Scientists found this sperm whale 77 miles south from the Deepwater spill site off the Gulf Coast.

The benefits of the Internet and social networking technologies will far outweigh the negatives by the year 2020, according to a new study released by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center. The study surveyed 895 technology leaders and critics, with 85 percent of the respondents saying that the Internet will be a positive social tool in their lives in the next 10 years. Fourteen percent disagreed with that statement.

Those who noted the positive effects cited how the Internet and social networking technologies have reduce the cost of communication.

"They said "geography" is no longer an obstacle to making and maintaining connections; some noted that internet-based communications removes previously perceived constraints of "space" and not just "place," the report noted.

On Cleveland’s east side there’s a neighborhood called University Circle. It’s an anachronism. The “circle” part disappeared 60 years ago. There is one university. Yet the same area includes three hospital systems, medical and nursing schools, the local biotech trade group and many of the city’s medical startups.

Enough. Down with the name University Circle. Expand the borders a bit and call it what it is: The Medical District.

Branding can be a pithy and overhyped undertaking. But not when it comes to reviving the economic psyche of cities like Cleveland, which have transitioned away from their manufacturing base. An accurate re-branding celebrates and promotes a city’s new economy and can fuel that growth.

Think the trend of businesses making green office renovations is just a passing fad? Not according to the latest issue of EL Insights, which reports that the U.S. green building market value will balloon from $71.1 billion now to $173 billion by 2015. Commercial green building is expected to grow by 18.1% annually during the same time period from $35.6 billion to $81.8 billion. In this case, green building is defined as building with resource use and employee productivity in mind.

At long last, the doodling daydreamer is getting some respect.

In the past, daydreaming was often considered a failure of mental discipline, or worse. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic. Psychology textbooks warned it could lead to psychosis. Neuroscientists complained that the rogue bursts of activity on brain scans kept interfering with their studies of more important mental functions.

But now that researchers have been analyzing those stray thoughts, they’ve found daydreaming to be remarkably common — and often quite useful. A wandering mind can protect you from immediate perils and keep you on course toward long-term goals. Sometimes daydreaming is counterproductive, but sometimes it fosters creativity and helps you solve problems.

I recently overheard someone reply, when asked about her holiday weekend, "It was successful. My New Year's resolution is to overeat on every major holiday. I figure I'm going to do it anyway; why not make it a goal I can actually keep?"

I had to laugh. It made me think about the goals we create in our lives and in our businesses.

Many fall into one of two major categories. The first category is goals we set that we have a 95 percent chance of accomplishing--mostly because we have done it before, so the likelihood is high that we'll succeed.

Most mammals don't live long past their reproductive years, failing to serve much evolutionary purpose after they can stop passing on their genes to offspring.

Only three long-lived social mammalian species are known break that mold. Killer whales (Orcinus orca), pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) and humans (as well as possibly some other great apes) all have females that generally live for decades after they cease being able to bear young. So what might we have in common with these cetaceans?

The ocean is a dynamic and rapidly evolving environment, a long-appreciated truth which becomes increasingly apparent as we observe it ever more carefully. Some of the transformations that we see are ones we are causing, and some are new to us only because we are looking in greater detail and with more sophisticated tools. This special issue contains a series of Reviews and News pieces that highlight some of the ways in which we see our oceans changing. Lozier (p. 1507) discusses how recent studies have challenged our view of large-scale ocean circulation as a simple conveyor belt, by revealing a more complex and nuanced system that reflects the effects of ocean eddies and surface atmospheric winds on the structure and variability of the ocean's overturning. Next, Doney (p. 1512) reviews how the chemistry of the oceans is changing, mostly due to human fossil fuel combustion, fertilizer use, and industrial activity. Nicholls and Cazenave (p. 1517) present an overview of recent sea-level rise, its impacts on coastal regions, and how adaptation may lessen those impacts. Two pieces examine how climate change is affecting marine biological systems: Schofield et al. (p. 1520) illustrate and discuss the role of ocean-observation techniques in documenting how marine ecosystems in the West Antarctic Peninsula region are evolving, and Hoegh-Guldberg and Bruno (p. 1523) present a more global view of the ways in which marine ecosystems are being affected by rapid anthropogenic variations.

There is a big difference between doing and knowing what to do. The difference separates the winners from the losers.

A lot of people and organizations are using social media because everyone is “doing it”. But doing it and knowing what to do with it are two totally different things.

If you do what other people do it becomes one big copy movement. Copying is repeating something somebody or everybody else does and then getting what everybody else gets, really nothing new.

You can repeat what someone else says yet not fully understanding the value of what they said. You can mimic what others do but it doesn’t mean you are mimicking what they know. Knowing something is reflected by how well you do that which you know. Doing something you don’t know is reflected by the poor results of what you do. All this being said do you follow what people do or what people know?

The top ten reasons for business failure are due to a lack of knowledge, not a lack of money. In fact, the lack of money is itself a failure of knowledge.

Top 10 reasons why businesses fail

1. Lack of an adequate, viable business plan?.

2. Insufficient sales to sustain business

3. Poor marketing plan: unappealing product, poor customer identification, incorrect pricing and lackluster promotion

4. Inadequate capital, misuse of capital and poor cost control

5. Poor management skills: lack of delegation, leadership and/or control

It’s hard balancing a blog with your small business. Even though you know the importance of having fresh content, sometimes life gets in the way. Things get busy at work, you go away to a conference, you have a new baby in the house, or the unimaginable happens and you actually take a vacation. What happens to your blog when you don’t have time to update it? How do you take a blog vacation without it ruining all the momentum you’ve created?
Here are a few suggestions.

Schedule posts in advance: One way to get around going quiet during busy times is to write post ahead of time and schedule them to go live while you’re away. This allows you to continue to publish new content and not give off to customers or readers that you may be away from your computer or busily working away in your store. And because you’re the one writing the content, you don’t have to worry about any changes in voice or bringing in a guest blogger that may take more liberties than you’re comfortable with. The downside to this method, of course, is that you have to make time to pre-write content. Not always the easiest thing to do. :)

Most people think of innovation as a “Eureka!” moment – or something that comes from hours upon hours of tinkering. But Josh Makower, CEO of ExploraMed, argues that innovation is a skill that can be taught in this Entrepreneur Thought Leader lecture given at Stanford University. By studying what propels innovation, he says, people can develop their own skills and break new ground.

In a recent, thought provoking piece for the Harvard Business Review, contributor Timothy Ogden makes the argument that the United States is a laggard, not a leader in social entrepreneurship. The piece shares the humbling story of William Kamkwamba, a teenage boy from Malawi who homespun a ramshackle windmill out of scrapyard materials to provide power and running water for his family.

I have to admit, Ogden's argument is compelling. He proceeds to discuss how major social innovations like microfinance, mobile to mobile money transfer services and text message crisis response all have originated in developing nations; what he refers to as the "two-thirds world". It only makes sense that those whose lives are embedded into situations of poverty and disadvantage be the most likely to appreciate the innovation necessary to solve their most immediate concerns. Our strategic philanthropy through the likes of Kiva, just isn't as compelling as a story like Kamkwamba's.

Ogden proceeds to argue that the U.S. needs to concern itself less with incubating social innovation domestically and create more capacity to support innovation internationally. The most obvious asset we can provide to such a situation is financial capital. Additionally, unique programs like MBAs without Borders provide management resources help to entrepreneurs in the two-thirds world.

Among business gurus, few things are as unquestioned as the notion that innovation is the route to success. "Innovate or die!" goes one mantra, usually followed by a hackneyed reference to everyone's favourite innovator, Thomas Edison, whose persistence resulted in the invention of the lightbulb. (What appeared above his head when he got the idea?) Yet if innovation was a surefire way for companies to achieve dominance, the world – or consumer capitalism, anyway – might look very different. If you're British, you're unlikely to have eaten a burger at White Castle, the chain that invented fast food; it's even less likely you've drunk RC Cola, the first cola, or paid for either with a Diners Club card: all were innovators, now long eclipsed. Nor, if you're wondering, am I writing this on a Remington Rand computer.

The cult of originality isn't restricted to the world of business, but that's where it's at its most acute: all that much-mocked talk of "blue-sky" thinking ism an ode to innovation. And it's in the world of business where one scholar, the management theorist Oded Shenkar, has begun to point out the elephant in the room, which is that innovation often simply isn't the key to success. McDonald's, Coca-Cola and Mastercard were all, to borrow the title of his new book, copycats – not primarily innovators, but imitators. There are countless other examples: Apple and Microsoft, for starters. Shenkar wants "to change the mindset that imitation is an embarrassing nuisance". Rather, it's a "rare and complex" capability, one we could all do with cultivating. Which is – yes – a rather innovative viewpoint on the matter.

It doesn’t matter if you read it old school style (paperback), on your Kindle or iPad, listen to it, or maybe even watch and read with something like Vook. The funny thing, is of the over 150 innovators, authors and forward-thinkers I’ve interviewed on RISE since 2008, almost every one reads. Is it a coincidence that they are also super successful? The best books seem to do a few things really well:

1. Inspire thinking: A “Huh…..I never saw it that way” moment. Or a new way of looking of things.
2. Cause change: I can trace back certain books that caused a change in how I looked at things or influenced me to edit something in my business or life. I bet you can to.
3. Create hunger: A call to action. Something worth talking about and doing.

Obviously, there are many types of books out there. Personal memoirs with takeaways you can use. How-to books offering a step-by-step guide. Inspirational stories and many more.

In a speech at the American University last Thursday, President Obama highlighted the incredible economic rewards that America has gained from its immigrants. He spoke of new waves of immigrants—from places like Ireland, Italy, Poland, and China—challenging the generations before them, and consequently being subjected to “rank discrimination and ugly stereotypes”.  Yet the immigrants kept coming to America. That’s because it was the only land of opportunity. The President wants lawmakers to fix the immigration system so that America can remain globally competitive. But I don’t think it’s that simple. America is no longer the only magnet for the world’s best and brightest. Fixing immigration policy is an important start, but it won’t be enough to stop the brain drain of highly educated and skilled workers that the U.S. is presently experiencing.

Just last week, there were two notable visitors to Silicon Valley—Russian President, Dimitry Medvedev, and Chile’s minister of Economy, Juan Andres Fontaine. President Medvedev wanted the brilliant Russian-born and -educated programmers who write some of the Valley’s most sophisticated software to know that they are welcome back home and that he is setting up a science park for them. Minister Fontaine wants to turn Chile into a tech hub and is following my advice on how to make this happen: by attracting immigrants; building a diverse culture that encourages risk-taking and openness; and creating networks of mentors. Over drinks (some excellent Chilean wine), the minister told me of a new program that Chile is piloting to lure bootstrappers. Chile will grant $40,000 and provide some really cheap office space and accommodation to budding entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world. All they have to do is to build their products in one of the most beautiful locations on the planet. Chile is betting that once these entrepreneurs get there, they will never want to leave.

How many times have you heard the expression: "good enough for government work?" Too often I am sure. Sometimes it may even apply to your business or other activities. Of course, that is not your standard of excellence. Most of the time you strive for better than 90 percent perfection. Don't you?

If the question were asked, many would say that they do much better.

What if we strived for 99 percent? Sounds good, doesn't it? No more than one error in a hundred. But how good is that really?

99 percent means the following: loss of power for 7 hours each month; 24 problem landings or takeoffs at O’Hare airport each day; 30 million incorrect drug prescriptions annually (2002 data); unsafe drinking water for 15 minutes each day.

Not a very pretty picture. 99 percent does not sound so good when put in terms we can understand. How many miss-billed invoices a month does that mean to you? What is the cost? How many shipments go out with the wrong product, the wrong count, or to the wrong address? How much does this cost the bottom line?

With high-tech companies needing less capital due to advancements in technology, startup development methodology and online marketing, we have seen a Renaissance in angel investing. While angel investors participate in part for the excitement of engaging with entrepreneurs and placing bets on the future, they also do it for the expectation of significant financial returns. Various studies of angel investing published in the last decade estimate aggregate returns to angels on the order of 18-37% per year, well above market. The catch is that 50-70% of angels make less than what they invest. Returns are very unevenly distributed and this begs the question to what extent is portfolio theory fundamental to angel returns.

The best data set with detailed investment & exit information comes from the Angel Investor Performance Project by the Kauffman Foundation. The data was collected by surveying angels who belong to angel groups. Cleaning the data and restricting to the domain I was interested in—first round investments in early-stage high-tech companies—yielded a data set about the returns of 56 angels with exits from 112 companies. The data show the type of skewed distribution one would expect from early stage investing:

• 75% of exits happened between 2001 and 2006. There is some reason to believe that the data may have a slight bias towards negative returns as 50% of investments happened between 1995 and 2000. Angels may have been buying high and selling low.
• 3.2x cash-on-cash return for all investments put together (total dollars out divided by total dollars in). However, returns are extremely sensitive to big hits. A lucky angel put $600K in a software company in three rounds from 1988 to 1994. In 1996 the company went public and the person got a nice 55x return. Removing this one company from the sample drops the aggregate cash-on-cash return for all angels nearly in half to 1.8x.
• Of the companies angels invested in, 63% were complete write-offs for the angels involved.