So what’s in a name? In the case of blog headlines it’s everything. The headline of any blog is an important component and it is what will get your post read, or rather not read.  The headline, or blog title must be written well or it will be the only part of your blog read!  Studies have shown that only about 20% of those who have read a blog headline will continue to read the entire post.  Being able to capture this 20% or hopefully even more readers will mean that the headline will need to be topical, informative, eye-catching and clear.  No pressure or anything.

A simple formula for writing an awesome blog headline is to follow a few simple tips:

1. Make it Pop

The use of strong action words will inherently draw the attention of readers.  Check out Blogussion for some great words that will really make your headlines pop out of the page.  Let’s take a blog headline, “Politicians debate oil prices”, which is a perfectly fine, albeit boring headline. Changing the headline to “Political battle over oil heats up” sounds a bit better doesn’t it? Adding an action word “battle” and the emotive term of “heats up” will inevitably draw in readers.

We award Eisenhower Fellowships to extraordinary leaders who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents age 32-45 from all professions based on the following criteria:

They have demonstrated significant accomplishments within their communities and their professions.

They have designed for themselves a fellowship program that takes full advantage of this unique opportunity to leverage their professional and leadership skills.

They have identified how they will undertake consequential activities that will better the world around them as a result of their fellowship.

They have committed to engage actively with the global Eisenhower Fellowship network throughout their lifetime.

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One of the themes that prolific writer Jonah Lehrer develops in his upcoming book “Imagine: How Creativity Works” is that daydreaming can enhance creativity and innovation.

That quote by author Joyce Carol Oates is from my post Developing Creativity by Staring Out the Window – which briefly touches on this topic.

Biographer Walter Isaacson notes Einstein “was slow in learning to talk. They called him the dopey one in the family… But he did thought experiments in his head, what we call daydreaming.”

People who lead their organization’s practice of collaborative innovation find themselves on the receiving end of ideas that exist outside of their original context or charter. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins advocates that leaders embrace these orphans as a catalyst for deep, creative ideation. He lays out a way to do so by way of hosting Ideation Scene Investigation 2012.

Clients declare plaintively to me: “I have 500 ideas—help.”

Momentarily, they add: “And, what do I do with them?”

Orphaned ideas arrive at the innovation program’s doorstep by a number of paths. Someone—a predecessor—bequeaths them as a parting act. Someone hosts an innovation challenge. The ideas remain after the campaign team selects the ones they decide to pursue. Someone hosts an off-site brainstorm with the executive team. The ideas embody the fruits of their single day’s labor. Resuming their day jobs, nobody commits to exploring their potential.

The European Commission, within the Europe 2020 flagship Innovation Union, has presented three new Innovation Partnerships which have as main aim to address weaknesses, bottlenecks and obstacles in the European research and innovation system that prevent or slow down good ideas being developed and brought to market. In particular, new proposals will work on raw materials, agriculture and healthy ageing.

The three new Innovation Partnerships presented by the European Commission intends to boost the European competitiveness through the public and private investment. Its objective is, therefore, to face key challenges facing European society, in areas that are crucial to growth and jobs: the supply of raw materials, sustainable agriculture, and active and healthy ageing. The Innovation Partnerships is a new concept introduced by the flagship initiative "Innovation Union" in October 2010.

In the next few months, I predict a U.S. presidential candidate will fully endorse crowdfunding. And that endorsement will earn the candidate millions of votes, and a tremendous amount of the network effect that crowdfunding participants are so versed at. Why? Just for starters, Kickstarter expects to provide more funding than the National Endowment of the Arts! Even as VCs are massively abandoning seed funding, crowdfunding and peer to peer lending have become a global multi-billion dollar power house.

In November of 2011, The U.S. House of Representatives passed a crowdfunding bill, with overwhelming support. By most accounts, the bill was friendly to crowdfunding and cut out much of the red tape that usually accompanies financial bills, thanks in large part to its author, Congressman Patrick McHenry. It creates "a crowdfunding exemption from SEC regulations for firms raising up to $2 million, with individual investments limited to $10,000 or 10 percent of an investor's annual income." And as a bonus, exempted crowdfunding investors from the 500 investor limit before public company reporting kicks in.

There’s a long lead time from forming a spin-out to developing products, building markets, creating jobs and generating growth, raising the question of whether politicians should be hanging hopes of recovery on entrepreneurship and innovation.

The biotech and pharmaceutical industry is a notable example of long lead times, with novel drugs taking ten or more years to get from bench to bedside. But, said Alexander von Gabain, chair of the governing board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), approval of a new drug is not the point at which impact begins. “It’s not the product, it’s the growth stage of companies that creates jobs and is changing the landscape of the continent,” he told the Science|Business European Entrepreneurship Summit in Brussels on 21 February.

MedImmune today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved FluMist® Quadrivalent (Influenza Vaccine Live, Intranasal) for prevention of influenza. The company submitted the sBLA early in the second quarter of last year.  FluMist Quadrivalent is the first quadrivalent influenza vaccine approved by the FDA.

All other currently available licensed seasonal influenza vaccines are trivalent, containing three strains (two strains of type A influenza (A/H1N1 and A/H3N2) and one B lineage strain).  FluMist Quadrivalent contains four strains (two type A strains and two type B lineages) to help provide broad protection against circulating influenza A and B.

No, that’s too long.

Remember when you were willing to wait a few seconds for a computer to respond to a click on a Web site or a tap on a keyboard? These days, even 400 milliseconds — literally the blink of an eye — is too long, as Google engineers have discovered. That barely perceptible delay causes people to search less.

“Subconsciously, you don’t like to wait,” said Arvind Jain, a Google engineer who is the company’s resident speed maestro. “Every millisecond matters.”

It’s a common misconception that funding for early-stage tech companies is easy to come by. The money is flowing, people say, just come up with an idea, and investors will come running.

This could not be further from the truth.

Nowadays, the only people who can raise money from professional investors with an idea on a napkin are founders with previous successful exits. While I have yet to raise funds for my own company (I joined Aviary after it had already raised a series B), I have gained some exposure to the early-stage investing space by helping to source a few deals for investors.

Thankfully, there are plenty of great brains and business leaders who share those experiences and lessons online. But which voices are the best when it comes to management and leadership? We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs, this question:

“Who are the best bloggers to read for advice on improving your management leadership skills?”

Here’s what the YEC community had to say.

Small business owners need information to make their small businesses grow, information on things like getting business loans and using e-mail marketing and social media. We’ve put together a roundup below that has a a bit of it all. Please take the time to drop by and see whether these tips can help you.

Business Funding

Apply for a small business loan. If your small business needs money, you can apply for a small business loan. There are, of course, risks, and the financing can sometimes be hard to get. But if you’ve chosen this approach, here are some suggestions from Small Business Trends founder Anita Campbell you will want to consider.

Jim Hughes and Phil Robilotto see more than 100 ideas each year from scientists at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, potential innovations with a promise to better diagnose disease, alleviate pain, make medical care delivery more efficient, even save lives.

The biggest challenge is selling investors on the merits of research still in its infancy.

The Association of University Research Parks, with over 200 member parks and companies worldwide, invites you to share your knowledge, expertise and experience with your colleagues and other professionals at their 2012 International Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. We offer professional development to innovation professionals seeking to accelerate job creation and drive economic growth.

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Overview

Proven engines for economic growth and development, university research parks influence their communities in significant ways – creating innovation leading to high-wage jobs. In today’s shifting climate, university and research park executives look to AURP for innovative, cost-effective and impactful ways to grow their community and region. Are your stakeholders, (including university, research park, government, and industry partners) linked in the most effective ways to maximize exposure and transfer of knowledge? Does your research community encourage entrepreneurship to maximize results and accelerate job creation? AURP’s 2012 annual conference, hosted by the internationally recognized University Research Park at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will feature experts who will examine best practices in this area and find strategies to build an entrepreneurial culture and create jobs by increasing ties between universities, research parks, government, and industry partners.

Corporate venture capital investment strategies, goals and outcomes vary greatly depending on the background of the investment manager, a new University of California, Davis, study shows.

In an analysis of the corporate venture capital units of 93 U.S.-based information technology firms, UC Davis researchers found that if managers had private venture capital backgrounds, they tended to invest in start-ups with high-growth prospects — and had less regard for the start-ups’ technological or strategic “fit” with the corporate parent.

On the other hand, if managers came from inside the corporate parent, or had a strong technical background themselves, they tended to invest in start-ups that could fill a strategic need of the larger corporation.

It's no secret that Wisconsin falls well below average among the 50 states when it comes to attracting venture capital, a class of private investment dollars vital to building small startups into jobs-producing companies. However, other building blocks already in place could improve the state's venture picture over time.

The first such foundation is angel capital, which is also private money but usually invested by individuals, networks and small funds earlier in a company's growth cycle – after founders and friends get things started but before venture capitalists get involved. Since the mid-2000s, Wisconsin has experienced a burst of angel investment activity, and preliminary figures from 2011 indicate that investment class held up in Wisconsin despite troubles nationally.

Building a career isn't what it used to be—and we're not talking about the sputtering economy or the 13.3 percent unemployment rate among 20-to-24-year-olds. College graduates entering the job market are supplementing and sometimes circumventing the traditional job-search routine of combing want ads and sending out résumés. They're using online resources to build reputations, demonstrate skills, and give employers a much clearer idea of their strengths.

"The résumé is vanishing as a way of representing who you are," says Launa Forehand of Jobspring, a Silicon Valley recruiting boutique that specializes in entry-level and junior placements. The job seekers looking to fill the nearly 300,000 new jobs in information technology that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts will have been created between 2008 and 2018—a growth rate of 30 percent—are proving their value through participation in online communities, and employers are increasingly using those venues to find and vet candidates.

I've been curious to check out Headquarters Boston, a new shared space in Boston's Marine Industrial Park geared to companies, non-profits, and artists that make and fix stuff. The anchor tenant, Geekhouse Bikes, just moved into the space in mid-February, and founder Marty Walsh (pictured at right) invited me to stop by yesterday.

Walsh started Geekhouse, which custom-crafts steel bikes, in 2002. The company had been operating out of 1,000 square feet in Allston, but Walsh had a vision of a larger space that could also house other makers and artists who didn't mind the smell of welding fumes. HQ Boston is 24,000 square feet, and the rent is about $10 per square foot. He calls it a "co-working space for artisans and creatives."

A new study by UCLA researchers shows that a diet lacking in omega-3 fatty acids, which are commonly found in fish, may cause your brain to age faster and lose some of its memory and thinking capabilities. The research demonstrated that people with lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids have lower brain volumes — equivalent to approximately two years of structural brain aging.

Fish: Good and good for you The 1,575 dementia-free study subjects (average age 67) underwent MRI brain scans and were given tests measuring mental function, body mass and omega-3 fatty acid levels in their red blood cells. Omega-3 fatty acids include the nutrients docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Researchers found that those whose DHA levels were in the bottom 25 percent had lower brain volumes than those with higher DHA levels. In addition, those whose levels of all omega-3 fatty acids were in the bottom 25 percent scored lower on tests of visual memory and executive function, including problem-solving, multi-tasking and abstract thinking.

The problem is well known within the small business community. Although Washington might say that the environment is better for business startups looking to open their doors for the first time, the reality is much different. Funding sources are hard to find and without capital, businesses in the beginning phases of development find it difficult to move past the idea stages.

There’s a new type of funding perfect for small businesses but under current laws, this funding option is illegal. Crowdfunding works like this: If you were opening up a new coffee shop but didn’t have all of the money needed, you could go to one of the many crowdfunding sites online, place your business plan for all to see, and ask for a certain amount of capital.