A reader asks: We just got a term sheet from a VC and we were hoping you could help us understand certain timing provisions. In the last paragraph, there is language about the term sheet expiring “at 5:00pm on the day following the date hereof if not accepted by the company prior to such time.” Also, in a section called “No Shop” there is language that the company “shall not negotiate with or enter into any agreement with any other person … for a period of 90 days following the date hereof.” We’ve been talking to a bunch of VC’s and don’t want to lock ourselves in. Can we get these provisions deleted?

Answer: As I have previously discussed, in order to obtain negotiating leverage in any transaction, including a VC financing, you need to create a competitive environment (or the perception of one).

Happiness is somewhat in our control.

Studies show that 50% of a person's happiness is genetic, 10% is circumstantial, and 40% is based on intentional activity.

So, how can you shift that 40% in your favor?

Psychologists have found a lot of surprising things that make people happy.

The Internet has a problem. It’s one you know well. The signal-to-noise ratio is getting out of hand. In non-geek speak this means that there is so much information out there now it’s hard to separate the good stuff from the rest.

We all now visit UGC sites to learn about products & services before we use them. I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the past two years and bending the ears of any entrepreneur who will humor me to hear what I think the solution needs to look like. I call it “recommendation slicing.” I guess I sort of want “Pandora for everything else.” Why can’t I have it?

Some people say that laughter is the universal language. Others say love. Still others say stock options. The producers of the video below say music. Whatever language you speak, one thing is clear: at the core of who we are, beyond our differences, titles, and strategic plans, we all speak the same language.

Whether you’re a brick and mortar or you’re strictly an online shop, you need a we site. And while many small business owners are starting to come to terms with this, I can’t tell you how many SMBs I’ve spoken to who have spent considerable amount of money (often five figures) on a website that simply “didn’t work.” Either it didn’t do a good job selling, wasn’t spiderable (please don’t build your whole site in Flash) or simply didn’t address any of the things important to wary customers.

Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure your site will give customers the information they need before you invest in a flashy (no pun intended) design.

What is your biggest weakness?

It's an age-old question you never know how to prepare for before the big interview. Chances are, it might not come up, but if it does, you need to be ready.

You have to provide an answer that's honest without making you look incompetent. Not an easy task, explains Harvard Business Review, but not impossible either.

If you're lobbed the question, follow these simple tips:

1. Have an answer ready. Suggest a quality that can be improved, or one that will not affect your job too much-- like how you went to a great school in California, but no one out East seems to have heard of it. And don't be like Michael Scott from NBC's The Office: "I work too hard, I care too much and sometimes I can be too invested in my job." No one's buying that.

On Monday I was at the White House to help announce the Startup America Partnership. As part of this, TechStars announced the TechStars Network, an affiliation of TechStars-like programs across the country along with our commitment to the Startup America Partnership to help 5000 experienced mentors work with 6000 entrepreneurs to create 25,000 new jobs by 2015. For an awesome description of Startup America, please read Aneesh Chopra’s (the United States CTO) post on TechCrunch titled Startup America: A Campaign To Celebrate, Inspire And Accelerate Entrepreneurship. By the way, I think it is awesomely cool that the CTO of the United States blogs on TechCrunch!

The university needs science, but how much does science need the university?

The university needs science because some 97.5 percent of the sponsored research funding flows to science faculty members. It needs science because graduate science departments attract the largest share of international students, many of whom come with external funding. It needs science because science is its last bastion of intellectual credibility. It needs science because the most potent rationale for continuing state and federal support is that universities drive technological innovation and jobs, and this claim rests almost exclusively on the contributions of university science faculty. It needs science because science departments are a magnet for many smart undergraduate students who wouldn’t come to seek degrees in other stuff.

The 1990s were a revolutionary time Israel's economic development. The government created Yozma, the innovative venture capital vehicle structured by the Israeli government, saw an inrush of venture capital, a wave of NASDAQ IPOs, and benefited from a surge in corporate technology acquisitions. Recent accounts represent the period as a case study for governments looking to foster entrepreneurship. But that story is so incomplete as to mislead policy makers. In fact, developments in the 1990s were the fruits of a process almost forty years old.

The real timeline:
1. 1950s. The seeds of Israel’s entrepreneurial revolution were sown in the late 1940s and 1950s. Israel’s first (Weizmann) and fourth (Katzir) presidents were scientists. Both believed strongly in the role of science in national defense and societal prosperity; in and of itself unique in the world and a strong message about national priorities. The first military technology transfers took place then, half a century before Mirabilis created ICQ, the first instant messaging system.

If you are just plain tired of working so hard, or your startup is not getting the traction you expected, should you shut down cleanly, or just file for bankruptcy and walk away? For those who think that bankruptcy is the easy way out, think again. Bankruptcy should always be the absolutely last resort.

The “advantage” of filing for bankruptcy, of course, is that it gets creditors permanently off your back, with no continuing lawsuits, based on funds derived from selling all assets. You can hand the stressful job of liquidating assets and negotiating with creditors over to the court.

Many people who heard U.S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech last week found it uncharacteristically uninspiring. One of its few powerful notes, though, was its focus on innovation as the remedy to America’s economic malaise. Recalling the space race with the Soviet Union during the 1950s that unleashed innovation in new technology and ultimately created millions of jobs, the President said, “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.”

A week later, the White House has followed up on that rhetoric with a program that promises to invest $2 billion in innovative small businesses. Headed by former AOL CEO Steve Case, the new initiative — named “Startup America” – envisages two fiscal measures. First, it seeks to make permanent the elimination of capital gains tax for key investments in small businesses, which was introduced last September as a temporary measure. And second, the program aims to expand tax credits for private sector investments in start-ups. In addition, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is being asked to direct $2 billion in funds over the next five years to “match private sector investment funding for start-ups and small firms in underserved communities, as well as seed and early-stage investing in firms with high growth potential, through its Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program,” according to a media report.

January saw the recorded music industry announce another set of grim figures while waving a white handkerchief. An International Federation of the Phonographic Industry report showed that the growth of digital music halved over 2010, with its chief executive, Frances Moore, stating that digital piracy remains the biggest threat to the future of creative industries.

But away from the crumbling of traditional structures that have for decades supported musicians, film-makers et al, there's been a feelgood story brewing online that suggests that our enthusiasm for giving money in exchange for creativity has far from disappeared. Crowdfunding is a modern spin on the ancient system of patronage, and the polar opposite of file-sharing; if we're fond of what someone's doing, we give them some cash. Sometimes we get something in return, but more often it's just for the karmic glow of having helped a project to come to fruition.

A few days ago, my boyfriend sent me a link to a video he said I absolutely had to watch. He first saw it in a seminar at work.

The short video introduces viewers to Dewitt Jones, a National Geographic photographer, who shares some of his thoughts on creativity and, essentially, everyday life.

In the video, he talks about a key lesson he’s learned: There are amazing things for all of us to see every single day. Whether we actually see these remarkable things depends on our perspective, or as Jones says, on our ability to be creative.

January brings with it enough hype and hyperbole to confuse even the most hardened of technology trend watchers. With CES now behind us and a few weeks to hone our forecasting skills, here are the trends we believe are worth your attention and the ones that should be looked at with a skeptical eye.

Top 5 overhyped technology trends for 2011

1. Google Chrome OS An innovative new OS for netbooks sounded great — in 2009. Consumers looking for netbooks are already shifting their attention to tablets, a trend which will intensify as Android tablets hit the market en masse later this year. Chrome OS will be among the biggest casualties of this shift, as businesses will ignore Chrome OS and consumers will be too busy playing Angry Birds on their iPad 2 to care.

As the global economy struggles to correct itself, and social-media marketing becomes a strategic imperative, small businesses will have exciting opportunities to expand in new directions this year.

The need for trust, value and brand transparency, among other trends from last year, are just as important today. But the current shift to geotargeting, mobile marketing and online reputation management require that small businesses modify their plans to surpass competitors.

I hear a lot of concern that professionalism is dead or at least dying in the workplace as this new generation of workers has been entering the workforce.

Those of us preparing college students for their careers face it almost everyday as professors – students who seem to lack the professional skills and even basic social skills that they will need to succeed in business. We have students who text message as we talk to them in our offices, who wear their hats on backwards, who sleep in class, who check Facebook during lectures, and even some who answer a cell phone call during class.

The Tennessee Technology Development Corporation (TTDC) is now accepting applications for three grant programs designed to stimulate science and technology research, commercial development of products and services, and entrepreneurship in our state.

The TTDC Technology Maturation Fund is a competitive funding program that will award grants of up to $50,000 to researchers affiliated with qualified institutions or for-profit entities partnered with Tennessee research institutions in order to commercialize intellectual property and accelerate the development of projects that have commercial potential.

New Orleans experienced an unprecedented influx of entrepreneurial talent and energy in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but activities like meet-ups and networking can take those entrepreneurs only so far. At some point new ventures need capital, and that’s just what John Elstrott and Ralph Maurer, faculty members at the A. B. Freeman School of Business, hope to provide.

Ralph Maurer, left, and John Elstrott, center, faculty members at the A. B. Freeman School of Business, are part of the management team behind the New Orleans Startup Fund. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)

Elstrott and Maurer are part of the management team behind the New Orleans Startup Fund, a new nonprofit venture capital fund created to provide local high-potential ventures with seed capital, a critical need in the entrepreneurial community.

I floated a message in a bottle out to the small business community, asking how owners and entrepreneurs keep their heads on straight, staying positive and focused, during the inevitable trials, tribulations, and stresses of business life. Little did I know how many bottles full of interesting experiences and wisdom would come back.

I don’t know about you, but my DNA and psychological makeup are always conspiring against me, narrowing my vision to the latest fire I need to put out, or making me worry about too many things I probably shouldn’t worry about. I know better, but I am a (recovering) obsessive and pessimist, so every day is a battle to avoid distraction and overreaction to the ups and downs of my business. So, I thought I’d cast a net out into the entrepreneurial community to see how my peers deal with their “downs.”