Recently I watched Jane McGonigal’s latest TED video (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life.html). In her talk she referred to something that I’ve seen but never heard defined before—“post-traumautic growth.” We have become increasingly aware of those suffering from PTSD—“post traumatic stress disorder. Experienced most commonly by our returning soldiers, PTSD can be debilitating and paralyzing. But there is another possible outcome of stress–post-traumatic growth. From Wikipedia:

Whether you are creating an original work of art, a new piece of music, a unique software program, or a healing response to an illness, creativity requires a leap in awareness. If you are improving on something that already exists, that is innovation. Creativity brings something into existence that has never been there before.

There are eight basic steps to the creative response. Become conscious of these steps and use the creative response whenever you are facing an issue or challenge in your life. You have unlimited creative potential that can be used to solve any problem you are facing.

A new mentorship programme organised by the MBA Association of Ireland in conjunction with the Guinness Enterprise Centre has just kicked off. In the coming weeks ‘The Irish Times’ will track its progress

WHILE ENTREPRENEURSHIP might now be taught by academics, nothing is more valuable to a business starting off than the expertise of someone who has known real success. Hard work and determination are the two fundamentals of successful entrepreneurship but if you can get some insider advice along the way too all the better. The MBA Association of Ireland (MBAAI) is the representative body for the 6,000 Masters of Business Administration (MBA) graduates in Ireland and is running a new mentorship programme with businesses housed in the Guinness Enterprise Centre (GEC) in Dublin.

Researchers at Imperial College London have developed an affordable technology that could allow millions of people suffering from ailments like Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy, or spinal cord injury to interact with computers--using just their eyes. The finding brings new hope to many patients that computing--and the many improvements to quality of life the computing brings--could soon be relatively simple and affordable for those who are paralyzed or otherwise disabled.

It’s anyone’s nightmare--to suffer an injury or be diagnosed with a disease that could lead to “locked-in syndrome.” One feature of locked-in syndrome, though, is that occasionally mobility remains in one part of the body--the eyes. Famously, the French author of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly dictated his memoirs solely through eye-movements--one letter at a time, and with the help of an assistant.

In this month’s Entrepreneur magazine, startup adviser and mentor Ed Hatton provides four tips for turning your idea for a tech startup into a business, without someone stealing it.

To develop an idea, founders need to approach service providers and investors. This may require divulging your secret recipe. Unlike offline businesses or products that can be protected by patent laws, internet-based businesses require a different approach.

At the annual conference for the Society for College and University Planning two weeks ago, I ran into Michael Haggans, a man who is wading into a contentious topic in higher education's digital age: What is the value of a physical campus? Do we still need it?

Mr. Haggans, an architect who is now a visiting scholar at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, is no sentimentalist.

Want to meet New York angel investor David Rose?

Easy. He told people on Quora, the question-and-answer site, exactly how to score a meeting with him.

The advice applies well for courting any wealthy backer as a mentor and investor.

Quora charges users "credits"—a point system you accumulate by answering questions—to ask another user a question. Some entrepreneurs pooled together 900 credits to get an answer from Rose, who's known for his investments in LearnVest, Panjiva, and Say Media, among others.

Venture investment in the first half of this year dipped from a year ago as investors backed away from biopharmaceuticals and kept consumer Internet deals on a tighter leash.

Although the second quarter was stronger than the first, total investment in U.S. venture-backed companies for the first six months of 2012 was $15.32 billion, down 7.2% from the first half of last year, according to data from VentureSource, a research unit of VentureWire publisher Dow Jones & Co.

BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, announced today that it has located its corporate headquarters in the historic Wire Hardware Building at 22 Baltimore Road in Rockville. BHI also announced the creation of two new staff positions filled by recent hires Ethan Byler as Director of Innovation Programs and Amanda Wilson as Operations Manager.

"Choosing the historic Wire Hardware Building as operational headquarters for BHI is symbolic of the marrying of the deep roots of this region with the untapped potential for truly inspirational advancement of the biohealth industry here, which is a primary goal of BHI," said Richard Bendis, BioHealth Innovation, Inc. President & Chief Executive Officer. "Opening our new offices in Montgomery County and welcoming our new staff are key steps to ensuring the success of BHI and demonstrate our firm commitment to Central Maryland."

While most of the greatest lessons that you’ll learn as an entrepreneur will probably come from mistakes and challenging experiences, published works such as books, whitepapers, blog posts, and the like still provide a lot of value for business owners. Books in particular are great resources because they can offer credibility and in-depth commentaries that most online sources can’t match.

Below are some of the best books that entrepreneurs can have on their bookshelves. Whether you’re looking for some motivation to continue with your venture, or wondering how the most successful entrepreneurs got to where they are now, these 7 books are definitely worth checking out.

When it comes to the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus, membership truly does have its privileges. And the 26 attendees of the recent Executive Breakfast can certainly tell you a thing or two about it. Representatives from 10 of the companies housed on the campus, as well as one potential new company, gathered to provide updates on company activities and to learn more about BioHealth Innovation, Inc., from the organization’s CEO, Rich Bendis.

After a period of networking amongst the attendees, which included Dr. Theodore Abraham, Associate Dean for Research in the Capital Region, Johns Hopkins Medicine, attendees provided information about their research on campus. And each presentation made it clear that members of the community are applying their expertise to solve some of the world’s toughest problems. They are reaching across the borders of not only Maryland but the United States and the world. International activities included Open Health Systems Laboratory’s ties in India and TruBios’ work in Latin and South America.

In yet another science-is-awesome moment, a group of Harvard University researchers has engineered an artificial jellyfish from silicone and cells from a rat’s heart.

Harvard bioengineers constructed a freely swimming jellyfish from “chemically dissociated rat tissue and silicone polymer,” as documented by the journal Nature Biotechnology. This research lab mostly focuses its time on creating models of human heart tissues that could be used to regenerate organs. It created the artificial jellyfish to help the team better understand “muscular pumps” by reverse engineering one.

Returning veterans are entering local job markets in droves. But getting hired can be a grueling process for former military personnel once they’re home — especially given the sluggish state of the economy. In many parts of the country, high unemployment rates make it nearly impossible to land a job with military experience, and the government provides little support.

Silicon Valley, however, is a rare oasis when it comes to employment. With thousands of young people employed by Google, Oracle, Apple, Facebook and more, stories of chronic unemployment in tech circles are hard to come by — or certainly not as visible in the media and local zeitgeist. That said, this doesn’t necessarily hold true for vets.

Proposed rules for the Small Business Innovation Research program could allow foreign-owned companies to compete for these federal R&D awards, according to the Small Business Technology Council.

“This change has the potential of sending hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to businesses overseas,” SBTC Executive Director Jere Glover wrote in letters to Congress and President Barack Obama. “Products developed and manufactured by foreign firms with U.S. tax dollars are likely to benefit their own countries, to the detriment of American businesses.”

From an outsider perspective, Belgium has a very diverse economy with dozens of influences coming together at its prime location in the heart of the EU. Being the home to several major European universities, and a mix of service-based economy in the north and industrial-based in the south, Belgium has a diverse market structure that keeps it competitive and one of the highest income per capita economies in the world. However, when it comes to entrepreneurship, Belgium is not thriving.

Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (ULB) Professor and Chair of Entrepreneurship Olivier Witmeur explained in an interview with the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium that it wasn’t until the late 1990s that the country started to pay attention to entrepreneurs, but that his nation has since tried to move fast to make Belgium a good place to do business today. He highlighted that there are 300 grants available for every type of startup imaginable, along with incubators, subsidized office space and government funding to programs in schools. The government has also sought to bridge the gap between R&D and entrepreneurship according to an analysis citing several government initiatives in this regard. For example, in 2004, Belgium passed legislation to establish the Industrial Research Fund to provide grants for research ideas that will develop into easily marketable products.

Creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi declared creative people, based on his extensive studies, are “Both extroverted and introverted, needing people and solitude equally.”

I’m not so sure how widely that applies.

As an introvert myself, I don’t experience much urge to be extroverted.

And, I have been drawn to read and quote from the interviews of actors and other artists who say they are introverted, but they don’t generally indicate they are also extroverted.

The Capital Region Economic Development Council today announced that the Center for Economic Growth (CEG) has signed a contract to officially move forward with the first stages of the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program application which, if successful, would establish a Regional Center to attract foreign investment and create jobs in the Capital Region.  The project was awarded $125,000 as part of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Regional Council initiative.

“The Council designated the EB-5 Program as a priority project based on its potential to encourage investment and grow jobs in the Capital Region,” said Linda Hillman, Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce President and Capital Region Economic Development Council member. “We look forward to a successful application overseen by our partners at CEG and applaud the Governor’s efforts to implement this community driven process that is now driving the future economic prosperity of the region.”

Kentucky spent nearly $1.3 billion on economic development incentives from 2001 to 2010, and businesses that received the incentives created 55,173 new jobs, according to a report by the Anderson Economic Group presented Thursday to state legislators.

Many of the new jobs lasted for more than one year, resulting in an average of 33,000 “maintained” jobs per year, according to the report, which was commissioned by the General Assembly in 2011 to help legislators and other policymakers make informed decisions about the operation of the state’s 17 incentive programs.

Seven incentives, which are administered through the Cabinet for Economic Development, have a jobs requirement. Between 2001 and 2010, 577 unique companies received final approval for incentives.

Global venture capitalists see pockets of optimism in the current venture capital environment, according to the 2012 Global Venture Capital Confidence Survey from Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association. In particular, investors favor emerging geographies such as Brazil, and innovative information technology (IT) sub-sectors such as cloud computing and social media. The survey also indicates room for considerable improvement in overall global venture capital confidence levels, particularly when it comes to externalities impacting the industry.