Most businesses have focused their sustainability work on reducing their environmental impact and lowering their resource costs. These bottom-line initiatives, many of them highly innovative, are critical to staying viable and competitive while benefiting society and the environment. They’ll grow profits, for a while anyway. But, they are not a path to continued growth or advantage. The re-engineering, quality and IT movements showed that improved efficiency doesn’t drive long-term value creation.

To consistently grow the bottom-line, sustainability innovation needs to drive the top-line. Innovation that successfully builds new products, services, businesses and customers drives advantage and value. One only need look at the success that Toyota had with the Prius and the huge bet GM is making on the Volt to see the opportunity that environmental innovation at the top-line offers to companies. Similarly, companies like Unilever are pursuing top-line growth from socially responsible innovations like making more nutritious food products.

A graphic designer’s talent is gauged by the graphic designing he does for his own identity. The works that he creates for his own personal use are a basis for determining his creative skills and competence. Graphic designers business cards, logos and web design all exemplify how inventive and resourceful a designer actually is. They bear testimonial to the creative instincts possessed by a graphic designer.

Although the advent of social media has made business meetings for graphic designers an online ordeal, the need for face-to-face acquaintance with clients is essential in building a strong and prosperous relationship. A business card is a useful promotional tool for graphic designers to spread their identity. The more creative the business card, the better your impression on the clients. Since your first impression is the last impression, it is imperative that you effectively exhibit your creativity through your business card.

The number of entrepreneurs in Canada has rebounded after the recession, especially in Alberta and B.C., according to a new poll.

Three of four indicators of entrepreneurial activity rose in 2010 over 2009, including entrepreneurial intention, venture efforts and business ownership, found a survey by the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Fondation de l'entrepreneurship.

The recession resulted in the closure of more businesses this year than last as the side-effects of the downturn continue to linger. The number of Canadians involved in shuttered operations jumped to 6.7% in 2010, compared to 5.4% in 2009.

Two new Web services want to bring the equivalent of frequent-flier miles to everyday online activities, rewarding you for merely browsing the Internet and sharing links with friends.

The services, which launched this week at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, take slightly different approaches. But both have the same larger purpose: to help websites get visitors to stick around longer. It's a twist on the "check in" model pioneered by Foursquare, a mobile social network that offers virtual badges and other signs of status to people who regularly patronize physical-world locations.

One of the new Web companies, Badgeville, helps Web publishers build a "game dynamic" into their sites so that users earn points whenever they view or comment on a page. A publisher can also choose to dole out points to people who share material from the site on Facebook or Twitter--with more points allocated if their friends click the links back to the site. Badgeville, based in Palo Alto, California, has signed up 10 publishers, including Comcast Sports, the website of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the tech news site TheNextWeb.

A study out of Radford University answers the age-old question of whether you should marry your bartender. Or your massage therapist. Or a professional cheerleader.

Probably not.

These professions were identified by Michael Aamodt and Shawn McCoy as having an elevated divorce rate, based on US Census data.

Stever Robbins, aka the Get-It-Done Guy, is the creator of a series of popular productivity podcasts, the host of productive "action days" for his online community, and now the author of a new book Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More.

One of Robbins's distinctive qualities as a productivity expert is his engaging sense of humor and straightforward approach to solving problems. Rather than fill his pages with lengthy theories or case studies about why we procrastinate or fail to set clear goals, Robbins assumes that as human beings we are all prone to make similar kinds of mistakes, and quickly moves on to offering solutions.

The future of innovation-led productivity growth in the U.S. will depend on the country’s ability to encourage and sustain student achievement in the 21st century. That's the view of global strategists and the conclusion of a new study - “The New Geography of Global Innovation.”

While the United States and Japan remain leaders in innovation, increased competition from growth markets, notably China, suggests a changing landscape. Research and development (R&D) spending in Asia surpassed EU levels in 2005, and is likely to overtake US levels in the next five years, thanks primarily to striking growth in R&D investment in China. R&D investment is driven largely by the corporate sector, which finances more than two-thirds of total R&D spending in many countries.

Steve Jobs is one of those entrepreneurs who seems universally either loved or hated, but not many will argue with his ability to innovate in the technology product arena over the years.

He was instrumental in creating Apple, which has pioneered a dazzling array of new products, and recently surpassed Microsoft, to become the world’s most valuable technology company.

Palo Alto, Calif. -- The emergence of a new renewable energy industry often follows a familiar pattern.

First, technological breakthroughs occur. Second, various manufacturers begin to coalesce around standard designs and materials. Third, a national government and local conglomerates decide to make the market their own.

Look at solar. In the wake of the Arab oil crisis, the Japanese government devised its 'Project Sunshine' policy to help grow a solar industry. Sharp (TVs, pencils) and Kyocera (material science) became two of solar's early giants. In Denmark, a decades-old conglomerate called Vestas moved into wind in conjunction with a national efficiency and renewables policy and all the existing manufacturers converged around a three-blade design. Tidal and wave manufacturers have yet to coalesce around standards, but national markers have already been set. Scotland and Ireland have carved out programs to ensure the industry, if it takes off, will occur there.

On a panel of venture capitalists discussing whether their industry still makes sense for limited partners, Steve Wiggins perhaps said it best on Tuesday.

“VC is like the ‘cream of the crap,’” the managing director at Essex Woodlands Health Ventures joked, making the point that venture capital is still desirable to LPs due to the poorer performance of other asset classes.

Still, Wiggins and his fellow panelists of large-fund managers at the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst conference in New York agreed that the venture industry will need to keep refining its approach to retain the support of limited partners reeling from a decade of lackluster returns from the asset class.

[BEIJING] China will double its number of science communicators to four million by 2020, according to the Chinese Association for Science and Technology.

The association will train and support professional communicators to work in rural areas and museums. It also hopes to boost the number of advanced professionals in science writing; research and development; and science industry management, as outlined in the plan, '2010–2020 China's Popular Science Talent Plan'.

According to the association's press release, China believes there is a shortage of science communicators — or 'science popularisation professionals' — in the country, and especially in rural areas, where it plans to have 1.7 million.

As a small business owner, you’ve officially entered the waters of social media. You’re blogging, you’re Twittering and you’re working hard to create a social presence. Why are you doing it? What is your ultimate business goal for your social media efforts?

Well, according to a July 2010 survey of U.S. marketers by the Direct Marketing Association and COLLOQUY, the most popular business goal is brand awareness, with 28 percent of respondents hailing it as their ultimate social media objective. Following close behind were customer growth/loyalty (25 percent) and customer acquisition (19 percent).

Without these guys, you wouldn’t have broadcast radio or TV. It’s hard to watch beyond the 1:30 mark. Thanks Ian for sending along…

The first step is to shift your perspective: To understand that a career is something that you create, rather than a pre-existing role that you step into. It takes considerable energy to plan your own future, but if you don’t figure out what you want to become, someone else will define it for you. Hunter S. Thompson said it best: “A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.” Don’t be that man!

If SBIR is important to you and your company, it's time to get serious
and realize that this program can, and will go away unless you make a
big noise to let your politician's know how you feel. All of us are
sick of this, and we're now facing a lapse. Eight times this program
has been deemed important enough to keep going (via a CR) but will Nydia
be successful in blocking this ninth attempt?

Read this for more details on how you can help!

Incredible! And I wish I could say unbelievable! But, sadly, I'm not really surprised.

The illustrious Chairlady of the House Small Business Committee, Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), evidently holds herself above the will of both the Senate and the House. Is this a manifestation of self-importance (with a touch of petulance) or just selfish personal pocket-book protection? Or maybe both. I have my opinion, but you can draw your own conclusions. (Rumor has it she was recently seen shopping at Macy's for a bigger pocket-book.)

You’ve probably heard the oft quoted statistic that half of all businesses are gone within five years. While the number is true, it’s an average of what happens to start-ups in all industries, from biotechnology firms to dental offices to taxi services. And new business survival rates differ pretty substantially across sectors of the economy.

To show you how much difference industry sector makes, I have plotted the five year survival curves for the 2000 cohort (the most recent available) of start-up establishments using data from the Longitudinal Business Database of the U.S. Census.