Boomers already faced significant retirement challenges before getting clobbered by the recent stock market volatility. The possibility of another recession and the political gridlock over the federal debt only add to the uncertainty. More than ever, you will need to make every dollar count when it comes to planning for retirement — once you are in your 50s or 60s, there isn’t much margin for error.

Here five common retirement planning mistakes and a few tips for avoiding them. Be forewared: There aren’t easy answers.  It will take time to navigate an effective course of action. The end result, however, will be peace of mind that you’re doing everything possible in a tough environment.

The Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire just released its report on angel funding activity for the first half of 2011.

And the news is....good!

During the first half of this year, angel investments totaled $8.9 billion, an increase of 4.7 percent over the same period in 2010.

What does this mean in terms of number of companies funded by angels, and the number of angel investors?

Well, the study estimated that 26,300 entrepreneurs received angel funding during the first half of 2011. And the number of angel investors who funded these companies: a whopping 124,900 individuals.

I heard a fascinating one-liner the other day that I had knee jerk negative reaction to but when I thought about it more thought was deeply insightful, especially in the context of big established companies vs. new entrepreneurial companies.

A CEO of a very large, successful company said “execution is an order of magnitude easier than opportunity.” In the context of young startups, I often feel exactly the opposite. Opportunity is everywhere, but execution in a bitch.

But then I thought about this a little. For a big company that dominates a market, it’s totally focused on execution. The company is built for execution and, assuming it is built well, just cranks things out. What it cranks out might be inspiring, or it might not be, but it’ll keep cranking things out.

During the life of your business, things are bound to change. For example, in the early stages of your business, you may have preferred to keep things simple with an LLC. But as your business and expectations grow, you may need to change your business structure. After all, what may have worked for your business during the first few years of its existence may not be optimal for you now.

If you’re considering changing your company from one business structure to another, there are a few things to keep in mind. The procedures themselves are not necessarily difficult or complex, but will typically involve some legal steps, such as a merger or the dissolution of one entity and the creation of a new one.

Technology is fueling emerging markets previously unforeseen. These new markets are not being created from old business models rather new models that leverage technology and existing assets. Subsequently these new models are creating new value not previously recognized by older models.

The new models are in the middle and on the edge. On the edge being at the fringes of markets being served by the older models and buyers looking for  value at competitive prices and greatly improved experiences.  New markets in the middle represent those wanting neither the most expensive or the cheapest rather value in the middle.

Shark Tank is a reality television series based on the  Sony TV/ BBCTV  Dragons’ Den.It premiered on  ABC television in August 2009 and features a panel of five wealthy entrepreneurs who are called “sharks”. The panel evaluates and negotiates investment proposals from entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs would come into a room with five sharks, present their business plan and model then the sharks would ask questions. When the entrepreneur didn’t have the right answer is like fresh blood in water filled with swarming sharks.

While not a broadcast on a reality show made for TV the reality is we see brands presenting their products and services every second of every day to crowds within their reach.  The crowd’s reaction can be silent or it can be like sharks smelling fresh blood leading to a victim waiting to be devoured.

I recently embarked on an overland trip through Thailand and Cambodia. Asia is a truly fascinating place with similarities to Africa. I, perhaps rather naively, had a romantic vision of escaping from the madness of my everyday life and setting off into the remote wilderness of South East Asia and losing touch with the outside world. I was in for surprise.

As of 2008, there were 16 100 000 internet users in Thailand. In Cambodia and in Thailand there are literally tens of thousands of places where internet is available for public use, coffee shops, bars, restaurants and gas stations. Through USB modems and internet capabilities on cellphones, Cambodians are reconnecting with the outside world.

Throughout my journey; from central Bangkok, to Chiang Mai and Pai in the North of Thailand, to the home of the lost city, Siem Riep in Cambodia, and then south to the remote Thai Islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Toa, I was amazed how connected South East Asia is, regardless of how remote the location.

American workers are feeling worse than ever about their jobs, according to Gallup polls, but the reason may be surprising. It’s not low (or no) raises, limited benefits or even longer work days that are making employees unhappy -- it’s the work they’re doing.

According to research from the Harvard Business School, doing meaningful work and making progress in it make people the happiest on the job.

For many of today’s employees, these two basic elements are missing, and that’s a problem, not only for employees, but for their companies. Unhappy employees are less productive and hurt the bottom line.

A few days before Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in the Jewish calendar and a spiritual day of remembrance, I found myself in front of ten Palestinian tech CEOs talking about entrepreneurship. At the end of the session, they invited me to meet with Palestinian President Abbas to advise him on how to build a thriving IT sector (which now employs 3,500 across 300 companies). How did this juxtaposition come about?

It all began a few months ago, when Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick visited Israel on a trade mission. He met with numerous Israeli entrepreneurs to foster greater business partnerships and opportunities with Massachusetts businesses. While there, he also met with a few Palestinian entrepreneurs and invited them to come to Boston to establish closer relationships with local businesses. Last week, they took him up on this offer.

An article in the Wall Street Journal about a "cash crunch" for startups has thrown the tech world into a mini-panic.

Fred Wilson of Union Square Venture partners has the smartest take we've read so far, which is that the only reason there's a "crunch" is that there are now just a mind-boggling number of startups competing for a finite number of users and a finite amount of cash.

Good, differentiated startups are still able to raise all the money they want, Fred says. But he and his partners are now so deluged with business plans that he feels like the "Annie" casting director who spends all day fending off mothers and red-haired daughters at casting calls only to arrive home and have yet another red-haired kid pop out of a bush and start singing "Tomorrow!"

OK. I know with a title like that I’m going to subject myself to people thinking I’m just being a grumpy, exclusive VC. That’s not the point. It’s honest advice so please judge once you’re read the post. And despite getting flamed (as expected) in the comments section – this isn’t about me. I meet plenty of people at all levels and whatever status. I’m not hierarchic. This is meant to be a general primer. It’s not about ME !!!

Meals or coffee are a great way to build rapport with other people and since I’m an ENTP I love breaking bread as much as the next guy. But there’e a time, a place and a way to do it as well as “the art of the ask” that avoids you looking like a rookie.

The National Research Foundation (NRF), an organization set up by the Singapore government to fund R&D and technopreneurship, is calling for more incubators to participate in its Technology Incubation Scheme (TIS).

The announcement was made by Dr Francis Yeoh, the CEO of NRF at Techventure 2011 on 14th October.

OneWire, an employee recruiting platform, has raised $30 million since 2008. That’s not bad for a startup, but nor is it an eye-popping amount. What’s turning heads in the tech scene is the way OneWire raised it: all from individual investors, and not a penny from venture capital firms.

OneWire has 101 angel investors. David Tisch, an investor who advises early stage startups as the managing director of TechStars New York City, says there’s no average number when it comes to angels — but anything more than 10 seems like a lot.

Kerry Rupp, a managing partner at Dreamit Ventures, reacts similarly. “101 opinions can be pretty overwhelming,” she says.

ST. LOUIS (September 27, 2011) — A new regional organization to champion St. Louis bioscience, BioSTL (evolved from the Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences), announced today a $30 million commitment from Washington University in St. Louis, BJC HealthCare, and the St. Louis Life Sciences Project to forward bioscience company creation and drive economic growth in St. Louis. These funds will increase the region’s capacity to support entrepreneurs and launch BioSTL itself, the next step in St. Louis’ 10-year-old collective effort to increase economic activity in the medical and plant biosciences.

The three funding organizations have each committed $2 million per year for five years, for a combined total of $30 million. A majority of these new funds will be dedicated to pre-seed and seed investments and associated support for newly-created enterprises. These early-stage investments will help transform innovations from local institutions and entrepreneurs into new companies and new jobs in the St. Louis region.

As much as I love being an entrepreneur, it can be a lonely endeavor.  My time as an entrepreneur, since I was a young kid, and my time working with entrepreneurs over the course of my career, have taught me that being the one in charge can make you feel very alone.  Sometimes it feels like you’re on an island.  Whether you’re an entrepreneur in a one-person company or a CEO in a larger company, if you are the final decision maker, it’s easy to feel like it’s you against the world.

Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news on this.  First, the bad news:  it’s not likely to change.  If you’re the person upon whose shoulders rests final decision making authority, it’s virtually impossible not to feel sometimes like all the pressure is on you and you’re on “an island”.  Now, the good news:  there are tons of other entrepreneurs and CEO types out there who feel exactly the same way!  So, while it’s often unavoidable that you will feel alone in your role at your own company, there are plenty of other people who are in exactly the same boat.  That’s good news, because if you can find ways to link up with them, you can share your war stories, feel less alone, and learn from and support one another!

At first glance, you’d think that the ranks of the startup owner profession took a big league hit over the past three years, thanks to a lousy economic climate. But that’s not actually true.

Economist Scott Shane, writing in a Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Research Report dated March 24, 2011, says that one measure at least– self-employment (the number of U.S. small business owners) — has swelled.

Shane cites The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, which shows 2010 had the highest rates of activity in 15 years.

But as Shane writes, measuring self-employment as a barometer of entrepreneurial activity is only part of the story:

Venture capital deal volume in the healthcare industry continued its downward trend in the third quarter, according to the latest report from a venture research firm.

The number of third-quarter healthcare venture deals stood at 143, the lowest in at least five quarters, according to New York-based CB Insights. The number represented a decline of 22 percent from the year-ago quarter, but a drop of just 3 percent from the second quarter.

“With chatter about an unfriendly regulatory landscape getting louder and a generally uncertain exit environment, healthcare venture capital continued its consistent trend downwards,” the report said.

Indeed, industry complaints about regulators — never the most popular people with the business community in the first place — have only seemed to grow louder this year.

Oct. 14--The venture capital industry will continue to shrink, putting pressure on local start-ups hoping to raise money to grow their operations, investors said during a conference Thursday.

As more venture firms close amid the struggling economy, there is less money to invest. At the same time, existing firms are struggling to raise funds, which will stifle innovation among budding entrepreneurs.

Last year, there were 462 active venture firms that managed $177 billion. That's compared to 1,022 firms that managed $220 billion in 2000.

During a presentation at the Minnesota Venture & Finance Conference, Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association, said the entrepreneurs getting money today have the strongest ideas and execute their plans.

Most research universities have technology transfer offices to help researchers transfer their ideas to the private sector. But those partnerships are good for more than transferring intellectual property. Sometimes they yield a talent transfer as well: It's not unusual for young researchers involved in those projects to join the companies that sponsored their academic pursuits. That kind of transfer benefits both companies and researchers, say experts from both sides: Emerging scientists gain access to plum jobs right out of school, while companies cultivate promising employees with the specific skills they need to compete in their industry.

In highly technical fields like semiconductors, there's a very large pool of scientists and engineers to hire from, says Celia Merzbacher, vice president of innovative partnerships at the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), which is based in Durham, North Carolina. But it's not always easy to find candidates with the skills to become effective workers right away. "When I ask companies, 'Do you have trouble hiring people?' they often will say, 'No,' " she says. "But if I ask, 'Do you have trouble hiring people with the right skills who are really good?' then they acknowledge that, yeah, sometimes they settle for less."

The past year seems to have yielded various waves of content celebrating making mistakes. Advancing the “failure at the heart of innovation” theme seems to have become a cause célèbre for the creativity and innovation set. Celebrating mistakes as part of innovation was the topic of a July Innochat on Twitter on innovation failure and, most recently, a Wall Street Journal article on “Better Ideas through Failure.”

I grew up with a clear perfectionist streak (or whatever term you would use to suggest whatever is deeper, wide, and more permanent than a “streak”), I wrestle with a gleeful attitude toward failure.