The planners of the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium are looking for innovative early stage companies from Wisconsin and other Midwest states to present in November at Madison’s Monona Terrace.    The annual conference on Nov. 5-6 gives selected companies the opportunity to make presentations and meet with investors, along with other entrepreneurs and business leaders. Many firms have cited participation in the conference as a key factor for significant business growth.  Company applications are due no later than 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 23, 2013.

Seth Godin wants you to hurry. Not to get a million Twitter followers and become the next Miley Cyrus, but to take advantage of a moment of upheaval that is allowing entrepreneurs to start companies like never before.

And he wants you to hurry because that moment might be passing.

They had the best of intentions, they really did.

Whoever you grew up with, whether it was your parents, grandparents, or someone else, really aren’t to blame.  They were there to provide you with love, support, and affection because they wanted the best from you.

However, they probably weren’t economists. They weren’t visionaries who could tell you what the future economic climate will look like.  We should respect our elders for their experience, but we need to re-evaluate what they told us, for the world is changing rapidly.

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The idea that the government invests in your company might not interest every entrepreneur. But there are several reasons why you should consider going after such funding.

Government funding can provide the capital needed to turn innovative ideas into products at times when venture capitalists are reluctant to invest. It will fund early-stage research and development, takes little if any equity and doesn’t expect high rates of return.

What happens when a man has more cash than he can ever spend and no rules on how to spend it? Stewart Rahr's answer: an unhinged, hedonistic bender, filled with girls, guns, sex tapes -- and a lesson in whether money really can buy happiness.

I recently gave a lunchtime “author’s talk” at Children’s Hospital in Boston and, although I thought the talk went well, somebody in the audience didn’t like it at all. On the evaluation form, the person in question wrote a single word in the comment box: CONFUSING.

Thank you, whoever you are. While everybody else gave me good marks and said nice things, which I appreciated, my critic forced me into self-examination. Was he the only one forthright enough to speak up, or was he the only one not paying enough attention to get it? What was confusing? The ideas? The presentation?

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A brand-new boat, the AC72, is hitting the water for the 34th America's Cup, an intense race between two sailing yachts that dates back to 1851. The new 131-foot-tall (that's 13 stories!), 72-foot-long catamaran is designed to be the most powerful sailing machine in the world—and, consequently, is the most dangerous.

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There a few things in life that are inevitable. Death and taxes we all know about. Better add getting totally freaked out by your job to the list.

While we already understand a few ways to meet our anxieties as they come, what would be really great is if someone could tell us how to leave our jerk-face boss's demands at the office where they belong.

Turns out we only need to write it down.

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As the editorial director of Working Mother magazine, Jennifer Owens champions workplace flexibility in a professional capacity. Every year, she and her staff highlight companies with flexible work hours and telecommuting options. But she also practices what she preaches, with many of her staff members working when and where they choose. “As long as I can get to you and get the job done, I kind of don’t care,” Owens says. And while Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer famously announced last winter that employees needed to be in the office to be innovative, Owens insists that “I never want for new ideas.”

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Have you ever felt discouraged by the stat that 75% of startups fail?

I have.

Are you more interested in hearing about startup mistakes (versus success) so you can apply those lessons to your business?

Me, too.

From my experience working with over a dozen startups, launching my own, and coaching CEOs, one thing I’ve learned is that most great startups have a long list of painful lessons learned along the way. One difference between good startups and remarkable companies is those who persevere through the trials and tribulations.

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Hot tech companies with sustained profitability, robust growth projections and lots of cash in the bank are traditionally expected to go public. But for some of these companies, pursuing an IPO right away may not be right as they know they have a lot more company building to do. But how do they reward long-time employees and investors who deserve to share in the financial gains they have helped to create?

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Getting a Wharton MBA involves taking off from work for two years, moving to Philadelphia, and spending about $200,000 on tuition and expenses. Now, with the addition of three new courses on the online learning platform Coursera, you can get much of the course content for free.

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The 5th anniversary of the financial crisis is coming and going with little public notice beyond a few ripples on the editorial pages. Today’s relative calm stands in stark contrast to the panic that gripped markets throughout the world during the days before and after the Lehman Brothers collapse.

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Over the years, the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship has featured an assortment of rankings that examine just about everything you can imagine to do with the economic well-being of all 50 U.S. states. Of course, most informed readers understand that different organizations lead to different points of emphasis, different methodologies and you guessed it—different results.

Still, there is just something so comforting about seeing those rankings and wanting to use them to validate opinions and even action plans. A new paper from the Kauffman Foundation—which has funded similar efforts—is asking policymakers to pump the brakes a bit.

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Fenwick & West LLP, one of the nation's premier law firms providing comprehensive legal services to high technology and life science clients, today announced the results of its First Half 2013 Life Science Venture Capital Survey.

The survey analyzes the valuations and terms of venture financings for 149 life science companies headquartered in the United States that reported raising capital during the first half of 2013, as well as trends in venture capital financings, fundraising and exit events.

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In recent days, the term “patent troll” has creeped into the nation’s lexicon. Sens. Patrick Leahy D-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) of the Senate Judiciary Committee have penned an op-ed at Politico calling for reforms to the 2011 Leahy-Smith America Invents Act towards the elimination of fraudulent patent infringement claims — so-called “patent trolling.”

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I expect that within a few years, my Tesla electric car will drive by itself using Google software. Yes, I am talking about the selfdriving, autonomous vehicles that we saw in science fiction movies. Google is making these a reality. Its autonomous cars have already driven half a million miles on California roads—without a single accident. These will soon transform transportation in cities all over the world. (I'm not so sure about India however, only God can tame its drivers).

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Despite the profound impact of the banking sector collapse in 2008 on Iceland’s economy, the island nation ranks 13th in this year’s Global Innovation Index, 14th in the Ease of Doing Business rankings, and 23rd in the Index of Economic Freedom. There has been much debate and disagreement regarding the key steps that put this social-market economy on a path to successful recovery but no one denies the contribution of the more silent actors transforming the economy for the better—its entrepreneurs. I recently sat down in Reykjavik with President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson to learn about the entrepreneurs who are building what they call an “anti-fragile” entrepreneurship ecosystem.

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I enjoyed your most recent Washington Post article on the inverse correlation between high standardized test scores and entrepreneurial inclinations. But I have to ask, are you really surprised?

Anyone who has spent any time in the entrepreneur ecosystem knows that there is an inverse correlation between high prestige MBAs and entrepreneurship. It's clear what is going on here. The GMAT, like the SAT, is focused on finding the high achievement individuals in society — not the compassionate, ethical, collaborative, or socially conscious individuals. The whole institutional educational game is focused on individual achievement and test scores on standardized bodies of knowledge, not on teamwork, risk-taking, and innovative thinking.

Harvard University on Monday became the latest elite institution that will seek to organize its online education offerings with the creation of a high-ranking administrative position. Although not a widespread practice, early adopters say institutions should consider following suit sooner rather than later.

The promotion of Peter K. Bol to vice provost of advances in learning adds coordination to the groundswell of experimentation with online learning at Harvard that includes, among others, edX, the massive open online course provider created in cooperation with the Massachusetts of Technology; the Harvard Initiative for Learning & Teaching, which supports learning innovation through grants and other programs; and the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, which uses a research-based approach to new teaching methods.