The most successful people in this world maintain and master good habits. They realize what they do on a daily basis and where they direct their energy deeply matters when it comes to reaching their goals.

The habits you have picked up over the past couple of years is a reflection of where you are right this moment.

Yesterday the Partnership for American Innovation (PAI), which is comprised of Apple, DuPont, Ford, GE, IBM, Microsoft and Pfizer, submitted comments responsive to a request for public information published in the Federal Register back on July 29, 2014, titled Strategy for American Innovation. Some may recall that in February 2011, President Obama released a Strategy for American Innovation, which described the importance of innovation as a driver of U.S. economic growth and prosperity, and the critical role the government plays in supporting the innovation ecosystem. The Office of Science Technology Policy and the National Economic Council are now tasked with updating the document to create a revised Strategy for American Innovation.

Given the gold rush going on in Silicon Valley right now, it's not surprising that some young entrepreneurs think it's time to drop out and start a company. Nor that billionaire VCs like Peter Thiel have started paying kids to skip school and build startups. 

Not surprising, but still stupid.

It's not just about money, though that's an easy reason to stay in school: Not graduating from college will cost you $500,000 over the course of your life. But the bigger reason for me comes down to experience—rather, the lack thereof—in unstudied entrepreneurs.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently launched its Community College Innovation Challenge. In this contest, NSF is challenging students enrolled in community colleges to propose innovative science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-based solutions to perplexing, real-world problems. There is a powerful incentive for teams: the ones submitting top ideas will receive professional coaching and cash prizes.

More than 40 percent of U.S. undergraduates are enrolled at community colleges. Groups underrepresented in STEM, as well as first-generation college students, make up a significant portion of students on community-college campuses. NSF-funded projects at community colleges support STEM students transferring to four-year colleges, as well as receiving education and training to become part of the high-tech workforce in fields as diverse as biotechnology, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing.

Nearly five years after the Great Recession of 2008, the road to economic recovery has been sluggish nationwide – with employment and economic activity still below levels recorded before the severe recession hit. Of particular concern is that the growth in Maine, along with that of the rest of New England, continues to lag behind even the sluggish growth of the overall U.S. recovery. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston concluded at the end of 2013, “While New England’s economy continued to make moderate advances in 2013, the region experienced smaller gains in economic activity than the nation.”

With its medieval canals and carefully preserved downtown, the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou might have been a quiet burgh compared with neighboring Shanghai. But in 1994, the governments of Singapore and China invested in an industrial development zone there, and Suzhou grew quickly into a manufacturing boomtown.

Singapore-based Flextronics, one of the largest global contract manufacturers, built factories there, initially to make small consumer electronics. Those products were relatively ­simple to assemble in great numbers, making them well suited to China’s then plentiful and inexpensive labor force. But by 2006, labor, land costs, and competition were rising, and Flextronics’ margins were shrinking.

Image: Spray coating the surface of a printed circuit board at Flextronics’ Suhong plant in Suzhou, China.  

Ever since D-Wave Systems unveiled what it called the world’s first quantum computer in 2007, the small Canadian company has attracted controversy.

Computers capable of exploiting quantum physics for computation on a large scale promise to solve in mere seconds problems that would take conventional machines millions of years. But whether D-Wave’s machine uses quantum tricks to process data more efficiently is still an open question. Nonetheless, the company has attracted significant investment funding, and it has struck deals to supply its hardware to companies including Google and Lockheed Martin for research (see “The CIA and Jeff Bezos Bet on Quantum Computing”).

Image: This superconducting chip made by D-Wave Systems is designed to work on data super-efficiently, using quantum mechanics.  

Alex Haffner, senior associate of law firm Dentons, offers his thoughts on how to instill lawful harmony into businesses

If you haven't purchased your tickets for the ME Top 50 Mobile Innovators yet – which you can do here on our events site – here are 12 reasons why you should pick up a £30 ticket now.

Dentons is a global law firm which, among others, focuses on the technology, media and telecoms sector and is a proud sponsor of the ME Top 50.

Treadmill desks are so last year. With this new contraption from Artist-in-Residence Robb Godshaw and Instructables Developer Will Doenlen, you aren’t just spinning your wheels.

The two of them collaborated at San Francisco-based Pier 9 to build the Hamster Wheel Standing Desk in a 24-hour session.

Backed by money from two major tech companies, the University of Central Florida on Tuesday will launch a new $1 million complex of laboratories, creating an informal co-working setting for science, art and imagination to morph into new technologies.

Dubbed the "Maker Spaces," UCF's new lab complex formally open its doors with a group of four fully-equipped labs that are designed to help engineers take their ideas seamlessly from brain-storming stage and concept design to prototyping and manufacturing.

Most small business owners can identify with the challenges of getting financing for their business or funding for a new product. There’s no short, easy road to funding, most of the time, but these small business funding resources can help.

Kabbage

Kabbage has to be the most unique small business funding source found recently. They have created a powerful platform that, in my understanding, is creating a real-life look at how your business is doing to help you grow it.

Memorizing a speech can be an almost impossible task for many, especially if the speech is a long one. One example of this is that it’s extremely difficult to memorize verbatim text.

And let’s face the facts, not all of us have those fancy teleprompters like the President has. The real question then is – do we have other options? How can one go about memorizing a speech, no matter it’s topic and length?

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

Ecommerce, business management apps, social media, The Cloud… the list of technological advances keeps growing. While the sometimes bewildering slew of new technology might make some business owners want to return to the days of the abacus, ignoring it won’t make it go away. Not only can using technological tools help you in your business – they can also be instrumental in your success.

Image: Free Digital Photos

Investor Peter Thiel took his book promotion tour to Harvard Business School last week, predicting the university will be safe from online college degrees and advising entrepreneurs to drive toward a goal besides making money.

In an on-stage interview, Thiel recapped some of the arguments in his book Zero to One: the most successful businesses are monopolies; innovation has stagnated in fields outside digital technologies; big companies eventually stop innovating to protect their turf.

The economy’s slow but steady improvement should be good news. But employers may find a cloud lurking behind the sunny forecast: They are at risk of losing some of their most valuable talent — and they may not even realize it.

These aren’t the usual suspects. Instead of the 50-something Baby Boomers and the Millennials in their late 20s and early 30s, I’m talking about Generation X, demography’s long-neglected “middle child.” Numbering just 46 million in the United States, Gen X is small compared to the 78 million Boomers and 70 million Millennials. Yet proportionate to their size, Generation X may be the cohort with the most clout.

Here’s the scene: A problem has come up with one of your supply chain vendors, threatening to delay timely shipment of your product. At the same time, a potential opportunity appears that, with some exploration and investment, could lead to a new generation of products down the road. Which do you respond to first?

You probably reach for your firefighter’s hat to extinguish the short-term problem.

Image: Free Digital Photos

The Venture Capital Trust Fund has pledged to provide start-up capital to university graduates eager to operate their own businesses. Mr Emmanuel Osei Akuamoah, Head of the Northern Zonal Office, said in line with this, it had decided to strengthen its co-operation with business schools of the various tertiary institutions. That, he said, was the path to travel to develop and transform entrepreneurial ideas into vibrant business ventures.

Image: Free Digital Photos

It's a matter of conventional wisdom that one of New York's strengths as a tech startup hub is its universe of major corporations, the big businesses that stand to become both customers of and investors in groundbreaking new ideas.

But at least at the moment, New York isn't keeping up with California and other regions in a key metric along those lines: Venture bets places by the investing arms of said big corporations.

Stanford is offering a class in startups taught by some of the most successful tech founders in the valley. The class was packed on day one, as famed investor Sam Altman revealed some of the secrets he teaches aspiring startups at incubator Y Combinator. You can watch the full lecture with Altman and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz below. Through the semester, various guest lecturers who have built or seeded billion dollar companies will be added online.

Image: Sam Altman, Twitter

When stepping into an office elevator, I ask that one question that puts the entrepreneur on the spot immediately: "What is the idea?"

There is one cameraman, one audio technician, a producer, myself and the startup guest all in the elevator, watching the elevator doors close together.

It is a lot of people in a small space and is the moment for the entrepreneur to deliver his or her succinct, compelling message in 30 seconds time.

Image: Free Digital Photos