Former President Bill Clinton hit the Sunday shows and was on NBC's "Today Show" on Monday morning, all to highlight his massive Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York this week. The CGI brings together heads of state and leaders from all walks of life around the world. It is timed to coincide with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

Click below for fascinating list of speakers.....

below, from CGI....

President Clinton Announces "Conversations on Courage" at 2011 Clinton Global Initiative

President Clinton Announces "Conversations on Courage" Featuring Aung San Suu Kyi, General Secretary of the National League for Democracy and Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative

AT&T is officially launching its 4G LTE network in five cities today, according to the carrier. That means if you’re an AT&T subscriber living in San Antonio, Chicago, Dallas, Houston or Atlanta your mobile Internet access should be faster today. The rest of the country will have to wait jealously until AT&T expands the service to 10 more cities (70 million United States residents total) by the end of the year.

LTE stands for “Long Term Evolution” and it provides a wireless broadband technology that helps mobile devices get faster Internet access. The 4G stands for “fourth generation,” meaning this version of LTE should be faster than the previous editions.

Facebook hosts 140 billion photos, and will add 70 billion this year, according to the blog of photo-sharing site 1000memories. Putting this in context, 1000memories made the following visualization which shows how big Facebook's library of photos are in comparison to other photo sharing sites, as well as the Library of Congress.

There’s been quite a bit of chatter about the “Brian Cox Effect” in the UK recently, as interest in science seems to be on the rise.  But I haven’t heard anyone talking about the “Charlie McDonnell Effect”.

Maybe it’s because Charlie appeals more to a growing movement of teens who just want to immerse themselves in awesomeness, rather than science advocates on the lookout for the next Carl Sagan.  Maybe it’s because Charlie doesn’t fit the mold as science communicator extraordinaire – he didn’t even go to University for goodness sake!  But like it or not, 20 year old Charlie McDonnell is reaching out to millions of teens when it comes to science, and engaging with them in ways few others are even getting close to!

We have heard several entrepreneurship-based proposals recently to get our economy back on track, but one piece seemed to be missing this whole time in the debate: re-evaluating Sarbanes-Oxley for young firms. We have long known that the compliance costs associated with SOX—particularly section 404—have been discouraging many companies from going public, thereby blocking their access to capital and growth. Researchers have suggested that Congress address this issue in some way, and a measure to allow shareholders of companies with market cap below $1 billion to opt-in under SOX was one of the ideas floated in the Startup Act released mid-July. The measure is now gaining track in Congress.

Last week, Rep. Ben Quayle introduced a bill called the Startup Expansion and Investment Act (H.R. 2941), which allows new companies with a market capitalization under $1 billion to opt-out of regulations within section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for the first ten years after going public. To inform investors, a company must disclose in its annual reports that it chose to opt out of section 404. Currently, the market capitalization threshold to be exempt from complying with section 404 is $75 million. This high-impact, low-cost reform could significantly expand the number of companies that access the public markets.

According to ES Research, between 85% and 90% of sales training has no lasting impact after 120 days. At the same time, companies are spending billions of dollars on sales training each year. That’s billions of dollars wasted on training that disappoints and only produces short-term boosts in sales...at best.

Training can be a disappointment right away when it just doesn’t go well, or it can be a disappointment months later when results don’t materialize. Regardless, sales training strikes out a lot. When it does, it’s usually because of common and predictable reasons.

Ross Thomson

Radical technological changes involved new knowledge, but how was that knowledge generated? In the case of electrification in the United States, I argue that two sources of knowledge were fundamental to the widening of electrical technology: practical knowledge associated with the telegraph and the conclusions and methods of applied and pure science. The telegraph industry was the most important for-profit antecedent. Its agents, knowledge, and networks were essential to later electrical innovations, as a sample of the 5,300 patents issued to 250 telegraph inventors from 1836 through 1929 demonstrates. These innovations then took on their own dynamics. Scientific knowledge in the not-for- profit sector, often developed in colleges and spread through teaching and publication, solved problems beyond the knowledge of telegraph operators and inventors. A study of 212 major electrical inventors shows that innovators commonly, and over time increasingly, learned off the job through formal and informal education, networked in scientific and engineering societies, published frequently, and taught others in meetings and in colleges. Economic and extra-economic sources of knowledge interfused more tightly as the period progressed.

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WASHINGTON—A top Securities and Exchange Commission official said there could be benefits to easing rules limiting entrepreneurs from tapping investors for small amounts of capital, as long as doing so doesn't create openings for scam artists.

The rise of the Internet has allowed creative artists, nonprofits and entrepreneurs to use "crowd-funding" techniques to raise small amounts of cash from a large number of people. But SEC rules currently bar companies from issuing shares in exchange for the capital without first registering with the agency.

Kansas has always been a state of strong views, especially when it comes to politics. One only has to visit the Kansas statehouse and view the famous John Steuart Currey painting Tragic Prelude, depicting a fiery-haired John Brown, to get an idea of the passion that lies beneath the surface of Kansas politics.

While Kansas has long been a “red” state, the governor’s office has see-sawed between the parties and for nearly 50 years state government has been a balanced coalition between moderates in both the Democrat and Republican parties.

In the mid-1980s, in fact, a non-partisan coalition of government, university and business leaders came together in the midst of economic crisis to form a new vision for Kansas. With the three main industries in the state—agriculture, oil and gas and aviation—faltering simultaneously, the coalition sought to diversify the state’s economy by focusing on commercializing new technologies. Bioscience was a key component of that strategy.

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LinkedIn is the social media platform of choice for many business owners and professionals. Whenever I write a post about LinkedIn, dozens of readers email me saying they get more, in terms of making and maintaining connections that provide a tangible benefit, from LinkedIn than from Facebook or Twitter combined.

Say you’ve worked hard to create a great LinkedIn profile. You’ve optimized your LinkedIn profile to make it easier for the right people to find you. And you’ve even started to leverage LinkedIn Today to drive traffic to your website. What’s next?

LinkedIn Groups. Groups are like informal communities based on industries, professions, themes, niche topics… since any LinkedIn member can create one, there are nearly a million groups. Find the right groups and you can keep up with news and trends, make connections, ask and answer questions…

The popular view of a real entrepreneur is someone with a big vision, and a stubborn determination to charge straight ahead through any obstacle and make it happen. The vision part is fine, but successful entrepreneurs have found that the extreme uncertainty of a new product or service usually requires many course corrections, or “pivots” to find a successful formula.

This reality has fostered a popular new startup approach which dramatically improves the efficiency and speed of these corrections, pioneered by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author Eric Ries. His new book on this subject, “The Lean Startup,” lays out how today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses.

If you’re like most small business owners, your business card might bear the title CEO or principal, but you know that on any given day it could just as easily read customer service, sales associate, marketing manager, technology director, accountant…

Small business owners don’t have the luxury of passing duties off to department managers.  The success of your business depends on your ability to wear all the multiple hats needed to keep the wheels of your business turning. At times, the dizzying pace needed can turn even the most capable person into an overwhelmed entrepreneur wearing too many hats.

Paul Graham seemed to take on the role of tech ambassador to the advertising world this week when he spoke at Y Combinator, the startup incubator that he founded. Y Combinator recently held its semiannual demo day for venture capitalists hoping to back its startups. On Wednesday, Graham was speaking to a different sort of audience, with representatives from digital companies and agencies who had come to see Y Combinator's ad-focused startups.

Not surprisingly, Graham placed a big emphasis on technology and measurement. For example, while he acknowledged that creativity still has a role to play in the creation of ads, he also argued that if advertisers have to choose between creativity and measurement, "bet on measurement." In part, he said that's because there will no longer be a single creative unit that's seen by everyone. Instead, advertisers should use audience data to @ycombinator present "a different ad to everybody."

A Wisconsin coalition has recommended creation of a state-leveraged venture capital fund to encourage business development and creation of new jobs.

The report from the Wisconsin Growth Capital Coalition was released Thursday at the Resource Rendezvous conference in Wauwatosa, which attracted startup companies and investors.

The report recommends creation of a master fund-of-funds that would invest in 14 to 20 venture capital funds over time.

The $350 million, state-leveraged, privately managed fund-of-funds would spur private co-investment, the coalition said. These recipient funds would raise an additional $350 million to $1.05 billion and commit to offices, staff and investments in Wisconsin.

STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State officials are reporting significant progress in ongoing efforts to foster entrepreneurship and innovation, form private-sector partnerships, and move more university-developed technology into the marketplace.

That optimistic assessment comes as the White House turns its attention to the vital role major research universities play in the nation's economy during a special event in suburban Washington, D.C., Friday [Sept. 16], President Barack Obama signed the America Invents Act, legislation expected to streamline the patent process and spur invention.

Fulfilling its mission of teaching, research and service, the land-grant institution's central economic development objective is to strengthen collaborations between the university, economic development organizations and businesses to create high-wage jobs, said David Shaw, vice president for research and economic development.

Amid concerns about U.S. innovation and jobs, a new prize—being launched by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in concert with AAAS—will recognize successful university-based commercialization activities.

News of the prize was made public 16 September at the same time that U.S. President Barack Obama signed the America Invents Act into law. Previously known as the Patent Reform Act of 2011, the legislation intends to "convert ideas of American universities and research labs into new products to expand our economy and create jobs," according to the White House.

BERLIN — The courtyard of the nightclub Picknick was packed with partygoers dancing, shouting over the music and snapping photographs of one another, by all appearances just another night in this dilettante party capital. But appearances, on this recent Saturday night, were very much deceiving.

The images snapped with iPhones and Android smartphones were projected in a constantly changing slideshow on the side of the neighboring building by a new photo-sharing application called EyeEm. The plastic foam clouds dangling from the wires crisscrossing overhead were the logos for the popular audio-sharing service called SoundCloud, which has roughly seven million users.

Both companies, co-hosts of the event, are part of Berlin’s rapidly growing Internet start-up scene, which has won the attention of investors in Britain and California, including the high-profile actor-investor Ashton Kutcher, who is a backer of SoundCloud.

My daughter fell on her nose at camp this summer.

This, in a nutshell is why I’m reluctant to seek venture capital or to build my business, FamiliesGo!, in a way that necessitates it.

It’s not that I couldn’t make good use of outside investment money. The deeper into this venture I go the more I appreciate what I could do with an infusion of capital. I could hire or outsource more technical knw-how, and marketing, sales, and public relations help. I could hire freelance writers and bring in an intern or two. All of this would allow me to build the content, tools, and revenue streams I have in mind much faster and improve my odds of developing FamiliesGo! into the Learnvest.com or TheKnot.com of family travel, which it has the potential to be.

But my daughter fell from a very small height flat on her nose. There was a lot of blood and tears and the camp called to have me come get her. After lunch, a story, and much cuddling and reassurance she napped. And I made up for lost time.

Texas A&M University officials today outlined plans to strengthen and enhance research initiatives designed to promote economic development, industry partnerships, commercialization opportunities and student-faculty innovation.

“One way we fulfill the university’s land-grant mission is to ensure that discoveries resulting from important scientific and technological research that transpires on our campus are made available as broadly as possible through research commercialization and outreach,” said Texas A&M President R. Bowen Loftin.

“Public-private research partnerships also help place students in direct contact with industries that can hire them after graduation. Last year the number of organizations that had representatives visit Texas A&M to recruit students increased by 110 percent, and in the fall of 2010, at the height of the recession, approximately 1,500 companies competed for Texas A&M graduates,” Loftin added. “We are firmly committed to further enhancing these partnerships, which we believe are important to the future of our state, nation and world.”

In 1950, more than 30 percent of Americans were employed in manufacturing, working at jobs such as welding, machining and assembly. Today, that number has shrunk significantly: Manufacturing jobs make up less than 10 percent of the U.S. workforce. As the country seeks to reinvigorate its job market and move past an economic recession, the state of U.S. manufacturing has become a hotly debated topic.

To examine manufacturing’s role in economic recovery, students, faculty and representatives of MIT’s corporate partners gathered Thursday afternoon in MIT’s Wong Auditorium for a forum on “Rebuilding the American Economy.” The event was sponsored by the Department of Political Science and by Production in the Innovation Economy (PIE), a new MIT initiative that seeks to analyze the relationship between innovation, production and job creation. Throughout the forum, participants sought answers to a pervasive question: Can the United States keep its innovative edge if it loses its production capabilities?