If you are an entrepreneur today, and not using social media to promote your business, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. But, contrary to what most people preach, it isn’t entirely free. Most social media outlets don’t require a subscription charge, but they certainly require an investment – in people, in technology, your reputation, and your time.

There are hundreds of consultants out there who will take your money for guidance in this area, but I recommend that you start with some free resources on the Internet, or one of the many recent books on this topic.

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I have heard some really bad advice about content creation, content marketing, and brand journalism. While the internet is filled with some great advice, there’s a lot of awful advice as well that I’ve overheard, read online, or been directed to do by clients that I’ve strongly advised against. Here are my least favorite pieces of advice on content production:

The age of wearable computing is upon us. Forget the debate over how capable or fashionable the first devices are, how popular they may eventually become, or even whether we fully understand what we’re getting into with these devices (see “The Paradox of Wearable Technology”). The big question is simply: what will they do? And the answer will have much to do with the apps that emerge.

It is a hard economic and political environment for new creators, new artists and new projects.

Shows go off the air. Amateur artists never get that lift off the ground for their projects.

Despite desires and spending budgets for more content, some work never comes into being, mostly blocked by uninterested large companies.

There is a need for a simpler way for creators to fund their projects, and Kickstarter is one of the latest crowdfunding campaigns that aims to do just that.

Kickstarter is a place where consumers can directly fund a project they want to see through fruition.

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The INCUBATE startup accelerator at the University of Sydney will expand to other universities across Australia under a partnership with Google.

INCUBATE is a startup accelerator program developed by the University of Sydney Union. It was originally open only to students and alumni at the University of Sydney, but the Google partnership expands the program to new educational institutions across the country.

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With a host of companies under his belt, serial entre-preneur Rich Schmelzer launched his latest company, Boulder, Colo.-based GeoPalz, pretty much the only way he knew how. He bootstrapped.

But then a funny thing happened: Schmelzer met the Swoosh.

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It’s good that we acknowledge entrepreneurs, but I think we sometimes forget to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit — that subtle and yet powerful notion many of us harbour to pursue a business idea. Entrepreneurs don’t fit a particular mold. The greats — Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, for example — all illustrate a passion and a belief in the ideas they found compelling.

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Washington — The budget impasse that brought nonessential operations of the federal government to a halt on Tuesday also had a major impact on Web sites used by many educators, researchers, and students.

The shutdown, which triggered furloughs for approximately 800,000 federal workers and the closing of offices, research labs, and national parks across the country, is expected to affect colleges, students, and academic scientists only minimally at first.

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Jean-Lou Chameau on the essential ecology of science and technology universities

As in previous years, the 2013-14 Times Higher Education World University Rankings will be noted and celebrated – or criticised. Among the plethora of academic rankings, THE’s have gained significant respect and (whether we agree with them or not) influence.

Until recently, I spent my entire academic career in the US, including leadership positions as dean of engineering and then provost of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and then president of the California Institute of Technology. In the summer I left Caltech, a well-established and prestigious institution, to assume the presidency of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a “start-up” in Saudi Arabia.

We live in a digital age. There is nothing highly contentious about that statement. The Internet has driven an explosion in connectivity and given rise to new and innovative ways of working. With its expansive and all pervasive reach, the Internet has subsequently enabled the rise of social engagement and networking as a genuine and acceptable business tool. As the reliability, speed and breadth of coverage have evolved, so too has the importance of this channel for engagement and interaction. None of this is particularly new. However, within the world of innovation, especially open innovation and collaborative open innovation, we do start to enter a world that is far less mature and where concepts are (at least in a digital sense) powered by our connectedness online.

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Talking with a business executive recently about her company’s internal innovation efforts and how Brainzooming could enhance them, she noted a creative thinking session the company held previously. The internal innovation person conducted the entire creative thinking session using just one question: “Wouldn’t it be nice if . . . ?” No matter the situation or opportunity the group was addressing with its creative thinking, the entrée to frame the discussion was always about “nice.”

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Every organization that aspires to greatness has something to learn from relevant success stories of the past. But how should managers go about unlocking the lessons of those efforts? Many of their consultants advocate an engineering approach:

Find multiple examples of organizations that have coped with equivalent challenges successfully. Reverse-engineer the reasons for their success, looking for features that they share in common. Present these shared “success factors” as precepts, rules, and principles that should be implemented by all those who wish to achieve similar levels of success.

Just yesterday, I heard from a Seattle entrepreneur who said he was moving his startup company to San Francisco. It’s not a surprise that the San Francisco Bay Area has an allure for startups, especially given the latest findings from PitchBook.

VC investments in the U.S. by stage. The San Francisco Bay Area increased its share of venture capital financings during the third quarter — accounting for 32 percent of all deals and 43 percent of all dollars. That’s up from 30 percent and 42 percent, respectively in the second quarter.

Image: Pitchbook

An entrepreneur I met recently has several Sand Hill Road venture capitalists (VCs) eating out of his hands. Having launched their product on Kickstarter, they are collecting in pre-orders at the rate of upwards of $20,000 a day. With $3 million in pre-orders at hand, VCs are begging to invest – or get in on this opportunity. The pre-money valuation has risen into the “obscene” category. Without Kickstarter, this company would have been laughed out of any VC meeting with a terse comment – “we don’t do hardware!” As Marc Andreessen correctly pointed out, software is eating the world. And now software is eating venture capital! Online portals like Angellist may have just begun nibbling at toes of Sand Hill road. VCs are burying their head in the sand (or silicon, depending on the geography).Foundry Group is one of the first VCs to look at this wave as an opportunity (as opposed to a threat) and have launched FG Angels syndicating investments via AngelList. Give such online marketplaces a few more years and it will reconfigure the VC landscape completely.

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As the human population continues to inch closer to 8 billion people, feeding all those hungry mouths will become increasingly difficult. A growing number of experts claim that people will soon have no choice but to consume insects.

As if to underscore that claim, a group of student from McGill University in Montreal has won the 2013 Hult Prize, for producing a protein-rich flour made from insects. The prize gives the students $1 million in seed money to begin creating what they call Power Flour. "We will be starting with grasshoppers," team captain Mohammed Ashour told ABC News on Monday (Sept. 30).

Jena (Germany) Entrepreneurship plays an important role for the prosperity of today's modern societies. Those who want to found a company under their own steam and who want to make it an economic success, need more than a good idea and the necessary expertise. Business founders usually are characterized by a quite specific entrepreneurial personality structure. Great companies with long traditions are proof of this, as well as numerous scientific studies. "People with an entrepreneurial personality structure are more open to new experience, more extravert and conscientious. Moreover, they are less anxious and don't tend to avoid conflicts with others," Dr. Martin Obschonka of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) explains. Such a personality structure doesn't come from nowhere. According to the psychologist it is much rather a result of genetic factors and also of experience.

Johnson & Johnson Innovation today announced several new collaborations in the European region to coincide with a 'Celebration of Life Science Innovation' event, hosted by its London Innovation Centre. The event brings together UK life science leaders and scientists from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies to celebrate promising advances and discuss novel collaboration models to deliver better healthcare solutions for patients around the world.

How many times have you heard someone say this:  “If I had known then what I know now, I would never have (fill in this blank with a great story).”   As a rule, the story filling in the blank will be about some unexpected success, or some particularly spectacular failure, or just an interesting narrative.  But successful or not, it is almost always a story that is profoundly important to the teller, a treasured memory, and most likely something that made a big difference in the life of the person telling it.  What makes an “I-would-never-have” story so poignant is the knowledge that something has been lost.  Just behind the narrative there is  more than a touch of nostalgia and yearning for that time when “I didn’t know,” a return to times that were somehow more immediate, more fulfilling and perhaps more productive.   Even so, an “I-would-never-have” story is almost always positive in some way, and there’s an important reason for this.

CANARIE, a vital component of Canada’s digital infrastructure supporting research, education and innovation, today announced the range of Canadian small businesses currently using its cloud-based product development testbed, the Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research (DAIR).

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Two days into a government shutdown over resulting from the Congressional showdown over funding Obamacare, funding is at the front of mind for many researchers who rely at least partially on grants from National Institutes of Health and other government sources. A survey of 608 translational researchers revealed that although insufficient funding is a significant barrier to the path to commercializing their work, there are other related challenges that are just as critical to their future.

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