Foundups ™ is the brainchild of Michael J. Trout. By definition, a foundup "is a founder with an idea of a lean startup bootstrapping a proof of concept." Foundups ™ is built around Michael’s 16 years of startup development experience. Since beginning Foundups ™, Michael created the DC Foundups™ meetup group (June 18, 2010) to help folks with technology startup ideas. The meetings are held every 3rd Thursday from 6:30pm- 9:30pm. Each week one foundup is chosen to sit in the "hot seat," while the members play the role of board members, each attacking very specific problems and issues the foundup is having. This is in an effort to help them move in the right direction. At the last meetup, the presenter was D.C. attorney Arron Titus and his very innovative foundup called "Saymondo.com"

“Say Mondo is an English Pronunciation website. Let’s say that English is your second language and you have to give a presentation to a boss or client. You type the presentation into saymondo.com. Then a native English speaker records your presentation, sends you a downloadable link to an MP3, you practice your pronunciation and nail your presentation.”

How does the international economy measure up for designers? Taking the Big Mac Index as an example, this mini-report evaluates the difference in price around the world for the smallest MacBook Pro. The results shed some light on exchange rates, purchasing price parity, and the rise of Apple.

Last month while scanning the front page of The Atlantic Monthly for some news to share on Twitter, I came across a title that caught my eye: Big Macs, Happiness, and Economic Development. Some pretty basic concepts, right? Well I have to admit that my first thought when I read it had nothing to do with Ronald McDonald. Instead, I thought immediately of my MacBook, design bliss, and Apple’s role in the economy. What?!

The story of entrepreneurship in the twentieth century was about individuals who got access to sophisticated capital in a few advanced markets and created massive economies of scale. That’s how AT&T, Home Depot, and Microsoft swiftly made their way onto the Fortune 500. But in the twenty-first century, a very different story is unfolding.

Today entrepreneurs anywhere can create value with relatively little capital. Barriers to entry in almost every industry have come crashing down, opening vast opportunities for small companies. These developments are especially apparent in emerging markets, where we’re seeing signs that an entrepreneurial economy is ready to bloom. We’ve spent the past two years studying entrepreneurship in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, and we’ve found hundreds of world-class ventures poised for significant growth there. Most people’s assumptions about entrepreneurship in the developing world—that entrepreneurs either don’t exist there or are microentrepreneurs—are wrong. High potential ventures are surfacing where no one is looking for them—in Beirut instead of Boston, in Cape Town instead of Silicon Valley—among people who have historically been outside the economic power structure.

Marcelo Marzola, the 33-year-old co-founder of Predicta.net, is a perfect example of how hot Brazil's $1.6 trillion economy has become — and why its entrepreneurs are now getting their phone calls returned by venture capitalists after a decade of "You're from where?"

Marzola was invited to present his company's free online behavioral-targeting tool, BTBuckets, at the Google I/O Web-developer conference in San Francisco in May. To get ogled at the Google conference is the goal of any Web developer. Marzola earned rave reviews for creating what has become a de facto standard, used on more than 2,000 websites in 90 countries by such corporate titans as Pfizer, Motorola and Unilever. The product fills an overlooked niche in the industry by allowing websites to segment their users according to their online habits and then direct targeted content and advertising to them in real time. "It has turned the industry on its head, and it's gaining mass recognition," says Daniel Waisberg, an industry consultant and a former chair of marketing of the Web Analytics Association. (See the 50 best websites of 2009.)

CAIRO: The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank approved a grant to Egypt, a loan of $1.2 billion Egyptian pounds to support the development of wind energy. 800 million pounds will be provided by the Clean Technology Fund, which will be a first for the fund in the Middle East and North Africa.

The project will support the strategy of Egypt towards renewable energy, which is attaching a high priority program to generate electricity on a wide range of renewable energy sources, “which help to achieve national objectives and regional savings in fossil fuels, environmental protection, creation of job opportunities that takes into account environmental considerations and technology transfer,” the ministry of environment told Bikya Masr on Sunday.

At one point or another, you had to learn how to tie your shoes. Who doesn’t remember the ‘loop it and swoop it’ method, or the famous ‘bunny ears’ rhyme? But now that you’ve mastered the whole shoe-fastening thing, why not play around and have some fun with your shoelace style? These original techniques illustrate that when it comes to laces, there's a lot of room for creativity we aren't yet exploring.

After seeing hundreds of startup pitches for this year's Capital Factory program, I can tell you that the two most common errors in positioning a company against competition are, strangely, opposites:

1. Claiming you have no competition.
2. Defining your company's offering and positioning by combining "the best" traits of 6 competitors.

This isn't just a problem when pitching — it's a problem with you defining who your customers are, what they want, and your role in the marketplace.

Let's break down the ways these fallacies manifest and what you can do instead.

In his 1931 classic Epic of America, James Truslow Adams defines the American dream as the ability of both men and women to reach their fullest potential. The American fitness dream follows the same idea, but with a slight addendum: minimal time and effort. That's where the Hawaii Chair makes its retail mark, because, honestly, who has time to go to the gym? With the Hawaii Chair, you can "take the work out of your workout," keeping fit while you sit at your desk. How? A 2,800-r.p.m. motor positioned beneath the seat simulates the hula motion at multiple speeds to tone muscle. It claims to be ideal when handling all work-related tasks, from answering phone calls to filing papers. But as Ellen DeGeneres , pouring a glass of water proves to be a stretch.

A reader asks: I have employees that are creating intellectual property that is essential to my business. How can I make sure that the company retains ownership of it?

Answer: In general, if you are dealing with employees, the answer is pretty straightforward — the IP will probably be owned by the company, not the employee. However, there are some gray areas, since this area of the law incorporates both intellectual property and employment law principles. So get a lawyer who understands the cross section of these areas involved to help you navigate these waters.

Typically, someone who creates work that is fixed in a tangible means of expression is considered the “author” of the copyrighted work. United States copyright law, however, has created an exception in which the company, not the person who created the work, is deemed to be the author. When used, this means all rights vest with the company, not the individual. There are numerous ways that someone can transfer the ownership of intellectual property to the company (generally through a written agreement). But about the only way for the company to “author” the work is to have a work for hire.

Germany-based Brand Science Institute,
a renowned think-tank focused on brand and consumer management, has carried out a fairly extensive study on corporate social media projects over the past 7 months.

Focal point of the research was a desire to understand why (most)
social media projects tend to be utter failures. BSI questioned 560+
marketers representing 52 brands from some of the largest companies
across 12 European countries, and poured the end results in a
presentation.

A great quote found Roger von Oech’s book, ““A Whack on the Side of the Head” reads as follows…

“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else
and thinking something different.

The quote is attributed to the Nobel prize winning physician Albert Szent-Györgyi.

You’ve probably heard the expression, “There is no such thing as a new idea.” Discovery suggests, rather, that there are new ways to look at things.

But, how do you look at something different?

One method I recommend is to “SCAMPER.”

Electric cars and biofuels seem to inhabit different universes these days. Nissan, General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Honda, Ford, BMW, Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive and Daimler, among others, have unfurled plans to release affordable electric cars over the next few years. Thousands of consumers have plunked down deposits on upcoming models and states have sought grants to pay for charging networks.

Meanwhile, biofuel startups, struggling for cash, have branched into jet fuel, chemicals and food additives as a way to get revenue to come in the door.

The liquid versus electrolyte debate, however, is not over, according to Britta Gross, the director of the energy systems group intelligence center at General Motors. Gross' job is to examine the costs/ benefits of the different propulsion systems for cars and the corresponding infrastructure. (Editor's Note: we spoke to her right before GM filed for its IPO.)

Technology transfer from universities and federal laboratories has evolved and matured over the last 30 years. Today, it is widely accepted that technology transfer must be able to encompass partnerships that go beyond licensing technologies flowing serendipitously out of federally funded scientific research. Across the academic and federal sectors, sponsored research and collaborative endeavors with industry have become expected. The Department of Energy’s national laboratories have long embraced this effort, working with small and large, and national and international companies and consortia to develop and move technologies closer to and into the marketplace.

A wonderful aspect of humanity is that we have the capability to choose to evolve, mature and improve our circumstances. And so, as we move into and beyond Web 2.0, Government 2.0 and other next-generation concepts, deeper into the 21st century, so too are we seeing a next generation of federal technology transfer begin to blossom. We are coming to understand and implement “innovation ecosystems” and “open innovation” models that recognize the importance of integrating disciplines and of bringing people together to exchange ideas—creating synergies and a more mature innovation pathway better able to address the larger problems of this new millennium.

Having never taken a business class in college I find that I read and listen to a lot of business books to round out my education. The books usually aren't "How to Manage Your Cash Flow" but rather get me to rethink the way I run my business, which--despite no business classes or diploma--continues to be in business 13 plus years after I started it.

In that time, here are 13 of the books that had the biggest impact on how I run my business (in no particular order):

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink: If you supervise anyone in your business, this book is a must read. It shows that what science knows about motivation, business isn't putting into practice. In fact, many of the incentives we create can actually de-motivate our employees. If you create an incentive program that provides financial rewards for work that your employees already enjoy, expect the results to be negative. You've just destroyed their internal motivation. Also important (and well documented within the book) is that internally motivated people succeed more often than externally motivated people; they last longer and do better work. Think about that when you're hiring your next employee.

Even when your startup is a one-man show, you will soon find that you are “out of control,” unless you start organizing and writing down how and when key things need to get done. Like it or not, you are now entering the dreaded realm of “formal business processes.” The right question is “What is the minimum that I need?”

The simple answer is that you need to implement one process at a time, starting with those things that are most critical to your business, until you feel a relief that things are starting to happen naturally and consistently, without the attendant stress and continual recovery mode. If you feel that the process itself is a burden, you have likely gone too far.

Here are eight key business tasks that relate to almost every startup, generally prioritized by criticality. Think about the implications of each to your own business, and the potential impact of getting them done incorrectly, or forgetting to do them entirely.

Top city index and rankings.

The Innovation Cities™ Index by 2thinknow is a 3-factor city score and ranking. The approach is far more comprehensive than Mercer or Economist livability rankings. The Index scores and ranks cities on a more diverse basis.

Since 2007, 2thinknow has published the Innovation Cities™ Index. 2007 and 2008 were beta versions, with the methodology expanded to it’s current size and breadth in 2009. The 2010 index is based on the 2009 methodology, with 14% more cities.