The 1957 sci-fi classic The Incredible Shrinking Man reads like a Rust Belt city script. In it, the lead actor is afflicted with the anti-natural: shrinkage in a world of growth. The rest becomes existential. From the movie review blog “Twenty Four Frames”:

He hates being a scientific experiment and a spectacle for the media. He is no longer the everyday 1950′s image of the middle class, white picket fenced American man. Instead, he now fights for survival in his own house where everyday objects are now the enemy to his existence. Finally, he must face the biggest question of all. If he continues to shrink, will he eventually even exist?

Image: http://www.newgeography.com 

Let’s imagine that you have recently assessed your company’s talent, and that you found plenty of high-performing executives and employees. Yet somehow your company’s overall performance isn’t where it should be — all those “A” players just aren’t getting the job done. Why?

The fact is, it isn’t enough just to hire the best. If you want to boost the productivity of your organization’s human capital, you also have to deploy those high performers effectively — put them to work so they can deliver the results they’re capable of. One of the most effective methods of deployment I’ve seen is to create all-star teams. Teams like these are a kind of force multiplier: if you group (say) three individuals from your list of A players into a team, you’ll typically get more than three times the output.

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Let’s say you’re working in a new market, far away from headquarters, and you need to get approval for an initiative that is somewhat outside the company’s current strategy. What do you do?

A case study we just published on Samsung’s European innovation team offers some helpful insights. It details how in 2010, Samsung set up a small consumer-focused innovation team in London, headed by Luke Mansfield. The team’s mission was to come up with new products for the European market — and then, significantly, to convince senior management in South Korea to invest in those projects — several of which, it turned out, required Samsung to deviate from their current strategy within the product categories in question.

There is no amount of lipstick that you can put on the problem: You need capital. And if you are like most entrepreneurs, you need capital quickly. It’s the people who have known you the longest who will likely be the first to bet on your success. Nonetheless, it is still tough to put hat in hand and go out and ask friends and family for funding.  

In many ways raising capital is much harder than the other aspects of executing your vision of a business. According to Fundable, a popular crowdfunding platform, friends and family invest about $60 billion a year in startups and  almost 38 percent of startups receive funding from this source. With only .05 percent  of startups backed by venture capitalists in 2013, those in your closest circle are most likely to be the ones writing those early checks.  

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Be it sexism, racism or ageism in the venture capital industry - both among the ranks of the professional investors and among the companies in which they invest - there is no louder or better-known critic these days that former Triangle entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa.

He entered the lions' den on Wednesday at the National Venture Capital Association's annual conference and delivered his characteristic no sacred cows barrage of criticism.

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Our economy is one driven by technology and innovation. New industries are emerging rapidly and traditional industries are changing radically through the application of advanced tech. In order to stay globally competitive in this Innovation Economy, we must develop an economic base of companies that constantly innovates, optimizes the use of technology and leverages diversity of talent.

image: http://forbes.com

Two years ago, I found myself in the right class at the right time at Allegheny College. As a result, I accidentally became an entrepreneur.

My college startup experience would later on define my postgraduate plans. Months later, I found myself at Startup Institute, learning technical marketing skills and diving into New York’s vibrant startup culture. After completing this 8-week career accelerator, I would go on to intern at a healthcare startup called Audicus.

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An expert in Godzilla history and the VFX supervisor for today's monster resurrection talk about the sweaty, and surprisingly rigorous process of making Godzilla--then and now.

When director Gareth Edwards hosted a 3-D sneak peak of Godzilla earlier this month on the largest IMAX screen in America, the spectacle on screen represented a gargantuan step forward for the soft-spoken British filmmaker. Five years ago, Edwards was tooling around Mexico in a van with two crew members, operating his own camera and trying to convince villagers to appear as extras in his micro-budgeted sci-fi film Monsters.

Image: http://www.fastcocreate.com 

STEVE BLANK HAD HIGH HOPES FOR HIS VIDEO GAME COMPANY. WHEN IT CRASHED AND BURNED--AND TOOK MILLIONS FROM INVESTORS DOWN WITH IT--HOW DID HE RECOVER?

BY JANE PORTER

Not long after Steve Blank's videogame company Rocket Science Games lost $35 million for its investors, his wife noticed he was acting a little strange.

"I was coming home and going to bed at four in the afternoon," he says. The year was 1996. At the time, Blank, now the mastermind behind the Lean Startup Movement, was devastated. His company had been on the cover of Wired and the press had called him and his team "the first digital super group." People believed Rocket Science would be responsible for revolutionizing the video game industry.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com 

The economy may be recovering, but the youngest workers entering the job market may never recover at all.

You've heard the economy is getting better, that companies are hiring again, and that we're finally putting the recession behind us. But don't get too happy. For recent grads entering the job market today, things are still bad, going on desperate. The official numbers don't necessarily tell the whole story.

Image: http://www.fastcoexist.com 

FAST GROWTH IS A GOOD PROBLEM, BUT WITHOUT GUIDELINES AND STRUCTURE, CAN BE A DETRIMENT TO YOUR NEW STARTUP. HERE'S HOW ONE FOUNDER GREW HIS COMPANY, AND WHAT HE LEARNED IN THE PROCESS.

BY MATT EHRLICHMAN

Over the past eight months our company has tripled in size, expanding from 25 employees to 125. During this time we transitioned from working in the basement of my home to a 17,000-square-foot office in Seattle, outgrowing two other temporary spaces in the process.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

IT'S NO SECRET THE FEMALE FOUNDERS FACE AN UPHILL BATTLE IN THE BOY'S CLUB OF SILICON VALLEY AND VC FUNDING. TWO WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS TACKLED THE SHIT MEN HAVE SAID TO THEM WITH HILARIOUSLY SPOT-ON RESULTS.

BY KATHLEEN DAVIS

Between the obstacles to getting funding and cringe-worthy titles like “mompreneur,” is it any wonder that some women founders are fed up with how their male peers treat them?

Image Courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It seems fashionable for audiophiles to beat up on Beats, the music-accessories business by Dr. Dre that Apple is reportedly interested in buying. But debating sound quality seems beside the point. I think Apple is placing a bet on a whole new category of electronics. Call it earable computers.

Image Courtesy of twobee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sixty entrepreneurs who attended a breakfast workshop as part of the UTS in Practice: AICC Young Business Forum Entrepreneur Series have heard how to create the perfect pitch and “keep your foot in the door” with funders.

Presenter Dr David Band – himself a businessman and investor – addressed best practice in developing a compelling pitch at the event, which was delivered with the support of Suncorp Commercial Insurance.

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After a recent lecture, a young consultant came up to me. “I have a problem,” he said. “People seem to forget me right away. I’ll remember meeting them, but they have no idea we connected before. I think I’m just not memorable enough. What can I do?”

Being memorable is essential for every entrepreneur -- after all, people won’t fund you or buy from you if they don’t even remember you exist.

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Success is largely determined by an ability to play to your strengths. If you happen to be shy or introverted, don’t limit your dreams or count yourself out just because you don’t fit the traditional image of an entrepreneur. There is more than one path to success.  

Networking events, however, tend to be designed for a particular personality -- the "work hard, play hard," never-met-a-stranger type. Rooms filled with crowds of people -- not to mention the pressure to be interesting and likeable -- is enough to give most introverts sweaty palms.

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In Silicon Valley years, Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is over the hill. Today is his 30th birthday.

In honor of Zuckerberg's big day and to mark Facebook's decade-long existence, we've compiled 10 of the tech entrepreneur's most interesting quotes over the years. 

Here they are, in no particular order. Enjoy.

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This week, the New England Venture Capital Association threw a big party to celebrate the Boston innovation sector, complete with awards for the hottest startups, rock n’ roll-themed costumes, and hundreds of people packed into a big downtown theater.

It’s exactly the kind of fun event you’d expect from such a trade group, whose members want to promote Boston as a fertile seedbed for high-tech entrepreneurs. But across town, in the more buttoned-down hallways of the Massachusetts capitol, venture capitalists are also engaging in some pretty serious public policy spadework.

 Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/22714323@N06/3296797012

Electronics giant Samsung recently announced a foray into big pharma. The South Korean company is set to invest over $2 billion into biopharmaceuticals—drugs developed from biological sources (e.g. vaccines or gene therapies) as opposed to traditional chemical cocktails—with a focus on creating cheaper versions of existing therapies.

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Creativity starts with having a method for finding ideas. 

In "The Idea Hunter: How To Find The Best Ideas And Make Them Happen," management scholars Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer examine the world's most creative people and companies — with tons of best practices to be found inside. 

Image: http://www.seattlepi.com