For wannabe entrepreneurs and those already in the game, a happy thought on the Independence Day, is this from Rahul Khanna, MD, Canaan Partners: “There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur.”

Why does he think so? Because of two dynamics, as Rahul explains. Tune in…

First dynamic: Seed and angel ecosystem

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Tell anyone, let alone a student, to imagine being the owner of a business and that person sits up a little straighter, a knowing smile embarking on a journey to their own special world of ideas. Everyone travels there sometimes, that point in time where we own our own business, celebrating independence and individuality, breaking from the pack.

And students, well, they dream it all the time.

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Two young entrepreneurs are trying to change how we interact with our computers. Darren Lim, a 20-year-old Thiel Fellow, and Lai Xue, a 21-year-old former engineer at Intel, just officially launched Haptix along with a $100,000 Kickstarter campaign. 

Haptix turns any surface into a multi-touch surface. All you do is point the image sensor-equipped bar at any flat surface to use it as a multi-touch pad to control your computer, TV, or any other type of screen.

There are two books that have transformed my thinking about how business should be run: The Innovators Dilemma (Clayton Christensen) and The Practice of Management (Peter Drucker). The first is an examination of companies that have failed to convince customers to adopt their innovative new technologies. The other asserts that management is the work of getting business done through other people.

In the past, when these books were written, businesses relied on an ordinary media, doing an ordinary job, with an ordinary understanding of their organizations. Management relied on ordinary technology to coordinate people and processes. But, now, according to Edelman Senior Vice President, Michael Brito, businesses don’t need to accept ordinary anymore. Brito believes it’s all changed; employers now have access to extraordinary software, extraordinary influencers, extraordinary information and can create and publish their own extraordinary content.

When Lavabit—an e-mail service used by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden—suspended service last week amid hints that it had received a government demand for information, a competing service called Silent Circle made a draconian decision: to obliterate all of its customers’ stored e-mail.

The episode pointed out two fundamental weaknesses in e-mail. First, even if an e-mail service encrypts messages for secrecy, as Lavabit and Silent Circle did, the e-mail headers and routing protocols reveal who the senders and receivers are, and that information can be valuable in its own right. And second, the passcodes used as keys to decrypt messages can be requested by the government (if held by the e-mail company) or simply stolen by sophisticated malware.

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Many investors will assert that company culture trumps strategy every time in predicting the long-term success of a new startup. Obviously, both are important, so it behooves every entrepreneur to start early in setting the right tone for his own company, and every new team member should be gauging both of these relative to their own interests, prior to signing on.

What is a company culture, anyway? Probably the best definition is the oft-quoted view that culture is simply “the way we do things around here.” It’s always amazing to me how different that can be between two companies in essentially the same business. There is no ultimate right or wrong in a culture, but there are attributes that will be right or wrong for you, or your investors.

"Entrepreneurship, by definition, is the art of creating systems that generate more value for less effort," Contently cofounder Shane Snow writes on LinkedIn. "Startups realize that the opportunity cost of doing mundane tasks adds up quickly, preventing them from doing the high-impact work they have set out to do."

So what we want to do as individuals, then, is to borrow from those organizational productivity hacks--giving us more time, better energy, and more chances at success. Let us count the ways.

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New technology will eradicate some jobs, change others, and create whole new categories of employment. Innovation causes a churn in the job market, and this time around the churn is particularly large--from cheap sensors (creating "an internet of things") to 3D printing (enabling more distributed manufacturing).

Sparks & Honey, a New York trend-spotting firm, has a wall in its office where staff can post imaginative next-generation jobs. Below are eight of them, with narration from CEO Terry Young (who previously appeared here talking about healthcare).

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British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg admitted to "padding around" his office without his shoes recently--to the outcry of the sartorial press.

And as summer makes the downward arch into its dog days, we have to ask ourselves if we have the flexibility to free our feetsies.

BARE FOOT-ERY: AN OFFICE EFFRONTERY?

According to an Adecco survey, more than 40 percent of people feel offended when colleagues take their shoes off at work. Fast Company's previously gone on record against flip-flops, with the argument that if we can see your toes, that's not good.

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Technology firms and companies in the life sciences and defense industries are ignoring easy money if they’re not taking advantage of two major federal grant programs.

So says Lisa Kurek, managing partner of Ann Arbor-based BBC Entrepreneurial Training and Consulting, a firm that specializes in helping companies apply for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants.

Long active on the east side of the state, BBC held its first seminar on SBIR and STTR funding in Grand Rapids in mid-July.

While the process to get the funding can be complicated, the two grant programs offer very attractive funding options for the right kinds of technology-driven companies, Kurek said.

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The Korea Herald is publishing a series of articles scrutinizing key aspects and sectors related to the creative economy the Park Geun-hye government is promoting as a national agenda. The series was made in cooperation with the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. This is the first part of the series. ― Ed. 

When President Park Geun-hye introduced her creative economy policy during the election campaign late last year, most people were bewildered by the relatively new concept.

The policy’s key points included promoting convergent IT and software technologies, scientific discoveries and technology integrating with cultural content for sustainable economic growth.

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The governing board of OCAST awarded 17 independently peer-reviewed Applied Research applications $3,608,810. Award winners were chosen from a field of 42 applicants.

Oklahoma research teams will use the funds to conduct research and development for a period of up to three years. A typical award is $300,000 for three years; however, awards can vary in both time and funding amounts.

Unfortunately, many people can relate to disliking their work, or even hating their job. Are you among the many workers who would leave your job at the first chance?

If an immediate change is unlikely, consider the following tips from Sanjay Sathe, CEO of RiseSmart:

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Probiotics are something of a new dietary craze. Foods contain healthy "probiotic" bacteria, and these microbes can promote good gastrointestinal (GI) health. But what about your brain? Apparently, bacteria influence what’s going on up there, too. Within the past several years, a blossoming field of study called "microbial endocrinology" has provided some provocative insights about the relationship between our GI microbiota and our mood and behaviour.

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My greatest disappointment after joining academia was to see my most promising students accept jobs at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. Engineering students with ambitions to save the world would instead become financial analysts—who used their skills to “engineer” our financial system. Or they would take grunt jobs in management consulting—another waste of valuable talent.

Why would they sell their souls? Because they had no choice, the burden of debt they amassed while getting their degrees was just too great. They had six-figure student loans to repay and couldn’t take the risk of joining a startup or founding their own business.

Member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) need to embrace innovation to drive growth and development as they move toward economic integration by 2015, say economists.   In the Global Innovation Index 2013 report released last month (1 July), ASEAN countries are still lagging, with Singapore being the only one ranked in the top 20 at 8th spot. The list is topped by Switzerland, followed by Sweden and the United Kingdom.

For the handful of tech startups in London that have grown large enough to consider going public on a stock exchange, a difficult choice lies ahead: head across the pond to New York where the public markets are more receptive to tech, or fight it out on London’s public markets, which are cooler towards tech, but which could pave the way for other home-grown U.K. firms.

Question: As an entrepreneur, how are you finding time/budget for travel this summer? (name one tip)

1. Make for a Happy Homecoming

“This summer, I’ve gone to Denver, L.A., Nevada, Orlando and Montreal so far! The key is planning the week of your return in advance. Don’t take any meetings; instead, spend that first morning easing back into your flow. Catch up on your emails and assignments. If you have focused work time during the week of your return, you’ll be all caught up and won’t feel burned out.”

- Raoul Davis | CEO, Ascendant Group

On July 26 the Directors of the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) sent their annual budget preparation guidance memo on science and technology to the heads of executive branch departments and agencies. Titled "Science and Technology Priorities in the FY 2015 Budget," the memo describes the Administration's S&T priorities for the agencies' preparation of their FY 2015 budget submissions. Some of the priorities listed include: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, global climate change, information technology, innovation in biology and neuroscience, and STEM education. The memo also cites the Administration's commitment to "increasing public access to the results of federally-funded scientific research," and states that "agencies should give priority to activities that significantly increase access to research results for all citizens." The full text of the memo is posted here (PDF).

DreamIt Health Demo Day has gotten a lot of great press, from Philly.com to NewsWorks to Technical.ly Philly, and many more. These plaudits are well deserved: DreamIt Health was the first Philadelphia-based health care accelerator, and by all accounts it was a huge success. Ten health care startup companies participated in this venture, made possible by a collaboration between Independence Blue Cross (IBC), Penn Medicine, and DreamIt Ventures. The more than 300 attendees to the Demo Day on July 24, 2013 included potential investors and customers, mentors, and health care executives.