DALLAS, July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Qamar Zaman, CEO of SubmitPressRelease123, was recently featured among a panel of experts who offered advice for entrepreneurs who may be still getting their feet wet in a Forbes interview. The piece by Cheryl Conner titled, "How To Take Smart Risks As An Entrepreneur" suggests that a number of people who choose to become an entrepreneur take the plunge without first making the proper preparations to set themselves up for success. Zaman, who says his "overnight success" took years to build explains in the interview why it's ok to not rush the process, and the value in waiting to see the big pay off in due time.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

The Verrückt water slide at Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas, is officially open for business.

Before park visitors go down the slide, they'll have to go up: 264 stairs to a platform higher than the Statue of Liberty and Niagara Falls.

Image: In this photo taken with the fisheye lens, riders go down the world's tallest water slide called "Verruckt" at Schlitterbahn Waterpark, Wednesday, July 9, 2014, in Kansas City, Kan.IMAGE: CHARLIE RIEDEL/ASSOCIATED PRESS 

Over the past two weeks, an important debate has taken place about the ethics of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by researchers at Facebook Data Science and Cornell University. In the study, researchers manipulated some parameters in news feeds to evaluate how the changes influenced readers’ moods as defined by their subsequent posts. While it is easy to get lost in the weeds of this debate, the controversy has raised significant questions about the role of corporations like Facebook in the production of public science.

Could a person who is paralyzed and unable to speak, like physicist Stephen Hawking, use a brain implant to carry on a conversation?

That’s the goal of an expanding research effort at U.S. universities, which over the last five years has proved that recording devices placed under the skull can capture brain activity associated with speaking.

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com/ - Mind recorder: A sheet of electrodes picks up electrical activity from the surface of the brain. 

If you bet a startup will fail, you’ll be right most of the time, but not because you’re insightful. (The Critic)

If you bet only on huge ideas, you’ll be wrong most of the time, but because in high tech the financial successes are orders of magnitude larger than failures, this is still a profitable bet. (The Professional Investor)

Image: http://blog.asmartbear.com/ 

People like to buy; they don’t like to be sold to. This can be a tricky proposition and has to be done with a well laid out strategy. The formula consists of four social media basics, that when combined will take your from a ho hum marketer to super stardom.

1. Be Consistent Everything about your social media strategy needs to be consistent––from your tone to the frequency of posts. There’s nothing more irritating to an audience than looking as if you are flying by the seat of your pants.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

In 1963, Nancy Andreasen was the first female tenure-tracked English professor at the University of Iowa. Soon after, her first book about the poet John Donne was accepted by a publisher. Her career was off to a smashing start, but she had a nagging feeling.

"Who would this book help?" she couldn't stop herself from thinking. "What if I channeled the effort and energy I’d invested in it into a career that might save people’s lives?"

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Firing someone is almost most always uncomfortable, but what if you aren't sure if you should pull the plug or give them another chance.

Here are some things I have found helpful in my career:

WHERE ARE THEY ON THE SPECTRUM? I’ve found employees fall into various categories. On one end of the spectrum, you have employees you would never want to lose. With your superstar employees, you want to keep them happy and give them what they want.

Change is the dominant fact of life in every business today. And the ability to master and exploit change has become one of the most sought-after management skills. This is particularly true in marketing, where the very tempo of change is constantly quickening.

Today’s chief executive faces a baffling dilemma. Change gets costlier every day; yet not changing can be costlier still. And even while adapting to change, a company’s marketing effort must reflect an internal constancy of purpose and an external consistency of image.

New York, NY – July 10, 2014 - The Intelligent Community Forum announces the opening of nominations for the 2015 Intelligent Community of the Year Awards Program. The 2015 Awards Program run by the New York-based think tank will name the 17th Intelligent Community of the Year, a community that is a global leader in creating wealth and jobs by seizing the opportunities of information and communications technology (ICT). The 2014 recipient was Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

Communities large and small, urban and rural, in developing and industrialized nations are all invited to apply. Nominations are accepted from local governments, institutions, companies, non-profit organizations, national government agencies and consular offices. There is no cost to submit a nomination. On average, the Intelligent Community Forum tracks the progress of 400 communities each year through its own research as well as nominations submitted by communities. 

California is a place of extremes. It has beaches, mountains, valleys and deserts. It has glaciers and, just a few miles away, hot, dry deserts. Some years it doesn't rain. Some years it rains all winter. Those extremes are part of what makes California the attractive place that it is, and, west of the high mountains, California is mostly an extremely comfortable place to live.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com/ 

Former First Round Capital Partner Kent Goldman announced he’s closed a $30 million maiden fund for Upside Partnership.

The new firm is the latest in a growing string of micro venture firms to emerge in recent years.

The number of U.S firms closing maiden funds at $100 million or less spiked to 38 in 2010, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. And the number has remained high since then, with 17 closing funds during the first half of this year, also according to VentureSource, which is owned by VentureWire publisher Dow Jones & Co.

Image: Upside Partnership Founder Kent Goldman  

You've heard that sitting is the new smoking, and you're interested in trying one of those new standing desks everyone's talking about. What are your options?

There are plenty. You could go with a standard desk like this one, or something motorized that goes up and down at the touch of a button. Or you could go the DIY route (it's a lot cheaper) or even buy something made of cardboard (it can be recycled when you're finished with it).

Image: http://www.fastcoexist.com/ 

Even Beethoven and Balzac had just 24 hours in a day. How did history's most prolific minds schedule their greatness? Based on research from Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (which we covered previously here), a new interactive infographic by creative marketing agency Distilled offers us mere mortals insight into the daily routines of 26 famous artists, writers, composers, and thinkers. Organized from earliest to latest risers, the visualization reveals hours spent sleeping, eating, working, bathing, socializing, and exercising (good news for the lazy: most of these greats preferred casual strolls to pumping iron).

Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com/ 

Two private equity firms announced the formation of a $26.6 million fund that will focus exclusively on the aging marketplace and companies within it.

Chicago-based Ziegler and Ohio-based Link-age Ventures announced the close of the Longevity Fund, which aims to address a number of key issues affecting seniors. Among them: coordination of care, chronic disease management, reducing hospitalizations and re-admissions, disease prevention and wellness, aging and government funded programs and public health issues, according to the companies.

Image: http://medcitynews.com/ 

Healthcare startups, and all startups for that matter, need investors and funding to stay alive. For this reason, MedCity is pleased to announce that investor Andrew Jay, MD, will be speaking at CONVERGE. Dr. Jay is the head of the medical solutions fund at HealthCare Fund at Siemens Venture Capital, which invests in companies focusing on imaging, diagnostics and health IT.

Image: http://medcitynews.com/ 

Google Inc. (GOOG)’s venture capital unit, the business responsible for investing in Nest Labs and Uber Technologies Inc., has added a European branch with a $100 million initial investment.

The new fund will be based in London, Google Ventures said on its website.

“We’ve seen compelling new companies emerge from places like London, Paris, Berlin, the Nordic region and beyond -- SoundCloud, Spotify, Supercell and many others,” Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures, said in a blog post.

(Reuters) - San Francisco-based 137 Ventures said it raised $137 million for its second fund, underscoring the eagerness of investors to buy shares in start-ups before they hold initial public offerings.

The firm, which buys private-company shares from company founders, early employees, and other investors, counts companies such as data-analytics business Palantir, space-exploration firm SpaceX and blog site Tumblr among its portfolio. Tumblr sold to Yahoo! Inc last year for $1.1 billion.

The best technologies and companies don't commoditize existing markets. They create entirely new markets.

Take Uber. Ostensibly competitive with taxis or sedan services, the reality is that Uber competes with non-use. Or, as Uber CEO technology Travis Kalanick phrases it, "It's not about the market that exists, it's about the market we're creating."