Managers can have a powerful, positive impact on their employees’ performance, engagement and development through coaching. When skillfully done, it can help employees clarify meaningful goals and make progress toward achieving them. But, many managers make the mistake of stopping the coaching process at the end of each conversation. You’re likely to get better results if you end each  session with something for your employee to take away and work on independently — homework.

The funding landscape for startups in Central Texas has changed dramatically in the last five years. New firms have launched like LiveOak Venture Partners in Austin and the Geekdom Fund in San Antonio. And old firms have faded away like Austin Ventures, the big daddy of Austin’s venture capital firms.

Venture capital deal activity in key markets picked up in the fourth quarter of 2013, soared in 2014, and is projected to stay strong this year, according to EY trend reports.

Last year, venture capitalists invested a total of $86.7 billion in the US, Canada, Europe, China, Israel, and India – more than in any year since the height of the dot-com bubble in 2000. EY also reported a rise in initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions – two traditional exits that allow venture capital investors to reap the rewards from previous deals.

The conversation around implementation and rulemaking of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform legislation, which became law in 2010, has been focused on issues such as margin requirements for derivatives, bans on proprietary trading (the Volcker Rule) and other bank centric capital standards. Lost in the debate is a little known part of the legislation which requires the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to revisit the definition of an accredited investor. A change in this industry wide definition could have drastic impact on capital formation, start-up growth, and ultimately American jobs.

Seoul, South Korea, March 03, 2015 --(PR.com)-- “Intellectual Property (IP) has become a critical enabler in business and global corporations are competing to survive the IP War,” said Johney Kim, Chairman of the Korea Intellectual Property Commercialization Council (KIPCC). While Korea is still enraptured by its own ‘Miracle on the Han River’, other developed countries are preparing to switch into a new economic paradigm. “Before it is too late, Korea needs to realize the importance of IP and think seriously about the direction of the country.” -Johney Kim, KIPCC

The Renaissance Venture Capital Fund has closed on its second investment vehicle, a $79 million fund destined for Michigan-based startups and the venture capital firms investing in them.

The 6-year-old firm, which has offices in Ann Arbor and Detroit, is a fund of funds, meaning it invests in smaller venture capital firms. It closed on its first fund for $45 million in 2010 with an idea of helping grow Michigan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by infusing it with more seed capital and attracting more outside investors.

Imagine a contact lens that monitors a diabetic’s glucose levels through a person’s tears. Though not on the market yet, it is the patented wearable technology designed by Waterloo, Ont.-based Medella Health.

This company is in the homestretch of commercialization – a harrowing feat for many university-born concepts in Canada, as countless ideas never make it past the research stage thanks to high costs and years of red tape around ownership of intellectual property (IP).

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Some small business owners do their work everyday at their business address or in co-working spaces. Others work in less structured spaces like coffee shops or while commuting. But for many solopreneurs their work day happens at home. Chris C. Ducker and Arthur Piccio have some great tips for making the most of working at home (click the image above to see the full infographic).

Jobs are not what they used to be for both employees and employers. The average worker stays at each position just 4.4 years, which leaves employers looking for new staff members at a rate drastically higher than that of just several decades ago. For the employee, the market has become more competitive and a college degree is no longer a guaranteed ticket to a profitable and happy career with a single company.

Eight years after detailing the tenants of Market-Based Management in his book "The Science of Success," Koch Industries Inc. CEO Charles Koch is again taking pen to paper to share how the business and management philosophy has boosted his business and how it can help boost others. Koch's new book, "Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies," was announced on Thursday.

There has never been a better time to buy a green car, and whether you’re choosing an environmentally friendly vehicle because of lower fuel costs or lower emissions, chances are there is a an alt-fuel or fuel-efficient green car to meet your needs.

Here’s a great overview of green cars and their benefits, courtesy of Matt Allan of Crossline:

Every entrepreneur has a different story about why he or she decided to start a business. Some have known from day one that they wanted to work for themselves and others come up with ideas while working for someone else and decide to take the entrepreneurial leap. 

Most business owners will agree on one thing -- being an entrepreneur is great. There are endless reasons for this, and every entrepreneur will have his or her own personal reasons as well. Here are 60 reasons, in no particular order, why I think entrepreneurship is amazing. 

In 1945, at age 21, my grandmother started a photography company.

She’d just graduated from Northwestern University, and in order to pursue this dream she had to put off getting a job. She invested everything – both financial and social capital – in this endeavor.

Back when we were co-teaching The Flow of Coaching module at the Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program, my good friend, hero and fellow Davidson College alum Frank Ball used to do a funny bit with a bottle of water. To make the point that coaches and leaders should coach people and not problems, Frank would put a bottle of water on the table in the front of the room and say, “This bottle of water represents the problem.” Then he would start coaching the bottle of water. Needless to say, he never got very far. The bottle just didn’t have that many insights on what to change or how to change it.

Maybe it's just me. Or maybe it's the business I'm in, but I can't help but notice how often people with a pressing need to call a meeting find a way to work the "Let's get together and brainstorm" phrase into their invitation even when their meeting has absolutely nothing to do with brainstorming.

In effect, these kinds of invitations are nothing more than a kind of "bait and switch" in which unwary invitees assume they've been invited to help conjure up new possibilities, when, in fact, their creativity is neither needed, wanted, or recognized. The result? "Brainstorming" gets a bad name, meeting goers get pissed, and the person who called the meeting loses major points.

The heart and soul of American innovation has always been the individual inventor — that special, inspired person who toils for days, months and even years in a garage, at a computer, or in a laboratory to create the next product, service or cure that will change the way we live our lives.

These remarkable people are found throughout America today, helping us achieve things nobody thought possible when Thomas Edison was issued patent #223,898 for the light bulb. That same patent system — grounded in a Constitutional recognition of the importance of individual rights to inventions for a limited period of time — has provided the necessary underpinning for billions of dollars invested in cures, technologies and scientific advancements.

Thanks to a helmet camera, researchers discovered that a goshawk mixes its methods of chasing its prey.

A recent article by Juruzelski, Loehr and Holman from Booz Consulting (www.strategy-business.com) noted that there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending. What's more, they identified that the two primary elements of innovative companies are 1) a focused innovation strategy, and 2) an corporate culture that is wired for innovation.

Shark Tank has become ABC’s wonder child, drawing record ratings in February and positioning the Friday night prime time show in the top spot for seven weeks and running. Why has a show about people who are willing to face a group of tough celebrity investors in front of a national audience of over eight million viewers become a cultural phenomenon? What is Shark Tank’s allure?

The Berkshire Hathaway annual letter is out, and Warren Buffett again finds new ways to preach what he's been saying for 50 years.

Such consistency has paid off for Buffett: A jaw-dropping return of 1,826,163% over the past half century. That's an average annual gain of 21.6%, compared to 9.9% for the S&P 500.