The New England Venture Capital Association and five of its member firms will sponsor free Kendall Square desks for early-stage entrepreneurs, starting March 31st. The 2,500 square foot space will be part of a new co-working facility — where numerous start-up teams share open space instead of hermetically-sealed offices — called CriticalMass that will be part of the Cambridge Innovation Center.

Nancy Saucier, a spokesperson for NEVCA, says that the five firms sponsoring the space will choose the entrepreneurs who get "golden tickets." (Others can pay $250 a month to have access to the same space.) The current sponsors will cover the costs for about 48 entrepreneurs a year to get three months of free rent, but Saucier says other NEVCA members have expressed interest in getting involved with the program, and she expects that as many as 100 tickets could be handed out annually. Sponsoring VC firms will also have conference rooms with their names on the door, which they'll use periodically to meet with entrepreneurs (but which will otherwise be open to CriticalMass denizens.) CriticalMass will also host Q&A sessions with angel investors, as well as "how to" workshops geared to entrepreneurs.

The Intel Science Talent Search is considered the nation’s most elite and demanding high school research competition, attracting the crème de la milk-fats-encased-in-a-phospholipid-and-protein-membrane of aspiring young scientists. Victors and near-victors in the 69-year-old contest have gone on to win seven Nobel Prizes in physics or chemistry, two Fields Medals in mathematics, a half-dozen National Medals in science and technology, a long string of MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants — and now, an Academy Award for best actress in a leading role.

On Sunday night, the gorgeously pregnant Natalie Portman, 29, won an Oscar for her performance as Nina, a mentally precarious ballerina in the shock fantasy “Black Swan.” Among the lesser-known but nonetheless depressingly impressive details in Ms. Portman’s altogether too precociously storied career is that as a student at Syosset High School on Long Island back in the late 1990s, Ms. Portman made it all the way to the semifinal rounds of the Intel competition.

DURHAM, N.C. — Why is it that the same teams seem to dominate the annual men’s collegiate basketball tournament? For that matter, why does the same small group of institutions seem to top annual best-college rankings?

According to a theory developed by a Duke University engineer, these hierarchies are not only natural, but predictable. Just as continually growing streams flow into a larger river, or smaller and smaller branches grow out from a single tree trunk, examples of these hierarchies abound in the natural world.

Emory University experts predict that rates of depressive disorders among men will increase as the 21st century progresses.

In an editorial published in the March, 2011 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry http://bjp.rcpsych.org/, author Boadie Dunlop, MD, writes “Compared to women, many men attach a great importance to their roles as providers and protectors of their families. Failure to fulfill the role of breadwinner is associated with greater depression and marital conflict.”

Research shows that since the beginning of the recession in 2007, roughly 75 percent of the jobs lost in the United States were held by men. On the other hand, women are increasingly becoming the primary household earners with 22 percent of wives earning more than their husbands in 2007, versus only four percent in 1970. Unfortunately, there is little reason for anyone to believe that traditional male jobs will return in significant numbers with economic recovery.

Welcome to disruption. 26-year old Amanda Hocking is the best-selling "indie" writer on the Kindle store, meaning she doesn't have a publishing deal, Novelr says.

And she shouldn't. She gets to keep 70% of her book sales -- and she sells around 100,000 copies per month. By comparison, it's usually thought that it takes a few tens of thousands of copies sold in the first week to be a New York Times bestselling writer.

The comparison isn't entirely fair, because Hocking sells her books for $3, and some $.99. But that's the point: by lowering the prices, she can make more on volume, especially impulse buys. Meanwhile e-books cost nothing to print, you don't have to worry about print volumes, shelf space, inventory, etc. And did we mention the writer keeps 70%?

YouTube partners are making over $1 million off of their videos, according to the NYPost.

We all knew that a bunch of YouTube stars were pulling in six-figures a year, but who knew that some of these guys (and gals?) have become millionaires? Then again, it shouldn't be that big of a surprise to hear about YouTube millionaires when you look at the whole picture of potential revenue streams in banner, pre-roll and overlay ads in addition to sponsored videos and merchandise sales.

"Sponsorships are where money is right now," YouTube star Cory Williams of SMPFilms told us in an interview from last September.

Last year we did a series about the trend in micromultinational businesses. These are businesses that are small — some very small with a mere handful of employees — but already operating as multinationals. It used to be that your business had to wait to grow up before going international. Not today. Today you can leapfrog from a startup serving a 50-mile radius, to selling to customers in dozens of countries.

Today that I’d highlight some articles from our archives on the special challenges and opportunities of going international even while a small business.

Public speaking is a great marketing tool and exposure medium when used appropriately. On the other hand, it can do damage to your business when done badly.

You’ve probably heard the following tips: practice, practice, practice; come prepared; show up early and get a sense of the room. We can add to the list: don’t fidget, move with purpose or not at all, pause for effect, don’t ‘um’ and ‘ah.’ These are all good points. Debbie Fay of bespeak presentations shares some great ideas in her article Be a Presentation Powerhouse.

There is another aspect to public speaking that I’d like to address here. Many speakers get so caught up in their heads that they don’t stop to think about the impact their words or actions are having on the audience. While public speaking is good for the speaker, it only works well when the speaker frames the speech around what’s best for the audience. Instead of thinking about what you hope to gain from your presentation, remember that you get what’s best for you by concentrating on what your audience members need and want.

For survival, the objective of every business should be to bring in revenues which exceed their costs. Even non-profits have to do this to cover overhead costs, unless they rely totally on donations. Yet I continue to see business plans, or even talk to founders, and can’t find the specifics of the business model anywhere.

As Guy Kawasaki says in his book “The Art of the Start,” if you can’t describe your business model in ten words or less, you don’t have a business model. Avoid whatever business jargon is currently hip, like strategic, mission-critical, world-class, synergistic, first-mover, or scalable. Try something like, “the product costs $X, and we sell it for $Y.”

We have some important ground to cover, some good and some not so good. Lots of information you may want to pass on to your representatives to get the House to support a reasonable SBIR reauthorization. The Senate is well on it's way as you will see.

In this issue:

* The Potential Consequences of a Government Shutdown to SBIR companies
* Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship Holds SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Hearing
* Issues From the Hearing – University Opposition to Increase Allocation
* SBA's 2011 SBIR Tibbetts Awards & Hall of Fame
* Waste, Fraud & Abuse Update
* SBIR Gateway's DoD STTR Partnering
* National SBIR Spring Conference – April 10-13, Madison, WI

Apple bet big on the App Store--and 350,000 apps later, competitors are struggling to catch up. Now, there's Google's Android Market, BlackBerry's App World, HP's Palm App Catalog, and Microsoft's Apps Marketplace. But while Apple still leads the pack with an astonishing 82.7% market share, the app race is far from over.

According to a new report by Forrester Research, the app market will explode to a $38 billion industry by 2015, riding the huge growth in popularity of mobile devices from smartphones to tablets to whatever Apple dreams up next. In 2010, apps on these devices pulled in $1.7 billion globally, meaning the market will blossom exponentially in the coming years.

RICHMOND, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Feb. 28, 2011) - The Honourable Yonah Martin, Senator (British Columbia), visited Applied Biological Materials Inc. today to celebrate the company's success in commercializing a new detection system for genetic information, which received support from the Government of Canada through the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program. Senator Martin was joined by several of her caucus colleagues who are visiting other companies across Canada today to highlight similar commercialization successes that are strengthening the economy and improving the quality of life of Canadians.

"Our government is supporting Canadian companies that invest in research and development to bring new ideas to the marketplace, creating new jobs and strengthening our economy," said Senator Martin. "Applied Biological Materials is a Canadian success story and an example of how businesses can succeed when they invest in research and commercialize new discoveries."

Last year biotech venture capital investing began to recover from its 2009 low, growing three percent in the number of dollars raised and eight percent in the number of deals which were struck. That represents a significant bounce-back from 2009, which saw biotech investing plummet 19 percent during the worst of the economic crisis.

With the help of data provided by the National Venture Capital Association, we've compiled a list of the promising biotech companies which were the most successful at raising money in 2010. Our top VC earner in 2010--Pacific Biosciences--is making its last appearance on this list; the sequencing compan

Moncton-based Tech South East Inc. is receiving support from the Government of Canada to deliver a series of workshops and seminars on business skills development to information technology companies. These courses are designed to help companies better position themselves for continued growth.

“As we emerge from the Global recession, our Government is proud to invest in projects that contribute to business development, greater employment and economic growth,” said the Honourable Rob Moore, Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism) and MP for Fundy Royal, on behalf of the Honourable Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway. “Our government’s investment in Tech South East will help the region’s technology cluster to acquire and enhance the skills needed to be an efficient, effective and successful competitor in both the domestic and international marketplace.”

I hate self-help books. And any books or articles or “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” (or “Power of Now”) stuff that don’t really speak from experience and don’t really give you specific steps towards achievement.

When you have a gun to your head, with two kids, a mortgage, and your entire self-esteem at risk, you need PRACTICAL methods for moving forward. And you need them from someone who can speak from experience and say, “this works.”

Practical doesn’t mean: “incorporate your company, hire programmers, etc”. And it doesn’t mean “appreciate the moment”. Once that moment is over you have the rest of your life to worry about. Practical means building the basic foundation that I know for a fact creates wealth. I’ve had the gun to my head. And it even fired. But I dodged the bullet because of the below.

When an office phone rings, most people cringe. They'd rather deal with issues via email or text on their own time.

There's no denying that new, preferred forms of communication have tampered with the amount of phone calls people make. But dialing is definitely not dying, and it is still a vital form of communication.

In fact, Ofcom, a British telecoms regulator, has data that shows mobile and fixed phone minutes have increased in recent years (see chart on the top right from The Economist).

"The time people spend talking on a fixed telephone has gone down in recent years in nearly all rich countries for which the International Telecommunication Union has data," The Economist reports. "Yet in most, this fall is more than offset by the increase in mobile calls."

How many hours does the average person commute per year?

How much weight will you gain at your current job?

How many hours will you work in your lifetime?

The answer to all three of those questions is: a lot. These are just some of many depressing facts about the typical job today.

Babson College has partnered with MassChallenge to create Babson graduate student hatchery space in Boston’s Innovation District.

Babson businesses created by current graduate students receive space in the MassChallenge site at One Marina Park Drive (55 Northern Ave) on Boston’s waterfront.

As part of the Babson Venture Accelerator, Hatcheries provide a vibrant atmosphere conducive to sharing ideas and information among student teams, faculty, executives-in-residence and visiting entrepreneurs. The Hatcheries function like incubators where student entrepreneurs have access to professional and semiprivate workspace to grow their businesses. Student businesses go through an application process before they are selected. Teams are awarded space in the Hatcheries one term at a time.

Driving around Youngstown, Ohio, can feel eerily like exploring a decimated city in a war-torn nation. Brick buildings downtown look like hollow, bombed-out shells. Houses abandoned by blue-collar workers sit empty. Bruce Springsteen’s ode to the Rust Belt city sang of the steel mills that “built the tanks and bombs that won this country’s wars.” But those factories were shuttered long ago, their idle smokestacks looming over a crime-ridden town that for decades was better known as "Bomb City" and "Murdertown, USA."

But there’s life emerging beneath these hardened scars. In the shadow of the iconic 1919 Home Savings and Loan Company building downtown, a managed cluster of high-tech startups is injecting new energy into the city. It’s the Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI), a nonprofit corporation, and it’s not only redefining the industry of this hardscrabble valley on the eastern edge of Ohio; it’s changing the notion of what cities and states can do to spur innovation and investment. In the past decade, CEO Jim Cossler, who also refers to himself as “chief evangelist,” has revamped the model of an incubator from a klatch of unrelated businesses to a targeted group of niche entrepreneurs—in this case, business-to-business software firms. Unlike traditional business incubators, Cossler doesn’t “graduate” successful companies and send them packing. Instead, he keeps the portfolio companies on a single, mixed-use campus that promotes open source collaboration. He provides them with cheap or free rent, utilities and Wi-Fi to help them convert IT ideas into dollars and, in turn, jobs.

Research firm Forrester this morning announced its forecasts for the online retail industry in both the US and Western Europe this morning. No surprise: Forrester expects both markets to grow steadily over the next few years – not an unsafe bet by any means.

Forrester estimates that both US and European online retail (representing 17 Western European nations) will grow at a 10 percent compound annual growth rate from 2010 to 2015, reaching $279 billion and €134 billion, respectively, in 2015.