Author: Mark Babbitt, CEO of YouTern

I understand that for several decades young adults have been pitched the same career advice… and that it can be hard for us to change the mantra.

When I recently wrote a blog entitled “Career Centers: Is Fall their Spring”, I was certain that 99% of our career center professionals and career experts “get it”. They understand college students’ sense of urgency, and are more than capable of providing effective counseling and mentorship.
However, far too many recent columns and blogs from “experts” mechanically spout advice from the 1950’s:

1. Update your resume
2. Write your cover letter
3. Organize letters of recommendation
4. Get out your best clothes
5. Practice your interview skills

Really? That is “Top 5” material? With almost half of our young adults unemployed, under-employed, or in the “I give up” category…this is our best advice?

If you attend enough cleantech events or are pitched by enough startups, you start to see the same few PowerPoint slides over and over again. Here is a collection of the best or at least the most notorious and historically significant slides in our industry.

After publishing this list to an overwhelming response, we heard from the original architects of some of these iconic greentech slides and we made sure to give them their overdue credit. We also added a few additional slides that we left out during the first, second and third go-rounds.

Over the past few weeks, I've had a number of meetings with engineers, executives and investors and such, and I keep coming away with the same conclusion.

The fastest-growing and arguably most attractive segment in alternative energy and energy efficiency lies in hardware, software and networking equipment. Yep, green IT. Part of the conclusion is a historical and personal bias:

I wrote about semiconductors and PCs for eleven years. But I still think green IT is a sustainable trend. Here's why:

1. Looser-Than-Normal Wallets.

Data centers continue to inexorably absorb functions once handled in the real world--shopping, shipping, etc.--and now and videoconferencing has begun to displace travel.

You could have the greatest idea for a startup in the world. You could even have the best team working together to build a great product. That's all fine and dandy, but for first-time entrepreneurs, if you don't have traction, you're not going anywhere. Traction means having a measurable set of customers or users that serves to prove to a potential investor that your startup is "going places." The tricky part is actually gaining that traction and knowing when

you have enough to approach potential investors, so here are a few tips that should help.

For decades, apocalyptic environmentalists (and others) have warned of humanity's imminent doom, largely as a result of our unsustainable use of and impact upon the natural systems of the planet. After all, the most recent comprehensive assessment of so-called ecosystem services—benefits provided for free by the natural world, such as clean water and air—found that 60 percent of them are declining.

Do I stand any chance working a different job than the one I was offered and accepted? I interviewed for a position at a prestigious financial firm in a dream location with great people and did exceptionally well. I’m expecting an offer soon.

The bad news? The position is a software engineering role. And I hate software engineering. Hence my dilemma. Unfortunately, I’m a good programmer and it’s what I’ve been doing for 10 years. It’s not that hard for me to get offers. The problem is I’m burnt out: I can no longer stand doing the coding part of the job anymore. I desperately need more people-oriented work, for my own sanity. But I don’t have the financial luxury of taking the time to go to business school.

In an earlier blog post, I included a quote from Voltaire. He once said, “Man can only have a certain number of teeth, hairs, and ideas. There comes a time when he necessarily loses his teeth, his hair, and his ideas.” This quote sparked a small debate between two blog readers.

Dr.YKK chimed in with, “I don’t agree with Voltaire on the ideas part. As Einstein says, ideas are unlimited. I would like to add, ‘at whatever age.’ We don’t lose ideas, we gain ideas and wisdom with age.”

Gareth Garvey responded with, “Maybe the number of ideas we can have is unlimited. Our problem can be that as we get older we can find it harder to accept new ideas and end up rejecting our own ideas before we have voiced them. We need to remind ourselves to think young, at least some of the time.”

In the beginning, there were angel investors. And it was good. As individual angel investors made more and more investments, they became super angels. One day a super angel woke up and thought to himself, “Gosh, I could do a lot more investments if I had a fund.” And so the super angels became micro-VCs (or “institutionalized super angels”). Everyone was excited and on the seventh day they did another deal instead of resting.

I’m a huge fan of the super angel movement. Some of my best friends are super angels and

I’ve put my own money where my mouth is in funds like Chris Sacca’s, Dave McClure’s, Jeff Clavier’s, Roger Ehrenberg’s, and David Cohen’s. Not only am I an investor in these super angels, I love to have them on board with our investments at Foundry Group. And whenever they bring me something they’ve been working on, I always pay attention–as I know they know what I like to invest in.

Proposals can make or break a sales deal; a well-written proposal can help cinch the deal. The proposal should absolutely be used as a selling tool. It is your opportunity to demonstrate that you truly understand your prospect's needs, you have listened intently and that you will provide a compelling solution.

Notice I used the word "compelling."

Not only do you want your proposal to give your prospect details of the solution and pricing information, it is also your final chance before asking for the order to make a lasting impression on your prospect. So you want to be sure it's a good one.

One thing most entrepreneurs love to do is talk about being entrepreneurs. Topics range from what is the "entrepreneurial spirit" to who has it and who doesn't, and what it takes to be successful. As co-owner of jacobstahl, a public relations agency, with my husband, as well as a mother of three, my favorite question is whether entrepreneurship can be passed down to the next generation--and whether I want to encourage or discourage it in my own kids.

The nature/nurture issue has provoked Talmudic-level discussions, but there is scientific evidence that entrepreneurship is heritable. Scott Shane posted data in a New York Times blog last year indicating a genetic component. Along with his colleagues, Shane conducted behavioral genetics (twin) and molecular genetics (association) studies of entrepreneurship. His findings suggest the tendency to be an entrepreneur is in the DNA, as is the ability to perform well as an entrepreneur.

I often give venture capital firms a hard time. It's partly because with their crummy performance that they deserve it, partly because with their humorlessness and hubris that they need it, and partly because I know more VCs than bankers -- and it's always more fun to fight with people you know than with people you don't.

But there is a flip side to this. Financial services industry is in upheaval like at no other time since the previous depression. From banks to brokers to, yes, VCs, financial services is seeing major changes in how and whether it makes money.

So, which part of the industry is changing fastest? Venture capital. More venture firms, as a percentage of the total extant, will have failed over the current period than is the case with banks in the U.S., but with no need for a government-led bailout. We can have widespread VC financial failures without societal consequences.

Karen E. Klein: What groups are surveyed in your study?

John Paglia: We survey banks, asset-based lenders, mezzanine funds, private equity groups, venture capital organizations, angel investors, business owners, business appraisers, and factors. We started the survey in 2009, and it's semi-annual. It's available complimentary to the public.

You surveyed 559 private companies, nearly half of which reported $3 million or less in annual revenue. What are their top concerns?

The No. 1 concern for private companies is access to capital. Nearly 31 percent cited that, even more than the 27 percent that said the economy is their top concern.

Last week, Statistics Canada released its latest report on the commercialization of intellectual property in Canadian universities. Canada spends billions of public dollars on research funding each year and the government has been increasingly focused on how best to commercialize the results. While there are several possible approaches to doing this, the government and some universities have been focused on building patent and IP portfolios as part of a conventional commercialization strategy. The alternative could be an open access approach - encourage (or require) much of the intellectual property to be made broadly available under open licences so that multiple organizations could add value and find ways to commercialize. The universities might generate less income but would better justify the public investment in research by providing the engine for larger economic benefits.

Which approach is better?  The full commercialization approach has been tried in the U.S. with legislation known as Bayh-Dole and studies (here and here) have found that patents to universities have increased, but the increase has been accompanied by harm to the public domain of science and relatively small gains in income.

According to a report distributed by the Angel Capital Education Foundation, total startup funding from venture capital funds, state funds, and angel investors totals approximately $20.8 billion annually.

Surprisingly, friends and family contributed nearly three times the amount of capital to thousands of startups each year.

With approximately $60 billion in startup funding coming from friends and family, entrepreneurs must consider this as an option as they seek to launch new businesses.

You've just finished composing an e-mail to a potential client you've talked with a few times before. Now for the tricky part: your sign-off. Should you use "Sincerely," "Kind regards" or "Cheers"? How do you sound friendly without coming across as unprofessional? And then there are the e-mails to your employees, business contacts and friendly acquaintances.

Unfortunately, there's no "e-mail bible" to guide you. That's why we contacted two business communication experts to discuss what's appropriate. Suzanne Bates, president and CEO of Bates Communications, Inc. and author of Speak Like a CEO: Secrets For Commanding Attention and Getting Results, and Cherie Kerr, founder of ExecuProv and author of The Bliss or "Diss" Connection? Email Etiquette For The Business Professional, pair up to give expert insight into the world of e-mail correspondence.

In University Technology Transfer: Smart Managers Do Creative Deals, we visited 2 technology transfer models; learned how technology transfer deals were done in the past; reported why startup companies are a powerful launching vehicle for new discoveries; and inspected some of the newer ways forward-thinking technology transfer managers are using to construct creative deals.

The World Economic Forum has announced its list of 31 Technology Pioneers for 2011. The Technology Pioneers are its list of up-and-coming startups. Last year’s list included Twitter, Playfish, and Boston Power. The year before, Mint, Etsy, and Brightcove were named.

Joining the pantheon this year are foursquare, Knewton, Layar, Scribd, and Spotify. However, greentech is equally strong on the list, particularly with smartgrid companies such as OPower and Tendril. Below is the full list of infotech companies that made it, with links to their Crunchbase profiles for more information:

Aster Data (big data)
Atlassian (product management)
Foursquare (Geo-location)
GetJar
Knewton (adaptive learning)
Layar (augmented reality)
NetQin Mobile (mobile security)
OpenDNS (domain names)
ReputationDefender (online reputation monitoring)
Scribd (online documents)
SecondMarket (private securities market)
Spotify (streaming music service)
Vortex Engineering (low-power ATMs)