As more and more college students look for internships, hoping to gain valuable work experience prior to graduation, startups would be wise to create strong internship programs. That was the message of Richard Bottner, founder of the college recruiting firm Intern Bridge and Mark Babbit, founder of the internship matching service YouTern, in a talk yesterday on "Building Successful Internship Programs for Startups."

Almost 70% of college students plan to pursue an internship while in school, a smart move considering that recent figures show that 90% of direct-from-college jobs will go to students who've had internship experience.

Even if you don’t have a job title that has the word green or sustainable in it, there are countless ways to bring sustainability into your job.

This is one reason why I wrote the book, “The Sustainable MBA: The Manager’s Guide to Green Business” — to give individual employees the tools to bring sustainability into their workplace and to change business from the inside out.

We often don’t realize the positive impact that we can have through the decisions we make every day as employees and as consumers — decisions that effect both the companies we work for and the planet.

As we emerge slowly from the first global recession since World War II, many governments have taken a more proactive approach to boost growth and competitiveness, and many business leaders support these efforts. Given the fragility of the business and economic climate—and strained public coffers—the responsibility to get policy right is acute.

Experience shows that governments have, at best, a mixed record in this regard. An important reason why public intervention in markets has been hit or miss is that action has tended to be based on academic and policy research that has looked through an economy-wide lens to understand competitiveness—in other words, whether one country is "more competitive" than another. This approach has all too often failed to capture the fact that the conditions that promote competitiveness differ significantly from sector to sector—and so, therefore, do the most effective potential regulations and policies.

MGI's analysis offers policy makers a pragmatic guide to help them make the right decisions and trade-offs, drawing on a bottom-up, sector-based approach. The research is based not only on McKinsey’s industry expertise but on nearly two decades of MGI sector-level analysis in more than 20 countries and 28 industrial sectors. In the latest research, MGI studied competitiveness and growth in six industries (retail, software and IT services, tourism, semiconductors, automotive, and steel) across eight or more countries in each case, including both emerging and high-income economies. The lessons that emerge from our case studies are applicable to other sectors, both existing and emerging, and across countries at different income levels.

The Small Business Association of Michigan and Small Business Foundation of Michigan have released their 2009-2010 Entrepreneurship Score Card. This comprehensive report examines Michigan’s competitiveness around many entrepreneurial measures including:

* Entrepreneurial Change: The amount of entrepreneurial growth or decline in an economy over the recent years
* Entrepreneurial Vitality: The level of entrepreneurial activity – pace and robustness of entrepreneurial activity
* Entrepreneurial Climate: The capability of an economy to foster entrepreneurship

The report finds the state of entrepreneurship in Michigan to be mixed. Encouragingly, the state improved on the above measures from previous years; Michigan is outperforming most Great Lakes States; and the concept of economic gardening is being embraced more thought leaders in the state. Disappointingly, though, the state still ranks very low in comparison to other states in measures such as economic competitiveness and “Best States for Business.”

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The entrepreneurial spirit must burn brightest in centers of venture activity such as Boston, New York or California, right?

Nope.

The most active states for entrepreneurial activity last year were Montana and Oklahoma, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

The annual study of new business creation found that the two states had the highest entrepreneurial activity rates, with 470 per 100,000 adults creating businesses each month. The other states with the highest rates were Arizona (460 per 100,000 adults), and Texas and Idaho, both with 450 businesses started per 100,000 adults. The five states with the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity were Mississippi (170 per 100,000 adults), Nebraska (200 per 100,000 adults), Pennsylvania (200 per 100,000 adults) Alabama (210 per 100,000 adults) and Minnesota (220 per 100,000 adults).

Everyone wants to hit the water for summer vacation. But there are plenty of places where you should think twice before taking a dip -- it might be your last. The water may look fine, but there are dangers underwater and on the surface. After 2010's succession of shark, jellyfish, and crocodile attacks, travelers wanting to cool off this summer would be wise to take extra care in these locations. Read on for the most dangerous waters in the world.

Topeka, Kan. (May 17, 2010) – Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation (KTEC) has announced its equity investments for fiscal year 2010. During this fiscal year, KTEC has invested a total of $350,000 in five companies: AthletixNation, Olathe; EcoFit Lighting, Inc., Lenexa; KCBioMedix, Inc., Shawnee; Matrix Electronic Measuring, Inc., Salina; and Nitride Solutions, Inc., Wichita.

KTEC invests in early-stage technology-based companies that have the potential to compete on a national or global level, generate revenue, create high paying jobs and, ultimately, provide a return on investment for Kansas.

“As we assess these companies, we look at a number of things, including the marketplace, truly innovative technology, leadership and the ability of the company to attract additional capital,” said Kevin Carr, interim CEO. “In my mind, we‟re trying to find what I call „game changers‟ – companies that will help put this region on the map in terms of building our economy, creating high paying jobs and generating spin-off business for other Kansas companies.”

KTEC investments for FY ‟10 include:

• AthletixNation (AXN) received $100,000 from KTEC. Founded in 2007 by Davyeon Ross, an Olathe-based entrepreneur, AXN is a multi-media sports content provider, delivering college sports video and sports applications to third party web sites and mobile devices. AXN offers a comprehensive technology platform solution that leverages social media tools, video, mobile technology and content management to promote user interaction and engagement.
• EcoFit Lighting, Inc., Lenexa, received an investment of $50,000. Founded in 2008, EcoFit Lighting designs, manufactures and markets high-output LED streetlights. The patent-pending EcoFit module allows municipalities and utilities to utilize existing fixtures, resulting in lower costs, quicker installation time and elimination of waste from discarded fixtures. EcoFit was founded by Cason Coplin, president and COO.
• KCBioMedix, Inc., Shawnee, received an investment of $50,000 from KTEC. KCBioMedix is an early-stage medical device company focused on developing and commercializing products that are used by neonatal healthcare providers to assess and treat feeding issues in premature infants. KCBioMedix was founded by D. Michael Litscher and David Stalling, PhD, in 2006.
• Matrix Electronic Measuring, Inc. recently received $50,000 from KTEC. Jan Srack, president and CEO, founded Matrix in 2003. The Salina-based company developed the Matrix Wand, a patented, Stereoscopic 3-D computer measuring system designed to capture and document images of collision damaged vehicles before, during and after repair. The wireless, handheld tool produces images that can be referenced to an accuracy of two millimeters.
• Nitride Solutions, Inc., Wichita, received an investment of $100,000. The company, founded in 2007 by Jason Schmitt, developed a proprietary high-volume, low-cost production process for Aluminum Nitride substrates for use in lighting, air and water purification, industrial and medical applications.

KTEC‟s application process for direct capital investment includes submitting a business plan, demonstrating through market research that a considerable market exists and demonstrating the potential to create high paying jobs and generate a return on investment. In addition, each company is required to provide matching funds.

About KTEC: KTEC is a Kansas-funded entity charged with promoting technology-based economic development. KTEC assists Kansas entrepreneurs and technology companies by supporting the development of new technologies, through a statewide network designed to support researchers, entrepreneurs and technology companies through each phase of the technology life cycle. KTEC‟s ultimate goal is to create rapid-growth companies and higher paying jobs. To learn more about KTEC, visit www.ktec.com.

Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Michael is on stage to talk about the future of mobile with Facebook’s Chris Cox, Google’s Vic Gundotra, and Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley.

Below find my live notes (paraphrased):

MA: there’s so much with privacy issues around Facebook. What’s happening?

CC: It’s been an intense and humbling couple weeks for us. We’ve spent a lot of time talking to advocacy groups. Mark wrote a post. Starting tomorrow we’ll be rolling out “drastically simple” privacy controls.

A bold concept perfectly in sync with the moment: It's what great companies are built on. It's what shapes the future. It's entrepreneurship at its best.

Where can you find that kind of thinking now?

We looked at 10 areas that are growing fast--from mobile technology and outsourcing to fitness and pets--and found 10 companies in each that bring jaw-dropping ingenuity to the table.

California tops the nation in green job openings according to a new analysis by GreenJobSpider.com, a job search engine.

"California is ahead of the pack in green job creation because we are leading the country in adopting ambitious and innovative clean energy and energy efficiency policies," said Susan Frank, Coordinator of the California Business Alliance for a Green Economy." AB 32, California's historic climate and energy security law provides the market certainty the clean energy industries need to invest heavily in a strong workforce in California."

Which American cities will lead the nation into the next decade?

No doubt the challenge must be met with a delicious mixture of creativity, livability and innovative ideas. The folks at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine commissioned Kevin Stolarick, research director at the Martin Prosperity Institute, to evaluate U.S. cities for growth and potential.

So what did he find? That smart people, smart ideas and — perhaps most importantly — smart collaboration between government, universities and businesses “really supercharges a city’s economic engine.”

The list of the best-connected countries of the world is topped by South Korea, with average download speeds of 34.14 Mbps, according to Speedtest.net, which today released the results of 1.5 billion worldwide Internet speed tests on its new Netindex.com site. The USA is ranked 26th with 10.16 Mbps, which places us somewhere between the Ukraine and Russia.

Carl Schramm, President and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, discusses entrepreneurship and education with Charlie Rose.

"What's good in the United States is good almost any place in the world. The universal about starting an indigenous economy is getting firms underway. In fact, there's no other variable that explains growth better than the velocity, the rate of which new firms are being formed."

He goes on to talk about Iraq's economy and government's role in entrepreneurship.

With the rise of new angel investors and early-stage venture funds, the venture capital industry is going through a revival, according to Brad Feld, one of the founders of the Boulder, Colo.-based VC firm, Foundry Group. “It’s back to the basics,” Feld told me during a video interview in which I discovered that both of us love Robert Graham’s somewhat over-the-top shirts. Feld is a great interview subject, mostly because he marches to the beat of a drum that is uniquely his own.

After all, it’s not every day you get to talk to someone whose startup investments spawned esoterically labeled sectors such as “Glue,” “Human Computer Interaction,” “Protocol” and “Distribution” by backing companies such as Oblong, Memeo, PogoPlug, SimpleGeo and Zynga. Foundry also invested in Sling Media, which was subsequently acquired by Echostar for $380 million.

Cell phone companies are finding that they're sitting on a gold mine--in the form of the call records of their subscribers.

Researchers in academia, and increasingly within the mobile industry, are working with large databases showing where and when calls and texts are made and received to reveal commuting habits, how far people travel for public events, and even significant social trends.

With potential applications ranging from city planning to marketing, such studies could also provide a new source of revenue for the cell phone companies. "Because cell phones have become so ubiquitous, mining the data they generate can really revolutionize the study of human behavior," says Ramón Cáceres, a lead researcher at AT&T's research labs in Florham Park, NJ.

Instilling an entrepreneurial spirit in young people has become a popular idea in EU policy circles, but some businesspeople say initiative is something that comes from within and cannot be taught.

Entrepreneurs and policymakers weighed up the merits of inserting entrepreneurship into educational curricula at a debate organised on 25 May by the Generation Europe Foundation and European Confederation to mark SME Week.

You can’t be a product startup if you aren’t measuring revenue/employee number. Unless you are superbly well funded and have lots of cash to throw away, each hire has to have specific KRA and most importantly, the product/service needs to be delivered in the most optimum form.

In fact, at the UnPluggd event, this was one of the key takeaway from Sri Krishna’s session [+ the ratio of sales/engineers in a technology business].

Apple's stock market capitalization (AAPL) has not yet quite surpassed Microsoft's (MSFT), but the value of its actual business is now higher.

Specifically, Apple's business is now worth $200 billion, while Microsoft's is only worth $197 billion--at least by one simple calculation of enterprise value.*

What's the difference between a company's stock market capitalization and the value of its actual business (which is referred to as "enterprise value")?

Minitrends are emerging trends that promise to become significantly important in the next three to five years, but which are not recognized or appreciated by the general public or most businesses. Like precious gems, Minitrends can be extremely valuable to those alert enough to recognize them, perceptive enough to appreciate their potential worth, and clever enough to reap their full potential. This book provides practical, easy-to-understand guidance to assist individuals, small and medium-size companies, and large companies in identifying, analyzing, and exploiting attractive Minitrends effectively.

In February of last year, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The $787 billion act included $500 million allocated to train “green-collar workers” in the environmental sector. The inclusion of this funding in the bill was a major boon for the city of Philadelphia, whose own commitment to building a green economy was well under way.

The Philadelphia initiative was spearheaded by local BALLE chapter and founding member Sustainable Business Network of Philadelphia (SBN). SBN Executive Director Leanne Krueger-Braneky heard Van Jones, author of The Green-Collar Economy, speak at the 2007 BALLE annual conference. Inspired by his work to bring green jobs to disadvantaged communities, Leanne realized that green jobs development could have an enormous, positive impact on Philadelphia’s low-income communities. She invited Jones to Philadelphia where he challenged the city to meet a simple, straightforward goal: train 100 low-income individuals in green jobs within one year.