American small business owners don’t take enough vacation. In fact, the United States is the only western nation without a single legally required paid vacation day or holiday. By law, every country in the European Union has at least four work weeks of paid vacation. Do they know something we don’t? Most entrepreneurs would agree that time away from work is actually good for their productivity. Unfortunately, so many small business owners are afraid to take vacation for fear of missing something or the their company “falling apart”.

When I’m speaking at a conference, one of the most common questions I’m asked is what do I think the future of social media is. I’m not great at distant future predicting, but I do believe the story of the present and near-future of social media is visual content. From the impact of images and video on Facebook and Twitter to the new crop of media-centric social platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, it’s clear that inbound marketers need to be turning out great visual content.

Image: http://memeburn.com

Investor Peter Thiel believes that you can either invest in companies that deal in bits or companies that deal in atoms. Right now Thiel seems to think there’s already too many “bits” companies and not enough “atom” companies. He may be right.

Thiel, who spoke at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference Monday, gave the example of digital health. There are companies that run big data analytics trying to predict who will develop Alzheimer’s. “Then there is another company that is trying to cure Alzheimer’s.”

Image: Founders Fund co-founder Peter Thiel. Image Credit: Heisenberg Media/Flickr 

Liberal policies make people happy, personal beliefs make conservatives happier

People living in more liberal countries are happier on average than those in less liberal countries, but individually, conservatives are happier than liberals no matter where they live, according to a study of people in 16 Western European countries.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Mark Cuban is tied into the tech scene as an entrepreneur and investor, but he said staying away from Silicon Valley-based companies has worked best for him.

Mr. Cuban, who works out of Dallas, said companies in Silicon Valley tend to be overvalued compared to the rest of the country. A company with an $8 million valuation here, he said, might have a $1 million or $2 million valuation elsewhere.

Image: Mark Cuban Associated Press 

I’ve held the title of entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) at four different organizations, so I get asked this question frequently. There’s no unambiguous answer because the job has to fit the priorities of the institution. Still, I can shed some light.

Each time I’ve been EIR, it’s been a newly created position. I’ve never had a predecessor, and in each instance I wrote my own job description. Despite the name of the position being the same, the duties, responsibilities and compensation were different.

Investors in entrepreneurs have a special in-the-trenches wisdom gained through years of experience. This investor experience is now available to entrepreneurs and prospective early-stage investors through InvestorIQ.org, a free, online curriculum that provides knowledge essential to improving startup investment.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Drive Capital, the Columbus, Ohio-based venture capital firm, raised a $250 fund focused on young tech firms in the Midwest in February and has already put some of it to work in Pittsburgh, leading NoWait’s $10 million round in May. Nick Solaro, a former Google executive who joined Drive as a partner six months ago, plans to be in town for Thrill Mill’s Investor Day Friday and the Thrival Festival, Pittsburgh’s music and innovation mashup, Saturday and Sunday.

Image: Drive Capital Partner Nick Solaro 

On July 1, Seth Bannon appeared before several hundred techies and investors at the New York Tech Meetup, the industry gathering where Tumblr and Foursquare made their debut.

Even among this pedigreed audience, Bannon inspired great interest. The company he founded in 2010, now known as Amicus, had raised nearly $4 million from investors and was the rare start-up that made money while doing actual good, helping nonprofits like the AFL-CIO and the Texas Democratic Party mobilize supporters.

Image: J. SOCHA NOAM 

BERLIN — There’s no shortage of emerging tech scenes labeled as the “next Silicon Valley,” and Berlin often tops that list.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it attracted an onset of artists, musicians and other creatives to the city. While housing prices in other European cities skyrocketed over the years — particularly in London and Paris — Berlin remains relatively affordable, offering young, aspiring entrepreneurs a lower-cost, lower-risk platform to jump-start both careers and companies.

Image: ANDREAS RENTZ 

Idea Foundry, an innovation-based economic development organization, and the University of Pittsburgh Innovation Institute have cemented a formal partnership to provide a new level of combined systematic support for commercializing Pitt innovations.

This new partnership further solidifies a long-standing relationship between Idea Foundry and the University in the transformation of Pitt research into innovations with strong commercial potential, according to Michael Matesic, president of Idea Foundry.

Whether you’re telecommuting, starting a home business or freelancing, working at home comes with big changes, some of which can be surprisingly difficult. You can make the adjustment easier by anticipating challenges and planning your routine. Below are tips on how to adjust to working from home to help you succeed in doing so.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

John Paul DeJoria, billionaire behind brand names such as Paul Michell hair products and Patron tequila, has a peculiar definition of what a ‘successful’ person is. In a true life ‘rags to riches’ story, DeJoria has proven that hard work can make all the difference.

In a video interview with Business Insider, DeJoria (pictured above, left) reveals a secret which he learned while working at a dry cleaning shop. As it turns out, the difference is simple:

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com 

Modern basic science tends to take far longer to reach markets than it used to (~20-30 years at least), so if you are focusing on the next decade, basic science is not the place to look. You want to look at market pull based around known problems and opportunities and validated disruption patterns rather than disruption potential of basic science innovations.

Shanghai to San Francisco is a trek that takes nearly 12 hours by plane. Imagine that transatlantic trip taking just two hours.

The feat could be achieved with a new supersonic submarine, but this one doesn’t look like your typical sub.

It more closely resembles a torpedo; its unusual shape helps it move quickly moving through the water, potentially reaching speeds of up to 3,600 miles per hour.

The universal challenge of every startup founder is to get everything done that needs to get done, and still have a life. Even outside of business, everyone wants to accomplish more, while working less. I’ve been a student of these techniques for some time, but some time ago I saw a great summary that seems to pull all the key principles together.

Roughly 25% of those with bachelor’s degrees in the US derive no economic benefit from their diplomas.

That’s the takeaway from analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The same analysts have argued in the past that the benefits of a college degree, on average, still outweigh the costs. (Other Fed studies have suggested that, on average, those with bachelor’s degrees earn $800,000 more than people who finished only secondary school.) And while median earnings of college students typically remain between 60% and 70% higher than those with high school diplomas, there’s still a surprisingly large chunk of students who don’t do any better than those who never went to four-year schools.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Remember the job you had in high school? Scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins, babysitting for a neighbor, or a cashier at the mall? For me, it was a receptionist job at my friend’s dad’s place—a doctor’s office. Such drudgery has always been thought to come with a hidden bonus: The promise of higher future earnings. But, unfortunately for today's working high-school students, it seems that that effect may be waning.

As entrepreneurs, we all follow our own path. For some, the rise to financial success is a long, slow, painful process. For others, things just seem to magically fall into place. I believe that the latter isn’t a result of magic, however, but is the sure sign of an entrepreneur who understands the importance of learning from, adapting to and growing with their business.

Successful entrepreneurs are different from the very start. The most important manifestation of this trait is their having a different attitude, which I believe happens because they are wired differently.