad Bank (RIBL), will manage the fund, while Saudi Technology Development and Investment Co., a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund, will provide seed capital, according to Adel Al Ateeq, head of asset management at Riyad Capital. The venture, which may make its first investment before the end of the year, will target the advanced materials, sustainable energy, and information, communication and technology industries, Al Ateeq said in an interview in Dubai on June 1.

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Ted Serbinski's path to Detroit was born out of amusement and guilt but ultimately evolved into perhaps the most satisfying experience of his career.

Three years ago, Serbinski was living in San Francisco, enjoying the spoils of a startup he had just sold to Lifetime TV. He was looking for something to do when his now-wife suggested they move to her hometown of Detroit.

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