EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Twenty years after Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter introduced the concept to the policy community and 10 years after its wide state adoption, clusters— geographic concentrations of interconnected firms and supporting or coordinating organizations—have reemerged as a key tool and rubric in Washington and in the nation’s economic regions.

After a decade of delay, the executive branch and Congress have joined state and local policymakers in embracing “regional innovation clusters” (RICs) as a framework for structuring the nation’s economic development activities.

At the state level, governors and gubernatorial candidates of both parties are maintaining or stepping up their longstanding interest.
And additionally, a broad range of business leaders, mainstream commentators, and policy analysts have been calling in the wake of the recent recession for a different kind of growth model that depends less on bubbles and consumption and more on the production of lasting value in metropolitan economies and the super-productive clusters within them.

Everybody agrees that communication outlets like Facebook, instant messaging, and texting are creating new rules for dating. But people can't seem to reach a consensus on exactly what the new rules are, says Ilana Gershon, an assistant professor of communication and culture at Indiana University at Bloomington who studied student dating for her new book, "The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting Over New Media."

For example, should the dumper or the dumpee be the first to break the news on Facebook that it’s over? One of Ms. Gershon’s students insisted the latter, and that’s what all her sorority sisters thought, too. But the "dumpee first" rule clearly isn't universal: Another student discovered her boyfriend had not only broken up with her but was in a new relationship—all through her Facebook news feed.

Concerning economic development and economic globalization, better cooperation between a group of states is a fools errand. The megaregion might help you sell a boondoggle (e.g. high-speed rail), but it won't solve prosperity problems. Brookings delineates the proper scale for innovation

In 1972, Steve Jobs left his Silicon Valley home and headed north to a small liberal arts school, Reed College, in Portland, Ore., only to drop out after one semester. Like many teenagers, the 17-year-old Jobs lacked direction.

"I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out," Jobs said later. "Here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay."

Following its announcement yesterday about new Innovation Centers in technology hot beds in Israel, Palo Alto and Plano, Connected Planet talked with AT&T’s Peter Hill, vice president of ecosystems and innovation, and the person responsible for the technology behind the AT&T U-verse TV service. He also led the research on three-screen applications at AT&T’s IPTV labs, which created many of the U-verse applications that consumers enjoy today.

Connected Planet: What is it about these ‘Innovation Centers’ that will give AT&T a boost in terms of innovation and collaboration?

Hill: They will enable a new “fast-pitch” approach that will in particular help smaller, innovative companies who in the past had to navigate a very large, complex company to find the right contacts at AT&T. Now, they can reach out to AT&T decision makers and implementers at key locations and expedite the time it takes to get a “yes” or “no” in terms of possible partnership with us. For small companies, it’s important to get an answer quickly so they don’t waste time pitching the wrong people. Now it will be much easier to know if they are a match because we’ll have permanently staffed AT&T liaisons who can filter through requests in a much more targeted and rapid manner.

The burn: Having your position or skill-set jeopardized by cheaper, sub-contracting options.  (Ouch.)

The diagnosis: Not long ago, a billboard in Silicon Valley read: “1,000,000 people can do your job.  What makes you so special?”

This is a reality we all face, but one many of us shroud in denial.  However, if you don’t have an answer to the question posed above, you are living on thin ice.  It’s time to swallow the red pill and confront reality.

Regardless of our goals, some form of employment (be it self-employed or not) is critical for sustaining a quality lifestyle.  It’s no wonder why so many people are nervous about their future. Unfortunately, unemployment continues to be a serious issue and many of us are hoping for things to change.  Well, change is coming, but perhaps not in the way we anticipate.  We will not emerge from this economical downturn in an ever “stable” job environment.

A lot of people are living with this disease, they just don't know it.

And no, we're not taking about an STD.

Jeff Stibel, a brain scientist and author tells Harvard Business Review that if you have these symptoms, you suffer a serious, yet common ailment.

Do you have it? Better find out and get it over with.

My buddy Jon Gensler is smart.  Way too smart.  Besides being a West Point grad and serving as an Army battle Captain in Iraq, he has also found the time to take on a joint M.A. from Harvard and MIT.  He’s like a mad scientist that instead of working on killer robot chickens, works on solutions to our energy problems.  I just like to hear him talk about projects that a generation ago would have been on Buck Rogers or Lost In Space.  He didn’t come from some science fiction convention though; he spent the summer at the DoE’s ARPA-E.  The good news is he’s not alone.

ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency- Energy, is the Department of Energy’s vehicle for focusing on spurring new, ‘outside-the-box’ energy ideas.  Among them are programs to develop long-life, low cost batteries for electric vehicles, to harness microorganisms to produce liquid fuels without petroleum or biomass, and ‘carbon capture’ technologies that will prevent carbon monoxide from coal plants entering the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.

Like many youngsters, and those young at heart, seven-year-old Max Geissbuhler and his dad dreamed of visiting space -- and armed with just a weather balloon, a video camera, and an iPhone, in a way they did just that.

The father-and-son team from Brooklyn managed to send their homemade spacecraft up nearly 19 miles, high into the stratosphere, bringing back perhaps the most impressive amateur space footage ever. The amazing footage starts at 2:35 minutes in the video below.

Last spring, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council issued an RFI to collect feedback about university commercialization, including recommendations for more effective models, descriptions of current best practices and better metrics to gauge success. Apparently they’ve been reading the responses and may release a summary of the responses publicly. Federal policy makers should continue in this vein and fund a series of small-scale, test pilot programs to test out people’s suggestions.

Finding effective policy for an enterprise as vast as that of university technology development is difficult. Particularly since the massive university/industry/government ecosystem won’t reflect the impact of change for years and years to come (in other words, “turning the battleship” takes time, patience and a lot of resources). Small scale, government-funded pilot programs would be cheap, yield fast results and enable a lot of different tech transfer models to be tested. Successful funding recipients (hopefully tech transfer practitioners would be encouraged to participate in this) would propose tech transfer pilot programs that are novel and can be quickly implemented and later scaled up.

Here at Mashable, we chronicle significant social media campaigns on a daily basis. Some are notable simply because of a brand name, others get recognized for the technology or platform they employ, but the best always rise above the rest in how they resonate with readers and online audiences.

Social media affords brands limitless potential in the realm of creativity. The most creative of the bunch find a way to make something magical or unthinkable happen. Remember when the Old Spice guy’s viral videos were the only thing anyone could talk about? Or what about the controversial Foursquare () badge crafted by MTV that encourages young adults to check in at STD clinics? These are not your garden variety social media campaigns.

Washington, DC – As a part of President Obama's commitment to increase investments and engagement in game-changing innovations, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced the launch of Development Innovation Ventures (DIV).

Through DIV, USAID seeks to work with a variety of partners to create innovative scalable solutions to core development challenges. Borrowing from the private venture capital model, DIV will seek, through a competitive process to invest resources in promising high-risk, high-return projects that breakthrough innovations often require, but are often difficult to undertake using traditional Agency structures. DIV's goal is to identify and support innovations with a proven, cost-effective impact that can match the scale of microfinance—75 million end users worldwide.

Maura O'Neill, Chief Innovation Officer, and Michael Kremer, a world-renowned economist from Harvard University originally conceived the idea of DIV. Kremer will be joining USAID as the Scientific Director of the DIV and will help recruit new talent and ideas to the Agency.

For technology startups, the opportunity to make their pitches to potential investors at venues like the recent Ontario Venture Capital Forum is more than welcome.

But few expect the climate of scarcity to change quickly. Instead, they hope to make contacts that could eventually lead to cash.

"It is very different market from 2000," said Alexander Rink, chief executive officer of Gazaro, an electronic products online pricing comparison service.

So you want to be an entrepreneur. But what are the criteria and how do you learn the basics of entrepreneurship and the values and knowledge needed to chart a course in a field based on following your own path? First, immerse yourself in knowledge. Whether taking an academic path or learning by doing, entrepreneurship is about gaining the information necessary to test your ideas against a real market with real customers, and about figuring out how to operate within real regulations and limitations as well. We’ve put together a small crash course, along with a list of academic opportunities should you choose to follow that path. It’s time to start the learning process. Good luck!

If you’ve considered the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur there are eight traits that are important in describing the perfect entrepreneur.

1. Risk Taker – Entrepreneurs understand that in order to make a profit they will need to assume a certain level of financial risk.

2. Business Manager – Entrepreneurs have a keen understanding of finance and are well equipped to manage the finances of a business.

3. Organizer – Entrepreneurs are well equipped in the area of organizing all aspects of the business for current and long-term growth.

4. Marketing Expert – Entrepreneurs are capable of understanding and implementing marketing strategies both online as well as offline.

My company, Brazen Careerist, is moving from Madison, WI, to Washington, DC, where our new CEO lives.

Running the company has been absolute hell. Not that I didn’t know it would be hell. It’s my third startup. Each has had its own hell before we were solidly funded, but this one was so bad that my electricity was turned off, and I really thought I was going to die from stress.

So while my company moves its center to DC, I’m staying in Wisconsin. I just married a farmer and my two young sons and I are learning to live among the wonders of pigs and cattle and corn.

Wordpress may have begun life as a blogging tool, but the open source publishing platform has evolved into something resembling a full-fledged CMS in recent years, especially with the release of Wordpress 3.0 in June. In fact, it can easily be used to manage a Website for products and businesses, without or without a blog.

While we certainly recommend that any small business maintain a blog, it doesn't have to be the main focus of your company's Wordpress-based Website, thanks to the multitude of themes that are designed with products and businesses in mind.

Simply, creative thinking techniques are utilizing methods or procedures for discovering new or better ways to do anything. There is nothing in life that can’t be improved or revamped. All too often it is the accepting of things as they are or it just can’t be done attitude which holds us back from looking for a better way. Once creative thinking is put into position then new ideas flow freely that let the human mind to see the existing situation in a new light. The encouragement and exchange of thoughts and suggestions from capable and learned group participants can produce amazing results. So what type of techniques should be applied when conducting creative thinking forums or meetings for achieving the best results?

How to employ the Most Creative Thinking Techniques.

1. The most important requirement is believing that something can be realized, changed or enhanced. When there is no impression for the success of the project then the invested time of the individuals is wasted. All participants must have an “I’m sure that I can do this” attitude. When you begin with this belief the power and energy will flow to the ideas and creativity of all the members.