One of the hardest things about being unemployed is worrying that you will not end up in a good job. People want to be picky, but that’s a mistake. You should take any job. It really doesn’t matter. You’re better off taking any job and then start trading up.

Here’s why:

1) Structure leads to achievement

People who add structure to their day are more likely to get other stuff done. There’s a ripple effect. This is probably why most highly successful people are early risers. It’s not that you can’t be a night owl to be successful. It’s that if you start your day with structure, you are more able to reach a wide range of goals. Happiness is about structure and self-discipline, not a good job.

YOU might not think an MBA is worth it, but judging by the number of applications received this year, a lot of other people believe otherwise. With the recession in full swing, MBA programs have never been more popular.

The nation's 476 MBA programs reportedly received 200,000 completed applications as of late June. The weakest schools received fewer than ten applications, but the strongest received upwards of 10,000.

Android has successfully destroyed Apple's dominance of consumer mindshare in the smartphone world, according to a new survey from ChangeWave Research about smartphone preferences.

ChangeWave found only 38% of the people it interviewed want iOS on their next smartphone. That's down 12 points from June when 50% of the people it surveyed said they wanted an iPhone.

San Francisco, Calif.--At the Renewable Energy Finance Forum-West, energy bankers said that clean technology segment leaders should be able to IPO successfully and that energy efficiency is an attractive sector. But they also predicted that oil companies will scale back their investments in wind energy and that the availability of capital will remain limited in the short term.

To attract growth equity in a difficult climate, bankers advised companies to pursue realistic valuations at which their existing and new venture capital and/or strategic investors will participate.

The reality is that Canada is not on the lips or radar screens of most people around the world. Clearly we have a huge job to even get noticed above the noise in key target regions around the world. To sustain a massive advertising campaign to gain awareness to attract foreign investments and talent is simply not possible for most communities.

While some cities in Canada are more recognizable than others due to past World Fairs and Olympics or the construction of a world famous tower, most cities in Canada are invisible at a global level. But imagine what we could do if most of Canada’s top cities got together and through the dynamic of a critical mass of over half of Canada’s population base, we took a collaborative approach to getting our consistent message out?

Animal feed in Zambia. Cookies in South Africa. Medical records systems in Botswana. Peanut processing in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

In regions scarred by intractable poverty, innovative programs to build new sources of wealth through these four businesses are providing lessons for entrepreneurs hoping to create new markets and economic opportunity. In a paper titled, "Business Models: Creating New Markets and Societal Wealth", leaders of Wharton's Societal Wealth Program (WSWP) outline the critical elements of entrepreneurial wealth building based on nearly 10 years of field research supported by Wharton alumni.

The WSWP initiatives are designed to move beyond a charitable aid model for combating poverty by creating economic enterprises that lead to self-sufficiency rather than dependency and that will have a major and lasting impact. "There are plenty of charities doing things for free. What we are attempting to do is create poverty reducing businesses," says James D. Thompson, director of the WSWP, who coauthored the paper with Wharton management professor Ian C. MacMillan.

The 2010 -2011 World University Rankings, published today by the Times Higher Education magazine uses a new methodology that places less importance on reputation and heritage than in previous years, giving more weight to measures of excellence in all three core elements of a university’s mission - research, teaching and knowledge transfer. In all, it includes 13 separate performance indicators, across five categories.

The result makes sobering reading for Europe’s universities as a whole, which fare less well in this ranking than in the QS World Universities Ranking published last week and the Shanghai ranking that appeared in August.

With the online population growing at far greater speed in developing and emerging markets than in North America and Western Europe, the opportunities for businesses and brands to prosper on an international scale are vast.

So how can businesses build an accessible, global brand? The old adage ‘to go global you have to think local’ still rings true, but with the digital revolution in full swing, borders have become blurred and the need for a more unified ‘global’ brand that’s relevant everywhere becomes greater.

Today, the speed with which a brand message circulates around the Web is staggering. While the words and points of reference may need to be tweaked for each country and culture, the brand itself needs to adhere to a single philosophy regardless of location – a global brand.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it has more than 200 marketing summaries available on its Technology Commercialization Portal to help investors, entrepreneurs and companies seeking cutting-edge energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies available for licensing. The Technology Commercialization Portal is an online resource that serves as a tool to identify opportunities to invest in work being conducted by DOE laboratories and participating research institutions

. The use of this tool allows the Department to accelerate the process of moving discoveries from the laboratory to the private sector, ensuring that America's scientific leadership translates into new, high-paying jobs for America's families.

Before we talk about the size of this market through 2015, let's take a look at an updated version of our smart grid market taxonomy that first appeared last year in a free report that GTM Research published, titled The Smart Grid in 2010: Market Segments, Applications and Industry Players.

As part of a new, quantitative report we published last week, titled United States Smart Grid Market Forecast: 2010 - 2015, we decided to update the taxonomy in much greater detail, spelling out exactly where every player in the market is positioned. It's a very useful diagram to understand who's who and who does what in the larger smart grid universe. Take a look! (Click on the image below to see a larger version.)

Unlike yesterday's issue, this is the type of story I very much like sending you.

HOUSE PASSES SBIR/STTR/CPP EXTENSION THROUGH JANUARY 31, 2011

Borrowing the title of a song from My Fair Lady, "You Did It!" There was thunder on Capitol Hill today as hundreds of you responded to an emergency call to action (from many people and organizations) to save the SBIR program from lapsing, and that you did it!

Around 7:00pm this evening, Nydia Velazquez under pressure from her peers and the House leadership, accepted the Senate's SBIR and SBA extender bill, she and moved to suspend the rules to pass S.3839 without amendments. That has now happened and the SBIR program will be extended through January 31, 2011, pending signature of the President (virtually automatic), who supports the bill.

If you want to get to the bottom of indigenous innovation, the Chinese policy so deeply aggravating Western businesses and governments, look at the bottom of your DVD player. Most likely, the machine was made in China. For Beijing’s leaders, that is part of the problem: for every Chinese-made DVD player sold, the Chinese manufacturer must pay a large royalty fee to the European or Japanese companies that patented various components of the unit, such as its optical reader. These foreign firms reap substantial profits, but the Chinese take is extremely small -- and is shrinking further as energy, labor, and commodity prices rise. Policymakers in Beijing, looking to strengthen China’s economy, are no longer satisfied with the country’s position as the world’s manufacturer. Their solution is to break China’s dependence on foreign technology, moving from a model of “made in China” to one of “innovated in China.”

The Chinese phrase for indigenous innovation, zizhu chuangxin, was introduced in a 2006 state-issued report, “Guidelines on National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development.” The paper contained a curious mix of top-down, state-directed policies alongside bottom-up efforts meant to foster technological innovation. The top-down measures echo China’s old state planning system. They include 20 state-driven megaprojects, including initiatives to develop nanotechnology, biotechnology and new drugs, high-end generic microchips, and aircraft. The bottom-up efforts seem to follow a Silicon Valley model and are centered on university-industry collaboration, small start-ups, and venture capital.

You palms sweat. Your pulse races. Your throat gets dry. You’re standing in front of a room full of people who can make or break your career, and you’re about to choke. For most people this sounds like the set-up for a terrible anxiety dream, but for University of Chicago psychology professor Sian Beilock, high-pressure performance isn’t the raw material for nightmares but for brain science.

Specializing in what goes on in our brains and bodies during high-stakes performances, Beilock has spent her career learning something the anxious among us would love to know: why do we choke under pressure and how can we prevent it? After posting a bit about her new book on the topic, Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, Entry-Level Rebel got in touch to ask for more tips on how to develop a cool head under stress.

There was a time when a job was a job for life. In countries like Japan it really was the case and still is, to a great extent. Even in America, it was never a guarantee, but back in the day, it was pretty much the way our parents or grandparents, depending on your generation, viewed employment.

Well, yesterday, German electronics giant Siemens signed a deal that guarantees its 128,000 German workers just that, a job for life. The move is unprecedented even in Germany, where employees have far more power and rights than in the U.S.

SINCE I AM IN HEIDELBERG, GERMANY SPEAKING AT THE TECHNOPOLICY CONFERENCE ON "BUILDING A WORLD CLASS KNOWLEDGE REGION", I THOUGHT THE ABOVE ARTICLE ABOUT GERMANY WOULD BE APPROPRIATE.....RICH BENDIS

Most businesses have focused their sustainability work on reducing their environmental impact and lowering their resource costs. These bottom-line initiatives, many of them highly innovative, are critical to staying viable and competitive while benefiting society and the environment. They’ll grow profits, for a while anyway. But, they are not a path to continued growth or advantage. The re-engineering, quality and IT movements showed that improved efficiency doesn’t drive long-term value creation.

To consistently grow the bottom-line, sustainability innovation needs to drive the top-line. Innovation that successfully builds new products, services, businesses and customers drives advantage and value. One only need look at the success that Toyota had with the Prius and the huge bet GM is making on the Volt to see the opportunity that environmental innovation at the top-line offers to companies. Similarly, companies like Unilever are pursuing top-line growth from socially responsible innovations like making more nutritious food products.

A graphic designer’s talent is gauged by the graphic designing he does for his own identity. The works that he creates for his own personal use are a basis for determining his creative skills and competence. Graphic designers business cards, logos and web design all exemplify how inventive and resourceful a designer actually is. They bear testimonial to the creative instincts possessed by a graphic designer.

Although the advent of social media has made business meetings for graphic designers an online ordeal, the need for face-to-face acquaintance with clients is essential in building a strong and prosperous relationship. A business card is a useful promotional tool for graphic designers to spread their identity. The more creative the business card, the better your impression on the clients. Since your first impression is the last impression, it is imperative that you effectively exhibit your creativity through your business card.

The number of entrepreneurs in Canada has rebounded after the recession, especially in Alberta and B.C., according to a new poll.

Three of four indicators of entrepreneurial activity rose in 2010 over 2009, including entrepreneurial intention, venture efforts and business ownership, found a survey by the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Fondation de l'entrepreneurship.

The recession resulted in the closure of more businesses this year than last as the side-effects of the downturn continue to linger. The number of Canadians involved in shuttered operations jumped to 6.7% in 2010, compared to 5.4% in 2009.

Two new Web services want to bring the equivalent of frequent-flier miles to everyday online activities, rewarding you for merely browsing the Internet and sharing links with friends.

The services, which launched this week at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, take slightly different approaches. But both have the same larger purpose: to help websites get visitors to stick around longer. It's a twist on the "check in" model pioneered by Foursquare, a mobile social network that offers virtual badges and other signs of status to people who regularly patronize physical-world locations.

One of the new Web companies, Badgeville, helps Web publishers build a "game dynamic" into their sites so that users earn points whenever they view or comment on a page. A publisher can also choose to dole out points to people who share material from the site on Facebook or Twitter--with more points allocated if their friends click the links back to the site. Badgeville, based in Palo Alto, California, has signed up 10 publishers, including Comcast Sports, the website of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the tech news site TheNextWeb.