The long-term energy plan detailed by the Canadian province of Ontario sets the course for a clean energy revolution and will create thousands of jobs in the region, according to its government.

It’s 20 year energy strategy, Building Our Clean Energy Future, called for essential investments to be made and for a balance of power sources to be achieved.

In addition, it calls for the shutdown of all ‘dirty’ coal plants.

The major actions the government sets out include:

• Closing all coal units by 2014 and fast-tracking the closure of two more coal units in 2011, three years ahead of schedule;

• Creating 50,000 jobs in Ontario’s growing clean energy economy;

New readers are stumbling upon your blog and joining your community every day. However, because of the nature of how blogs work, users who find your site today may never see all the great content you posted last week. They’re starting from today…which means they won’t benefit from all the information you’ve been working hard to write since you started your blog, because they don’t know it’s there. Creating a Sneeze Page for your blog can help them find it.

The term Sneeze Page was coined by Darren Rowse, aka Problogger, way back in 2007 and describes a page that is designed to “propel people in different directions deep within your blog,” introducing them to posts that you’ve previously written. Basically, it introduces new readers to some of your best content and encourages them to engage with your website. You can create Sneeze Pages based on a time period (The Best Posts of 2010), a theme (Top SMB Social Media Posts), a product (The Complete Guide to [Product Name]), an event (A History of BlogworldExpo), or anything else that you think may benefit readers.

Sarah Palin may need to shell out some cash if she wants youbetcha2012.com on yard signs during the next presidential campaign.

Or, for that matter, sarah2012.com, spalin2012.com, or mamabear2012.

It doesn't matter that the next presidential election is a year away and the list of contenders is foggy at best. A healthy market has cropped up for Palin URLs in anticipation of her potential run.

The site names have been gobbled up by domain name squatters who want to profit on the resale or who want to use the real estate to politick on their own.

For potential candidate Palin, the speculation presents some risks.

There are plenty of bad bosses. There are fewer good ones. But it’s especially rare to find a great boss.

Stanford professor and author Bob Sutton looks at the hallmarks and strategies of that rare breed in this Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture given at Stanford University. While traditional management theory indicates that monitoring employee monitoring and processes is the path to greatness, his own research shows just the opposite. Over-management, in fact, can stifle the creative process.

Day Two Summary: “Trade Over Aid- Let the markets do their work”

Day two began with breakout sessions where three groups hashed out, perhaps the most pressing topic for Incubators, the creation of a financial ecosystem. These collaborative examinations covered both how to source and deal with seed financing for the businesses as well as managing the funding needs of the incubators. The use of investment principles and classical due diligence processes was highlighted as critical to bridging the chasm between esoteric invention and economically impactful commercialisation. It is rigorous, structured, financially empowered incubator management that will help small companies high jump the “valley of death” experienced through idea formulation to external funding and independence. Henri-Francois Boedt, of the European Investment Fund, who backed the Chalmers Innovation Incubator in Gothenberg in 2000, believes incubators can attract VC funding by behaving like commercially valid, growth-driven businesses themselves. He provided the group with tips to help Incubators attract VC funding:

• Have strong best practices incubation processes
• Provide intensive guidance
• Become an attractive counter-part for investors
• Help start-ups apply for grants and soft loans
• Coach entrepreneurs towards fundraising
• Organize match-making events
• Manage and participate in business angel networks.

Download the PDF

‘Science  is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before’-President Obama, National  Academy of Sciences, April 27, 2009

For those interested in technology-led and innovation-led economic development, recent steps at the federal level to bring some new thinking and programs aligned to the 21^st century economy are running into the reality of the federal budget deficit.

As reported by the State Science and Technology Institute www.ssti.org the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform chairs report has recommended some drastic changes in federal economic development programs.

Unfortunately the press of deficit reduction has moved into policy discussions. Merging the SBA into the Department of Commerce may well be a good idea operationally, but that idea needs to stand on its own and shouldn’t be premised on reducing the deficit. Similarly, the EDA’s recent reforms to link its programs to commercialization, job creation, and an innovation economy should be applauded, and not criticized as straying from ‘its core mission of supporting depressed areas.’

The budgets of these agencies are very small and will have little effect on the overall deficit. Eliminating programs to support U.S, advanced manufacturing, for example, come right at the time when other nations are pouring strategic funds into programs to support their manufacturing sectors. Making cuts in science budgets will only hurt long term prosperity of the US.

Note that these proposals are the views of the chairs of the Commission only. Whether these changes will be adopted by the full National Commission when it issues its report in December, or by the new Congress, are two very big questions. But clearly we need to become engaged and active. All programs will have to share in the burden, but all analysts agree that the big deficit reduction plays are in Social Security, Medicare and the budgets of larger agencies. These commercialization and innovation programs and the accompanying science budgets need our support.

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Brian Darmody

Immediate Past President, Association of University Research Parks

Associate VP for Research and Economic Development, University of Maryland

(The views expressed here are solely his own)

Pew Internet has released a report finding that income is the strongest predictor of whether, how often, and in what ways Americans use the web. The report adds nuance--and a few surprises--to existing research on America's digital divide. It even suggests the existence of a tipping point, where Internet use takes off at a certain income level.

A lot of this makes intuitive sense. After all, laptops and broadband cost money. But the Pew report finds that even among groups that own the necessary technology, less wealth equates to less (and less varied) Internet usage.

Sequoia Capital is one of Silicon Valley’s great venture capital firms (it has backed the founders of Apple, Oracle, Cisco, Network Appliance, NVIDIA, Yahoo, Google, YouTube, Admob and many others).

Having them as a partner can provide a turbo boost to any ambitious startup.

So we’ve joined with Sequoia Capital to be at your beck and call. Together with their partners, we’ll answer questions and provide feedback to a select group of driven early-stage entrepreneurs at the Sequoia Capital offices on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park on Tuesday, December 7.

Facebook is just a payment away from trademarking the word “Face.” As of today the U.S. Patent And Trademark Office has sent the social networking site a Notice of Allowance, which means they have agreed to grant the “Face” trademark to Facebook.

All Facebook needs to do is pay the issue fee within three months of today and the “Face” trademark will be issued and be published in the official USPTO gazette and everything.

For all intents and purposes today’s status update bodes well for Facebook’s hold over “Face” usages in “Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars.”

Saul Griffith--an MIT-trained scientist, MacArthur genius grant recipient and serial entrepreneur whose ventures include a kite for extracting power from atmospheric winds –discovered back in 2007 that he lived an 18,000 watt lifestyle.

That is to say, the energy required to put bottled drinks in his fridge, run his computers and get from point A to point B came to 18 kilowatts, or more than five times the global average of 2,400 watts. (The average American needs 11,400 watts.)

He dropped it to 2,291 watts. How? Things like eating local and cutting out mean send the energy required for food from 772 watts to 376. Socks? Gone. But the whopper savings came in transportation. Swapping out a car for an all-electric three-wheeled bike dropped local transportation from 1,500 watts to 258.

Since the economy started going downhill, I swear some companies have dumped relentlessly on employees. Their attitude seems to be something like: “Here, let me give you 3 zillion extra tasks and stop whining, at least you have a job! And by the way, pick up my dry cleaning on the way into work.”

It’s unpleasant, and mark my words, as the economy begins to improve, people who have been treated poorly will seek new jobs.

But what if you are in one of those jobs right now, with no foreseeable new jobs popping up? You’re also not the type to go start your own company, so you’re stuck–for the time being. Here are 5 tips for sticking it out in an unpleasant work situation.

I’m in Tel Aviv, Israel after several days in Haifa as our “City to City” team completes its investigation of this country’s experience with start ups and  innovation.

Israel leads the world in percent of GDP spending on civilian R&D and in the number of engineers, scientists, & PhDs per capita. It also has more companies listed on NASDAQ than any country other than the US.

The universities play a critical role and one we should emulate. The first is obvious – they emphasize science and math in K-12 and produce more engineers and scientists! I am a big fan of liberal arts education, but in this digital world, the new industries require more PhDs in these areas.

Unless you are a veteran salesperson with 10 years of experience, you are probably not very comfortable with the sales process. Let’s face it: It is not easy. Closing the deal is extremely hard, but finding the initial leads can often be even more difficult. As an entrepreneur in a startup or small business, getting qualified leads can be expensive and tedious. However, one of the most under-utilized methods of generating leads is through basic networking.

As much as you would like to believe it, you probably aren’t networking enough. If you are anything like me, you probably spend excessive periods of time in your office working on product development, marketing, or anything other number of things that a startup deals with. However, networking can be such a key tool in your sales process. You never know who you will meet at networking events. Get out there and open yourself up to possibilities.