I was recently asked what I consider to be the most misunderstood aspect of great leadership; in other words, what makes great leadership great? What immediately came to mind is not only misunderstood, but it also happens to be the most often overlooked element of leadership, and the one which also affords leaders the greatest opportunity for personal, professional, and enterprise growth. If you want to become a better leader in 2013, I suggest you become comfortable with a leadership practice few are – surrender.

Surrender – not for the faint of heart You’ll rarely encounter the words leadership and surrender used together in complementary fashion. Society has labeled surrender as a sign of leadership weakness, when in fact, it can be among the greatest of leadership strengths. Let me be clear, I’m not encouraging giving in or giving up – I am suggesting you learn the ever so subtle art of letting go.

You are an aspiring entrepreneur, eager to dump the corporate grind, and work to the beat of your own drummer, but you can’t come up with that killer idea to save the world. What are the alternatives that will give you the independence you crave, and challenge your business acumen?

Technically, I believe an entrepreneur is anyone who manages his own profit and loss, and doesn’t meet the government tax definition of an employee. Beyond the traditional new product or service model, you can always buy an existing business, purchase a franchise, join a multi-level marketing (MLM) company, or simply go out on your own as a consultant.

Colombia today is considered to be one of the world’s great emerging economies. Its growing political stability, decrease in violence, young working population and overall positive economic trend make it a country with interesting prospects. Robert Ward, a global forecasting director for the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), categorizes upcoming developing nations into a group called CIVETS. All the countries included in this group -- Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa -- share several very important characteristics, including positive trends in political, social and economic aspects.

In 2011, a financially troubled year for the world, Colombia achieved a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 5.9%, becoming the 33rd largest economy in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For 2012, the Colombian government forecasts public debt to reach 25% of GDP, an enviable mark compared with many other indebted nations. In addition, the country is experiencing an investment rate of 28% of GDP, the highest level seen in the country in the last decade. In a world where some of the most powerful nations are facing grave challenges, this is a very good position for a country such as Colombia to be in.

This winter, fourth-graders at New Hampton Elementary School are tying their math, science and literacy lessons to a common theme: motion. A day at school may catch them calculating velocity, reducing friction, modeling automobile safety and writing technical reports that bring it all together.

That is STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in the classroom as experts define it — integrated, active, real-world problem-solving. Learners in this style of education, according to the Center for Education at the National Research Council, are more creative, collaborative, intelligent and interested in STEM-based careers.

When we teach our introductory entrepreneurship class at MIT, we take it for granted that each of our 75 students will be able to start an American company upon graduating. But many of them lack one thing they need to be able to do so—permission from the United States government to continue working in our country.

In this academic year, three in 10 MIT students, including four in 10 graduate students, are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents. So for them our entrepreneurship class is likely to remain just an academic exercise. Their student visas expire when they graduate, leaving them with two options, to leave the country or find an existing company to sponsor them for a chance at an H-1B visa.

The Entrepreneurship Action Plan is a blueprint for decisive action to unleash Europe's entrepreneurial potential, to remove existing obstacles and to revolutionise the culture of entrepreneurship in Europe. Investments in changing the public perception of entrepreneurs, in entrepreneurship education and to support groups that are underrepresented among entrepreneurs are indispensable if we want to create enduring change. Only if a large number of Europeans recognise an entrepreneurial career as a rewarding and attractive option will entrepreneurial activity in Europe thrive in the long term.

Entrepreneurial education and training = growth and business creation Investing in entrepreneurship education is one of the highest return investments Europe can make. Surveys suggest that between 15% and 20% of students who participate in a mini-company programme in secondary school will later start their own company, a figure that is about three to five times that for the general population. In the same vein, the role of higher education in entrepreneurship goes far beyond the delivery of knowledge to participating in business ecosystems, partnerships and industrial alliances. With high-tech and high-growth enterprises increasingly becoming a focus of entrepreneurship-related public policies, higher education institutions are an active component of Member States' and EU's innovation policies (European Commission's 'Rethinking Education' strategy and entrepreneurship: IP/12/1233).

Here you get my top 5 list of companies with strong open innovation efforts. Your comments and suggestions for other companies are appreciated!

1. GE – for continuously developing the Ecomagination Challenge

GE have turned the Ecoimagination Challenge into a very interesting innovation vehicle – which also doubles as a good PR tool – and they seem to get not only high external engagement, but also high business value out of their efforts. Great work!

2. LEGO – for making different kinds of external sources work together

LEGO is building a strong open innovation program as you can read about in this blog post, which also includes a recent presentation on their efforts.

Michael Kowalzik never thought he’d be running a successful German technology company when he graduated from INSEAD in 2000. Then again, the products and services he is providing for global companies didn’t exist twelve years ago. He had to invent a whole new business model.

Like most of his colleagues on the INSEAD MBA programme in 2000, Michael Kowalzik wanted to be an entrepreneur. He concentrated on traditional core course modules like finance, marketing and strategy and paid less attention to organisational development.  Now, as the CEO of a successful German technology company, he wishes he’d concentrated a bit more on the softer people skills and leadership courses.

This 2012 data, and data from past years, can be found in the NIH Data Book. This is the first place to look for summary statistics on NIH awards — data and charts are exportable for easy incorporation into reports, presentations, or your own blog posts.

Looking back on these data, the first thought that comes to my mind is, “We made it.” Despite a flat budget and complex fiscal times, we maintained last year’s success rate and slightly increased the amount of award dollars that went to research project grants. We continue to strive to maintain a diverse portfolio of biomedical research, and keep this important work moving along quickly.

SOMETHING VENTURED tells the story of the creation of an industry that went on to become the single greatest engine of innovation and economic growth in the 20th century. It is told by the visionary risk-takers who dared to make it happen…Tom Perkins, Don Valentine, Arthur Rock, Dick Kramlich and others. The film also includes some of our finest entrepreneurs sharing how they worked with these venture capitalists to grow world-class companies like Intel, Apple, Cisco, Atari, Genentech, Tandem and others.

Beginning in the late 1950′s, this small group of high rollers fostered a one-of-a-kind business culture that encouraged extraordinary risk and made possible unprecedented rewards. They laid the groundwork for America’s start-up economy, providing not just the working capital but the guidance to allow seedling companies to reach their full potential. Our lives would be dramatically different without the contributions that these venture capitalists made to the creation of PCs, the Internet and life-saving drugs.

"We need more innovation around here. We need people to think more creatively and be more entrepreneurial. I've been saying this for the last couple years, and yet very little seems to be changing. It's very frustrating."

This was a recent lament from a client, a senior leader at a medium-sized professional services firm. He was frustrated that even though his organization was encouraging people at every turn to take chances on new ideas, too few were actually stepping up to do it.

I pushed him a little further and asked him what he meant when he said he was "encouraging people at every turn to take chances."

Connecticut Innovations (CI) has launched a new accelerator program to be led by the co-founders of Lean Launch Ventures (LLV) based on early market testing while making a minimum viable product, a process it says is different from a traditional startup method.

The new accelerator, to be run by Westport, Conn.-based LLV based on its Lean LaunchPad methodology, will be in addition to CI’s TechStart Accelerator. The new program is part of the state’s Innovation Ecosystem initiative announced by Governor Malloy in October 2012, which establishes four locations as hubs to provide financial, technical, professional, and mentoring resources to participants, as well as collaborative workspace.

We prize our time. People who practice collaborative innovation know they cannot monopolize the waking hours of their sponsors and communities. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores the three C’s of critical question, community, and commitment. Practitioners raise the odds that everyone involved in collaborative innovation will view their time as well spent when they help sponsors address the three C’s in authentic ways.

One sunny day last October found me in Manhattan, walking south on 5th Avenue towards Bryant Square Park. I could see the heads of the lions guarding the library when a young man approached me. He held a clutch of CDs. Each had a homemade vest.

Today’s economy is certainly lousy, but you might as well get used to it. Some financial experts think the de-leveraging process we’re now going through might last for another decade or two, with interest rates near zero for years to come. Ugh.

Commerce will still take place, however, and the most competitively successful companies can still prosper. But getting a prospective business customer to say “yes” when his own economic world has deteriorated so much requires a deft and nuanced sales effort. So if you sell to business customers, here are seven suggestions for improving your competitive chances:

The Federal Communications Commission will make $400 million available annually to healthcare providers to expand the development of broadband telehealth networks from a pilot to a permanent program. The pilot program has supported 50 provider healthcare networks in 38 states.

The telehealth networks will link urban medical centers to rural clinics or offer instant access to electronic health records (EHRs). The agency will begin accepting applications for the grants in late summer, according to the Jan. 7 announcement by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

1. "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - St. Francis of Assisi

2. "Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Lewis Carroll

3. "The Wright brother flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility." - Charles Kettering

4. "In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd." - Miguel de Cervantes

5. "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do." - Henry Moore

Technology is reshaping our economic geography, but there’s disagreement as to how. Much of the media and pundits like Richard Florida assert that the tech revolution is bound to be centralized in the dense, often “hip” places where  “smart” people cluster. Some, like Slate’s David Talbot, even fear the new tech wave may erode whatever soul is left to increasingly family free, neo-gilded age San Francisco.

Such claims have been bolstered by the tech boom of the past few years — especially the explosion of social media firms in places like Manhattan and San Francisco. Yet longer-term trends in tech employment suggest such favored media memes will ultimately prove well off the mark. Indeed, according to an analysis by the Praxis Strategy Group, the fastest growth over the past decade in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics-related) employment has taken place not in the most fashionable cities but smaller, less dense metropolitan areas.

Here's my list of big events happening in Boston this year. Some are home-grown, and others are major national conventions — like the annual conclaves of the biotech and cable TV industries — that are coming to town. If I've missed an event you consider unmissable, feel free to post a comment.

- January 27: MITX's E-Commerce Summit

Boston's e-commerce community must finally be hitting an inflection point, since it now has its own one-day gathering. Agenda features speakers from Staples, Wayfair, Gemvara, and Shoebuy.com.

Encouraging and supporting new business creation has enjoyed renewed popularity in recent years as an economic development strategy at the local and regional levels. After decades of “smokestack chasing” and, increasingly, office-park-chasing, leaders at all levels of government have realized that homegrown development through new businesses is better than lavishing tax incentives on existing companies. Some call this “economic gardening,” while others have called attention to “startup communities” and “entrepreneurial ecosystems.” Call it what you will – it is clear that entrepreneurship is the key to stronger local and regional economies.

For most policymakers, during the recession and recovery their attention has understandably focused on the contribution of entrepreneurs in terms of how many jobs they can create. With unemployment high, wages stagnant and large corporations sitting on mounting piles of cash, the answer to the question of where new jobs will come from is increasingly, “entrepreneurs.”

So you've built and launched your product. It is well received. You've acheived "product market fit" and it is time to get more users or customers. You've graduated from the "building product" stage and have entered the "building usage" phase. What does this mean for your team?

Well first and foremost, it means you are going to have start building your team. You will need more engineers because you will have to scale the product/service and you will need to continue to build it out, make it available on more devices, and listen to and adapt to the needs of the market. You will need to make sure your product team grows in lockstep with your engineering team and the demands of your users. You will need more customer support/community team members because more users means more users you must engage with and support. You will need to think about a marketing person because acquiring more users is called marketing. You will need to think about business development because you will want to talk with other companies for distribution and for product/service integration. And you may need to hire a sales team if your product has an enterprise/SAAS focus. Finally, you might think about staffing business operations/HR/finance/legal which is probably consuming a fair bit of your time.