The dictionary definition of a mentor is “an experienced and trusted advisor,” or “leader, tutor or coach.” The definition of a critic sounds similar, “a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis.” The big difference, of course, is that a mentor looks ahead to help you, while a critic looks backward to tell you what you did wrong.

We can all learn from both of these approaches, but in my view the mentor is far more valuable than a critic. A mentor’s goal is to help you build your strengths to avoid problems and pitfalls, while a critic feels compelled to point out your weaknesses.

The job of entrepreneur is tough enough without a critic on your team, second-guessing your every move. Here are some tips on how to recognize whether a partner, consultant, or employee is a mentor or a critic:

1. Earns your absolute trust. One of the key characteristics of a successful mentor relationship is trust. You should be easily convinced by actions and attitude that the mentor candidate has your best interests at heart.

In the November 26, 2010 edition of the Federal Register, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced a call for applications for two of its economic development grant pools: Planning and Local Technical Assistance.  Applications can be submitted on a rolling basis to EDA and grants must be matched by at least 50%. Eligible applicants are state and local government entities, economic development districts, tribes, higher education institutions, and non-profit organizations. The goal of the grant programs is to assist the creation and implementation of regional economic development plans/strategies that will foster job creation or job retention. For more information, go to http://www.grants.gov and http://www.eda.gov or call the EDA’s Seattle Regional Office at 206-220-7660.

“But I'm not creative!” If that thought is what froze you the last time you decided not to (fill in the blank), it's time to adjust your thinking. Many people who can't draw anything more elaborate than a stick figure allow insecurity about their creativity to stop them from expressing their ideas, says Mark Runco, professor of creative studies at the University of Georgia and editor of Creativity Research Journal. But holding back is a mistake, experts say, because self-expression is known to reduce stress, enhance the immune system, and increase joy.

Psychologists define creativity as producing something that is original and that works—a key aspect of human experience and fulfillment, Runco says. That can cover everything from rearranging your furniture and designing a garden to generating a fresh solution to a business dilemma or world hunger. In general, young children most readily heed their creative impulses, because they haven't started editing themselves out of fear of the judgment of others. Studies have shown that this begins around age 10, when kids start focusing on teachers' rules and what their peers think, a phenomenon known as the "fourth-grade slump."

OK, a flying Humvee doesn’t sound like a very green vehicle—but the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency isn’t interested in green.

DARPA is interested in improving the safety and lethality of U.S. troops in dangerous environments. And it is willing to pay handsomely for it—to the tune of a five-year, $65 million research program to develop what it calls a “Transformer” vehicle that works like a Humvee on land, but can also fly.

No, this isn’t an Onion article. The goal is to be able to carry four troops and their gear (1,000 pounds) over a distance of 280 miles on one tank of fuel, by any combination of air and land, the agency says. The vehicle must be able to take off and land vertically—meaning it will fly like a cross between a helicopter and a plane (see drawing above). And, oh yeah, it has to be piloted by an average Marine Corps soldier without any flight experience. In other words, it needs to fly mostly by itself.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Several of the most promising technological research projects at University System of Maryland-related labs are getting a strategic infusion of federal cash to help them through the most difficult phase of development, and toward the commercial market.

With $5.1 million in federal funding, the Maryland Proof of Concept Alliance teams University System of Maryland research institutions and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), in support of a wide array of emerging technologies. The University of Maryland, College Park is administering the program.

Eleven grants were announced today at the National Council for Entrepreneurial Technology Transfer conference in Washington, D.C.

A few angel investors have slipped or fallen from their lofty perch, so entrepreneurs must take great care to validate the character and reputation of every prospective investor. The entrepreneur’s tendency to be in a huge hurry to obtain the funding can end up being disastrous, and play into the hands of these less scrupulous investors.

Many entrepreneurs believe all money is created equal. As long as somebody recognizes their million dollar idea and writes them a check, the source really doesn't matter. In fact, most angels are pure, but there are some exceptions that may cost you more than an investment.

"Don't let people tell you your ideas won't work.

I went through a few years of this before I realized I probably just saw the world differently than the people who said the stuff I was excited about wouldn't work or that people wouldn't want it / use it.

If you're passionate about an idea that's stuck in your head, find a way to build it so you can prove to yourself that it doesn't work."

The most recent BEA state level data shows US per capita income grew by 16.1% during the latest 10 years. Unfortunately, per capita incomes were almost stagnant in several states and one state’s per capita income went down compared to 10 years before. If the trends continue, your children’s quality of living won’t be much different than yours. Here are the top ten states with the worst per capita income growth rates.

Disclaimer: All figures are 10-year cumulative income per capita growth rates. All figures, with the exception of Michigan’s, are small, positive growth rates.

When Nick Friedman and his friend founded College Hunks Hauling Junk, their business quickly became a success. It was also a rude awakening.

The two young founders had trouble managing a growing business; they were young and inexperienced. Here's how they tackled the issue:

The Business: College Hunks Hauling Ju nnk is a company that provides junk removal, labor, moving and hauling services to residential and commercial clients. We also offer franchise opportunities and have over 30 franchises.

China will soon announce a plan to invest a massive $1.5 trillion over five years, with the goal of transforming seven industries -- including biotechnology, alternative energy, IT, materials, science, alternative-fuel automobiles, and clean tech -- into world-class leaders in innovative technology.

Unlike most of the strategies presently in place for creating innovation, the plan does not call for huge government subsidies but relies instead on creating incentives for bank lending, corporate investment and help from local governments. It is thought that China will cut the income tax rate in half – to 7.5% – for investors in those industries.

Reuters broke the news of the new initiative, citing anonymous sources.

The new investment proposal must be approved by the Central Economic Work Conference, an annual meeting that brings together top leaders to map economic policies for next year, which is scheduled to take place later in December.

Although women make up half of the nation's workforce, they hold only 16.4% of corporate offices in the fortune 500, 14.7% of Fortune 500 board seats and 1.6% of Fortune 500 CEO positions (Catalyst 2007). Okay, you've heard all that before. What's new?

Research that explains what may be going on at work. According to researchers Tinsley, Cheldelin, Schneider, and Amanatullah, who authored "Women at the Bargaining Table: Pitfalls and Prospects" women are in a classic double bind: "women may be perceived as competent but unlikable or as likable but incompetent." This bind exists because there are very strong female stereotypes in our culture.

Of course this is not news to any woman in the field, but these researchers discovered that "women who violate gendered expectations incur negative social consequences. In other words, evaluators tend to make negative judgments about women who behave in masculine ways to fulfill the needs of their jobs."

It's eccentric. It's unprofessional. And it makes money. How four people who do exactly what they want run one of the most popular blogs on the planet.

Back in 1999, Mark Frauenfelder wrote an article about new web tools that made it easier to do something called "blogging." His editors at the technology magazine The Industry Standard declined to publish it, concluding that blogging didn't really seem like a very big deal. Turns out it was.

It's certainly been a very good thing for Frauenfelder, who deployed the tools he learned about for his ill-fated article to start posting interesting links and offbeat observations on boingboing.net. In time, three friends who shared a similar appetite for curious information filtered through a nonmainstream worldview -- Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin, and David Pescovitz -- joined him. And by the mid-2000s, Boing Boing had become one of the most-read and linked-to blogs in the world.

We know what happens next: This hobby morphs into a successful business. But Boing Boing's version of that tale is a little different. Frauenfelder and his partners didn't rake in investment capital, recruit a big staff and a hotshot CEO, or otherwise attempt to leverage themselves into a "real" media company. They didn't even rent an office. They continued to treat their site as a side project, even as it became a business with revenue comfortably in the seven figures. Basically, they declined to professionalize. You could say they refused to grow up.

Pittsburgh may not be Silicon Valley, but the state's second-largest city hopes to recapture some of its former steel-era glory by becoming a hub for technology start-ups.

Bill Gates wannabes can get advice and capital from InnovationWorks, an economic development organization designed to help tech start-ups that could boost the southwest Pennsylvania economy.

The region's largest seed-stage investor, InnovationWorks has provided more than $45 million in financing to more than 125 technology start-ups since it started ten years ago. Business consulting also is available for start-ups, while a grant program helps small manufacturers boost their efficiency and universities develop ideas that could turn into viable products.

We are approaching the expiration of tax subsidies for corn ethanol. Established in 2004, the initial purpose of the subsidy was to help nurture a nascent biofuels industry, help reduce America’s oil dependence, and serve as a stepping stone to cellulosic biofuels. However, the time has now come for us to stop subsidizing corn ethanol and let it compete as a fuel on its own economic and environmental merits.

Why should the corn ethanol subsidy expire? From a technological and economic standpoint, corn ethanol production has little potential upside left in process cost reduction; public interest subsidies should be used to introduce new competition to markets or support new technologies to get down the early cost curve, not to support mature technologies.

Additionally, the subsidies that are in place have enabled some very large businesses to collect hundreds of millions of dollars per year of taxpayer cash without truly fostering, with rare exceptions, new technology development from non-food crops that can scale enough to help wean America off of foreign oil. Corn ethanol has become a dead-end street with little public benefit. The same money could be more effectively spent on emerging cellulosic, non-food biofuel technologies that are in fact being suppressed by corn ethanol’s maturity and subsidies for both the corn and the ethanol.

Stocking stuffers are a must. These little, often trivial items, can make or break a Christmas morning. Whether you’re shopping for a fledgling nerd-in-training or one with a bit more XP, these stocking stuffers will certainly bring them a bit of joy and happiness. All items are under $13, giving the frugal gift giver a bit of breathing room in your holiday budget. Even if you don’t have a stocking to stuff this year, there’s probably something here to satisfy your requirement as a Secret Santa to either someone at work, or even as just a little gift to yourself.

Every year, Lightspeed Venture Partners goes on record with some prognostications for what the future holds. You can check out our 2010 predictions here (we figure we scored about a B on those). Here’s what we’re predicting for 2011:

1. Putting fun into e-commerce
In 1995, when Amazon.com was founded, e-commerce was like the proverbial talking dog. It wasn’t about how well the dog could talk, it was amazing that the dog could talk at all. The first generation of e-commerce sites were focused on functionality, getting the dog to talk better. We got everything from price comparison engines to aggregated user reviews to one-click checkout. These early innovations were focused on optimizing the “workflow” of shopping to get users into the checkout as quickly as possible.

Generally speaking, venture capital firms won’t sign non-disclosure agreements – and that’s usually not a problem. When they do reveal secrets, word gets out. That doesn’t mean you should go in unprotected, says attorney Martin Nichols in this Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture, given at Stanford University. Tools like provisional patents can help, but if at all possible, a firm patent is your best defense. It’s also wise to give VCs a peek at what you’re doing, but not necessarily a full, extensive look.

Tonight I went to go see Peter Thiel speak at Stanford University.  He co-founded Paypal, was an early investor in a bunch of companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc), and is a billionaire.

I jotted down some notes from the talk which I thought were interesting.

• Intensive vs. Extensive - He spent a bunch of time comparing these two types of innovation.  Intensive is building something new and truly innovative.  An example would be the Macintosh or Paypal – both blazed a trail to create something that had never been created before.  It’s carries a higher risk of failure but also greater rewards.  Extensive is building on ideas which are already in place.  It can be  a safer way to build a company, but not as lucrative.  An example would be putting accounting software online.  Or doing another social network.
  
• China - He compared China and the U.S. saying that China’s next 20 years of growth are clearly extensive.  They can simply copy the model which is the U.S. and grow rapidly (build this many airports, this many steel mills, etc).  The U.S. can’t afford to do that and has the much harder job of pursuing intensive growth.  We can’t just make more doctors, lawyers, bankers, and houses.  To grow we need to build stuff the world has never seen (technology).

As Ireland faces up to its economic failings after a $111 billion European Union bailout was finalized this week, it must gather strength from its literary and artistic tradition to pull itself back from the brink, academics have argued.

The Irish government was forced to accept the EU bailout in an attempt to keep its sinking economy afloat. It also proposed a four-year austerity plan that would see the loss of as many as 25,000 public sector jobs, the implementation of pay cuts for new staff and a hike in a key tax. The measures mark a nadir for the nation once dubbed the "Celtic Tiger" because of its rapid economic growth in the decade before the global recession hit.

It’s getting very expensive for European countries to borrow money — not just Greece and Ireland, but, also Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The U.S., on the other hand, can still borrow money incredibly cheaply. Here are the figures from today:

Jess Jiang/NPR

This, at the moment, may be the most important distinction between the debt picture in the U.S. and Europe. It means that the U.S. can continue to finance its deficit spending relatively cheaply, while European countries are forced to spend more and more just to pay the interest on their debt.