If you've ever taken a business 101 course, you probably heard this common piece of advice: the customer is always right. It's a customer service approach to business that relies on service staff placing a high priority on buyer satisfaction. The concept dates back to the 19th century when retail pioneers like Harry Gordon Selfridge, John Wanamaker and Marshall Field insisted on customer complaints being treated seriously in order to retain their business.

Bill McGowan makes a living helping corporate executives and celebrities avoid making fools of themselves on TV. He should know how: He spent years doing on-air reporting and anchoring at ABC and CBS. His approach stresses presentation — which is why McGowan has a lot of useful pointers for entrepreneurs when it comes to pitching to prospective customers.

You may think that only big, established companies need to worry about patent trolls but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Startups also run the risk of being a target of these trolls, or more politely known as non-practicing entities (NPEs).

For instance, if your company has a transactional website, conducts ecommerce, has a customer-facing smartphone app or provides in-store customers with Wi-Fi access you have patent risk and are a prime target, too.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Sergio Ermotti, the chief executive of UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank has been banking since the age of 15. He started out as an apprentice at Cornèr Bank, where he learned to sell stocks and trade. He went on to get a certificate in Swiss banking and it was up the career ladder from there. Ermotti is one of thousands of Swiss apprentices who have grown from a talent pipeline that starts even before university. This is one of the reasons why Switzerland is the top country in the Global Innovation Index (GII) for the fourth year in a row.

Is money everything in the workplace? Not according to this recent survey, which found that the biggest deal breakers at work are issues related to advancement and work-life balance.

A survey of 1,000 employees by human resources software company BambooHR revealed that while younger people are annoyed by low salaries, salary actually becomes less important to employees as they age. The real deal breakers: issues with bosses and co-workers and skewed work-life balance.

Stanford University scientists say they have developed a new test for type 1 diabetes that will cost a fraction of the current price and could speed up diagnosis from days to hours. That could be useful anywhere, but especially in poorer countries where many people with diabetes go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed because the existing tests are too expensive to be widely offered.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans who report exercising for 30 minutes every day in the past week feel best about their physical appearance, while those who exercise no more than one day in a given week feel the worst. Seventy percent of Americans who exercised for at least 30 minutes every day the prior week express agreement that they "always feel good" about their appearance, compared with half of those who say they exercised for at least 30 minutes one day (50%) or no days (49%). For the most part, each additional day per week that Americans exercise for 30 minutes or more is associated with at least a small increase in feeling good about their appearance.

Image: http://www.gallup.com 

Being a Director in a Company is a responsible position. Many Entrepreneurs are clueless about the role and responsibilities of the Director from Company Law’s viewpoint. This leads to greater non compliance and can also lead to litigations and penalties.

In this episode of eLagaan Whiteboard Friday, the eLagaan team talks about various activities that a Director is expected to perform while they hold office. It also looks at major and most common of instances of non compliance that could arise and tentative penalties associated with them.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

When the Michigan Venture Capital Association (MVCA) released its annual report about the state of venture capital earlier this summer, there was plenty to be optimistic about. In 2013, Michigan bucked national trends by increasing the number of VC professionals statewide by 84 percent, compared with a 13 percent decline nationally. VC-backed companies in Michigan increased by 66 percent over the past five years, and according to the MVCA data, Michigan also vastly outpaced Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin when it came to the number of venture-backed deals brokered in 2013.

 image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Dan Huttenlocher doesn’t like walls. This isn’t so much an aesthetic preference as it is a practical concern. Walls divide people and define spaces. They restrict movement. They discourage exchange. And they’re a pain to move if your needs change, especially when they’re stuffed with cables, ducts, and other infrastructural accessories.

Image: Handel Architects - Cornell Tech is planning a campus “unlike any ever created in higher education,” shown here in an architect’s rendering. 

Did you know that every minute another 293,000 statuses are updated on Facebook? Or that 433,000 Tweets are also sent out in that short timespan? If you think those numbers are big, there are also 4.7 million new posts each minute on Tumblr alone (including reblogs).

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com 

It's no secret that the current job market for recent graduates is — how can we put this lightly — not the best.

The process of looking for a job is exhausting, and a lot of guidance, particularly from the very universities we've graduated from, can be summed up with the frustratingly simple recommendation to "join LinkedIn."

Image: An excited graduate of Syracuse University stands up during the university commencement on May 11, 2014.IMAGE: HEATHER AINSWORTH/ASSOCIATED PRESS 

A lot of people want jobs in marketing, which is great news for those of us currently hiring. However, after a decade of screening, interviewing and onboarding marketers, there are still some mistakes that I constantly see. Here are examples of some mistakes you should avoid.

Learning continues long after college ends. What if being enrolled in college was also a lifelong condition?

That is how Christian Terwiesch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, thinks graduate business programs might work in the future.

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These days, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, pitching their latest and greatest new idea, and looking for someone to give them money. Angel investors, like me, have long figured out that asking to see the prototype is a quick way to separate the ‘wannabes’ from serious players. Talk is cheap, but entrepreneurs who show you a working model of their idea know how to execute.

Employees who go through mid-life crises tend to dream of setting up their own business. Being their own boss, they think, would allow them to earn more money and be happier overall.

But if you are of this mindset, then you are likely to be in for a very big disappointment. Here's why:

Reasoning #1: 'I'll have more control over my time'

Last year our startup went through a serious downtime. We had a large deal signed that fell through with only 7% of its original commitment. During this time, we went through what every entrepreneur fears – no money. We had already started the wheels turning for future growth plans, and yet we didn’t have the cash to do so.

Image: No cash? (Photo credit: HowardLake) 

Last month, Tesla Motors announced that they are opening up their patents to anyone, who in good faith, wants to use their technology. This enforces my belief that although intellectual property rights are still important in the world of innovation, the value is decreasing.

One reason is the fast pace of change, which forces more and more industries to look at development speed, fast execution and ever-changing business models rather than intellectual protection with regards to their innovation efforts.

The U.S. education policy world—the entire country, for that matter—is on a quest to increase the ranks of future innovators in science and technology. Yet the programs that get funded in K–12 education do not support students who are already good at and in love with science. These students have potential for outstanding contributions, but without public investment they will not be prepared for the rigors of a scientific career. This is especially true for those without highly educated and resource-rich parents.

Image: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ 

A major difference between biotechnology and information technology ventures is the time it takes to bring a product to market. Unlike Facebook and Google, innovation in the medical sciences world generally starts from the results of a long, government-funded basic research investigation.