I’ve met thousands of CEOs – good ones, bad ones, short ones, tall ones, new ones and seasoned ones.

I feel strongly that the CEO, despite the accomplishments made by other members of the team, is the key person who most often correlates to the success of the company. The VP of sales might argue that he or she brings in the revenue. The CTO might take credit for building the product. And the VP of marketing could say they’re responsible for putting it all together and bringing it to market. But it’s the leader at the top that’s the key driver behind how well a company will ultimately perform.

So, what makes a great CEO? It comes down to a few things:

A great CEO leads.  They lead the team by creating a strong culture among the troops and continually fueling a vibrant “esprit de corps.” They put together the financing. I have observed that they do not just point the way – they say, “Follow me up the mountain, and I will show you the way.”

In this year’s NBA playoffs the Dallas Mavericks displayed an uncanny ability to come from behind and win. Uncanny because to do so implies a defiance of expectation – teams that are ahead should, obviously, have a greater chance of winning a game. However, new research from Jonah Berger and Devin Pope suggests that once we account for some basic psychological principles of motivation, the odds of winning might, in some cases, be reversed. In other words, being behind by a little can actually increase a team’s likelihood of winning.

The authors’ hypothesis is based on two insights from behavioral economics : loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity. We don’t like losing, and our efforts have greater marginal impact as we get closer to a goal. This suggests that teams that are behind should be motivated to catch up, and this motivation to catch up should increase as the discrepancy between scores diminishes. To test this theory they turned to the tapes and analyzed all NBA basketball games from 1993 through March 2009 with this simple question in mind: would teams that are slightly behind at halftime be more likely to win games than teams that are slightly ahead?

Canada is now a mid-level player in the global innovation race, passed by rising powers China and South Korea in some categories and falling further behind long-time rivals such as the United States, Germany, Norway and Sweden.

In a report being released Tuesday in Ottawa, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council says Canada’s innovation performance has slumped on most key measures in the two years since its last report card.

Spotting disease and other health conditions, then treating them cheaply and quickly, characterized many of the finalists in The Wall Street Journal's Asian Innovation Awards this year.

Entrepreneurs, companies and research organizations are participating in the effort, and many have increased their investment in health-care research and development. Many of this year's nominations could prove instrumental in responding to a string of natural disasters, including recent earthquakes and their aftermath. Nominees also provide new options for some of the world's most vulnerable populations.

The biggest overhaul of U.S. patent law since 1952 has, in a sense, brought Republicans and Democrats together. Each party now has pushed a version of a patent reform bill, under the name “America Invents,” through the chamber of Congress that they control.

House Republicans sounded a lot like Senate Democrats on Thursday, soon after their chamber’s version of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act passed by a somewhat bipartisan 304 to 117 majority, with 136 Democrats joining 168 Republicans in voting for the measure. “This legislation modernizes our patent system to help create private sector jobs and keep America on the leading edge of innovation,” declared House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Boehner’s statement didn’t sound too different from that of Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) the night the Senate bill sailed through that chamber 95–5: “The America Invents Act will promote American innovation, create American jobs, and grow America’s economy, all without adding to the deficit.”

Presenting the EU executive's views to the press, Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik insisted that the Rio+20 conference should be considered "as a beginning, not as an end in itself".

The communication preparing the ground for the EU's position at the Rio+20 UN Sustainable Development Conference in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 was adopted yesterday (20 June).

It outlines objectives and specific actions on the two inter-linked themes of the Rio+20 summit: the transition to a green economy and better global governance for sustainable development.

Innovation is a vital ingredient for the sustainability of any organization, especially during these fast-changing times. If you don’t continuously re-imagine what you offer, you are in danger of quickly becoming obsolete. But what sort of innovation should you pursue? Moreover, do you need to invent something completely new in order to innovate, or is there a more practical path?

Many of the most successful innovations were not brought about by outright inventions but rather by reconfiguring existing technologies. They represent a refreshing shortcut for today’s businesses.

Is the recession over?  I keep hearing that it is, but I don’t believe it (that’s my issue).  But what matters to our businesses is how our customers feel.  In and out of recession, they still have needs and wants, and if we meet those desires, then we are still in business.

The Product

In “Are Consumers Ready to Start Spending?,” Anita Campbell says, “While it is possible that consumer spending attitudes will loosen up as the recovery strengthens, it’s also possible this may not happen for some time.”  So what’s the small business solution to encouraging customer spending?

It’s Sunday morning. Take a deep breath. It’s summer time. Go for a walk. Or a run. Play with your family. Take a nap this afternoon. Read a book. Go to a movie. Chill.

Last week, I had two close friends tell me some version of “I’m too busy.” One insightfully said “I have no time these days. I’m doing too much.” The other simply said “sorry I didn’t call back – I have no time.”

I too am intensely busy. And anyone who knows me knows that I eventually hit a wall, have short term burnout, need to rest / recover, and then get back at it. However, as I’ve gone through this cycle throughout my life, I’m getting smarter about how to handle it. My week a quarter off the grid helps. July in Alaska helps (although this summer has a fun, European twist). Running helps. Time with Amy helps. And recognizing that as one gets busier, more crap creeps into the schedule, is important.

A couple of years ago, I saw first hand what can happen to a founder, and the business, when the founder practices unhealthy habits, such as working 20 hours a day. A typical “Type A” personality, with boundless energy and enthusiasm, she aggravated some previous health limitations until she was bedridden, and the business floundered.

Many entrepreneurs are too focused on their dream to take notice of health warning signs, which leads them to ignore business health signs as well. If you can’t remember the last time you had a relaxing evening with the spouse, or read a book, then your health may be in jeopardy. If your business won’t run for a day without you, then the business isn’t healthy either.

Amazon.com sweetened its pitch to Texas officials on Thursday, but lawmakers - at least for now - said no to the online retailer's offer to bring thousands of jobs to the state in exchange for a break on collecting sales taxes.

After Amazon upped its number of promised jobs from 5,000 to 6,000, a joint House-Senate conference committee decided not to attach the Amazon proposal to Senate Bill 1, the fiscal matters bill being debated in the Legislature's special session, a spokeswoman for the committee's chairman, Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, confirmed late Thursday.

It's unclear whether lawmakers could bring the proposal forward in some other format during the special session, or whether Thursday's decision effectively ends the negotiations between Amazon and Texas. Amazon officials were not available for comment.

News of the activities of large American firms during the current era of economy recovery has communicated stark realties to everyone from policymakers in Washington to many Americans searching for better employment opportunities. A recent Commerce Department report shows that American companies laidoff 2.9 million workers, while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. A prime example is that of General Electric. In a recent spotlight, it was revealed that nearly half of its workforce is located overseas and this ostensibly American firm is contributing much less than what was perceived to the tax base of the U.S. The Kauffman Foundation’s Research Series on Firm Formation and Economic Growth indicated that for all but seven years between 1977 and 2005, existing firms have been net job destroyers, losing 1 million net jobs per year. By contrast, in their first year, new firms add an average of 3 million jobs, according to this study.

However, these developments were not news to many of our fellow practitioners in the Economic Development community.

For several years, our emphasis has been directed to supporting the growth of new high-tech firms and start-ups. As economic development practitioners, we are experienced in working with the strategic legacy industries in our geography, whether that legacy is in agriculture, manufacturing, shipping and logistics, scientific, or engineering. New firms in our regions benefit from interaction with like-minded people with similar industry background, not to mention the ability to integrate into existing supply-chains much faster.

Three students at the University of Pennsylvania—Joseph Cohen, Dan Getelman, and Jim Grandpre—are quitting school to launch a new education startup called Coursekit, and they’ve raised $1 million in a seed round to do it. (Peter Thiel would be proud). The New York City startup just closed a seed round from Founder Collective, IA Ventures, Shasta Ventures and some angels. IA Ventures led the round.

Coursekit is like Facebook or Yammer for courses. Like many other students frustrated with Blackboard, the current online course management standard, the Coursekit founders think they can do a better job. “It is really a Blackboard replacement with a heavy emphasis on social networking,” says CEO Cohen.

Startups die in many ways, but in the past couple of years I’ve noticed that the most common cause of death is what I call “Startup Suicide”, a phenomenon in which a startup’s founders and its management kill the company while it’s still very much breathing.

Long before startups get to the point of delinquent electricity bills or serious payroll cuts, they implode. The people in them give up and move on to do other things, or they realize that startups are hard and can cause a massive amount of mental and physical exhaustion — or the founders get jobs at other companies, go back to school, or simply move out of the valley and disappear.

A reader asks: What types of legal issues do I need to consider when starting my company and how much will it cost?

Answer: As an entrepreneur you have your work cut out for you.  There are many of legal pitfalls that you need to overcome, in addition to the day-to-day challenges. A lot, of course, will depend on the sort of business you plan on running. In general, though, there are five issues to keep in mind (detailed below). As far as cost, that’s often negotiable and many attorneys will agree to do these agreements at a reduced rate to get your business.

Business creation documents – No matter what kind of business you’re starting you’re going to have to decide on a type of corporate structure.  Some of the basic types are partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs), and corporations.  Make sure you choose the appropriate corporate entity for your needs.

The Department of Homeland Security will release a new guidance system today intended to make the software that runs the Web less susceptible to malicious hacks.

DHS has teamed with security and technology experts at the SANS Institute and Mitre to create a list of the top 25 programming errors that lead to the most serious hacks, according to The New York Times. The idea is to educate companies and organizations about the channels that criminal hackers use to gain access to confidential information and servers. These are often common software errors that can lead to "zero day" exploits.

In a speech at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University on Friday, US President Barack Obama announced a plan to inject millions of dollars into university research as a way to develop manufacturing innovations that can employ thousands of domestic workers and hopefully buoy the sluggish economy. Though details of the plan are still somewhat hazy, officials told The Chronicle of Higher Education that six universities will have a chance at $500 million through a National Science Foundation-style granting scheme, and cited initial grants of $100 million for developing new manufacturing materials and $70 million for robotics research. The six universities named in the initial stage of the project are Carnegie Mellon, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and Stanford University.

With the ability to work whenever we wish, web workers face ever-increasing work hours. We slip in “just one email” after dinner or fail to resist the pull of our smartphone before our morning workout. But one blogger is arguing that longer hours actually usually mean less productivity.

Writing on Freelance Folder, Lexi Rodrigo cites Parkinson’s Law as the underlying rationale for her argument. The principle, first recognized in regard to the ever-expanding British civil service in the 1950s, declares that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

“Sand Hill Road is two-way,” Turkish entrepreneur Fatih İşbecer noted on a visit in 2010. “And it’s easy to get from one side to the other. That’s nice.” Working in Anatolia’s bustling business capital İstanbul, where traffic has no logic or mercy, it was an odd, yet revealing observation.

While entrepreneurship is indeed alive and on the rise in Turkey, as it is in emerging markets worldwide, it continues to face tremendous obstacles such as lack of capital, mentors and networks. Breaking them down is the reason that Fatih, CEO of the mobile tech company Pozitron is, along with 170 other emerging market entrepreneurs, in Silicon Valley this week. He is attending the Endeavor Entrepreneur Summit that starts tomorrow.

Some people are natural-born speakers. They were those eager young souls who volunteered to read aloud in grade school and now welcome any opportunity to present in front of a group. For the rest of us, public speaking is a real-life nightmare. The very thought of standing up in front of a group, all eyes on you, is a terrifying endeavour. At one time I fell into the latter of these two groups. I was always social, but I avoided the on-stage spotlight for many years. Sweaty palms. Belly butterflies. You name the anxiety sign, I had it. Then, a few years ago, things started to change. I say started to change because it didn't happen instantly.

I was approached by an agency in 2007 to give a presentation about strategies for social media success. My initial reaction was no, definitely no. However, I recognized that it was a great opportunity to increase awareness about my new consulting business and, well, the pay wasn't too shabby. Eventually, I said yes. After signing a speaking contract, I counted down the days until I faced one of my biggest fears. Four years later, with more than 120 keynote speeches under my belt to audiences ranging from 30 to 3,000 people, I truly love delivering a presentation. Here are three things that helped me find my strength on stage.