"Ultimately, I've decided that the most relevant and generalizable piece of advice I can give to people is to notice what excites you.

I know, not exactly Aristotelian, but I actually think we're not by and large programmed to notice our ideas and inspirations as they pass us by. We're actually programmed to do quite the opposite. We're trained to pick a goal from a set of pre-defined options and then avoid distractions that might divert us from that goal.

The Great Recession has changed many mindsets – and accelerated critical emerging trends.

Do you still believe once you find “just a job” with a solid company, you’ll be okay? That you can then relax for the next decade; life will be fine?

Those days are gone.

Everyone – and I mean everyone – now needs to think of themselves as “talent” to be managed, or as a personal brand to be promoted – either by ourselves, our employers, or our next employer. In other words, we all need to think of ourselves as entrepreneurs.

When do we need to start thinking this way? Now.

Whether you’re in college, already in the workforce, or a Boomer workforce veteran – you MUST be building your personal brand. Your competition is already there – on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn cultivating their online reputations and networks; building their brand.

Not many people have heard of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA for short, much less know what it does. But this little-known government agency was created by the Department of Defense in the late 1950s to ensure the U.S. military's technical superiority. Even more interesting to investors, it also controls about $3 billion in research funds that act like seed capital that is strategically distributed to the private sector in hopes of creating technological breakthroughs that can be put to use by the military.

As the Chief Strategist of Game-Changing Stocks, I'm always on the lookout for "the next big thing." That's why it's a no-brainer to look through DARPA's current projects and ideas for potential blockbusters.

U.S. research universities churn out over 60% of our nation’s basic, game-changing research.  In this era of tight budgets, some universities are offshoring the work involved in bringing on-campus inventions to market, paying companies in India to do market research and low level legal work such as patent prior art searches.  It’s counter-intuitive, but could offshoring  the commercialization process of university inventions help bust out some of the un-used backlog of innovative university technologies, and actually *help* our universities create domestic, high-value jobs?   

Offshoring remains a taboo subject in our faltering economy, but it may not be as simple as we have been led to believe.  I share the same reservations about offshoring work that any American does — after all, I live in upstate New York, the land of decaying manufacturing cities.  However, strange as it may seem, universities that offshore knowledge work such as patent analysis and market research reports report a significant increase in new invention disclosures and happier faculty inventors.  It goes against what most of us believe, but there’s increasing evidence that offshored jobs do not decrease the number of domestic jobs.  In fact, recent research concludes that “an increase in offshoring pushes the average task performed by [U.S] natives toward higher cognitive and non-routine content.” (1)    

Once in a great while, experience teaches us a lesson that that can only be described as an axiom or a truism. It just is. You can try to understand its origins or debate its basis in theory, but if you ask me, that’s just a waste of time. You’re better off just taking it for what it is - an empirical observation - and benefiting from its implications.

Now, I know some of this stuff straddles philosophy and psychology, but there’s a good reason for that. While they are indeed “real world” observations, they were perceived through a subjective filter - my brain - which, for better or worse, includes all kinds of strange and diverse influences.

Mark Zuckerberg is the newest recruit in Warren Buffet and Bill Gates' Giving Pledge Campaign, agreeing to give away half of his wealth to charities.

The Giving Pledge is a movement--small in members, but large in funds--that was initiated by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and asks the world's billionaires, young and old, to do just that: pledge to give half of their wealth away before or after they die.

In September, Zuckerberg made a $100 million donation to Newark's public school system. Critics questioned the timing of that grant, which coincided perfectly with the release of the potentially damaging film The Social Network, a film said to portray Zuckerberg as greedy and friendless. But Newark Mayor Corey Booker defended the entrepreneur, saying that he had to convince Zuckerberg to not give anonymously and that the Facebook team was worried the move would be viewed as a publicity stunt.

This research report presents findings from the Michigan Public Policy Survey, an ongoing survey research program targeted at the chief elected official and the chief appointed official in every unit of general purpose local government in Michigan. This report focuses on issues related to economic gardening and broader "grow from within" economic development strategies.

Download the PDF

Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is shaping up to be one of the most exciting devices in the coming months. Now we have 10 minutes of the tablet in action (below), courtesy of the folks over at the mobile device site BGR.

What surprised me the most about the demonstration is just how well suited the PlayBook is to media. RIM has been positioning the device as a more business-oriented alternative to the iPad, but from the looks of it, the PlayBook also handles music and video effortlessly as well.

RIM’s new operating system — based on technology from QNX software, which RIM acquired earlier this year — looks absolutely modern with zippy touchscreen response, and overall more polish than the best Android tablet on the market right now, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. The tablet also juggled multiple applications seamlessly in the demonstration, looking even better than the iPad’s recent multitasking update. One thing’s for sure, RIM needs to get this new OS on its phones as soon as possible.

A House of Representatives panel heard testimony on a proposal, backed by outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), aimed at allowing smaller companies to go public with fewer costs.

Federal law allows companies to conduct securities offerings of $5 million or less without filing a full registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The proposal, which hasn’t been introduced yet as legislation, would raise the dollar limit under the exemption, known as Regulation A, to $30 million.

The venture capital industry is pushing for the change, arguing that it will help smaller companies access the public markets and be a boon to job creation. The venture industry argues the current exemption isn’t useful to small companies because the current dollar limit is too low to justify the costs of going public.

Big dreams and lots of cash are happily colliding this week in Ann Arbor. Today begins the final three-day event for the inaugural Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, which organizers are calling “the world’s largest business plan competition.”

The event at the University of Michigan’s North Campus Research Complex is expected to feature 50 companies from the state and around the world and 28 student teams from Michigan public or private colleges. The competition, which has a company track and a student portion, is awarding more than $1 million in cash prizes as well as in-kind services, staffing, and software, according to its website. That at least places this contest among the largest of its kind, a group that includes the Mass Challenge competition in Boston, which awarded $1 million to 16 startups in October.

From Russia Today: "A US-operated Antarctic cruise ship with 160 people aboard has lost an engine in high seas, but is limping safely to its scheduled port. The Argentine Navy said the Clelia II declared an emergency on Tuesday, reporting it had lost an engine amid heavy seas and 55 miles per hour (90 km per hour) winds. The ship, operated by Polar Cruises of Bend, Oregon, has 100 passengers and 60 crew members aboard."

NYC's Agora gallery is showing the marvellous junk-tech sculptures of Italy's Franco Recchia: " he approaches each subject with that sense of innocent amazement, instinctively following a compositive and rigorous logic until each piece is laid in its correct place. What results are wonderfully distinctive pieces rich in detail, marked by crisp, clean lines and colors that work to delineate the overall composition."

Angel investor John Landry has been telling anyone who will listen about a new term sheet he wants to write for high-tech startups. Revenue royalty is a financing structure often used to fund large-scale energy projects, in which investors take no equity, but instead draw a percentage of income until the company has paid off a pre-arranged return.

Venture capital is a relatively recent phenomenon that worked well in IT when there were relatively few sellers and a lot of buyers, Landry said. That dynamic is now reversed, and the VC model is no longer adequate for many investment opportunities.

“There has been no innovation in financing in 30 years. It’s the same term sheet that I looked at 25 years ago that I could see today. The only difference is, it’s a completely different marketplace,” Landry said. “Investors are demanding innovation in technology. It’s about time we get some freakin’ innovation in financing.”

A nonprofit venture capital fund is being set up to boost startup companies in the New Orleans region.

The New Orleans Startup fund is being spearheaded by Greater New Orleans Inc., a regional economic development group in southeastern Louisiana. Officials say it currently stands at $3.9 million and the target size is $7 million. The fund consists of private, state and federal funds.

Qualifying companies must be located within the 10-parish New Orleans region and must demonstrate a clear plan to grow revenue to $20 million to $50 million annually within five to seven years.

Companies that qualify could get $25,000 to $250,000 from the fund. The fund also will provided technical assistance to qualifying companies.

The University of Massachusetts-Lowell will host a new center for innovation and entrepreneurship, called by its organizers as “one of only three of its kind in the world.” The as-yet unnamed center is to be funded with a multi-million dollar donation from the Deshpande Foundation, according to an announcement today by both UMass Lowell and the Deshpande Foundation.

While UMass Lowell will host the physical center, it will also operate as part of Merrimack College, Middlesex Community College, Northern Essex Community College, Teach for America and nonprofit organizations in Merrimack Valley.

So you want to take the plunge! Say so long to corporate America and start your own company. You want to be an entrepreneur! Well before you tell your boss to suck it, there are some things you should know. Things that all those entrepreneurial books, blogs, TV documentaries and motivational speakers don’t want to tell you. I’m talking about the cold hard truth about entrepreneurship. The less than glossy side of what you need to know before taking the leap, as well as tips on how to stick the landing once you do leap. Because let’s be honest, starting your own company is a lot like jumping from the top of a building without a parachute. And no one likes to go splat.

In an effort to keep you from becoming a stain on the pavement and another startup company statistic, I want to share with you my Top 10 Cold Hard Truths About Entrepreneurship. As the Founder and CEO of Network Security Consulting company and someone who is on track to tripling his company’s revenue in this final quarter of 2010, I think I know a little sumthin sumthin. So take it from a guy who has been there, done that (in some cases is still doing that), and has learned the hard way - first hand. I’m going to count them down backwards to help prepare you for the leap!

I was at an event the other day when I met a very smart, respected, and likeable business owner, named Ron.

We got to discussing LinkedIn, and I asked him how many connections he had. He mentioned he had around 300, and then went on to proudly proclaim that he knew “all of them personally, save three or four”.

When I asked him whether he had considered inviting people to join his network whom he did not know personally, he said he did not feel comfortable connecting in this manner. He had formed such a strong policy against this, that he felt compelled to physically meet people for a coffee prior to accepting their invitation request.

Europe has become a fertile breeding ground for young and innovative technology companies. Boosted by a proliferation of incubator funds, the continent's technology sector is vying to take on California's Silicon Valley at its own game.

Europe has always been a hub of innovation, but only recently have so many European technology start-ups begun to establish themselves as serious rivals to their Silicon Valley counterparts. The Wall Street Journal Europe brings you 10 European technology start-ups it has identified as companies to watch closely in the coming years.

Supporting the global movement to "go green" is every country's responsibility. To show its commitment to green efforts, China recently held a four-day expo to raise environmental awareness and make a case for developing the green economy. The 2010 China International Green Industry Expo, held in Beijing on November 24-27, was co-sponsored by 12 ministries and commissions, the first time a large number of government organizations came together to host such an event.

At the expo, 85 domestic enterprises and 127 companies from 25 countries and regions displayed their green technologies and products.

During the opening ceremony, Li Keqiang, Vice Premier of the State Council, said the green economy would become a general trend and be widely accepted as China accelerates its economic transformation and as economic growth is increasingly restricted by resource and environmental factors.