Marc Andreessen, who cofounded Netscape and is now betting billions of dollars on Silicon Valley startups, says we should all stop kvetching about sending gadget-manufacturing jobs to China.

In the CNBC clip we've embedded below, Andreessen says: I'm a believer in a positive-sum conception of the economy.

I'm a believer in free trade. I'm a believer in the idea that a rising tide can lift all boats.

Yes! Though perhaps not how you might imagine. You can't put more of your brain to work. Your whole brain is working all the time, even when you think you're just being lazy. What you can do is make it work more productively.

There are two proved strategies to make your neural systems more efficient. The first strategy is to focus, which is hard to do. It is quite difficult to force your brain to stay on task and to shut off extraneous thoughts. Yet by concentrating, your brain can muster the neural tools it needs to tackle a complex problem. In fact, intense focus may be one reason why so-called savants become so extraordinary at performing extensive calculations or remembering a slew of facts.

This is the first of a series of MBA Mondays posts on the topic of The Board Of Directors. I want to dig into the role and responsibilities of the Board as a way to kickoff this series. But first a few disclaimers. I am not a lawyer and I am not giving out legal advice on this topic. I am a practicioner and am telling you the way I see it and what I've learned over the years. I think both are important perspectives. You will have to look elsewhere for the legal view on this topic.

The Board of Directors is the governing body for a company. All major decisions will need to be ratified by the Board. You will need the Board's approval to sell your company. You will need the Board's approval to hire or fire a CEO. You will need the Board's approval to do a major acquisition. You will need the Board's approval to do a major financing, including an IPO. On all matters of major strategic importance, the Board will need to be engaged, involved, and supportive.

The small Western Cape student town of Stellenbosch is perhaps best known for the wineries that surround it. But now it’s looking to become one of the most connected places in South Africa by offering free, universal Wi-Fi internet access.

The initiative is reportedly a partnership between Stellenbosch, the University of Stellenbosch, and popular instant messaging platform MXit.

According to MyBroadband, the service will be available to anyone without registration. The only activity prohibited on the network will be large downloads.

The biotech industry, one of the US economy’s most innovative sectors, continues to confront massive challenges in raising vital capital for growth.  In addition to threatening the United States’ historical leadership in this area, this mounting problem has important near- and long-term implications for big pharmaceutical companies with pinched R&D budgets struggling to create new drugs, the country’s job growth, and the world’s overall well-being.  However, an effective solution can be devised by creating a Biotech Fund that smartly deploys Big Pharma’s cash to solve the capital crunch of this critical sector of our economy.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress don't agree on much, especially when it comes to the U.S. Department of Energy, but they agree that the department's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), is a good thing. Last year, when they were cutting every program in sight, they actually voted to increase the agency's funding by 50 percent. The bipartisan support was clear last week at the agency's third Innovation Summit, attended by a mix of liberal and conservative politicians and business leaders.

ARPA-E has been popular in large part because it's inexpensive—for about the same amount the government gave to failed solar-panel maker Solyndra in the form of a loan guarantee, ARPA-E has funded 180 projects. But how important is the agency for solving major energy challenges like volatile oil prices and climate change? At the summit, several speakers warned that the sort of short-term, two-to-three-year funding that the agency provides isn't enough to address long-term energy problems.

Ideally, entrepreneurship should be a balanced activity, combining talent and analytical thinking. In reality however, entrepreneurship is irrational activity.

Founding a company involves large amounts of risk, very low chances of success and zero work-life balance altogether.

Nevertless, the value of risk-taking is limitless on the both sides. Why? Illogical ideas are how society achieves progress.

They are older patients with cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other serious chronic conditions. Many have multiple health problems, and their relatives might not be helping with their care. Most have private insurance, are white and female.

They are the costliest 1% of patients in the U.S. Caring for them accounts for more than 20% of what the nation spends on all of its health care. In contrast, the least costly half of all patients are associated with only 3% of total health spending, according to an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality analysis of spending data from 2008 and 2009 released in January.

It doesn’t take a neuroscientist to know that the past two New England Patriots vs. New York Giants Super Bowl games have been emotionally charged for fans.

But it might take one to measure the more under-the-surface emotional responses to advertising throughout the games. That’s where Boston-based Innerscope Research comes in.

Founded in 2006, Innerscope is building its business around the notion that the traditional market research method of asking consumers questions doesn’t paint the full picture of their engagement with media.

Angel investors - rich individuals who back business start-ups - were active in the second half of last year but were keener on supporting existing companies than they were on stumping up cash for new ventures, the NZ Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF) said.

NZVIF, which administers venture capital and seed co-investment programmes for the Government, said "angels" made 97 investments in young, high-growth companies, slightly behind the previous year's record activity level, but the amount invested was $30.7 million - about half the amount invested in 2010.

NIAID is seeking qualified applicants for the Technology Transfer Fellowship Program. This is an advanced training program designed to provide individuals who have a science background and an advanced degree in the sciences with opportunities to

1.      Apply their expertise in a new career path

2.      Learn about the policies and laws that drive technology development at NIH

3.      Develop the skills for a career in technology transfer

Is a US crowdfunding exemption taking too long to come together? Or moving at such a breakneck pace, something important might be overlooked?

If you're one of the crowdfunding advocates who have very successfully engaged legislators, their staffers, and White House staffers on the issue, the moment is now and the exemption can be passed none too soon. After all, there will still be a wait on the SEC (or state regulators, if the exemption is entrusted to them) to implement regulations under the new law, before a crowdfunding exemption will go "live."

As founder of Developing Abilities Company, a non-profit organization that collects donations of philanthropic intellectual property, I am pioneering the use of donated IP to create jobs for people with disabilities. Your donations are used to build and support other non-profit organizations that employ people with disabilities, and also help individuals with disabilities who seek to start a microenterprise.

We are helping people with developmental disabilities, autism, aging issues, disease, injury, and other disabilities. Wounded warriors and civil servants who have served us and our country are also a vital part of our mission.

Gust, the investor relations platform connecting high-growth entrepreneurs and active early stage investors, and DiligentDeal, a conference organizer in the early stage investment space, will host their first annual conference, Venture Forward 2012, in New York City on Thursday, June 20. The day-long event, taking place at the New York Academy of Sciences, will convene the country’s leading angel investors and early-stage venture capitalists to collaborate and share industry insights on the rapidly evolving early stage investing market through a series of interactive panel discussions, keynote addresses and fireside interviews.

“The landscape of equity funding for early-stage entrepreneurial ventures is undergoing a revolution. Venture Forward 2012 will bring together the industry’s leaders for a high-level knowledge exchange about the challenges and opportunities facing early stage investors, and the rapidly changing legislative and economic landscape,” said David S. Rose, CEO of Gust and one of the country’s most active super-angel investors. “The conference will provide an exclusive opportunity for attendees to learn from, and engage with, the world-class investors and financial technology entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of these changes.”

This is the third in a series excerpted from a new chapter in the paperback version of Good Boss, Bad Boss, a New York Times bestseller by Robert Sutton. Read the first installment, Are You A Power Poisoned Boss? here, and the second, What Good Bosses Do With Bad Apples, here.

The best bosses strive to simplify things for themselves, their people, and their customers.

In addition to the subtraction mindset already considered, Good Boss, Bad Boss shows the value of checklists, of instilling predictability during scary times, and offers A.G. Lafley’s philosophy that the best managers make things “Sesame Street simple.” These and other examples demonstrate that simplicity, clarity, and repeatable steps can reduce the burdens on people, promote performance, and save money. We human beings especially love simple stories that communicate clear solutions and actions; when Conrad Hilton was on the Johnny Carson show, he pleaded with millions of Americans, “Please remember to put the shower curtain inside the tub.”

"How's your book launch coming?" Bob asked me.

"Ugh. I don't want to talk about my book. Can't we just dive into working on another post about progress?" I said, trying to avoid my towering pre-publication checklist.

"Sure, Whitney. But if you're going to write about progress, you might want to make some."

Okay. Bob didn't actually say that, but he could have. Six months before publication, I found myself skittering off to new ideas rather than attending to the task right in front of me. Why was I procrastinating?, I wondered. Writing a book has been on my bucket list for years. I knew how important it was to have a successful launch, yet here I was doing nothing.

When the Global Entrepreneurship Congress convenes in Liverpool next week, one of the largest delegations will come from Canada. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to tour one of Canada’s best startup cities—Waterloo—which offered some useful insights for the global entrepreneurship community.

Much like other innovation hubs, the genesis of this one is a university, the University of Waterloo, where an inventor-owned intellectual property policy has been a catalyst in the success of the city’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. Contrary to the lack of freedom at U.S. universities where commercialization is centralized in technology transfer offices, Canadian universities do not have major guidelines in this regard. Dubbed by many as "the most liberal intellectual property policy of anywhere in the world,” this policy has clearly helped Waterloo attract world-class researchers, and with innovators retaining ownership of their inventions, more entrepreneurs to commercialize them.

At the risk of stating the obvious, all universities are similar, but each one is different.  Just when you think you’ve got a key piece of university tech transfer strategy figured out — like peeling the proverbial onion — you unearth another layer you haven’t even considered.   (Actually, in this case, onions are much too stolid and predictable – maybe raking leaves on a windy day would be a better analogy.)  That’s why formal “one size fits all” tech transfer education isn’t always productive once you get beyond the outer layers of the onion, I mean the basic mechanics of the process.

Why am I thinking about onions, university technology commercialization strategy, and education?  Last week, half a dozen tech transfer directors and administrators and I, plus Utah’s TechVenture’s staff spent two days hunkered down in a classroom in Utah’s business school.  This was not one of those somnolent, pedantic tech transfer seminars we’ve all sat through at professional  meetings.  We spent most of our time in intimate, free-wheeling conversations about the university technology commercialization process.  Utah’s TechVenture’s vice president Jack Brittain and technology transfer director Bryan Ritchie, plus licensing staff led a few brief, formal sessions.  Prescriptive best practices weren’t part of the curriculum, though people shared solutions that worked for them.

About 10 years ago, inventor Dean Kamen, in a much-anticipated introduction, brought his Segway to the public. Revered by the media and business-world celebrities as a total game-changer in urban planning, transportation, and daily life,  the public ended up a bit crestfallen at what they actually saw. It looks like a glorified scooter, and even today, it's a rare sight to see anyone other than a mall security officer or tourist group plodding along on one.

So what went wrong? How did one of the most buzzed-about innovations in modern times fall so short? It's easy to see Kamen's avoidable mistakes in hindsight. Take note to make sure the next product or service you launch doesn't flop.

When making decisions to adopt Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and planning for implementation and upgrade, you need to take into consideration your budget and the subsequent impact on operations. I suggest five tips for efficient implementation and utilization of ERP solutions based on my 18 years of experience of ERP consulting at Accenture’s Seoul office. These tips may not be suitable for all companies, but surely will give a guideline to put you in the right direction.

First, identify the business value. In general, the starting line of innovation is based on identifying values. The way to identify extra values differs from company to company. Some companies need to reflect well-known industry best practices, while others may analyze global leading companies’ best practices or completely create a new practice on their own. Creating a new practice requires the participants’ creative approach.