Small businesses often tell us talent is their most valuable asset. With a lean, efficient team, every person is critical to success. But finding ‘rock star’ talent is a challenge – from identifying  people who fit with your company’s unique values, to competing with big companies’ brands and perks. In addition, many small businesses are in regional centers with less than ample local talent.

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LeanIn.org, a nonprofit founded in concert with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's inspirational business best-seller for women, posted seeking an unpaid intern in New York.

The irony is rich: Sandberg is a billionaire who sold off $91 million worth of Facebook stock just this week and has a nonprofit that is dedicated to, according to its website, "offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals." The book, as well as the network of Lean In support circles Sandberg encouraged women across the country to create, is reportedly inspiring women to ask for more money at work. So, to recruit an unpaid intern may seem a little off-brand.

The new landscape for venture capital investing does not seem to leave much room for classic company formation. Investor after investor has shut down or moved beyond startups into what seem like greener pastures.

So it should come as no surprise that at least a few VC firms are now expanding into the royalty space, as shown by a deal announced this week. Aisling Capital and Clarus Ventures, two top-tier VC firms, acquired 20 percent of the royalty stream created by sales of ibrutinib, a novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor developed by Pharmacyclics (NASDAQ: PCYC) and partnered with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) for use in B-cell malignancies such as chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

The US biotechnology landscape has changed radically in the 20 years since the first BIO International Convention. And while investment is still focused on a handful of states, other US destinations are bubbling under.

High-tech startups are a key driver of job creation throughout the United States, according to research released today by technology policy coalition Engine and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Though they start lean, new high-tech companies grow rapidly in the early years, adding thousands of jobs along the way. In fact, high-tech startup job creation is so robust that it more than makes up for the job destruction from early-stage businesses failures – a key distinction from the private sector as a whole where job losses from early-stage failures turns this group into net job destroyers.

As the leading think-tank investigating the role of place in economic prosperity, the Martin Prosperity Institute has developed a methodology to rank international cities based on the 3 Ts of economic development: Technology, Talent, Tolerance — and a fourth measurement, Quality of Place. To date, we have created scorecards for 61 global cities. Use the map to explore the results!

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What’s one thing you never, ever want to see on a resume from a potential hire?

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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Meet Michael Casill, insurance agent by day, and mixed martial arts fighter by night.

Two totally unrelated skill sets, right? Maybe not.

Casill, who fights for Victory Combat Sports Events, finds that his long hours in the gym, keeping his body in tip-top shape and mentally preparing for his next venture into the ring, absolutely complement his role in the workplace. How? An insatiable drive for success and disciplined routine, even against all odds.

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As August flies by, it’s easy to feel a sense of melancholy. You start scheduling meetings in September--those calendar days looming closer and closer--and you realize that summer is almost gone. But it’s still possible to relish these last days, squeezing more joy out of the minutes.

Here are some simple ideas for doing it:

1. Buy fresh produce.

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Mayoral candidate John Cranley wants to steer more city funding toward innovation and the effort to start up new businesses. Cranley said Thursday he will take $5 million in city capital funds over four years and spend it on a public-partnership “focused on accelerating the growth of the innovation ecosystem.”

To prepare the process of defining post-2015 Millennium Development Goals, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a high level panel to produce a report “on how the post-MDGs could look like”. The philosophy behind the 12 goals formulated is that they should apply to all countries, not just developing ones.

A Chinese meatpacker you’ve never heard of is more innovative than South Korea’s mighty Samsung? According to our latest ranking of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, yes, it is. One of the big surprises from this year’s Innovators List, which measures investor expectation of a company’s future growth prospects, was the emergence of Chinese pork producer Henan Shuanghui at No. 11. (And the absence of better known names such as Samsung, Sony or Canon.) We more or less expected Web giants such as Baidu and Tencent to claim high spots, and they did, given the pressures on them to create new services for China’s vast mobile Web user base, which now ranks no. 1 worldwide in scale.

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There's been a lot of talk about a dearth of innovation in the pharma business. But some drugmakers don't lack creativity. In fact, a few of them actually made Forbes' latest list of 100 most innovative companies on the globe.

Two biotechs made the list--Regeneron Pharmaceuticals ($REGN) and Alexion Pharmaceuticals ($ALXN)--but we'll let FierceBiotech explain that. Our concerns are the four pharma companies: Perrigo ($PRGO), Valeant Pharmaceuticals ($VRX), Novo Nordisk ($NVO) and Mylan ($MYL). They're ranked 22nd, 62nd, 70th and 90th, respectively, based on an "Innovation Premium" that measures stock gains based on expectations of new products, services and markets.

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"And then Eli thought it would be a good idea to start rhyming words," my friend Rochelle told me last night on the phone, "Because no one was coming up with any good ideas using free association."

She wasn't bringing me up to date on re-runs of The Office. She was actually describing a brainstorming session at her company. The leader of the group was making his team -- of grown ups -- play rhyming games as a way of coming up with fresh insights for new product development.

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Sure, Silicon Valley is still No. 1, but some surprising cities like Sao Paulo, Brazil and Bangalore, India have become successful startup hubs over the past decade. Startup Genome's Startup Ecosystem Report 2012 ranked the top 20 most active startup scenes in the world based on criteria including funding, entrepreneurial mindset, trendsetting, support, talent and more.

Move over, Silicon Valley. Colorado is building some serious startup swagger.

Four of the top 10 metro regions in the U.S. with the most tech startups are in Colorado: Boulder, Fort Collins-Loveland, Denver and Colorado Springs. That’s according to a report released today by technology policy coalition Engine and entrepreneurship research association the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The research focuses on high-tech startups specifically, defining them as new businesses with a concentration of employees in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

If you want to feel old, then turn on the television – seriously.

Whether it’s the restaurant industry or the latest fashion designer, every brand in America seems to be targeting Millennials in their advertising. Now, I’m not saying that Millennials aren’t a coveted demographic to target – they certainly are – but let’s not forget about the rest of us either.

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The startup scene can thrive in any part of the country where there are skilled workers and innovators. High-tech startup areas are popping up in smaller places outside the Silicon Valley, like Boulder, Colorado because of it. But sometimes the tricky part is maintaining the sense of innovation.

Entrepreneurship can be taught. That’s the key message from Bill Aulet, managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship and a serial entrepreneur. And he aims to teach as many people as possible. Today, 20 percent of young people want to start their own company, but it’s not possible to scale entrepreneurship education, Aulet said. “When you teach entrepreneurship you have to do it,” he said. “It’s experiential. It’s mentor intensive and the mentoring requires a lot of effort.”

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The following answers are provided by members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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