New Jersey's shrinking pharmaceutical and telecom industries have hurt the state's ability to attract venture capital, which peaked in 2004 and has fallen steadily since then.

Venture capital investment in the state continued its nearly decade-long downward slide in 2012, totaling $429.3 million, according to MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters.

For years now, one of the central changes that’s been happening in the ad industry--or, a change that the industry has been trying to effect--has been the shift from the notion of making ads (that is, one-off messages that run for a short, pre-determined period of time) to the idea of making content, and having an ongoing conversation with consumers. You can see that evolution reflected in Super Bowl commercials.

Everyone (including us) has been discussing the Amazing Expanding Super Bowl Commercial--the phenomenon whereby marketers are using the mass broadcast event as a focal point around which they are building larger, longer social media and video initiatives. Brands want to make hay while people are actively paying attention to ads, of course, and to make the most of a big ($3.5-$4 million dollars just for media) investment. But the shift from Super Bowl spot to Super Bowl campaign is part of that bigger move toward always-on content.

Personalized medicine was supposed to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was going to be the payoff our society would see after investing in the Human Genome Project and so much other biomedical research. While most people on the street can’t say what it means, anybody can understand the standard definition on Wikipedia. It’s about “the customization of healthcare, with decisions and practices being tailored to the individual patient by use of genetic or other information.”

But just as the concept started gaining impressive momentum last year, a movement is afoot to redefine it under a new banner of “Precision Medicine.”

At last week’s DLD Conference in Munich, I had the opportunity to sit onstage with the co-founder and CPO of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia. We started by discussing the unique creative culture at Rhode Island School of Design, where Joe went to college, and where I currently serve as president. Joe shared some of his secrets of being a successful designer-founder, and then turned the tables and asked me what it’s like to run a 136-year-old institution like RISD.

As often happens these days, the Twitter summary of my answer was perhaps more articulate than my answer itself:

@johnmaeda: “Today end-ups — old companies and institutions — want to be become more like start-ups. Yet they are classic and important.” via @AnnePascual

Most entrepreneurs have learned that it’s almost always quicker and easier to get cash from someone you know, rather than Angel investors or professional investors (VCs). In fact, most investors “require” that you already have some investment from friends and family before they will even step up to the plate.

You see, investors invest in people, before they invest in ideas or products. Since they don’t know you (yet), their first integrity check on you as a person is whether your friends and family believe in you strongly enough to give you seed money for your new idea. If they won’t do it, they why would I as stranger invest in you?

If the Super Bowl was a startup, it would be the greatest and most successful startup in the world. The annual event is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. Really you don’t get higher than that. To be one of the final two teams on Super Bowl Sunday takes hard work, dedication and a certain level of skill that not everyone has. Even more to run a successful Super Bowl Sunday takes much more, the football is the easy part. The Super Bowl isn’t just a championship game, it is championship event and possibly the only time Americans share a sense of unified excitement.

Matching workers' skills with the demands of employers is seen as crucial to boosting employment rates, restoring growth and tackle looming labour shortages in sectors like health care, science and the green economy. Display on single page Summary Issues Positions Timeline External Links Europe is facing an acute lack of highly educated and qualified workers in the fields of science, technology and engineering, which threatens to undermine the future economic competitiveness of the EU.

The European Commission has identified 'green jobs' in areas related to clean and energy-efficient technologies, as well as 'white jobs' in the fields of health and social care, among the most promising sources of new jobs for the future.

The founding partner of Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz, recently gave a great presentation at the DLD conference in Munich. Ben explained how Andreessen Horowitz chooses its investments. Specifically, he laid out what might be described as a "magic formula" for building humongous,  world-dominating, dynastic-wealth-creating tech companies.

Due to the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act and a global explosion of crowdfunding platforms, 2012 was an amazing year for crowdfunding — and 2013 is poised to be even bigger.

Three major trends currently dominate the industry: platform consolidation, niche platform growth, and the development of alternative crowdfunding solutions. One of the earlier examples of consolidation occurred during the summer of 2012, when EarlyShares acquired HelpersUnite. More recently, two U.K. reward-based platforms, Crowdfunder and Peoplefund.it, merged to defend their turf against Kickstarter. Meanwhile, white label solutions like Launcht, invested.in, and catarse.me fueled a rapid expansion of niche platforms focused on a specific region, category, or demographic. And finally, technologies like SelfStarter and ignitiondeck helped some crowdfunders forgo crowdfunding platforms altogether.

Recent studies show that only approximately 1% of tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are black. Many people blame the U.S. education system and its inadequate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricula. Others find fault with a deficiency of basic information to help students enter these fields.

The 1% figure, however, doesn't mean there aren't black entrepreneurs and pioneers who have made noteworthy breakthroughs in the tech world.

Below, we've listed 20 notable black leaders and innovators in STEM fields. Some are well-known, some should be better known, and others might still be considered up-and-coming in their industries. Nevertheless, they have all contributed to the STEM fields in novel ways.

Living in the technology and startup ecosystem, we are constantly bombarded with the latest hot new app, device, technology, or company. They get their 15 minutes of fame and then something newer, hotter, and latest-er comes along to replace them. But every now and then, something sticks around for a while.

Since it’s nearly impossible to sort through the noise when talking to my technology friends, I’ve taken to listening to family and friends who are far away from the tech scene – most of whom still don’t “get” Twitter, can’t understand what all the fuss is about with Apple products, and would be willing to bet that Sand Hill Road was on a beach in Mexico. Last year, those friends all seemed to suddenly discover and start posting photos from Instagram, music from Spotify was showing up in my Facebook Ticker, and I was bombarded with old friends from high school joining Pinterest. I’ll take those signs to mean these three have successfully crossed over to the mainstream.

Let's hope Congress does not flinch as it begins the debate about immigration reform because the future is passing through security – in the wrong direction. It leaves the United States on every departing airplane carrying a foreign born student who has graduated from an American university with an advanced degree in the sciences, technology, engineering and math. The majority of these people want to stay in the United States but because of existing immigration laws, they have no choice but to leave.

In Silicon Valley, which has always been blind to any attribute other than ability, everyone knows that the remarkable achievements of the foreign born have led to the formation of companies such as Google, Intel, Sun Microsystems, nVidia, Yahoo! PayPal and scores of others that are less well known. Of the last eleven early stage companies that have allied themselves with Sequoia Capital, seven have had immigrants among their founding lineup. This is not a sudden or recent phenomenon; it has been the leitmotif of our business since the 1970s. However, the number of startups would be even higher if we weren’t ejecting foreign-born students and if we welcomed their contemporaries who have been educated overseas. Today, it is impossible to satisfy Silicon Valley's appetite for engineers and scientists with people born in America.

A few days ago I was minding my own business, enjoying my morning Chocolate Cheerios, when I came across a guest blog post in Venture Beat asking “Is there Hope for D.C,’s Startup Scene?”  Yeesh.  Not a great way to start a day.

Not one to let a good breakfast be ruined without fighting back, I wrote my own blog post standing up for D.C.’s tech scene, and subsequently had some really great interactions with VentureBeat and others in the D.C. tech community about it. I will give VentureBeat full credit for taking my and others’ reactions to heart and recalibrating their headline. The retitled post now asks, “Does DC know startups?” Reading the retitled post, it raises two important questions for D.C. tech: Can you find tech leadership in Washington? And what is the proper role of government in fostering technology?

If you intern for a high-profile tech company, you can make more money than the average US citizen. Facebook, for example, pays its average intern $6,056 per month. That ends up being a base salary of about $72,000 per year. But there's another tech company that pays its interns even more than Facebook.

Unless you've been in a coma your entire life, chances are good that, at some time in your life (maybe now?) you've been a volunteer for a non-profit organization.

That's the good news.

The not-so-good news is that many volunteer organizations, without even knowing it, sabotage the value their volunteers bring to the table and you, as a result, may have backed off, gone south, or found yourself grumbling to the other volunteers.

Live interaction still matters. Teachers, meetings, presentations, one on one brainstorms--they can lead to real change. The listener has nearly as big a responsibility as the speaker does, though. And yet, Google reports four times as many matches for "how to speak" as "how to listen." It's not a passive act, not if you want to do it right.

If listening better leads to better speaking, then it becomes a competitive advantage.

Ask an entrepreneur leaving the office of a great VC like Fred Wilson. She'll tell you that she gave the best pitch of her career--largely because of the audience. The hardest step in better listening is the first one: do it on purpose. Make the effort to actually be good at it.

President Obama today awarded 23 researchers and inventors with national medals for science, technology and innovation, lauding the recipients for their hard work and contributions, and joking that they represented "the greatest collection of brainpower we've had under this roof in a long time."

The medals represent the highest honors the U.S. government can give to scientists, engineers, and inventors.

Speaking in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama thanked the recipients for "the sacrifices they've made, the chances they've taken, (and) the gallons of coffee they've consumed," before launching into a few of their personal stories. He also thanked Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who announced today he's stepping down next month.

A common misconception I often hear in the startup world is that non-profits are easy and safe, since they don’t have to pay taxes, and they don’t have to make a profit for their shareholders. In reality, from the feedback I get from non-profit executives, exactly the opposite is true.

Technically speaking, in the United States, a non-profit corporation or association is one which has been exempted from Federal income taxes by meeting the criteria set out Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code, most notably religious, educational, and charitable entities. Other countries have similar exemptions for similar organizations.

Many entrepreneurs think that diversity on their team just makes their job harder, since startups are all about making fast decisions, and executing efficiently. Often they assume that this is only a big-company issue, having more to do with the legalities of equal opportunity, hiring minorities, and moral imperatives. In reality, diversity in a startup can be your big competitive advantage.

In a recent Deloitte Review of “Diversity as an Engine of Innovation” executives were asked about the connection between diversity and company performance, and 90 percent agreed it was critical. In a different survey of over 500 European respondents, 83% felt that diversity initiatives had a positive impact on their business. Quantification studies still show more mixed results.

It’s February now. That means a slew of companies will be preparing to launch their new products or announcing their companies at the annual SXSW conference in Austin, Texas.

I get asked often how to best launch at SXSW. What strategies to use, how to get attention, how to become “hot.” I get asked many PR questions which is why I started this stream of posts on PR at Startups.