Thomas Jefferson once said that “honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom”. Though truth-telling abounds in grade school platitudes, it seems scarcer the older we get. But this decline in honesty — let’s call it dishonesty — isn’t necessarily innate. Dishonesty can be taught. In my experience, I’ve noticed that, of all culprits, college career centers are exceptional traffickers of such miseducation. In the process, they’re hurting their brightest students’ chances of making it in the world of startups by convincing them to give dishonest answers to tough interview questions.

FOR BUSINESSES seeking scale, the process of funding growth is often characterised as an escalator – with founders initially staking personal capital, then finding angel support, then venture capital, and ultimately accessing public markets. While arguably simplistic (the academic Paul Gompers, for example, has argued that different funding sources are more suited to some business models than others), the escalator is a useful concept for understanding how companies can successfully fund growth. Between 2001 and 2007, for example, 8 per cent of firms that achieved a Nasdaq listing had raised money from angels and venture capital in succession.

Image Courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve started businesses in Washington. I’ve raised money here and hired folks here. My testimony focused on my entrepreneurial story. I talked about the various businesses I have started, ran, and sold. I talked about my experience raising angel and institutional capital in Seattle very recently. The thrust of my testimony was to tell my story and talk about how these proposed crowdfunding laws could have helped me at every step of the way. As a twelve year old with a popular website, I could have raised money from friends and family. As a college student generating 7 figures for my gaming services company, I could have also raised money from customers and vendors. As a grad student launching a startup with a talented team, a big vision, and a sexy space, I could have raised funds from the general public. I could have benefited from these laws at each step of the way, had they been enacted.

— Adam Lieb, Why I testified in favor of crowdfunding today

 Image: http://www.crowdfundinsider.com

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report finds entrepreneurship a satisfying career choice worldwide - especially for women within innovation-driven economies.

(Santiago, Chile- January, 2014) Entrepreneurs are among the happiest individuals across the globe when it comes to personal well-being and satisfaction with their work conditions according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2013 Global Report.

The GEM report’s special topic, Entrepreneurship and Well-Being, also found that women entrepreneurs from innovation-driven economies showed, on average, higher degrees of personal well-being than their male counterparts.

Entrepreneurs worldwide – at both the established and early-stage phases – exhibited higher ratings on subjective well-being compared to populations not involved in entrepreneurship activities, suggesting that entrepreneurship could be a good career choice for most.

“Our idea”, said José Ernesto Amorós, report co-author, “is to contribute to a better understanding about what influences a population’s perceptions about well-being and how that consequently shapes entrepreneurship indicators. One interesting finding is that in all regions, entrepreneurs exhibit relatively higher rates of subjective well-being in comparison to individuals who are not involved in the process of starting a business or owning-managing a business. Another relevant result is that female entrepreneurs in innovation-driven economies exhibit on average a higher degree of subjective well-being than males. This initial assessment opens up possibilities for exploring the role of women and men entrepreneurs beyond the traditional notion of development generally associated with economic indicators”, Amorós said.

Each year, Speakers Platform recognizes five speakers within ten popular topic areas. Excellence in speaking is based on: expertise, professionalism, client testimonials, presentation skills and original contribution to the field. The only substantive requirement is that the candidates' standard keynote presentation fee be under $30,000USD. Once the nominees are chosen, online voters determine the final Top5 honorees. Women secured more honoree slots this year than any year in the past - almost sweeping some categories such as "Communication / Diversity". Job well done!

Over 12,000 votes were received at Speaking.com for the initial 165 nominees- from business leaders, educators, association members and others from around the world. Many voters praised the nominees for having a profoundly positive impact on their lives; a living testament to the far reach and valuable work of all the nominees. Please join us in congratulating your 2014 honorees!

Richard Bendis was listed in the top 5 in the Innovation / Creativity category.  Thanks to all those who voted and helped spread the word!   —Ed.

Abstracts are solicited for oral or poster presentation. Submissions will be reviewed and selected by the conference technical program committee. Abstract preparation guidelines.

Please visit the symposia pages for information about the scope and aims of each symposium and to learn about our prestigious invited/keynote speakers. Nanotech2014, Advanced Materials and Applications Microtech2014, Electonics and Sensors Biotech2014, Pharma and Biomaterials Cleantech2014, Energy and Efficiency

Final Abstracts are due January 22!  —Ed.

A short documentary about a Chinese boot-camp-style treatment center for young men “addicted” to the Internet.

Which article would you rather read? "A Synopsis Of Recent Construction in Shanghai" or "Five Unbelievable Future Buildings In Shanghai?"

Probably the tantalizing second one. It's so bite-sized and easily digestible, more like drinking a smoothie than munching on a handful of kale. We can't really help it, says New Yorker writer Maria Konnikova: "there’s little that our brains crave more than effortlessly acquired data."

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ash Rust had good reason to think his start-up would take off. He's a co-founder of SendHub, a start-up that lets companies set up corporate phone systems using their employees' smartphones. In 2012, Rust and co-founder Garrett Johnson raised $2 million in seed funding in two weeks. Their service worked well, and more than 5,000 businesses signed up. So when it came time last spring to hit up VCs for the several million dollars in Series A funding SendHub needed to keep growing, Rust expected smooth sailing.

Image: http://www.inc.com 

In a somewhat alarming statement to Apple fans, Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling biography ‘Steve Jobs’, said Google takes clear lead when it comes to innovation in the tech industry.

Of course, it is difficult to forget the first real home computer from Apple, its infamous Macintosh, its iMac and also its highly disruptive, history-making iPhone. But Apple’s brand, once synonymous with vision, now seems to have lost its touch because of lack of innovation and this might hint towards the beginning of its demise.

Venture Capital The Catalyst For Innovation In Russia

Venture capital funds have nurtured Russia’s national innovation system, said a top official with state-owned Russia Venture Company (RVC).

Russia’s venture market was the fastest-growing market in Europe, and ranked fourth in Europe in Y 2012 in terms of numbers, CEO of RVC, Igor Agamirzian, said in an interview.

Established in Y 2006 by the Russian government, the company serves as an incubator for high-tech startups in the country as well as a channel to the venture capital.

Image: http://www.livetradingnews.com 

Sun Mountain Kegonsa, selected to oversee the state-sponsored venture capital effort, envisions creating a handful of funds across Wisconsin that seeds as many as 100 early-stage, job-creating companies and breeds a new generation of young venture capitalists.

The resulting increase in deals, and the growth of a sustainable venture capital industry, would lure out-of-state investors, creating an ecosystem the likes of which has not been seen in Wisconsin in decades, perhaps even a century, the firm says.

Image: http://www.jsonline.com - Ken Johnson 

LinkedIn has developed a killer resource of 225 million users, one you absolutely should take advantage of when it comes to your career. But you'll have to navigate LinkedIn's potentially tricky tools and settings while you're at it. Not to mention take care to maintain proper etiquette at all times. That's a lot of pressure.

Chances are, if you do use LinkedIn, you're approaching the network from a job seeker's perspective — if not now, then in the future. Or maybe you're a recruiter or a PR representative looking to network and pitch via LinkedIn.

I’ve been entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) at two academic institutions (the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and currently, Northern Illinois University), and I had a similar role (but slightly different title) at Argonne National Laboratory. Lately people have been asking, “What does an EIR do?” There’s no unambiguous answer to this question, but I can shed some light on it.

Image: http://tech.co 

Jan 17 (Reuters) - Venture-capital firms ramped up their investments last year and last quarter, particularly in the red-hot software sector, according to a report from the National Venture Capital Association and consultancy PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

For the year, venture firms invested $29.36 billion in startups, a 7 percent increase over $27.32 in 2013. For the quarter, they invested $8.37 billion in start-ups, 20 percent more than the same time last year and more than any quarter since the end of 2007.

Image Courtesy of renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Crowd Funding will be an important factor for many new cloud based startups vying for attention in 2014.  This industry has grown over 1000%  during the past 5 years and will continue to do so for several years to come. If looking for alternative methods to pitch your idea to an audience outside of the traditional VC, Angel  and Private Equity channels, than Crowd Funding may be the way to go. Below is an excellent infographic originally published at: Entrepreneur.com

Image: http://www.cloudtweaks.com 

If you want to be perfectly on trend in 2014, you might consider launching a Bitcoin-related startup in Austin. If you do, make sure you bring on plenty of executive-lady power, don't even think about taking your startup public, and be sure you have an aggressive, multi-channel social media strategy. Oh, and one more thing: Your company had best be working to save the world in some way. 

At least that's what Dell's Entrepreneur in Residence Ingrid Vanderveldt thinks. Vanderveldt put together a handful of predictions on entrepreneurship for 2014. While some are newer than others, she believes all of them are poised to take off in a big way.

Image Courtesy of Naypong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What do these following crucial, society-altering innovations have in common?

• Transistors 
• Silicon-based semiconductors 
• Mobile communication 
• Lasers 
• Solar cells 
• UNIX operating system 
• Information theory

They all have origins in the amazing Idea Factory, AT&T’s Bell Labs. I’ve had a chance to learn about Bell Labs via Jon Gertner’s new book, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. (Disclosure: I was given a free copy of the book for review by TLC Book Tours.)

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bardeen_Shockley_Brattain_1948.JPG 

Real entrepreneurs are true multitaskers. They are part salesmen, part marketers, part geeks, part strategists, part evangelists and part talent agents, but total execution animals, able to switch with ease between core competencies or arts, as I call them.

Different entrepreneurs are better at some arts versus others, but few if any grasp the most important art in any early-stage venture: the art of funding. Like advice on love and relationships, giga-volumes have been written on the topic of raising capital but it remains a mystery.

Image: Foodie Media Network Corp. 

Another year; another Christmas around the corner.

The conversation around the watercooler these days has evolved into the annual “where has the time gone?” discussion—how quickly the neighborhood kids have become high school graduates; how our hot July beach vacations seem like they were just yesterday; and how we haven’t baked cookies or sent cards or bought gifts yet because time has just been flying by.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/aussiegal