Two months ago, my team at Blackbox set out on a mission to crack the innovation code of Silicon Valley and share it with the rest of the world. Now we are releasing a report based on the results of our first survey. We want to thank Sandbox, FastCompany, Inc., ReadWriteWeb, Hackernews, youngupstarts, Yourstory.in and many more who helped us spread the word and gather a total of 650+ survey results. And a special thank you to all our fellow entrepreneurs who shared information about their company for this cause.

Here is a sneak peek of our results, showcasing 7 signs of failure:

1. Not Working Full Time If you decide to start a company, don’t do it half-hearted. Creating something from nothing is hard. Succeeding almost always requires going all in. Temporary moonlighting is permissible but significantly curbs performance and potential.

While the concept of using the web to share “stuff” — from cars to apartments to tools — is still relatively new to many consumers, the business model is being adopted by a growing number of companies and I think has started to reach a tipping point and become more of a mainstream concept.

So-called collaborative consumption has also started to make some companies a significant amount of money. Here are 10 signs that I’ve seen that a web-based sharing economy is movin’ into the mainstream:

1). Airbnb $1 Billion Valuation: The peer to peer apartment and house rental startup Airbnb is reportedly raising a $100 million (or more) sized round, at a $1 billion-plus valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Previously the Y-Combinator company had only raised $7.8 million. No doubt such a large leap in funding will help the company rapidly grow, and continue to bring in more users beyond the early adopter crowd.

For graduating American university students, the good news is that many companies plan to hire more entry-level workers this year than last. Unfortunately, while the job market is improving, many grads are still finding it tough to get work. Creativity, connections and hard work are imperative to standing out from the competition.

Businesses are also recognizing that recruiting the best from the next generation requires a different approach. Ketchum, a global communications firm, created a unique open innovation community for college students that has proven to not only be a valuable service for their clients but a valuable recruiting tool as well.

The community, called Mindfire, presents real-life problems from Ketchum clients to students with demonstrated creativity, communications and digital skills. The forum has proven to be a “win-win-win” development. Ketchum clients, such as Frito-Lay North America get to gather inspiration from fresh-thinking minds; participating students get a real taste of what a job in PR entails, and Ketchum gets to see evidence of the way applicants think creatively and work under tight deadlines.

Innovation! Entrepreneurship! Many believe they are the twin pillars of the U.S. economy in the 21st-century war of global competition. President Barack Obama declares that we must "out-innovate" the rest of the world. Gov. Rick Perry demands that we boost entrepreneurship. But who is going to take the lead role in this new mission? Who will convert rhetoric into action? It will be the great American universities, as part of regional innovation ecosystems comprising entities such as research and development laboratories, business incubators and accelerators, entrepreneurial training programs, venture capital networks and, ultimately, research parks with co-located startup companies. Public-private partnerships will be the glue binding everyone together.

But this ecosystem model, founded on universities as the engines of innovation and the source of new entrepreneurs, is under attack. Pundits say the process of translating research discoveries into commercial products is flawed and should be revamped, even to the point of questioning the value of research at our universities. These doubts have been fed for the most part by misconceptions or myths about the current innovation ecosystem. Let's examine four of the myths surrounding the commercialization of university research and perform a reality check.

No one will say that starting your own company is easy. But it’s a lot easier than it used to be. One of the major reasons: it’s cheaper and more simple to build scalable infrastructure than ever before. The last two years have brought a wave of low-cost, efficient applications that allow small businesses to build fast, secure and smart internal systems — and they’re getting plenty of use.

As a startup founder, your plate is constantly full of new tasks and concerns: personnel, payroll, fluid communication, continuous innovation. The last thing you need to worry about are the bare-bones tools that help you tackle these never ending to-dos.

Here are three applications aiming to take that load off your shoulders.

The pace of new domain name registrations shows no signs of slowing down: Consumers and companies signed up for 7.9 percent more in 2010.

It’s a sign that the Web continues to grow, and that the exhaustion of standard IPv4 addresses in February has had no affect on that growth.

In its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief, Verisign said it recorded 209.8 million top-level domain names on the Internet. 15.3 million new domain names were registered in 2010 — a 7.9 percent increase from the previous year and 2.2 percent over the last quarter.

On May 18 and 19, the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) hosted Discovery 2011, a signature innovation conference for Ontario. It enables “key players from industry, academia, government, the investment community as well as entrepreneurs and students to pursue collaboration opportunities.”

I attended the conference on May 19. In addition to meeting exhibitors and commercialization experts, I attended an interesting discussion panel on exemplary and emerging commercialization models. OCE described the session and its participants as follows:

At the inaugural International Commercialization Forum, held in Ottawa in March, a group of thought leaders and practitioners from 18 countries discussed exemplary practices in commercializing research outcomes and effective innovation models. Participants shared the most compelling novel ideas to improve the state of global innovation. At the Forum’s conclusion, 48 organizations with a common vision focused on openly sharing knowledge and expertise, formally established the International Commercialization Alliance to work together on projects of global interest. This session will provide a synopsis of thought-provoking insights gained from the discussions and an overview of the Alliance established and where it goes from here.

Creative Barcode is a mechanism for safe disclosure of pre-contract early stage propositions, proposals and creative concepts, underpinned by a Trust Charter Agreement. It embeds unique digital barcodes into proposals, concepts, visuals, film and video.

It was introduced to provide a much-needed system by which creative industries could quickly, and cost efficiently, reduce vulnerability when disclosing materials to third parties in pursuit of new business. Its objective is to ensure creators are fairly remunerated when their work is commercialised.

A friend recently asked for advice on his business idea. I loved its potential – great idea, lucrative market, and an owner who has the skills and connections to make it happen. Sadly, the idea, like many others, will end up in the “Great Entrepreneurial Ideas” graveyard. Why? My friend is trying to start the venture while keeping a high-flying corporate job. That never works.

How did you make the break to your own business? Share your story

His venture is in a completely different industry. It is one-millionth the size of his employer’s operation, and able to be run on weekends and during a few weeks of annual leave. My friend, like others I know, won’t broach the subject with his employer. Telling his boss about the venture would be like tattooing his corporate forehead with: “I AM NOT FULLY COMMITTED.” It got me thinking:

I’m a big fan of documenting how to do stuff. So I drew up this diagram about how I write blog posts. The way I see it the less thinking I have to do about completing a certain process, the easier it is to do.

The pictures are just for fun…

Technology leader Nokia announced their new program, “Invent With Nokia,” which allows inventors to develop their product in partnership with Nokia’s development team and resources. If your idea is chosen, Nokia applies for a patent and rewards the you financially. The benefits are numerous, including covering all the costs of protecting the idea (which can reach into the millions of dollars), as well as the creative and technological geniuses of Nokia to develop, test, and market the finished product. The convince of the program does come at a cost. Any idea submitted because legal property of Nokia, even if it isn’t chosen to develop. This could result in submitting your best concepts into an intellectual property black hole.

Although Nokia’s business incubator program is one of the first large programs offered online, the actual concept is not new. Since the 1960s, incubators have been providing entrepreneurs with resources, education, and networking opportunities in selective fields. In 2005, North American incubation programs assisted more than 27,000 companies, which provided employment for more than 100,000 workers and generated annual revenues of $17 billion. Successful products can become a win-win for the entrepreneurs and investors.

SAN FRANCISCO — Sam Lessin sold his Web start-up to Facebook for millions last year, and Facebook promptly shut it down. All Facebook wanted was Mr. Lessin.

That is what it has come to in bubbly Silicon Valley. Companies like Facebook, Google and Zynga are so hungry for the best talent that they are buying start-ups to get their founders and engineers — and then jettisoning their products.

Some technology blogs call it being “acqhired.” The companies doing the buying say it is a talent acquisition, and it typically comes with a price per head.

“Engineers are worth half a million to one million,” said Vaughan Smith, Facebook’s director of corporate development, who has helped negotiate many of the 20 or so talent acquisitions made by Facebook in the last four years. The money — in the form of stock — is often distributed among the start-up’s founders, employees and investors. The acquired employees also get a rich salary and often more stock options, which makes this a good time for entrepreneurial engineers.

How can you avoid the pitfalls that destroy most entrepreneurs? Rob Kelly, a San Francisco-based Internet veteran who has started, sold, bought and, by his own admission, even bankrupted a business, says there are five major mistakes entrepreneurs of failed businesses make. If you avoid these mistakes, he says, your chances of creating a winning business go way up.

1. Failed entrepreneurs believe that "if you build it, they will come": Webvan is perhaps the most compelling example of a business that assumed tons of customers would flock to its service.

In reality, what happened (as reported in The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank) was:

• They had close to 400 employees by the time they shipped their first product.
• They spent $18 million to develop proprietary software and $40 million to set up their first automated warehouse (before they had shipped a single item).
• One month after Webvan's product shipped, they spent $1 billion on a warehouse deal with Bechtel.

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Germany will shut all its nuclear reactors by 2022, parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government agreed today (30 May), in a reaction to Japan's Fukushima disaster that marks a drastic policy reversal.

As expected, the coalition wants to keep the eight oldest of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors permanently shut. Seven were closed temporarily in March, just after the earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima. One has been off the grid for years.

Another six will be taken offline by 2021, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said early on Monday after late-night talks in the chancellor's office between leaders of the centre-right coalition.

The remaining three reactors, Germany's newest, will stay open for another year until 2022 as a safety buffer to ensure no disruption to power supply, he said.

What does it mean to out innovate the competition? In today’s fast paced economy, sometimes it is hard to even figure out who the competition is! Our perspective is that competition today is defined as one firm’s innovation ecosystem competing against another firm’s innovation ecosystem to develop products and services that bring value to customers.

The following figure shows a generic innovation ecosystem. It is comprised of the firm’s employees, suppliers, retirees, customers and other groups the firm employs to innovate new products and services. In addition, to the firm’s existing networks, there is another “ring” that is the global innovation community. This ring is made up of groups outside the firm’s existing networks and is comprised of large and small companies, universities, laboratories and individuals around the world.

The first solar-powered aeroplane to fly day and night "represents the European dream" and should spur politicians to find pioneering solutions to reliance on fossil fuels, guests at a Green Week event heard yesterday (23 May).

Solar Impulse, which recently landed in Brussels following its first international flight, is being used to showcase renewable technology – chiefly of use to the electric car market – to policymakers during Green Week.

With a wingspan the size of a medium-sized passenger jet and weighing about as much as a family car, including its sole passenger – Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg – the plane is the largest of its weight ever to have been built.

The culmination of seven years' work, solar cells integrated into the carbon fibre wings supply four electric motors with renewable energy and charge lithium polymer batteries during the day, enabling the so-called 'Solar Impulse' aircraft to fly at night.

"Israel's venture capital and startup industry is headed for collapse," says Zeev Holtzman, Partner at Giza Venture Capital, one of the top VC firms in Israel, said to Venture Capital Journal (via PEHub).

Famously and strikingly, last year zero dollars in new venture funds were raised. This year things are looking up, with another big Israeli VC, Pitango, raising $350 million. But the picture is still dire.

Why is Israel, the "Startup Nation" with more Nasdaq-listed companies per capita than any other country, in such a funk?

One reason is that Israeli startups have often been specialized in sectors like security, semiconductors and networking equipment, which can be capital-intensive and that many feel are "played out" for startups.

Does public speaking make you sweat?

Do you worry your slide deck is boring?

And you’re stumbling over your words?

Good news!

If all that's wrong with your upcoming pitch to potential investors, there is NO WAY its going to go badly as the meetings this story is about.

We asked a few VCs and entrepreneurs to share some of their more memorable pitching disasters.

We came up with stories about entrepreneurs dressing like avocados, VCs leaving broke CEOs with the check, and people falling asleep in meetings – plus more delightfully awful details.

Everybody needs a team in order to build a successful business, but who is on your team–and can you trust them?

Let’s consider three types of people. One could do a whole lot more if you let them. The others…well, you may have to find a way to live without them.

1. Office Bullies

A bully is a person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker. It’s something that’s present in our schools, and that we don’t expect to see on our jobs. But with people come rewards as well as a variety of communication issues.