So, you’ve launched a company, but you want to go in a different direction regarding the logo, name and maybe even some product features. A full relaunch is not easy, but it could be the “X factor” that drives your startup to success. Mashable spoke with Cassie Lancellotti-Young, VP of marketing at Savored — a restaurant reservation site that launched in 2010 as VillageVines — and Luke Brassinga, a principal at social media marketing firm Likeable Brands.

The benefits of working at Google are even bigger and better than we could have imagined.

Google engineer Steve Yegge just posted a long account of all the amazing things Google does for employees. And even after having read two books on Google, and closely following the company for years we were blown away by what we read.

In San Diego, Connect is the non-profit organization that reaches into most corners of the local innovation community. Connect likes to say that it has assisted in the formation of more than 3,000 technology and life sciences companies in the area, and more than 50 cities around the world have emulated its programs for mentoring entrepreneurs and supporting startups.

Under CEO (and San Diego Xconomist) Duane Roth, Connect began issuing a quarterly report in 2009 to provide a more comprehensive measure of the relative health and wealth of San Diego’s innovation economy. Connect also hired a full-time lobbyist early last year to represent the interests of San Diego’s innovation community before legislators in both Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

It’s like something out of a thriller: A long-lost glimpse of an industry genius is found buried in a garage shortly after his death.

That’s the story behind “Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview,” an extended cut of an interview with Jobs by tech journalist Robert Cringely for the 1995 PBS special “Triumph of the Nerds.” Master tapes of the interview were lost in the 90s during shipment from London to the U.S., but months ago Triumph director Paul Sen discovered an unedited VHS copy in his garage.

GlaxoSmithKline Inc. (GSK) today announced the launch of the GSK Canada Life Sciences Innovation Fund, a new national $50 million fund that will significantly advance the commercialization of scientific innovation in Canada by investing in early stage breakthrough research. The fund will identify strategic investment opportunities within Canada's life sciences industry including academic and health institutions, translational research centres and start-up companies. The announcement was made today in Toronto at an event hosted by GSK in Canada President and CEO, Paul Lucas and Dr. Moncef Slaoui, GSK's Global Chairman of Research and Development.  The event was attended by federal and provincial government representatives and leaders from Canada's life sciences community.

Calls-to actions are extremely critical components of effective lead generation, and the language you use in your calls-to-action is probably the most important element you can optimize to improve their click-through rates. Crafting the message, however, can be time-consuming and challenging. So let's review some best practices for writing a compelling call-to-action across different places on your website and various stages of your sales cycle!

1. Convey Value

Your CTA should answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Think about the top two or three benefits of your offer, and try to list them in order of priority. Then, pick the most critical one, and shorten it to just a few words. In that way, you will highlight the key point of engagement and ensure there is alignment between your ad and the offer.

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) Nov. 10, 2011 — In a beleaguered economy, the country needs entrepreneurs – the nation's job creators. Fortunately, a recent poll shows that the so-called millennial generation – those ages 18-34 – are an entrepreneurial bunch. A few key barriers are holding them back, especially the economy.

The nationwide cell phone and landline survey, conducted by the Young Invincibles in conjunction with Lake Research Partners and Bellwether Research and funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, polled 872 millennials on their thoughts about the economy and entrepreneurship. With the world getting ready for Global Entrepreneurship Week, Nov. 14-20, hearing what young people think about starting businesses is especially timely.

"This poll reveals a generation that is enthusiastic about entrepreneurship, and that is good news for the U.S.," said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, "Fifty-four percent of the nation's millennials either want to start a business or already have started one. They recognize that entrepreneurship is the key to reviving the economy."

East London is getting a lot of love today. The prime minister has visited Tech City, the ill-defined area that is home to a cluster of new media, design and software start-ups, and pronounced it a roaring success.

It is a year since David Cameron unveiled the plan to put the spotlight on east London, and in particular the area around the Old Street roundabout, and turn it into something that would have Silicon Valley looking nervously over its shoulder.

Here's what he said in a speech in November 2010 about his government's ambitions for Tech City:

"Our ambition is to bring together the creativity and energy of Shoreditch and the incredible possibilities of the Olympic Park to help make east London one of the world's great technology centres."

Imagine having a pet that loves and recognises you, without having to fork out for expensive animal food, or having to clean up after it.

Two engineers linked to Stellenbosch University didn’t just imagine it. They went out and built it.

Professor Johan du Preez and former student Dr Ludwig Schwardt have spent the past few years creating Communi-Kat, a plush leopard toy that actually forms a bond with its owner.

SAN FRANCISCO—To reinvigorate medical innovation, the U.S. is in “desperate need of governmental and regulatory reform” and positive case examples to show that it still can be achieved, according to Martin B. Leon, MD, who gave a Nov. 7 lecture at the 23rd annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference.

Leon, who is director of the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, defined innovation as a novelty that creates value, and medical innovation as “progress in technology usually resulting less from individual genius and more from collective effort and social, political and economic forces that come together to create an ecosystem which fosters innovation.”

Last year, reports said creativity was on the decline in the U.S. However, reports this year indicate that creativity is more important than ever to business success. IBM weighed in with a massive study, interviewing over 1,500 CEOs around the world. Those CEOs collectively agree that employee creativity is the most important talent for the 21st century.

Although it seems to be on the decline, creative capacity is more important than ever. Many large companies deem creativity a major competitive advantage.

Gadgets and apps that track a user's sleep are growing in popularity, but they typically require a person to wear a headband or bracelet. Now a startup called Bam Labs is offering a sensor pad that can track heart rate, breathing, and movement to track sleep and other health measures from underneath the mattress.

"Using it is as easy as going to bed, and all your data is made available through our Web services and apps," says Richard Rifredi, president of Bam Labs, based in Los Gatos, California.

The term "lead investor" is often misunderstood. I have seen VCs negotiate to be called a co-lead or a lead in the term sheet. But you don't get given that designation. You earn it.

Glenn Kelman (a long time AVC regular) has a great blog post on this featuring former Sequoia partner, now Khosla partner, Pierre Lamond in the lead investor role:

Then Pierre Lamond, the Sequoia partner on the deal, began working out of our office, acting as the virtual CEO.  Pierre made a point of being there the day one of his other companies went public. We looked at a news photo of all the smiling people, who seemed to be living in a gated community, on a planet I would never visit. Then Pierre said “that company was once even more screwed up than you are.”

University of Akron President Luis M. Proenza highlighted the successes of the past year by invoking the rallying cry of UA’s 2010 national championship-winning men’s soccer team, “This is Akron!” during his 12th State-of-the-University address, held Nov. 7 in the Student Union Ballroom.

With a vision focused on an ambitious future for UA – encompassing student success, an even closer state of integration with communities, and university technologies with potential for far-reaching societal impact, the president proudly touted UA’s energy and innovation as “our declaration of excellence and distinction.”

For decades researchers have tried to pinpoint the cause of the massive loss of large-bodied Ice Age mammals, megafauna, about 10,000 years ago. The debate has largely focused on whether a particular mechanism was evident: was it humans and hunting?  Climate and environmental change?  An extraterrestrial impact? Or were the animals eliminated by a a hyperdisease, a disease that so impacted the population numbers there was no possibility of recovery.

But a new study detailing the history of six large herbivores—the woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, wild horse, caribou, bison and muskox—shows that both climate change and humans were to blame for the extinction or near extinction of large-mammal populations within the last 10,000 years.  Duane Froese, a researcher in the University of Alberta’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, was a contributor to the international study led by scientists at the University of Copenhagen. Froese describes the research as a massive effort where nearly 3,000 specimens of ice-age mammals were radiocarbon dated, and mitochondrial DNA sequences from ancient fossil specimens were analyzed. These data were the used to understand the responses of different ice-age megafauna to the pressures of early hunters and climate change.

When technology-company executives talk about how they want to connect worldwide with universities, they don’t sound very techno-centric.

The companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems, say they are putting education first, and then letting technology follow, often using a few universities as laboratories to see what technologies might be needed, and in which environments. The more cynical view of this, of course, is that the companies have a subtle sales pitch and are building relationships first in the hope that long-term business will result. The truth is probably a mixture of both.

Ever feel like you just need a little “good luck” on your side to do well in business. TechCrunch has a few ideas on how you can create your own.

As Wayne Gretzky says, “skate to where the puck is”. Don’t start a soft drink company competing against Coca-Cola. Start a company in a fast growing industry that has a wide, gaping hole in it. It’s not hard to identify those industries and holes.

Learn how to negotiate.

Legislation is going through the United States Congress to make it easier for small businesses in America to benefit from crowd-funding. Look for more on this topic in an upcoming edition of BizVoice (via a column from Kevin Hitchen, a founding member of LocalStake). For now, The Wall Street Journal blog relays:

The U.S. House advanced legislation this week that would make it easier for smaller companies to raise money from investors.

Today I want to exclusively announce that Commonred is starting the incubator to end all incubators. Commonred is happy to report another amazing project in the Vaporware Labs tradition of our forefathers: we're starting an incubator that will incubate future incubators.

Yes tech world. BOOM. Or should I say BOOM BOOM POW!

Ever heard of an incubator? Ok maybe. But have you ever heard of an 'incubating incubator'? We will begin accepting applications starting with the comments in this blog post. Here's how the program will work:

WORCESTER —  The nonprofit economic development group Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives is developing a new business incubator downtown and has signed up four life sciences companies to move into the space.

The Massachusetts Development Finance Agency said today it has loaned $680,000 to MBI, some of which will go to refurbish laboratory space and buy equipment for the incubator at 55-57 Union St., near Maxwell Silverman's Toolhouse restaurant. The incubator space, vacant now for four years, previously was occupied by Charles River Laboratories Inc.