Foursquare has become a popular mobile social networking app with some shopping perks.

But another iPhone app, launching today, is much more focused on shopping, and has the combination of early deals, big-name backers, and buzz that makes it worth watching.

Shopkick, a San Francisco-based startup, launches its flagship iPhone app today, and it's right at the interesting junction of mobile apps, location-based services, and commerce. Someone is going to make money here someday, and Shopkick is one of the most ambitious, interesting attempts we've seen. (Click here to get the app in iTunes.)

It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?

Doing “the elevator pitch” feels so awkward, embarrassing and unnatural — like you’re hawking a product on a late night infomercial. Yet it’s such an important part of the job search that everybody has to have one.

You know, when I speak around the country to groups of job-seekers, it’s one of the most common questions I get: “How do I do the elevator pitch without sounding goofy, or hucksterish, or like I’m babbling?”

I totally understand.

Trying to sum up your professional career in thirty seconds gives many people pause.

I’ve been reading the book “The Black Swan” recently on the recommendation of my two partners.  I had heard about the book for years, but it never made it off my “to-read” list until now.

One of the concepts that the book discusses is the way we think of risk differently when we are generating profits vs. when we are minimizing losses.  The simple illustration goes something like this:

If someone gave you the offer of $100, no strings attached, vs. flipping a coin for the chance of winning $200, what would you choose?  Although both options are mathematically equivalent, most folks would choose the $100.

Here's a quick warning before you drool over this list of ludicrously expensive homes. Nearly all of these properties have been listed on Trulia for over 100 days, and we've written a few times about the danger of a highend real estate crash (see Nantucket and Chicago).

Of course we're not telling you not to buy.

Carlos Slim just bought a $44 million New York home, and the most expensive home ever -- $220 million -- sold last week in London. Manhattan real estate on the whole is creeping back.

And it helps that most of the people who can afford $44-million homes happen to work on Wall Street.

Good timing can turn a mediocre product into a breakout success; bad timing can destroy an otherwise successful career. In business, timing is everything. Unfortunately, most people think timing is just like luck. It isn’t. Nothing can be further from the truth. It’s a critical success factor and you can learn to use it to your advantage … or let it bite you in the you-know-what.

I don’t care if it’s a business plan, a negotiation, a customer relationship, a product launch, a presentation, a marketing campaign, a proposal, a career, or an entire corporation. Timing can make or break it; I see it happen all the time.

Unfortunately, even some of the best and brightest managers and business people consider timing as an afterthought. Their thinking goes something like this: 1) idea, 2) budget, 3) target customers or audience, 4) competition, … , 27) timing. I have no idea why, but it’s true. And sad. Really.

Email, smartphones, Twitter and Facebook have made it a brand new world for etiquette. Emily Post can’t help us with contemporary conundrums of politeness — how do you avoiding annoying people with email (while also ensuring everyone who needs to gets the message)? If you’re having lunch with someone should you ignore your bleeping phone or are you being rude to the caller?

Without your grandmother’s admonitions to guide you, young people are forced to navigate a social landscape mined liberally with technology as best they can. A whole host of guides are offering contradictory advice, however. Peggy Nelson, in an in-depth post at Nieman Storyboard, argues that attending to your phone over dinner isn’t the serious sin against etiquette it first appears to be, as “we’ve moved from the etiquette of the individual to the etiquette of the flow.” (HT to kottke.org)

Whether you’re beginning a blog for business, personal use, or to earn a little spare cash blogging for pay, you have to start somewhere. But it’s not always easy to launch a new blog – time, ideas, and resources are often hard to find. Here are some ideas to help you jumpstart your blog and get it rolling on the road to success.

GLEN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Utah — Todd Braver emerges from a tent nestled against the canyon wall. He has a slight tan, except for a slim pale band around his wrist.

For the first time in three days in the wilderness, Mr. Braver is not wearing his watch. “I forgot,” he says.

It is a small thing, the kind of change many vacationers notice in themselves as they unwind and lose track of time. But for Mr. Braver and his companions, these moments lead to a question: What is happening to our brains?

Mr. Braver, a psychology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, was one of five neuroscientists on an unusual journey. They spent a week in late May in this remote area of southern Utah, rafting the San Juan River, camping on the soft banks and hiking the tributary canyons.

SHANGHAI — After three decades of spectacular growth, China passed Japan in the second quarter to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States, according to government figures released early Monday.

The milestone, though anticipated for some time, is the most striking evidence yet that China’s ascendance is for real and that the rest of the world will have to reckon with a new economic superpower.

The recognition came early Monday, when Tokyo said that Japan’s economy was valued at about $1.28 trillion in the second quarter, slightly below China’s $1.33 trillion. Japan’s economy grew 0.4 percent in the quarter, Tokyo said, substantially less than forecast. That weakness suggests that China’s economy will race past Japan’s for the full year.

Jordan Holt needed a business plan. So he went back to school.

A technician for a military contractor in Yuma, Ariz., Mr. Holt launched a side business last year, servicing and repairing generators—and quickly realized he would need to write up a formal plan if he ever wanted to borrow money for equipment. But after doing some online research, putting together a plan "looked complicated and overwhelming," he says.

He decided to get the help he needed from a business-plan development course at Arizona Western College in Yuma. "I was able to take everything in my head and put it down on paper," says Mr. Holt, a 29-year-old ex-Marine. "I truly think it could work."

Much of the venture-capital industry is undergoing a shakeout. But a growing breed of start-up investors dubbed "super angels" is rapidly raising new money—and ratcheting up competition with established venture capitalists in the process.

Aydin Senkut, a former Google Inc. executive, plans to announce that he just closed a $40 million super-angel fund from institutional investors and wealthy individuals including hedge-fund manager Peter Thiel. His fund follows a $20 million super-angel fund by start-up investor Ron Conway in May and an $8.5 million fund from by former Google executive Chris Sacca in June.

Meanwhile, former PayPal Inc. executive Dave McClure is raising a $30 million super-angel fund, according to a regulatory filing. And super-angel investor Mike Maples, who raised a $33 million fund in 2008, is raising a new $73.5 million fund, according to a regulatory filing.

It’s a lot like the Cold War – most of the really interesting fights among startup investors – and there are lots of them – occur behind the scenes. Publicly everyone gets along just great. But declining returns, too much capital and the disruptive force of a new breed of angel investors has created enough tension in the system that some frustrations are beginning to boil over. And in some cases, the gloves are coming off.

And entrepreneurs can and do get caught in the cross fire. Pick the wrong investor and you’ve closed the door on others. You’ll never even know why it happened, but it will.

The moment you want someone to buy something from you, you take on a Herculean burden…

The burden of proof. You need to prove to a potential customer, client, patient, reader or visitor that the solution you’re offering will solve their problem better, faster, easier, more-effectively or less-expensively than others.

You can answer every other question, grab attention, build rapport, establish though leadership, disqualify others, differentiate your offering, share benefit after benefit, claim superiority, reverse risk, create scarcity, incentivize immediate buying and call people to act.

Greetings from D.C. A new initiative to measure the impact of federally funded research on employment, knowledge creation and health outcomes was launched in June. The initiative—entitled Science and Technology for America's Reinvestment: Measuring the Effect of Research on Innovation, Competitiveness and Science, or STAR METRICS—is an extension of a recently completed pilot program conducted under the auspices of the Federal Demonstration Partnership within the National Academies.

The program will be led jointly by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, and is billed as a collaborative effort among federal agencies funding science research and universities and other institutions conducting such federally funded research. It is intended as a "multi-phase project that will evolve with time in response to the demands of stakeholders."

In America and Britain governments hope that a partnership with “social entrepreneurs” can solve some of society’s most intractable problems

POLICYMAKERS on both sides of the Atlantic are keen on a new approach to alleviating society’s troubles. On July 22nd Barack Obama’s administration listed the first 11 investments by its new Social Innovation Fund (SIF). About $50m of public money, more than matched by $74m from philanthropic foundations, will be given to some of America’s most successful non-profit organisations, in order to expand their work in health care, in creating jobs and in supporting young people (see table).

Highland Capital Partners General Partner Peter Bell used to teach a few classes at Boston College and would often ask professors to recommend the school’s best and brightest for positions within his portfolio companies. One of the students who ended up at his doorstep was Bill Clerico.

“I knew he was a good student and had good grades, but I asked Bill what else he does,” Bell said, recounting an

interview with Clerico for a position at medical tourism company Healthbase Online Inc. “He said, ‘Well, I don’t know if you’re a fan of BC sports, but I’m Baldwin.’”

That’s Baldwin The Eagle, mascot of Boston College athletics. Bell just happened to be a season ticket holder to just about every sport on campus.

Bell’s response: “‘You’re hired.’”

Seven years later Bell has led a $7.5 million Series B for Clerico’s WePay Inc. and joined the board of directors. Go Eagles.

Give a speech. Win a client.

As simple—or even scary—as that formula sounds, a host of entrepreneurs have found that conquering public speaking can be the route to more contacts and customers. Impressing people with your expertise at a conference, in a classroom or over the radio can sometimes win more business than making sales calls or manning a booth at a trade show. Not to mention that the most successful speakers can take home thousands of dollars in fees for an appearance.

Of course, it's not always easy to get started. Many entrepreneurs—like many people in general—suffer from stage fright, or simply don't think they have anything to say to an audience. In many cases, they have to get up to speed with the help of speakers' groups such as Dale Carnegie & Associates Inc. or Toastmasters International, or even coaches and therapists. But those who have done it often say it's worth the effort, for both their business and their self-esteem.

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To read the full, original article click on this link: Speaking Can Be a Lucrative Path to More Business - WSJ.com

Author: BARBARA HAISLIP

You don't have to break the bank to start a business.

For many would-be entrepreneurs, money is the insurmountable hurdle. They hunger to strike out on their own, but don't have a big pile of cash to invest in a start-up that might not churn a profit for years to come. And they're reluctant to stake what cash they do have while the economy is still shaky.

We decided to see if you could launch a venture for less than people think. A lot less. We set out to find bootstrapping business owners who started companies in recent years—without shelling out more than a couple of hundred dollars.

SAINT JOHN - A month after it was formed, it's full steam ahead for a task force with a mandate to define and chart the course of the energy sector in New Brunswick.

Dale Knox, the chairman of the interim task force - which will be replaced by a permanent board at the end of this month - told the Telegraph-Journal the team had its third full meeting Friday morning. Some of the now-12-member task force called in by phone, while others attended in person at the offices of Ernst and Young, the consulting group that hosted a summit on the energy hub, along with the Department of Energy, back in July.

Knox, the president and chief executive of Tabufile Records Management, is one of a handful of community representatives on the interim task force, which also includes industry, government and academia. One of the principal jobs of the task force has been mapping out the province's existing and potential energy activities in Atlantic Canada and the U.S. Northeast. Knox says they assigned this to David Campbell, an economic development consultant, who returned to the group with a 47-page "high level" document Friday.