Via Springwise, comes news about this weeklong bus tour of Spain for surfers:

Surfing is enjoying a fresh surge in popularity in Spain, so it’s no wonder Surf Road Experience is offering its surfing trips every week. The company has reportedly decked out eight British-style double-decker buses with beds, showers and all the amenities surfers might need, and every Monday new tours depart from the northwestern city of Vigo. A surfing instructor goes along on each trip, and up to 12 surfing enthusiasts aged 12 and up are equipped with surf boards for the week. Days, then, are spent touring the mainland coast in search of good waves and good times, with surf lessons provided along the way. Trips for novices and advanced surfers are available; pricing is EUR 445 for a six-day trip or EUR 190 for

Coca-Cola (KO) sells millions of bottles of its fizzy sugar water in the poorest villages of the world at 15¢ to 25¢ per bottle—prices locals can barely afford. What would happen to the multinational’s business if a well-funded Chinese soft drink startup decided to crash that market with a sweet but relatively nutritious beverage it sold for 5¢ a bottle? Coke would most likely get crushed. The village children, many of which are probably malnourished, would benefit tremendously from the rapid and disruptive shift to a cheaper, healthier soft drink.

That’s the example Paul Polak uses in his April TED talk to underscore the possibilities he sees for disruptive, massively scalable for-profit businesses serving those who have the least. After decades working as a psychiatrist, Polak skipped retirement to start International Development Enterprises, a nonprofit that advises, invests in, and launches ventures aimed at solving problems facing the 2.6 billion people who live on less than $2 per day.

Next time you have a project team where everyone receives a traditional functional responsibility, assign Extreme Creativity Makeover roles to each person, too. These could include creative responsibilities for:

• Outrageous Ideameister
• Challenger of What We Think
• Minister of Scare the S#!t of Us Possibilities
• The King/Queen of Style
• Finder of Fun Times
• Dramatic Flair-anista
• Extreme Creativity Maven

Use these creative responsibilities or come up with others.

Lincoln, Neb., July 25, 2011—The University of Nebraska Technology Park makes an estimated $589.6 million annual impact on the Nebraska economy according to a recent study by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Bureau of Business Research.

The study focused on the combined economic impact of the companies at the 150-acre Technology Park located in the Highlands neighborhood of northwest Lincoln. These companies include tenant companies in the park, companies in the business incubator program and companies that graduated from the incubator program and remain in Nebraska.

AUTM  is set to release their AUTM Licensing Activity Survey Summary: FY 2010  in the fall of this year for both the U.S. and Canada.  AUTM issued a AUTM 2010 survey highlights  to wet the appetite.

Highlights:

-The number of startups formed increased 10.6%.  651 startup companies formed of which 498 had their primary place of business in the licensing institution’s home state.

-Number of licenses/options executed to startups increased 14%.  4,284 licenses executed and 1,078 options executed.

For years both government and media have been advancing the notion that   America's coastal counties are obtaining most of the population growth at the expense of interior counties. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in the 1990s: Coastal areas are crowded and becoming more so every day. More than 139 million people–about 53% of the national total–reside along the narrow coastal fringes.

NOAA went on to say that the population of the coastal counties is expected to increase by an average of 3600 people per day and noted further that the coastal counties were growing faster than the nation as a whole. NOAA has designated 673 counties on four coasts (Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific and Great Lakes) in the contiguous United States, Hawaii and Alaska as coastal counties.

“Wine is, in truth, the only antidote to the bane of whiskey ” said Thomas Jefferson. Copenhagen-based Vivino  helps you identify and locate your favorite antidote for future consumption.

You can use the free Vivino app to take a photograph of any wine label. Vivino uses image recognition to match the label against its database of 450,000 wines and return you all the information available about the wine including, hopefully, where you can buy it locally. The app saves the details of all wines you have matched and you can also record whether you liked a particular wine or not. The business model is based on a revenue share with wine distributors.

Conventional wisdom is that venture capital in Europe is about as healthy as the economy of Greece, but that thinking is wrong, according to a German venture capital firm.

Associated Press In a slideshow that it placed online, Earlybird Venture Capital, an early-stage firm based in Hamburg, contends that VC in Europe is outperforming the U.S.

Cynics might say that isn’t difficult: the latest Cambridge Associates data released by the National Venture Capital Association peg the annual return for all U.S. venture capital funds over the last decade at minus 0.1% as of March. The S&P 500 returned 3.3% during the same period.

There are those who believe that social technology presents significant opportunities for improving business dynamics and relations. Then there are those who are skeptics and don’t believe nor see any value in this thing we call social media.

The difference between the two beliefs represents the “social chasm“. The “social chasm” represents the pronounced difference of opinion, interests, and loyalty to an idea or belief. The challenge is helping leaders “cross the social chasm” is to convince them to believe in something they don’t understand.

The problem is business leaders are trained to believe in results driven old business models and not ideas that drive results.

Old business models are designed around measuring output, results, of every business process, resource or product as well as anything and everything that cost capital. Resistance to any new idea or initiative comes when leaders cannot see or understand how results will come from any new idea or initiative.

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The VC market has changed dramatically since the days of the dot com bubble when hordes of newly minted venture capitalists were pouring money into anything online.

Now, the number of practicing VCs has normalized which is keeping valuations in check, says Mark Suster of GRP Partners.

Suster also talks about the mythology of super angels, the fiduciary responsibility of maximizing returns versus investing in a promising idea, and the traits of good early stage investors.

If you thought Startup Weekend was a hackathon, you’d be about half right. According to a recent report, the event’s focus has shifted from executing clever tech tricks to solving problems in a community. It’s an exercise in practical entrepreneurship rather than pure coding.

The nonprofit’s annual report, released last week, shows huge growth for the still-young organization. Nearly 36,000 people have attended a Startup Weekend even, and 43 companies say they got their start there. But what’s more exciting than the stats is the future.

The most recent June employment figures were disappointing, to say the least. But does the blame for feeble job growth lie with business, or with government? Currently, while both sides seem to agree on a lot (at least in theory), there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on and not a lot of action.

The Jobs for America Summit 2011, held at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce earlier this month, illustrates the divide. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently released a survey of its members that puts the blame for lackluster job growth at Washington’s feet. The vast majority (84 percent) of surveyed members think the U.S. economy is on the wrong track, and 79 percent believe Washington should get out of the way of small businesses, instead of offering a helping hand (14 percent).

According to Larry Page, co-founder and CEO of Google, not many companies are innovators in both technology and business. In order to be successful in technical innovation, says Page, you must understand the business and marketing side of the equation.

Throughout my career in small companies and large, I’ve always been appalled by the number of people who seem to complain all of the time. These people don’t seem to realize that they are hurting themselves, as well as other people’s productivity, and the company they are working for.

I’ve always thought that I might be overly sensitive, but recently I saw an old survey done by badbossoloy.com, which claims that a majority of employees spend 10 hours or more a month complaining or listening to others complain, and nearly one third spend 20 or more hours. No startup can afford that huge cost in emotional capital, as well as productivity!

Across the country, governors are looking for the best strategies to strengthen state economic performance. Many are focused on the potential for small businesses and new startup companies to transform their economies.

Each year the chair of the National Governors Association develops a policy initiative that can impact discussions in states across the nation. I have the privilege of serving as chair of the NGA during the next year and my focus will be to highlight opportunities to grow state economies.

My 2011-12 NGA initiative is Growing State Economies. This initiative is an opportunity to focus on development strategies that impact entrepreneurs and startup companies that help them become the fast-growing firms.

The annual BIO International Convention is always a big draw for governors keen on promoting their states as a prime spot for biotech investment. That number surged to 11 for the 2011 convention held in Washington, D.C. BIO officials say the list included Florida's Rick Scott, Pat Quinn of Illinois, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Steve Beshear of Kentucky, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Martin O'Malley of Maryland, Beverly Perdue of North Carolina, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, Dennis DuGaard of South Dakota, Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

The Site Selection Life Sciences Report had the opportunity to sit down with Gov. Scott and Gov. Fallin during the convention to discuss how their states are advancing the life sciences sector.

FARGO, N.D.—As a high school senior from Connecticut, Diva Malinowski took a coast-to-coast tour of 10 public universities, bearing acceptance letters from each.

She fell in love in Fargo.

"The minute I stepped onto campus, I knew that North Dakota State was for me," says Ms. Malinowski, a 21-year-old senior who matriculated from Miss Porter's School, a private academy for girls in Farmington, Conn.

Ms. Malinowski is evidence of an unlikely trend: the growing allure of higher education in North Dakota. The state ranks 48th in the U.S. at attracting tourists. Its young people routinely flee for warmer or more exciting places. The private sector here, struggling to lure sufficient numbers of workers from elsewhere, is wrestling with labor shortages even amid national unemployment around 9%.

When the Eindhoven Region of the Netherlands was named Intelligent Community of the Year on June 3 in New York City, the celebration was something to see. Since 1999, the Intelligent Community Forum has been honoring communities for achievement in building prosperous, inclusive and sustainable economies on a foundation of information and communications technology.

Nominate your community

ICF invites communities large and small, in industrial and emerging nations anywhere in the world,, to nominate themselves for this unique annual award program. There is no fee for nomination. To enter, complete a 6-question nomination form available on the ICF Web site.

Should my community even try?

If you are not sure whether or not your community qualifies for consideration by ICF, you can now take a new Online Self-Test. Answer 15 yes-or-no questions, and the Self-Test will help you understand how likely your community is to be honored as one of the world's Intelligent Communities. It all begins with the Smart21 Communities announcement on October 21 - in Eindhoven, where the celebration continues.

For more information, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

No business goes it alone – and one of the tried and true methods for accelerating business growth is to partner with more established companies.

Partnering may take the form of a reseller agreement, an OEM agreement, a co-sell/cross-sell arrangement, a joint venture, a co-development initiative, and many other relationships.  The general idea behind each is the same: Partnering allows a young company to build traction more rapidly by leveraging the resources and expertise of others for joint gain.

If you’re thinking about structuring a strategic partnership, there are a number of commonalities worth keeping in mind:

Jump at every chance to leverage an established brand for your business – It takes decades to build brand recognition and nothing gives you instant credibility like having the endorsement of well regarded partners.  Seek out well-known companies to boost both your stature and the awareness of your company.