There’s a growing number of startup accelerators around the world, from Y Combinator in Silicon Valley to TechStars in Boulder and SeedCamp based out of London- All helping entrepreneurs to accelerate their ideas from conception to commercial business in a shorter time frame than normal.

Most take a huge chunk of equity in return for a small amount of early stage seed funding, but SSE Labs, the new accelerator programe based out of AOL’s offices on Page Mill Road, Palo Alto works differently; SSE labs is built in compliance with Stanford Student Enterprise to help nurture the existing world class entrepreneurial nature of Standford students.

Iowa needs to take steps to grow its bioscience industry, an area that added high-paying jobs even during the recession, a new report shows.

Iowa added about 625 jobs, a 4.5 percent increase from 2007 to 2008, the first year of the U.S. recession, a report from the Battelle Memorial Institute showed. Nationally, bioscience jobs grew 1.4 percent in the same time.

"It's exciting ... that even through this recession we've seen growth in bioscience, and we've been growing significantly ahead of the nation," said Gov. Terry Branstad. He released the report Thursday with Innovate Iowa, a group of business and academic leaders.

It’s sad when the startup is “successful,” but the founder still feels totally unsatisfied. I see it happening all the time. The business is a winner, but the family or other relationships are broken by the stress. Or the entrepreneur started down this path to be their own boss and change the world, but find they are now answering to many more people, with nothing really changed.

I was just reading a new book, called “The Plan,” by John McKee and Helen Latimer, which focuses on the difference between being “successful” and being “satisfied” in your personal and professional lives. They start by asserting that many people feel more or less successful, but far fewer, even the successful ones, feel satisfied.

How many of you actually know what you want to be when you grow up? I know people in their 40s and 50s who are still trying to figure that out.

Come to think of it, the whole idea of somehow magically discovering what you’re meant to do with your life is more or less a roll of the dice.

That’s the way it was for me, that’s for sure. From high-tech engineering to sales to marketing to executive management and finally, after more years than I care to count, to this. I’ve found myself.

It used to be that software companies could become very large – and very successful – by putting a bunch of “shelf ware” into the market. In other words, it didn’t matter whether the customer used the software. As long as the customer paid that fat licensing fee, the vendor was happy. In the old enterprise software world, many large companies were built on this model.

Web-based software (hosted, SaaS, on-demand, in the cloud, etc.) is different. If the customer doesn’t use the software, the vendor is unlikely to achieve success since the customer pays on an ongoing basis instead of paying a large licensing fee. If the customer doesn’t get value, the customer stops paying. Simple as that. This model is great for aligning the interests of the customer and the vendor, which is why it has become the norm over the past 10 years.

As the American economy struggles to recover, its greatest advantage lies with its diverse population. The U.S.’ major European competitors — Germany, Scandinavia, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Italy — have admittedly failed at integrating racial outsiders. Its primary Asian rivals, with the exception of Singapore, are almost genetically resistant to permanent migration from those outside the dominant ethnic strain.

In contrast, America’s destiny is tied to minorities, who already constitute a third of the nation’s population and who will account for roughly half of the population by 2050. Younger and more heavily represented in the labor force, minorities are poised to become the primary source of entrepreneurial growth.

Everyone has greatness in them. The challenge is how we express it. We can push ourselves to rise to the challenge, or we can encourage others to greatness (and, in turn, encourage ourselves at the same time).

Everyone also has an ego. Some are kept in check – some are left to rage uncontrollably. Some have a happy medium in-between. Are our ego’s stopping us from being remarkable?

Often we don’t like to admit we don’t know something. We want people to think we’re invincible, that their trust in us is warranted. That we are the fountain of knowledge to their stream of questions. But we’re not. None of us.

The Toronto Board of Trade's Scorecard on Prosperity ranks 24 cities based on economy and labour attractiveness

President Obama seems to understand the role that startups play and the contribution that skilled immigrants make to U.S. economic growth. He has talked a lot about the importance of science and engineering, and expressed fears that, unless we improve our game, China and India will out-innovate us. He even visited Silicon Valley recently to talk to its elite. And he has had his Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, make several trips here to the Valley.

I commend the President for putting a spotlight on entrepreneurship with his Startup America initiative; but I can’t help wondering whether this is just a giant press release. It needs more substance: a way for foreign-born entrepreneurs to start companies here and a leveling of the playing field for entrepreneurs wanting to solve government problems.

Founders almost always cite lack of money as the reason for failure, but if you look deeper, I believe the reason is more often about dysfunctional people and leadership. Sometimes it comes right back to the founder, in terms of a malaise often called “Founder’s Syndrome.” A few years ago I was intimately involved with a promising startup that taught me about this issue.

I’ll be short on specifics here, to protect the guilty, but I hope you get the idea. It’s not a disease, but it can kill your startup. You can find a more complete discussion of Founder’s Syndrome on Wikipedia, but here are a few of the “symptoms” I observed in the Founder and CEO in this case:

* Advisors and staff hand-picked from friends and connections. Personality and loyalty are apparently the key criteria, rather than skills, organizational fit, or experience. The executive is looking more for cheerleaders, rather than people with real insights and ideas.

Do you have trouble getting peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar? A jar with screw on lids on both ends might solve the problem.

The European Research Council (ERC) is moving higher up the R&D feeding chain with a new grant scheme to help researchers it has funded previously translate their research to market. The first call for these proof of concept grants opens tomorrow (29 March).

Scientists already holding ERC grants will be eligible for further funding of up to €150,000 to bridge the gap between their work and “the earliest stage of a marketable innovation.” The call is open to all principle investigators with a current grant, or one that ended less than 12 months ago. There is €10 million available under the first call, which will run into 2012.

Good news for candy and chocolate lovers: they tend to weigh less, have lower body mass indices (BMI) and waist circumferences, and have decreased levels of risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and metabolic syndrome, according to a new study(1) published in Nutrition Research.

The findings are positive, but lead researcher Carol O’Neil, PhD, MPH, LDN, RD, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, cautions it is all things in moderation. “We certainly don’t want these results positioned as eating candy helps you to lose weight,” she said. “This study adds to the evidence base that supports candy’s role as an occasional treat within a healthy lifestyle.”

Industry research shows that the market for collaboration software used by corporations—commonly called Enterprise 2.0 technology—is growing, despite the sluggish economy. Gartner, an information technology industry analyst group, began tracking revenue growth of social business software in 2009. Gartner predicts the market for enterprise social software technologies will continue to grow from $664 million in 2010 to $1.3 billion in 2014.

New York (Vocus/PRWEB) March 30, 2011

Creative industries have shown more resilience to the impact of the global economic crisis than traditional manufacturing industries, according to the Creative Economy Report 2010 launched, today, at the United Nations.

Global exports of creative goods and services-ideas and creativity-centred industries such as arts and crafts, audiovisuals, books, design, films, music, new media, visual and performing arts- have more than doubled from 2002 to 2008, reaching nearly US$600 billion, according to the Report.

Of all the controversies now raging in Washington, the one I find most endearing is the fight over federal regulation of light bulb efficiency.

“Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which light bulbs to buy,” complained Representative Michele Bachmann in her Tea Party response to the president’s State of the Union address.

Bachmann has strong opinions on this matter. She is the author of the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, which would repeal a federal requirement that the typical 100-watt bulb become 25 percent more energy efficient by 2012.

Research universities face a long list of seemingly intractable problems.

Faculty too often work in subject-specific silos. Taxpayer-supported basic science doesn't get converted by industry into useful products and jobs. The vagaries of federal financing play havoc with laboratory projects and staffing. And now, making it even worse for some universities, Congress is cutting off budgetary "earmarks" reserved for many big-picture projects.

One possible solution­—known as interdisciplinary science, or "team science"­—is ripe for a surge in growth. An early sign: a new group of campus-based grant experts, known as the National Organization of Research Development Professionals, has ballooned from 32 to 232 members in the past two years, with what its leadership sees as a focus on promoting interdisciplinary science.

Google just announced Kansas City, Kansas -- pop. 145,000 -- as its first city for building out a super-fast fiber optic network, to offer Internet access that is supposedly "more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have today."

The network will launch in 2012. No word yet on pricing, or whether the operator will offer unlimited access or metered access.

Why is Google doing this?

As we noted a year ago, when Google first announced these trials, it's not because Google really wants to become a telecom company.

Every once in a while it’s a good idea to sit back, take stock and assess how some of today’s current trends could benefit your business. Here are four to consider that have both marketing and operations implications for your company.

1. Going mobile. Mobile marketing is becoming increasingly important as consumer adoption of smartphones increases. Whether you market to businesses or consumers, your customers are increasingly accessing the Internet and using phones as shopping tools. But according to the fifth Small Business Success Index survey released recently, few small business owners currently use mobile marketing methods such as texting promotions to customers, creating a mobile site or mobile application, and advertising on mobile sites. Just 15 percent of entrepreneurs surveyed said these activities have the potential to be “extremely” or “very valuable” to their businesses. I think this is a big mistake. Young people are an obvious market for mobile marketing, but with smartphones becoming essential tools for everyone from soccer moms to businesspeople, no business can afford to ignore this trend.

“When I grow up, I want to be a software developer.”

U.S. chief technical officer Aneesh Chopra on Wednesday announced the winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge, a competition for primary school-aged kids to develop educational video games for their peers.

The point of the competition is to motivate interest in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math.

There were two separate competitions: one for students, and one for experienced developers. The 12 winners of the student competition — in grades 5 through 8 — were selected for their original game designs from a pool of more than 500 entries.