This is the first of a series on Stylish Entrepreneurs (sponsored by Gillette, yeah!). I’m going to take a closer look at the personal branding of some famous technology entrepreneurs. Who exactly? Well, Kevin Rose, Ryan Carson and some other names you should be familiar with.

I’m starting with one of the most respected and recognizable entrepreneurs in the world: Steve Jobs.

Steve is interesting for this series for several reasons; he is a geek, an icon and he clearly has style.

Is Steve hip? Fashionable? Hmm, not really. But you can give almost anybody in the world the following description and they will know who you are talking about: New Balance Sneakers 993, Levi’s 501, Cashmere & Silk black mock turtleneck.

As part of its ongoing attempts to make its business-oriented network more social, LinkedIn launched an open plugin platform on Wednesday that looks and sounds very much like the “open graph” platform Facebook launched last year with much fanfare. Like Facebook’s offering, LinkedIn now allows developers and website publishers to add various features from the network as widgets or plugins on their pages, so that users can connect their activity to the LinkedIn network. More than any of its previous moves, this one throws LinkedIn into head-to-head competition with Facebook for the clicks and identities of web users.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (CNN) - A website offers a creative way to make money. It turns your designs into sellable creations.

Naidhi Chanani was in a rut. Her 9-5 administrative job wasn't stimulating or lucrative. Like a lot of people, she just needed a change. She says, "And I had heard through a friend that they had started this t-shirt store online and I thought, hmm, maybe I could try that."

Designing a t-shirt may not sound like a calling, but it changed Naidhi's life. It's called Zazzle. To call it a t-shirt store doesn't quite do it justice. It's a business that allows anyone to customize dozens of different products. From posters to iPad cases to shoes, users then have the option of ordering someone else's design.

Allow me to make a wild guess. You have participated in more than a few brainstorm sessions in your life. Yes?

And allow me to make another wild guess. Many of those sessions left you feeling underwhelmed, over-caffeinated, disappointed, disengaged, and doubtful that much of ANYTHING was ever going to happen as a result of your participation.

Yes, again? I thought so.

At the end of the fall semester my wife and I went out to our favorite restaurant, where we found ourselves in a polite scrum with a man and his teenage son for the one seat available at the crowded bar. Although they probably had arrived at the seat just before us, the man generously ceded it to my wife, and we struck up a conversation.

It turned out that they were visiting from Florida, and were in New England for a tour of a nearby university, a larger and more research-oriented institution than the liberal-arts college where I teach. Since I direct the honors program at my college, I told them about it and encouraged the son to consider applying. The father and son both seemed interested, so I gave them my business card, and then a table opened up for them and we parted company.

In today’s social media-focused economy, it’s become increasingly common to have long, complex and lasting business relationships with other people without ever speaking to them in person—or even on the phone. More of the average business’s sales support, customer service and other customer-facing functions are moving to the Web instead of being handled in person. And with cost-cutting foremost on everyone’s mind, conventions, conferences and meetings are all going virtual, too.

In this environment, you might suppose that there’s no longer much need to meet face to face. Well, you’d be wrong. The white paper from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and sales and marketing services company Maritz analyzed scientific research and found in-person events are better than virtual events at capturing attendees’ attention, creating positive emotions and building relationships and networks.

We turned off the lights and switched to the biggest monitor in the house, to get the full planetarium effect of this wonderful website. It’s called the Solar System Scope, and gives you a chance to observe space from within it, rather than dutifully studying it in a textbook or on a screen.

Clicking on the telescope icon to the left lets you toggle between three different perspectives: The heliocentric view, with the planets and stars spinning around you; the panoramic view, which replicates the feeling of watching the skies from the Greenwich observatory; and, since after all we are the center of the universe, the geocentric view, which puts the rest of the cosmos firmly in their place, orbiting the earth.

ANNAPOLIS - The House of Delegates gave the initial green light Thursday to a modified version of Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to fuel innovation and high-tech jobs by pumping tens of millions of dollars into a fund aimed at promoting startups.

The House is expected to cast a final vote Friday on O'Malley's marquee economic proposal for the session. The plan, dubbed "Invest Maryland," would allow the state to auction tax credits to insurance companies over a five-year period to fund early-stage companies specializing in fields such as biotechnology, cybersecurity and life sciences.

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. You know the basic ingredients, and you can visualize the results you want. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together.

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. Alain Theriault, better known as StartupCoach, tells entrepreneurs that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start by writing a cook book (business plan), you work in the kitchen for a while, you learn some tools of the trade, you experiment with a few recipes, you test on willing clients ... then you can start writing a recipe.

The House of Representatives’ Small Business Subcommittee on Healthcare and Technology met Thursday for a hearing on "Creating Jobs Through Small Business Innovation."

At the center of the hearing was a push from both House Democrats and Republicans to reauthorize the Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR). Rep. Sam Graves(R-MO) said the SBIR reauthorization is long overdue, it’s been eight years since the last one was passed. The version being considered will run three-years, which supporting lawmakers say is the right amount of time to review the program to see what is and isn't working.

The European Research Council (ERC) launched a new funding initiative under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7): the ‘Proof of Concept’. Under this initiative, ERC grantees may now also apply for an additional fund to set up, namely, an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) strategy for the results of their prior ERC project. The funds are granted in the earliest stage of innovation and therefore researchers have now the necessary support to bring their research to the market.Following the European Union’s (EU) Europe 2020 Strategy, the ERC’s aim is to reinforce scientific excellence and European research, namely through the support of dynamic and creative researchers. In this context, the ERC provides funding initiatives to support excellent researchers at the start phase of their independent team or programme (ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grants) and pursuing ground breaking research (ERC Advanced Investigator Grants). With the 'Proof of Concept' initiative, researchers holding one of those grants can now also apply for more funds up to EUR 150 000, to turn their research more appellative for potential investors.The first ‘Proof of Concept’ initiative is now open to principal investigators that currently are grant holders or have been for less than 12 months.

So your bank declined after complying with all the requirements necessary in applying for a startup loan? It is very discouraging when after all the efforts you have invested in and the time consumed of securing all the documents needed, you were still rejected by your bank. This loan rejection could affect your business lines of credit for future business loans. But do not take it personally because there are always challenges when going through the business loans application process. Try to stay calm and find out why your application was not approved.

Greetings from D.C. Federal laboratory technology transfer works. It creates high-wage jobs; enhances local, regional and federal tax receipts; supports small businesses; and stimulates economic development. These are the general findings of a recent Navy-sponsored study on the economic impacts of a sampling of technology transfer agreements implemented between Navy labs and various partners between 2005 and 2009.

The Economic Contribution of the Department of the Navy Technology Transfer Program, conducted by the Indiana Business Research Center (Indiana University, Kelley School of Business), highlights the economic impact of 103 of the 620 technology transfer agreements with naval laboratories during that period. While this is only a small sample of the hundreds of Navy agreements—and the thousands of active federal technology transfer agreements across all agencies—at any one time (see the caveat below for extrapolating these results beyond the studied group), the results are impressive nonetheless.

Oil price volatility and supply security concerns, water scarcity, climate change and an ever increasing and consuming population are forming a “perfect storm” of issues, common to all countries around the world, today and for decades to come.

We can either passively wring our hands or we can meet these challenges head on.

For industry, these challenges become opportunities for business growth in applications as broad as buildings, transportation, energy and water infrastructure and general industrial processes.

For many mayors across the country, including New York City’s Michael Bloomberg, the recently announced results of the 2010 census were a downer. In a host of cities, the population turned out to be substantially lower than the U.S. Census Bureau had estimated for 2010—in New York’s case, by some 250,000 people. Bloomberg immediately called the decade’s meager 2.1 percent growth, less than one-quarter the national average, an “undercount.” Senator Charles Schumer blamed extraterrestrials, accusing the Census Bureau of “living on another planet.” The truth, though, is that the census is very much of this world. It just isn’t the world that mayors, the media, and most urban planners want to see.

Canadian CIOs and IT managers may soon find getting their next job involves taking an online assessment that studies their behaviours and tells employers whether they’re the best fit for the role.

Toronto-based search firm TeamQuest Systems said it has become a certified provider of Role-Based Assessment, which evaluates prospective hires based on three areas. These include coherence, or the ability to work with others to achieve common goals, the role or organizational need to which they show the closest affinity, and other teaming characteristics that show how they will perform in certain situations.

Maybe it’s my line of work, but people are always expecting me to have the answers. (If they got a Role-Based Assessment report from my company, it will contain a lot of answers. But from me? – sorry, I didn’t replace my crystal ball when it broke, and since we started using Keurig coffee pods at the office, there aren’t enough tea leaves around here for a decent reading.)

So instead of feeling useless, answer-wise, I thought I’d give you a look at some of my favorite questions.

Our guest this week is Rich Bendis, the founding President and CEO of Innovation America (IA), a Global Innovation Intermediary focused on accelerating the growth of the entrepreneurial innovation economy in America. Mr. Bendis is a distinguished and successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, venture capitalist, investment banker, innovation and technology based economic development leader, international speaker and consultant in Innovation and Economy Building. Mr. Bendis currently serves as the founding President and CEO of Innovation America (IA), a Global Innovation Intermediary focused on accelerating the growth of the entrepreneurial innovation economy in America. IA has a fivefold mission: Global advocate for accelerating awareness of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Early Stage Capital in stimulating Innovation Based Economic Development (IBED). International speaker on Building Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (Voted a Top 5 Innovation Speaker by Speakers Platform), International Consulting on IBED Publishing innovationDAILY and WEEKLY, a daily e-newsletter reporting on Global trends on innovation with a circulation of approximately 500,000 unique visitors in over 185 Countries (Voted The 4th Best Innovation Blogger in The World by Blogging Innovation) and Early Stage Capital Fund of Funds Consulting and Formation.

What is so different about working online? Why do social media scare the sh*t out of many organizational decision-makers?

As I wrote last year, working online is different:

But it’s not about the technology. The real issue is getting people used to working at a distance. For instance, everything has to be transparent for collaborative work to be effective online. Using wikis or Google Documents means that everyone can see what the others have contributed. There is no place to hide. For example, I once developed a Request for Proposals with a large group distributed across several time zones. Everyone could provide input for a specified period of time and then that issue was closed. Later, some people complained that their requirements were not being addressed. I was able to look at the revision history of the wiki and show that they had not even contributed on those issues. This stopped the complaints and we were able to move on.

Startups Wednesdays and Spoondate are both in the business of helping chronically overscheduled tech workers set up social events over meals.

Both startups were part of the 500 Startups Demo day this afternoon, and I got a chance to ask their cofounders where they would go for an important business meal.

Spoondate cofounder Raissa Nebie has a background in food -- she quit her investment banking job a few years back to attend culinary school at the French Culinary Institute and worked in several fine-dining restaurants including Smith in New York.