Up until recently, making offensive comments online was a bit like peeing in a crowded swimming pool, cheeky and somewhat satisfying, but ultimately there was little risk of being exposed. These days, however, it seems the law may be catching up and nowhere is the swimming pool of fervent opinion more crowded than in social media. In that vein, here are 5 legal disaster stories from the blogosphere:

The High Court of Victoria wants to be friends

In Victoria, Australia, police were not having much luck preventing an alleged Facebook bully from harassing what few friends he had left. After unsuccessful attempts to contact him through the usual means, they were allowed to serve a court order on the young gent via Facebook. They made a video of a police officer reading out the restraining order and simply inboxed him. Oh look, new notifications!

As more and more of us realise the importance of developing an online strategy, an obvious question pops up: Where to start? And as with any business strategy processes, it’s important to get a clear idea of where you are, where you want to go and how you intend getting there.

Flourishing in this environment requires an adaptable, flexible and responsive strategy that continually monitors and measures reactions to campaigns outcomes in a manner that allows the brand team to respond accordingly and timeously.

The use of mobile phones in providing health services is well documented. In countries like Kenya and South Africa, SMS reminders are used to remind Aids patients to take their medication. Other projects use mobile to educate people about malaria and help manage diabetes. That’s all well and good, but a number of these projects are the preserve of NGOs, who are reliant on continual funding to keep going.

As with any kind of public funding, there is a danger that it will run out. This means that NGOs cannot always sustain M-Health projects. One way of getting around this is by encouraging entrepreneurship in the mobile health sector.

The internet has fundamentally changed the way people learn and shop. A business website is the central component of reaching potential customers, educating them, and convincing them to buy. Almost every business, whether B2B, B2C, non-profit, local, or global, needs an online presence to reach buyers in the internet age. After all, a company’s website is its virtual storefront.

But having a website alone isn’t the key to great results. Instead, it’s the ability turn your website into an inbound marketing machine. We now need to consider integrating search, social media, content, blogging, and more with our websites. Gone are the days where all it took was a URL, fancy Flash graphics, and an expensive advertising campaign to temporarily boost traffic.

We are rapidly approaching the end of our current continuing resolution (CR) that is keeping the government and the SBIR program funded through Friday, November 18, 2011. We've been given some clues as to what may transpire to keep things going, and I want to share those and some additional SBIR happenings with you.

To cut to the chase, it appears that SBIR/STTR/CPP will be part of a new CR to keep much of the government open through December 16, 2011. Read on and we'll discuss some of those details. We'll also have an SBIR Insider update for you as soon as the bill is passed (probably Thursday).

The headline screams like a disaster. It’s not really that bad. Yes, Lego took a loss around that size when they decided to shut down their online game, Lego Universe, but they also learned some valuable lessons.

Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, did a story on the closing of Lego Universe, a so-called Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). It was a good article with interesting comments from Lego executives that were useful to extract some lessons on (open) innovation that go beyond Lego.

Lego admits they did things wrong with Lego Universe. A big mistake was that they required people to buy a DVD in a store before they could start playing the online game. The reason for this was that extensive research had shown Lego that kids really want a physical product that they can touch and feel.

Marine energy has long looked to be a niche area, capable of meeting just a few percent of global power demand. But this seemingly limited energy source is drawing some big players, the latest being Siemens. The German engineering giant boosted its stake this month in Bristol, U.K.-based tidal energy developer Marine Current Turbines from under 10 percent to 45 percent. The attraction, according to Michael Axmann, chief financial officer for Siemens's solar and hydro division, is the predictability of marine power.

Solar and wind farm operators struggle to predict tomorrow's output, and bad forecasts can wreak havoc with power transmission planning and market prices. In contrast, the gravitational pull of the moon and sun that controls tidal cycles provides a sure means of anticipating the output from tidal generating stations. "Power output of the systems could be calculated for centuries in advance," says Axmann.

Despite considerable federal government spending on private sector research and development - $5 billion in fiscal 2010-2011 - Canada is losing the global innovation sweepstakes. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), our R&D spending is middle of the pack and trending downward. After adjusting for inflation, Canadian businesses spent less on R&D in 2010 than they did in 2001.

This matters because our lack of innovation is having an impact on our ability to compete. With the Canadian dollar at parity with the U.S. greenback, our cost advantage has largely evaporated and, if we're no longer cheaper, we better become something else. The usual suspects are being more productive or having products and services others do not, both of which are pretty deeply rooted in innovation.

Today is another historic day for startups and our economies. It is the opening day of the fourth Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s largest celebration of the innovators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth, and expand human welfare. In three short years, Global Entrepreneurship Week has expanded to more than 120 countries and this week organizers are expecting nearly 11 million people to show up at over 40,000 planned events and activities.

New firm formation remains a creative and messy process that fits well with such a grassroots movement. But unlike political movements, nascent entrepreneurs are not railing at institutions or waiting for resources or direction. They are waking up, thinking, creating, solving, collaborating, mentoring and making it happen. This week is about such people who see a glass as half full and a less predictable world as an opportunity. GEW is now mapping the entrepreneurial ecosystems that will support those individuals, building the networks that will mentor them and finding the partners and even financial backers that will propel them. A global movement allows their great ideas to be floated across the world for resources that will catalyze their growth.

When it comes to Silicon Valley startups, success stories are a dime a dozen. Where it really gets interesting is when you start talking failure. And no one has a more unique view on failure than Dave McClure, founding parter of VC and incubator firm 500 Startups.

"The alternate name we came up with for 500 Startups was 'fail factory,' says McClure. "We're here trying to 'manufacture fail' on a regular basis, and we think that's how you learn. Getting used to that, bouncing back from that, being able to figure out what people hate and turn that into what people love...if you're not willing to take the risk of failing and not experience failure, you're never going to figure out what the right path is to success."

Dear President Obama,

Recently, you challenged university leaders to step up and find new ways for universities to contribute to their region’s economic well-being.  But current university economic development programs may be missing the mark.  The bedrock of a region’s economic prosperity will not be built by university programs, patents and workshops alone.  The best way for universities to improve the local quality of life might be by sharing their wealth more directly with local and state economies — by paying federal, state and municipal taxes.

Economic prosperity results when residents enjoy a high quality of life that’s aided and enhanced by a healthy tax base.  In the words of poet James Oppenheim, sung by striking women textile workers a hundred years ago: “Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.”  It’s that simple.  Regions flourish when people have good public schools, reasonable tax rates, easy commutes, clean and safe streets and abundant recreational opportunities.

The Obama administration today rolled out a new billion-dollar initiative that will reward the “most compelling new ideas” for lowering costs and improving care of Medicare and Medicaid patients with lucrative federal grants.

The  Health Care Innovation Challenge, to be run by the Department of Health and Human Services, will provide between $1 million and $30 million over three years to individual organizations or coalitions that develop sustainable, new approaches to boosting health care quality and efficiency.

Funding for the program was included as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, parts of which are now slated for a review by the Supreme Court.

MONTREAL, QC, Nov. 13, 2011 /CNW/ - Grand Challenges Canada CEO Dr. Peter A. Singer today announced a pioneering new funding program for creative and dynamic developing world innovators.  The announcement was made at the 2011 Global Health Conference.  "Rising Stars in Global Health" is a program designed to encourage developing country innovators to pursue their original and bold ideas to tackle some of the most difficult global health challenges.

"Grand Challenges Canada believes that some of the most effective life-saving breakthroughs come from developing country innovators," said Dr. Peter A. Singer, CEO of Grand Challenges Canada.  "Who knows the people, the health challenges, the impact and the potential for solutions better than motivated local innovators? Often promising local ideas do not have the support to be developed. We want to change that."

Australia has had mixed success when it comes to being a nation of innovators. A recent federal government report concludes that while Aussies are great at incremental innovation - which primarily means adapting overseas innovations - we fall behind when it comes to creating our own opportunities and bringing new things to an international marketplace.

Our bias towards incremental innovation is nothing to be ashamed of. Australia's resource and agricultural industries are some of the most competitive in the world due to our ability to improve existing technologies. And despite our country's size, we are blessed with the people, education and capital to foster success. So if it is not resources that are holding us back, is there something about our culture that discourages that big-picture thinking?

COLUMBUS, OH – Six organizations were named winners of SSTI’s 2011 Excellence in TBED award, serving as national models for states and regions investing in science, technology and innovation to grow their economies and create high-paying jobs. Among the winners, a newer program was selected as the first Most Promising TBED Initiative, recognized for a creative approach to growing industry clusters.

“The success stories from this year’s winners characterize why support for tech-based initiatives is imperative for improving the national economy,” said Dan Berglund, SSTI president and CEO. “The diversity in size and geography of these programs demonstrate that many different approaches can be taken with equally impressive outcomes.”

Awards were presented on Nov. 8 during SSTI’s 15th Annual Conference in Columbus, OH, attended by local, regional and national leaders in economic development. The following initiatives were named 2011 recipients of SSTI’s Excellence in TBED award:

Telling Your University Research Park Story How are you telling your story? Is your messaging strategy working to provide the right exposure for your park? Are you enabling community support by educating the community about your effectiveness? Are you communicating with the right people--attracting new companies and collaborations to your park? The Advanced Research Park Marketing Learning Lab is offered at the 2011 International Conference. This refreshed pre-session will give you the resources and tools to successfully market your research park. The session topics will include:

Marketing Overview

Join AURP for the Marketing Learning Lab to identify your target audiences, develop your message and learn how to use the tools you need to tell your story.

Nov 09, 2011 (Commerce Department Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) -- Accelerating innovation is the key to creating more high-wage jobs. And the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will play a significant role in helping federal labs and U.S. industry speed up the innovation process under a new Presidential Memorandum issued Oct. 28.

Through its existing role coordinating the Interagency Workgroup on Technology Transfer, NIST will help lead agencies with federal laboratories to develop plans that establish performance goals to increase the number and pace of effective technology transfer and commercialization activities in partnership with non-federal organizations. The group also will be responsible for recommending opportunities to improve technology transfer from federal labs and for refining how tech transfer is defined, to better capture data on all of the ways it happens.

No man is an island, and every entrepreneur needs a support network. While it’s important to have a network of peers, friends and family, it’s equally important to have a mentor to act as a sounding board, hold you accountable and be the voice of reason.  But finding the right mentor is about more than just finding someone you admire and asking them for advice.

So we asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, this question:

“As a Gen Y entrepreneur, what do you look for when seeking out mentorship from business leaders?”

For many firms, developing new products for consumers around the world is the most visible manifestation of innovation - the "real deal." But many people still see India as a place where other people's ideas are made or executed and not where innovation begins. (After all, you don't hear about an Indian equivalent to Google, iPod or Viagra.) Bu they're wrong. In more than 600 captive research and development (R&D) centers across India today, corporations are designing and building amazing new things.

For example, GE's John F. Welch Technology Center has developed a string of technological marvels. A transparent roof spanning 300 meters without any central supports. Adevice to display integrated anatomical information from a CT scan with live functional information from a PET scan. A car bumper that self-destructs on impact (rather than destroying, say, the leg of an unlucky pedestrian). The markets for these wonder products are truly global, encompassing the United States, Europe, Asia and, of course, India itself.

Computers — the boxes that we consult in the form of tablets, mobile phones and desktops — are wonderful, but they take away from what it is to be human and to really connect with one another. So the challenge and opportunity that lies ahead is how to get the computers out of computing, said Mark Rolston, the chief creative officer at frog. Speaking at the GigaOM RoadMap conference in San Francisco, Rolston took the audience through a vision of omnipresent computing.