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Networking is an important marketing activity for almost any start-up business but it can kill you. The reason: there are some well-meaning people who regularly attend such meetings and events and they possess a stealth-like ability to bore others to death.

Getting on with people is a very important skill in business. Entrepreneurial minds tend to be much more relaxed about meeting others for the first time and networking events are organised so that people can do just that.

Which markets have the best prospects for long-term growth in solar energy? The winner, surprisingly, is India, with its abundant sunlight, exploding demand, and gigantic, mostly off-grid population.

That’s according to a new report by a  new report by Lux Research examining emerging markets for solar power.

The current global poster child for solar is Germany, which added 8 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2010 and accounted for half of the global solar market. At minimum demand the entire German electricity grid consumes around 31 GW. However, Germany’s solar dominance may be starting to wane since its generous guaranteed rates for solar power are being reduced.

A patient who receives a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer has only a 5 percent chance of surviving for five years, a harrowing prognosis that scientists have long struggled to understand. Part of the problem, new research suggests, is that the disease is not typically diagnosed until 15 years after the first cancer-causing mutations appear, by which point the cancer has spread and become highly aggressive. The findings indicate that there may be plenty of time for doctors to intervene before pancreatic cancer becomes lethal—an exciting prospect given recent advances in diagnosing the disease early, when it can be successfully removed with surgery and chemotherapy.

Is the green home here?

A host of manufacturers are touting energy management systems this week at the Consumer Electronics Show. Verizon, for instance, said it would begin to test its energy monitoring system with consumers in New Jersey in the first part of 2011. Motorola, meanwhile, is touting the technology it obtained late last year from 4Home for controlling energy consumption in homes.

Panasonic has a display with everything from home fuel cells (which have been on sale in Japan for over a year) to dual-sided solar panels and a centralized control panel. Panasonic showed us these things back in October at Ceatec. See video below: it's the same display they are showing in Vegas.

Booz & Company’s annual study of the world’s biggest R&D spenders shows why highly innovative companies are able to consistently outperform. Their secret? They’re good at the right things, not at everything.

Why are some companies able to consistently conceive of, create, and bring to market innovative and profitable new products and services while so many others struggle? It isn’t the amount of money they spend on research and development. After all, our annual Global Innovation 1000 study has shown time and again that there is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending, in terms of either total R&D dollars or R&D as a percentage of revenues.

I know, I know. You’ve already consumed enough “Top Whatever ” lists of 2010 to provide a lifetime bout of indigestion. Stay with me. What I’ve compiled here isn’t a list of milestones, mega-trends or movers and shakers from the past year. It is, however, a short and sweet mash-up of innovative stories that managed to cut through the clutter and capture my imagination. Food for thought as we head into 2011? Only one way to find out…

Pink Snails Invade Miami Beach

How do you raise awareness about the importance of recycling? If you’re the REgeneration Art Project, you build giant snails made from recycled plastic, paint them pink and display them in public places like Miami Beach. Here’s what Gloria Porcella, co-owner of Galleria Ca’ d’Oro, which backed the project had to say about the significance of the snails in a recent Miami Herald article:

“We run and we work too much, and the snail is one of the slowest animals on earth. The concept is the snail wants us to think about ourselves and they want to teach us something. We run, run, run but what are we reaching? What are our goals? We are destroying our planet.”

2010 was an amazing year for startup action and activism in Minnesota. The community is coming together in recognition that the innovation economy can’t be grown through luck or grand schemes – but from real digging in the Minnesota soil. This means a macro/micro focus – improving the overall ecosystem for new technology and business launch and engaging directly with startups.  Here are just a few 2010 highlights (in no particular order) that are keeping Minnesota on the front burner:

(a)    Tax Credits – Angel Investor/R&D

The 10-year wait is over – Minnesota got an angel tax credit. And none too soon. With our friendly neighbors friendlying up to our local tech community with siren songs of support and subsidies, the Gov and Legislature hunkered down and got us not just a robust angel tax credit – but a generously expanded R&D tax credit (10% of the first $2 million in R&D expenses over base expense).  And the R&D tax credit is fully refundable, which is great benefit for early-stage companies.

Why do some people become extremely successful, while the rest of us work really hard and do fine but not great?

Robert Jordan interviewed 45 founders for his book, "How They Did It." 

Each entrepreneur started a company from nothing and either sold for $100 million+ or went public for $300 million+.  In total, those interviewed created roughly $41 billion from scratch.

We asked Jordan what separates extremely successful business people from everyone else.

Its not really such a great thing to be an entrepreneur. There’s no real “freedom” in it.

People think that starting your own business gives you freedom. It doesn’t.

When you work a corporate job where you only, realistically, work for 1-2 hours a day and you can leave your work at the office, then you have freedom.

Entrepreneurship == slavery. You are a slave to employees, partners, investors, a board, clients, potential buyers, reporters, landlords, random people off the street who try to come into your office and rob you, etc

The people factor appears over and over on my list of top five tips. It is the basis of many entrepreneurial successes and, because many business leaders discount it, innumerable failures. While the current thinking in business schools holds that all someone with an idea needs to succeed are focus, clarity and a good business plan, I have found that bringing together a great team that's united by strong motivation, determination and bravery is much more important. Here's how to get started.

With a slowly rebounding economy, many are left wondering how to recoup investment losses incurred through this recession. In 2008 alone, the average investor saw their 401(k) balance shrink by 27 percent, according to Fidelity Investments.

Good thing there’s a silver lining to every dark cloud. While “angel investing’’ is always a good option for those who want to diversify their investable portfolio, one of the best times to pursue angel investing is in a down economy, because human capital usually increases in supply due to downsizing and business closures.

The Creative Industries represents one of the leading assets and opportunity areas for the Nordic Region of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. The greatest assets of any region are its people, their individual creativity, skill and talent. Within the economy those industries based on these assets are known as the ‘Creative Industries’ – a unique sector that is creating wealth and jobs through developing and exploiting intellectual property1. As well as representing one of the largest and fastest growing sectors, the Creative Industries sits at the heart of the Creative Economy: encapsulating those wider processes, products and services for which creativity is a central activity. In doing so, it plays a critical role in the economic competitiveness of the Nordic Region, providing the added value required for a distinctive, high quality, knowledge-driven offer. A strong, well-supported and highly connected Creative Industries sector provides the platform for a competitive, entrepreneurial and globally-facing Nordic Region.

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A superfast national research network plans to hook in more hospitals, public libraries, and other "community anchors," in hopes that new types of applications—as groundbreaking as Google or Facebook—will grow there. The Tech Therapy team talks with H. David Lambert, the new president and chief executive of the Internet2 networking group, about its vision and the challenges ahead.

Used to be, if you were a bright and well-connected Harvard Business School graduate, you could get into a small corner of the investing world that was called venture capital. You’d come in as an associate, crossing your fingers that they wouldn’t print your title on your business card. In the first year, you weren’t really expected to do anything besides look attentive in partner meetings, and a great deal of due diligence. If it was the late ’90s, you got promoted fast.

Say goodbye to all of that. The venture capital industry has been shrinking. Associate hires come few and far between, and the hiring process is acutely competitive. An associate is now expected to show a CV rich with entrepreneurial experience. Once in the door at a firm, they are expected to bring in deals that are worth the partners’ attention in their weekly meeting.

As a writer, I know how to organize information and make it look good. But like many would-be entrepreneurs, I don't know much about balance sheets, cash flow, marketing budgets, ad sales, or other essentials for running a company.

So I grabbed the chance when it came along to attend a free boot camp for entrepreneurs from the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurship. I'd been thinking about starting a travel site for parents, and the time was ripe. The program, called Fastrac, has been around for 17 years but has taken on new popularity in the recession. It's offered around the U.S., often in conjunction with city governments and nonprofits. I attended the New York City program, which is co-sponsored by a city business-assistance service and is coming up on its 1,000th graduate.

A veterinarian places Tzvika, an injured female turtle, on a carpet at the Wildlife Hospital in the Ramat Gan Safari near Tel Aviv January 5, 2011. Now she's a cyborg turtle.

About two months ago Tzvika was run over by a lawn mower, suffering severe damage to her shell and a spinal injury that affected her ability to use her rear limbs. The wheels, attached by veterinarians at the Safari, elevate the turtle to keep the shell from being worn down and enable her to walk.

“Real” 4G Mobile broadband. Verizon recently launched its 4G LTE network (via laptop modem cards). The Verizon network speed dwarfs the “4G” networks being advertised by Sprint and T-Mobile. Verizon’s 4G will be users’ first taste of true mobile broadband and will further drive mobile data usage and the percentage of time users spend on the mobile Internet. The first 4G LTE handsets will be introduced mid-year and will be lighting fast compared to 3G models. Verizon’s 4G deployment combined with its rumored access to the iPhone market will place substantial pressure on AT&T to accelerate its 4G rollout with exciting new (likely Android-based) handsets.

Various reports are noting that as many as 80 tablet devices are debuting at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES)--the long-expected tide of iPad challengers, powered by Android, Windows or some other code. Some of these will garner the label "iPad Killer," and stand out from the rest. What are these devices, and do they actually stand a chance of slaying Apple's monstrously successful iPad, with a hot new update soon to arrive?

One of the least understood aspects of entrepreneurship is why small businesses fail, and there’s a simple reason for the confusion: Most of the evidence comes from the entrepreneurs themselves.

I have had a close-up view of numerous business failures —
including a few start-ups of my own. And from my observation, the reasons for failure cited by the owners are frequently off point, which kind of makes sense when you think about it. If the owners really knew what they were doing wrong, they might have been able to fix the problem. Often, it’s simply a matter of denial or of not knowing what you don’t know.