You know that swift glide-y feeling you get when you walk on an escalator. You’re moving faster than you normally would with the same effort. That’s the feeling we all want when we work. Instead, it often feels more like running in an exercise wheel. We spend lots of energy and break a sweat; we are working hard. However, when we exit the wheel at the end of the day, we find ourselves in the same place we started.

Many productivity tools help us manage what’s on our plate. I’ve looked through my books and have found a few techniques that – instead of simply moving things around on your plate – will help you reduce your serving size. These are… Create Focus, Purge Time Wasters, and Unplug Things.

Many small businesses are still struggling to raise capital in the wake of the Great Recession, despite a flurry of government and private initiatives.

President Obama launched Startup America to encourage entrepreneurship, stressing that small businesses traditionally have been the engine of job creation, and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke regularly talks up his concern for small businesses and keep tabs on small business funding.

Now there's an effort to exempt startup businesses from the complex U.S. securities registration and filing requirements when they acquire relatively small amounts of loans and equity.

Confusion about the nature of the so-called information age has led to a state of collective false consciousness. It's no one's fault but everyone's problem, because in trying to get our bearings in cyberspace, we often get things wrong, and the misconceptions spread so rapidly that they go unchallenged. Taken together, they constitute a font of proverbial nonwisdom. Five stand out:

1. "The book is dead." Wrong: More books are produced in print each year than in the previous year. One million new titles will appear worldwide in 2011. In one day in Britain—"Super Thursday," last October 1—800 new works were published. The latest figures for the United States cover only 2009, and they do not distinguish between new books and new editions of old books. But the total number, 288,355, suggests a healthy market, and the growth in 2010 and 2011 is likely to be much greater. Moreover, these figures, furnished by Bowker, do not include the explosion in the output of "nontraditional" books—a further 764,448 titles produced by self-publishing authors and "micro-niche" print-on-demand enterprises. And the book business is booming in developing countries like China and Brazil. However it is measured, the population of books is increasing, not decreasing, and certainly not dying.

Discovery brings together key players from industry, academia, government, the investment community as well as entrepreneurs and students to pursue collaboration opportunities.

Garnering close to 2,500 attendees and more than 325 exhibitors, Discovery is a showcase of leading-edge technologies, best practices and research from sectors such as health, manufacturing, digital media and cleantech, including energy, environment and water.

Since my background includes software development, I often get the question about when to build a solution in-house, versus outsourcing it to a local company, near-shore service, or off-shore organization in China, India, or Eastern Europe. In the USA, “near-shore” is a euphemism for connected countries, like Mexico and Canada.

There is no simple answer to that question for all cases, but there certainly are some key considerations which will help you select the optimal solution for your case. In fact, the considerations are not unique to software development – they apply almost as well to any product or service you have:

1. Control of core competency. Don’t outsource your core competency. If your software is your solution and “secret sauce,” don’t entrust it to outsiders of any kind. It’s like giving up control of your company. If the software is ancillary to your mission, proceed through the rest of these considerations.

The biotech and pharmaceutical industry is full of people who went to the top universities, live in the fanciest neighborhoods, and work for brand-name companies. But this industry needs to start thinking more about millions of people who are mostly an afterthought today. I’m talking about people who live in America’s small cities and rural areas.

This isn’t something I’ve personally thought about very much, since I spend most of my time zipping between the toniest ZIP codes in the U.S., where most healthcare innovation occurs. But the idea dawned on me this past week after I traveled to a place just 270 miles from home, yet a world away—Spokane, WA (population 208,000). It became even clearer over the next couple days during a trip to one of the top biotech clusters—San Francisco.

Corruption is undoubtedly the current hot-button topic in Ghana because of the Anas investigative work on Tema Harbour and “Enemies of the Nation.” Admittedly, the aftermath of this saga has exposed the modus operandi of typical bureaucratic fraudsters, but beyond that it has also shown the insidious nature of corruption by the very people who are supposed to protect the country and more importantly illustrated the evil effects of corruption on Ghana.

As an organization dedicated to the prevention, detection and deterrence of fraud, CAFAC Ghana Ltd must by necessity wade into the ongoing discourse and therefore intends to present a series of articles in the coming days starting with today’s article.

The UA reached a record number of agreements helping to bring university-developed technology into the marketplace in 2010.

The UA Office of Technology Transfer signed 64 licensing and option agreements last year, which was a 49 percent increase from 2009, according to a report presented to the Arizona Board of Regents. The report also showed increases in invention disclosures and patent applications within the university compared to the past several years.

Filing inventions through the Office of Technology Transfer starts the process of translating research into its practical application, according to Patrick Jones, director of the Office of Technology Transfer. Once an invention is licensed, it can eventually be sold in the marketplace as, or as part of, a product or service.

Monsanto Co. (MON) and venture capital firm Atlas Venture are teaming up to foster development of technologies that could benefit the agricultural and human-health markets.

Monsanto, an agriculture company, and Atlas, which backs early-stage medical and technology companies, have agreed to collaborate to find technologies that could be the basis for start-ups.

The companies, which will share expertise to vet technologies, will then fund these companies jointly or individually. The three-year deal is the first of its kind for both, though Monsanto is a limited partner in Atlas's most recent venture fund, which closed at $283 million in 2008.

Companies can reduce the risk of adopting new innovation methods by testing them first. A short, pilot program that addresses a specific product or service line helps you understand whether a new method is right for your company. Pilot programs help keep your costs in line, and they help you reduce resistance to adopting new methods.

To organize an innovation pilot program:

1. Make the Case: A pilot program will take time and money, so you will need to build the business case before you can secure funding. Positioning is critical. The key is to show what has changed in the market creating a need to do things differently. Show the contrast how the firm's future state would be improved if a new method is found. Offer up the pilot as a way to experiment without making huge commitments. Be sure not to attack the prevailing methods or departments responsible for innovation. Otherwise, they will push back.

It’s the unlikeliest of portals into the future of health-care delivery in the U.S.: a small, low-slung, brick building in the middle of Queens, N.Y., with a blue banner strung across the facade heralding street-front primary care.

But inside, Dr. Michele C. Reed, medical director of the five-person practice, has done something that she thinks is absolutely necessary for anyone who wants to practice medicine in the modern world: Her office has gone paperless.

No more chasing files. No more lost charts. No more bringing home folders full of lab reports and examination notes. No more dank basements full of filing cabinets crammed with paper. She is well on her way toward creating a seamless system of health care whereby everything from scheduling, to referrals, to prescriptions, to getting lab results, to interactions with insurance providers takes place by wire, air and microchip.

If you’re suffering under a bad boss, vacation time this summer is a great opportunity to figure out your strategy for what you’re going to do about it. Your best strategy may be to get out ASAP, but that may not work for you for a variety of reasons.

If you’re stuck for now, here are five things you should learn until you or your boss move on:

Learn what a boss shouldn’t do – This sort of goes without saying, but figure out all the things you shouldn’t do if you want to be a strong leader. I’ve only had one really bad boss, and the “what not to dos” I learned have been invaluable in my career.

Silicon Valley’s top 150 public companies saw their most profitable year in history as they put the big recession behind them in 2010, according to the San Jose Mercury News’ annual SV150 report published Sunday.

The Merc’s list showed that the combined stock value of those 150 companies climbed to its highest level since the height of the internet boom in 2000. As noted, a kind of perfect storm has enabled a broad recovery among tech companies: the rise of new handheld gadgets such as the iPad, iPhone and Android devices; social networking’s growth; increased use of video online; more e-commerce; and corporations going back into technology-purchasing mode.

The Midwest Technology Exchange (mtechx) is a collaborative conference focusing on the development and commercialization of Midwestern technologies which have been developed in collaboration with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) and the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC). This conference will be an inclusive two-day meeting that will bring together Army funded principal investigators in the Midwest region, technology transfer experts, company representatives, venture capitals, economic developers, military and civilian experts to collaborate on advanced methods to achieve tangible commercial success and develop an infrastructure to help advance technology development and commercialization of Army fund- ed projects in the Midwest. For more information and registration visit www.mtechx.org.

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During a recent interview, a young founder admitted that one of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur was figuring out how to fill up his day. For him, balancing the multiple roles he plays and the long-term goals of the venture with the need to make the most of his day was a major challenge. “I’ve got all these balls in the air and these long-term benchmarks to work towards, but what does that mean for me today?”

And this got us to thinking: we’re getting great insights into the broader trajectory of launching businesses and starting new ventures, but we need to better understand the nitty-gritty, day-to-day processes and challenges facing entrepreneurs and small business owners. We’re having great conversations about how you begin to act on an idea, what it’s like to navigate the funding process, how to build a network and make your first hires, and what happens when you’re ready to move on. However, like the young founder, we’re curious to learn more about what these broader questions mean from one day to the next.

To my pleasure, there is now a United States Bicycle Route System that goes more places than Amtrak and Greyhound do. Have a look at the proposed map of the national corridor plan.

The goal is to create clearly marked north-south and east-west routes, as romantic as the Oregon Trail or as functional as the Erie Canal. The trail of Lewis and Clark is on one of the routes.

I can only hope that the plan serves as an inspiration to would-be cyclists and every-day bike commuters. To be fair, it takes years to master the dark and often wet arts of cycling. My riding-to-work garb includes reflective gear from London, Alaskan socks, a headlight from San Diego, a lock from Amsterdam, and a rain jacket from Ohio. On my first commute, after a year of wondering of “whether I could do it,” I searched so hard to find a safe route that I got lost.

Creativity is a sought-after commodity among employers and those seeking personal or professional fulfillment. It comes in handy not only while concocting works of art and literature but also in planning a corporate event or devising a new business strategy. Some people seem more naturally open to new ideas and able to put them to innovative uses. Many of these individuals also tend to be a little…well…different, as Harvard psychologist Shelley Carson wrote in the May/June 2011 Scientific American MIND. But you don't have to be eccentric to be creative. You don't even have to be born with a knack for innovation.

Not surprisingly, the 2010 census data concerning Detroit’s shrinking population set off what has become a familiar call-response routine between doomsayers lamenting lost glory and civic boosters touting a renaissance.

For the record, I agree with the boosters, but we shouldn’t let this dialogue drown out the promising buzz building between other economic centers across the state.

While the Motor City has struggled to shift gears over the past decade, cities like Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo have quietly developed local innovation ecosystems that resemble those of early Silicon Valley and Boston’s Route 128 Corridor.

Fear. It’s a shape-shifter, a gut-wrenching combatant and top-notch motivator all rolled into one. Call it an entrepreneurial bogeyman. How you respond to it makes all the difference to your success. Will you freeze and pull the covers over your head or will you be ready for anything?

Sure, an uncertain economy leaves entrepreneurs with plenty to be fearful of these days. Still, more than half a million entrepreneurs started small businesses in 2009, and despite economic fears, 70 percent of them will survive at least two years, according to Small Business Administration statistics.

That’s not to say it’s easy to build a successful business. But with all the obstacles, don’t let fear be the one that takes you down.