While the Pentagon is developing cyber arsenals, it is struggling to staff the newly operational Cyber Command and supporting service cyber organizations that will deploy against adversaries overseas.

If current cyber conflicts are any guide, future operations likely will require more than technical know-how -- they also could be just as reliant on the physical prowess of covert and clandestine operators capable of inserting computer code into networks at secure facilities. For example, the U.S.-Israeli-engineered Stuxnet computer virus that reportedly seized Iranian nuclear centrifuges was inserted manually through a jump drive, rather than propagated over the Internet from a safe location.

In honor of Entrepreneur Month, I’ve been writing here and at Harvard Business Review with my paired leadership partner Mary Michelle Scott, Fishbowl president, about launching and scaling a company in a high growth phase. We’ve been hitting some hot buttons, particularly in our Forbes article “The Case for Hiring ‘Under Qualified’ Employees,”  June 14. The responses have been phenomenal. (216 comments and some 141,500 views. Keep them coming, folks—I’m loving the dialogue.)

In that same vein, I’d like to continue discussing the entrepreneurial skills required to run a great company. We’re talking today with Brad Smith, president and CEO of Intuit, one of the world’s largest and most successful financial software companies. Intuit, of course, is maker of the QuickBooks accounting software we have fully-integrated with our Fishbowl Inventory software, that we offer to midsize companies as a complete business management solution through Fishbowl Enterprise (FBE) software, and that we

Women are more social than men. There’s research to prove it. And there’s the anecdotal evidence. (How many men chat to the guy in the bathroom stall next door?) So women should do well in the pursuit of venture capital, which is at heart a networking game. But they don’t. Why?

A 2009 study by Dow Jones VentureSource found only 11% of companies that received venture funding had a woman CEO or founder. You’re likely familiar with the old-school explanations for this: girls aren’t as good at math and science, women aren’t as interested in starting businesses, women who do start a business are happier with a beauty parlor than a fast-track high-tech company, etc.

Now that it's summer, it's a good time to remind yourself that you should go on a vacation--and not feel guilty about it.

Here are 10 reasons why the business is better off without you for awhile: 

1. Going on a vacation shows you are competent. It is proof that you are good at your job because you can manage and plan enough to free up some time in your schedule--and not leave a festering mess in your absence. Not being able to take a vacation for years shows that you and your team are so out of control that you can't even be gone for a week.

Last week, the Wellcome Collection announced the winners of its 12th annual image awards, recognizing the “most informative, striking and technically excellent” pictures from the collection’s recent acquisitions.

Recent events at the University of Virginia following the decision of the institution's governing board to remove its president after only two years in office have brought to light some questionable claims that have been animating educational reformers lately.

In a statement justifying the Board of Visitors’ decision, the Board’s rector, Helen Dragas, asserted that U.Va.’s president, Terry Sullivan, was unwilling to make the kinds of changes necessary at a time when universities like Virginia are facing an “existential threat.” The times, Dragas claimed, call for a bold leader willing to impose “a much faster pace of change in administrative structure, in governance, in financial resource development and in resource prioritization and allocation” than was Sullivan. “The world,” Dragas believes, “is simply moving too fast.”

Today more than half of the planet’s population lives in cities. By 2035 that figure will rise to 70%. If there is a mega-trend shaping this century, this is it: We are racing toward the urban planet.

Here are some paradigm-shifting facts to consider:

• Urban dwellers, who occupy just 2% of the world’s surface, use the bulk of the world’s energy, water and other resources. 
• The world’s 600 largest cities contribute 60% of the planet’s gross domestic product (GDP)—and these 600 cities are changing fast.

The McKinsey Global Institute has spelled out this urban future: “Half of global GDP in 2007 came from 380 cities in developed regions, with more than 20 percent of global GDP coming from 190 North American cities alone…. But by 2025, one-third of these developed-market cities will no longer make the top 600; and one out of every 20 cities in emerging markets is likely to see its rank drop out of the top 600. By 2025, 136 new cities are expected to enter the top 600, all of them from the developing world and overwhelmingly—100 new cities—from China.”

Like most people, I am fascinated by the process of innovation. How does it start? Is it an individual effort, necessity, or the result of team-think? Does it take the charisma and unrelenting passion of a Steve Jobs, or can innovation be done in a less stressful environment? When I attended business school, the concept that small innovative companies become large non-innovative institutions (with rare exceptions) was dogma. That was more than 40 years ago, but it seems even more true today.

Anecdotally speaking, my first job was with a company with $200 million in annual sales, it invented nothing. I joined a company with $2 million in annual sales, it was an innovation machine. As a result, it quickly became a company with $500 million in sales. Then, it invented nothing.

Economic development executives from the Ontario Food Cluster are attending SIAL Brazil, The Latin American Food Marketplace, and the related Fispal Food Service Trade Show, promoting the new Conestoga College Institute of Food Processing Technology (IFPT) among other strengths to international companies that want to invest in Ontario's expanding $34 billion agri-food sector -- an industry that includes $9.9 billion of exports.

The Ontario Food Cluster currently includes 3,200 food and beverage companies that make up the second-largest food and beverage-processing jurisdiction in North America. They take advantage of Ontario's excellent location and transportation links to 450 million affluent food consumers through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

If you asked most people today, they would probably agree with the notion that a college sophomore can develop technology or launch a business that can transform an entire industry and define a generation. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have already blazed that trail. But often, just when those student entrepreneurs are ready to take off, they… well, take off.

This is a story I know well. I was part of the team in 2004 that left Harvard and headed west to build Facebook. The site had been spreading like wildfire at Harvard and about 30 other schools when we packed our bags, rented a house in Palo Alto, and headed for Silicon Valley. At the time, it felt like an unavoidable choice: student or entrepreneur.

My colleagues and I at Technology Ventures Corporation  are working not only with our regular entrepreneurial technology clients, but also those who have received SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grants and are ready for commercialization.  This is being done under the auspices of Economic Development Administration’s  i6 Challenge, designed to accelerate innovative technology commercialization to drive economic growth and job creation.   Some clients want to commercialize their technology through their own companies but are unsure of the steps involved. Others want to continue to working on technology research.   Some basic market research may help either category commercialize technology.

First, anyone working with technology should understand and protect the intellectual property to make sure it can be adequately commercialized. A good IP attorney is a must. 

At least 68 digital health companies have raised $2 million or more so far this year for a total of $675 million in digital health investments, according to a new report by healthcare accelerator Rock Health.

Look closer, though. Five companies accounted for nearly 40 percent of those total dollars.

It’s clear that patient shopping tools and home health technologies are where the big bets are going. Here’s the breakdown of the Big 5 deals.

People are pouring into startups at a rate we've never seen. Literally, never--not even during dot-com mania, at least if Stanford's MBA program is a good barometer. Per a Fortune report, the 2011 class sent 16% of grads to start their own companies, a full third higher than the late '90s peak, and more than three times greater than the early '90s averages. And we should probably assume that the 2012 numbers will be higher yet.

The reasons for this are well documented: it’s never been easier to start a company, lots of traditional careers (banking, consulting) have been tarnished, and Instagram sold for a billion bucks to a certain online yearbook website. 

When asked what is the biggest difference between Los Angeles and Silicon Valley accelerators, five from LA told me they’re more focused on startups that don’t take years to start monetizing. Leaders from Amplify, Launchpad LA, MuckerLab, Start Engine, and Originate Labs convened at this weekend’s Silicon Beach Festival in Venice, California. They explained that since there’s less capital down South, they’re less concentrated on long-term plays, even ones that could return bigger multiples down the line.

So Bay Area startups in ecommerce, media, advertising, and fashion looking to raise money or enter an accelerator might consider a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway.

Scott Gerber, founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, was hard at work founding his second company when he realized something was missing that could help him achieve his dream.

“I made every possible mistake one could make as a rookie entrepreneur,” said Gerber of his first company. “After it failed, my mom said it was time to go get a real job, but to me that wasn’t possible. I wanted to take the lessons I learned from my first company and put them into a new business. Soon, I figured out what would help move me forward — a group of like-minded peers.”

That’s when the idea for the Young Entrepreneur Council, an invite-only non-profit that brings together some of the sharpest young minds in the startup and entrepreneur world, was born.

Don’t be afraid to constantly be experimenting, and don’t be afraid to fail at most of those experiments.

Keep on experimenting. That’s the message from Scott Cook, co-founder and chairman of Intuit Inc., part of a series of high-powered speakers at this year’s World Innovation Forum, held in New York. To achieve game-changing innovation, Cook says, be willing to constantly run small-scale experiments, to develop a “culture of fast cycle experiments.”

In the case of Intuit’s TurboTax, the company encourages up to 140 experiments each tax season, with new Websites and new services. Intuit learned to process these experiments in rapid order, he says. “They would install them on Thursday, run them over the weekend, and read and analyze them on Monday,” he says.

At first glance, Thad Starner does not look out of place at Google. A pioneering researcher in the field of wearable computing, Starner is a big, charming man with unruly hair. But everyone who meets him does a double take, because mounted over the left lens of his eyeglasses is a small rectangle. It looks like a car's side-view mirror made for a human face. The device is actually a minuscule computer monitor aimed at Starner's eye; he sees its display—pictures, e-mails, anything—superimposed on top of the world, Terminator-style.

I hate to see employees leave our portfolio companies for many reasons, among them the loss of continuity and camaraderie and the knowledge of how hard everyone will have to work to replace them. Many people see churn of employees in and out of companies as a given and build a recruiting machine to deal with this reality. While building a recruiting machine is necessary in any case, I prefer to see our portfolio companies focus on building retention into their mission and culture and reducing churn as much as humanly possible.

There isn't one secret method to retain employees but there are a few things that make a big difference.

At some point in their life, hopefully everyone strives to be the best in their chosen profession. Most people think that being the best requires more intelligence, more training, and more experience. In reality, in business or even in sports, the evidence is conclusive that it is as much about how you think, as what you do.

I saw this illustrated well recently in a sports excellence book called “Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else”, by Jon Gordon. His evidence and real life stories conclude that top performers in all professions have the same key traits listed below. I agree they certainly apply to the great entrepreneurs I have known. You need to think about how they apply to you.

EU scientists and member states will decide over the next six months which future high-tech industries – from a choice including robot servants and nano clothing – should receive a €1 billion European funding boost. Six so-called ‘future and emerging technologies’ (FETs) - all based in the ICT sector - are vying for a prize of up to €100 million each year over a decade, with at least one pilot guaranteed to claim the bounty.

Officials told EurActiv that more than two of the pilots are unlikely to clinch the money.

The selection will be closely watched since any eventual winners will carry the endorsement that they are strong hopes for Europe’s industrial future.