50th Anniversary College Video Contestand we're still looking for entries! We asked Warren Buffett what advice he'd give students hoping to meet him at the New York Stock Exchange. Click on the video on the left to see what he had to say.

Full-time students, graduate and undergrad, are invited to create a short video answering the question, "What is the future of public relations and communications?" The deadline is July 15, so pass this information on to your alma mater, intern or anyone else who may be interested!

Speaking on how technology and consumer demand has challenged marketers to keep up, Nielsen's Steve Hasker shared conclusions that ring true for developing the artist - fan relationship. “Consumer behavior is the driver of innovation,” said Hasker offering three trends driving innovation:

Social Media – “In seven short years, every aspect of consumer behavior has changed as a result of social media,” Hasker said.  In music social media is changing the way artists and songs are discovered, how artists and fans communicate and even how music and related products are purchased.

The innovation game has migrated downstream – from the point of invention nearer to the point of consumption. So how does Ireland now measure its innovation capabilities?

UNLESS WE CAN measure it properly, innovation is like the dotcom boom – lots of investment but a lack of clarity about value and a danger that the investment is misdirected. Traditionally (references to the word innovation appear as early as the 1600s), innovation is measured by patent filings, the number of maths and engineering graduates, RD investment and, less scientifically, the existence of industry clusters.

The problem with these measures is that they are very upstream – near to the point of invention – whereas the innovation game has migrated downstream, nearer the point of consumption. Traditional measures are close to the old industrial labs model of innovation rather than today’s Apple-style design-led or highly consumer-engaged innovation.

Going straight to innovative thinking techniques poses a dilemma – how does one differentiate between ideas that are workable (within the limits of available resources) and those that are not? All ideas are workable if there no constraints present; but reality dictates that time, money and skills are not as abundant as one would wish.

We need to be first grounded in two other areas before we let our imagination fly to unveil the creative and innovative ideas that have been simmering beneath the surface of our minds. The first is the area of analytical and critical thinking while the second is constructive thinking.

WHEN someone asks Roger Fierro “What do you do?” — which he knows is shorthand for “Where do you work?” — he laughs. Then he says, “I do everything.”

Mr. Fierro, who is 26, has four jobs: working as a bilingual-curriculum specialist for the textbook publisher Pearson; handling estate sales and online marketing for a store that sells vintage items; setting up an online store for a custom piñata maker; and developing reality-show ideas for a production company. So far this month, he’s made about $1,800.

Whereas most 9-to-5ers have some kind of structure in their lives, each workday can be wildly different for him. On a recent day, he worked on and off from 7 a.m. to midnight, making business calls, working on the piñata store’s Web site and visiting the vintage store, among other things. (To maintain his sanity, he made sure to schedule some “me” time from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8.)

NPR’s “Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!” is heard weekends on public radio stations across the country. (npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/)

1. The War Powers Act requires Congressional approval within 90 days of the start of hostilities with a foreign country. But President Obama says the act does not apply to the conflict in Libya... why?

A. Secretly, Libya really wants to be bombed.

B. “But they started it!”

C. The months-long bombing campaign doesn’t count as “hostilities.”

D. The War Powers Act is more of a “suggestion” than a “rule.”

A major international study collating and analyzing worldwide data on diabetes since 1980 has found that the number of adults with the disease reached 347 million in 2008, more than double the number in 1980. The research, published today in The Lancet, reveals that the prevalence of diabetes has risen or at best remained unchanged in virtually every part of the world over the last three decades.

Diabetes occurs when the cells of the body are not able to take up sugar in the form of glucose. As a consequence, the amount of glucose in the blood is higher than normal. Over time, this raises the risk of heart disease and stroke, and can also cause damage to the kidneys, nerves and retinas. High blood glucose and diabetes are responsible for over three million deaths worldwide each year.

One of the hot new approaches I have seen around the country for assisting startups looking for funding has been “crowd-sourcing” sites (Kickstarter) or “crowd-pitching” events (Funding Universe). These are variations on a “crowd-funding” theme to raise money for a startup through social networks and voting at public events. I’m still waiting for a startup to proclaim real success from this approach.

Crowd-sourcing tools, usually Internet applications, use the social media to poll for interest, feedback, and ultimately some funding for the startup. This is a complex task, especially as it involves creating an accurate yet compelling offer, collecting the money, and rewarding the investors.

Crowd-pitching is an offline event, but logically similar, which give several candidates an opportunity to pitch to a crowd of interested people for a couple of minutes, after which the crowd “votes” with some play-money to pick the best candidate, who then wins some nominal investment amount or services.

The Department of Defense (DOD) research arm will invest $1 billion over the next five years in defense manufacturing innovation to support a larger strategy by the Obama administration to use technology such as robotics and nanotechnology to transform American manufacturing process.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) own experimentation to streamline and improve the manufacturing process was highlighted during an event Friday at Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center, where President Obama unveiled the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership strategy. The plan allocates $500 million to leverage high-tech resources to create jobs and improve the United States' global position in manufacturing.

Outside of the founders, and friends & family, angels are the most typical next step in the private equity continuum as shown below in Illustration 1. Whereas 79% of a first round capital came from the entrepreneur’s personal savings or family and friends, this made up only 11% of the second round, whereas angels provided 34% of the capital in the second round#.  Angels provide the critical capital needed by an entrepreneur to grow the business and with venture capital funds to provide the next stage in capital.   Angels are individual investors, sometimes organized within informal clubs or formalized angel groups, who invest their personal money into a company.   Angels are distinct from venture capital or private equity funds, who have created investment partnerships that manage a pool of capital, typically with a significant portion from larger institutions such as insurance companies, pensions, and endowments.

A few weeks ago, electronic mail, or email as it’s now affectionately known, hit the respectable age of 40. When Ray Tomlinson, a young computer engineer, sent the first email in 1971, he could only have guessed how it would impact the way we communicate in both our business and personal lives.

Email has transformed the way people shop, bank, communicate with family members and do business. Now an essential tool for approximately one billion mobile workers across the globe, email continues to dominate the way in which we communicate.

Four decades since the first message – believed to be “QWERTYUIOP” – email seems to be going strong. But is it about to hit a midlife crisis? With web workers now using more sophisticated collaborative apps and social business tools to communicate and share information, are we going to see email’s reign come to an end?

What happens when a guy who got wealthy selling cars hands millions of dollars to a scientist and tells her how to spend it? Folks attending the American Diabetes Association conference starting today in San Diego are getting a hint of the answer to that question. Denise Faustman, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) immunobiology laboratory is presenting two abstracts from a clinical trial funded by the Boston-based Iacocca Family Foundation, established by former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca to support research aimed at curing type 1 diabetes.

Faustman’s data shows that low doses of an 80-year-old vaccine temporarily reversed type 1 diabetes in Phase 1 human trial. The vaccine is called bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG). It was developed to prevent tuberculosis and is now available as a generic drug. BCG induces the immune system to make tumor-necrosis factor (TNF), which kills the T-cells that cause the pancreas to stop producing insulin.

Congress is at an impasse in raising the national debt ceiling. Sustainable funding for most science & engineering R&D and STEM education programs is in imminent jeopardy because the government must slash spending. And we are an easy "target of opportunity" because we are not as effectively organized as other interests.

Just about everybody wants the government to live within its means. The current stalemate underscores how important it is to use scarce public monies effectively — particularly in areas where the private sector cannot fulfill market needs — such as basic scientific R&D and STEM Education research.

We are in a fiscal crisis. Everybody has to tighten his or her belts. There are many positive things that can be done about taxes, overregulation, capital formation, and creating growth incentives in other areas. We may not agree on how to get there, but most of us agree upon the goals.

Psychological studies reveal that highly creative people have a strong interest in apparent disorder, contradiction and imbalance. Indeed the UK’s IPA has further segmented this with its Diagonal Thinking research.

Now, I consider myself to be somewhat creative, but I am not sure whether to take such an observation as an insult or a compliment. I am also told that being creative does not necessarily go hand in hand with being intelligent.

Peer inside the Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia and you’ll discover that the term creativity is defined as a richness of ideas and originality of thinking.

The New York State Legislature has delivered a new initiative to the Governor, the Innovate NY Fund, which will give high-tech startups greater access to capital in an effort to help create and retain more jobs. The measure, which has passed both houses, also enhances the ability of small businesses in New York State to access loans through the State’s existing Capital Access Program.

“I am very pleased that this legislation is on its way to becoming law,” said Assemblyman Robin Schimminger, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Economic Development and lead sponsor of the bill. “The Innovate NY Fund will do exactly what New York State is in desperate need of – creating and retaining jobs in homegrown high-tech companies.”

WELLESLEY, Mass., June 24, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What is the influence of entrepreneurship education on intentions to become entrepreneurs and becoming full-time entrepreneurs?  According to Babson College researchers:

* There is overwhelming evidence that taking two or more core entrepreneurship elective courses positively influenced the intention to become an entrepreneur and becoming an actual entrepreneur both at the time of graduation and long afterward.

* Writing a student business plan also had a significant influence, but it is not a strong as taking two or more core courses.

The findings are based on a sample of 3,755 Babson College alumni who graduated from 1985 to 2009, analyzed by Babson College Professors Julian Lange, Edward Marram, and William Bygrave and Ajay Solai Jawahar M'11 and Wei Yong M'11.

Why do some innovation-related place names stick (like Silicon Valley) and others don't (Biotech Beach?) That was the focus of a column I wrote in May, "In the land of improbable places."

The Sudbury illustrator Leo Acadia (whose actual name seems to be John S. Dykes) created the nifty map below, which I wanted to share. It lists some place names that have actually stuck (Research Triangle), and many that haven't (I'm not sure anyone knows exactly where the Silicon Prairie is.) I think in Massachusetts, "Route 128: America's Technology Highway" was probably the most successful one we've had, although it's far less relevant today than it was in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Something is happening in Europe. The tectonic plates in the startup ecosystem are moving and, like penguins on ice-flows, we all are slithering around trying to get a handle on how things will play out over the next couple of years.

We’re having exits (such as Tweetdeck to Twitter for $40million), large funding rounds (such as Wooga raising $24 million) and higher valuations (like Moshi Monsters).

Events have ramped up considerably. GeeknRolla in London was a blast this year, as was DLD, Founders Forum and the 1,000-strong Dublin Web Summit. And we still have The Europas and Le Web to go.

At the same time the incubator and accelerator scene is booming. A new study named Seedcamp as the top European accelerator with StartupBoootcamp looking like a pretty strong second.

There are a number of bills in Congress that could affect entrepreneurs and investors. As federal policymakers on Capitol Hill work to reduce the nation’s deficit and unemployment rate, they are simultaneously introducing legislation intended to drive job and GDP growth. Although not likely to pass exactly as outlined, the bills include funding opportunities that support entrepreneurship and incentives that promote research and investment in young, innovative companies.

Here are some of the proposed legislation that could impact entrepreneurs and investors:

Small Business Innovation Research: As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program fills a gap in startup financing by offering grants to technology ventures in the product development stage. To date, $16 billion in SBIR grants have been awarded by federal government agencies to small, technology-based companies. The SBIR program officially expired in 2008 and since then, Congress has passed 12 continuing resolutions to keep the program running a few months at a time. In May President Obama signed an extension through September 30, 2011 just hours before it was due to expire. This bill (H.R. 1425) would reauthorize the SBIR program through 2014 and is sitting on the House floor awaiting debate.

If you look in the trash can or – let’s hope — recycling bins at many businesses, you’ll probably find a ton of paper. Paper is one of the most common waste products at most businesses, and thus one of the biggest sustainability opportunities many small businesses have.

Cutting down on paper waste isn’t as easy as you’d think. For one thing, paper itself is relatively cheap, so business owners might feel like there’s little economic incentive to reduce it. Moreover, it’s hard to change perception that paper use has little environmental impact. But that’s not true: Recycling 1 ton of paper can save 7,000 gallons of water and enough energy to power the average U.S. home for six months, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Reducing paper use in the first place, then, can save a lot more.