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"I went to work for a startup where the job I took was never posted," John Gannon writes at the Daily Muse. "I interviewed with the CEO of one of the most successful open source software startups--for a job that didn’t technically exist yet."

How does such surreptitious serendipity happen?

Because there's a "hidden startup job market," Gannon says. From what we can surmise, this is the result of two conflating factors: friends hiring friends is the norm and the roles within startups are constantly emerging. The hustling jobseeker, then, finds ways to get close to those rapidly growing companies.

A killer winter storm paralyzed the South yesterday, but it was sunny and warm in Alaska, with record high temperatures. What's up with this weather?

Blame it on the jet stream. For months, this narrow, west-to-east flowing air current has resembled a child's scribble. The jet stream roars along Alaska's coastline and then sharply twists, diving south into Washington before flowing toward the Midwest, completely cutting off California.

Image: Credit: Clinton Colmenares 

The Boeing Co. plans to create a new business accelerator under its Hazelwood-based Defense, Space & Security unit this year that will be aimed at increasing innovation at the company. The accelerator will help identify employees within the company who may have ideas or technology products that have potential for commercialization. Boeing is currently searching for a senior manager to oversee the accelerator.

Image: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/BizNext/2014/02/boeing-to-launch-business-accelerator.html 

The United States' (U.S.) predominance in science and technology (S&T) eroded further during the last decade, as several Asian nations--particularly China and South Korea--rapidly increased their innovation capacities. According to a report released today by the National Science Board (NSB), the policy making body of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and an advisor to the President and Congress, the major Asian economies, taken together, now perform a larger share of global R&D than the U.S., and China performs nearly as much of the world's high-tech manufacturing as the U.S.

Evidence in NSB's biennial report, Science and Engineering Indicators, which provides the most comprehensive federal information and analysis on the nation's position in S&T, makes it increasingly clear that the U.S., Japan, and Europe no longer monopolize the global R&D arena. Since 2001, the share of the world's R&D performed in the U.S. and Europe has decreased, respectively, from 37 percent to 30 percent and from 26 percent to 22 percent. In this same time period, the share of worldwide R&D performed by Asian countries grew from 25 percent to 34 percent. China led the Asian expansion, with its global share growing from just 4 percent to 15 percent during this period.

Image: The National Science Board's Science and Engineering Indicators report provides data on the U.S. position in science and technology. Credit: National Science Board 

Many of us resist the idea of limiting the total amount of time we spend on email. Instead, we allow the volume of email we receive, and the number of messages that require a response, to dictate how much of our day goes to the endless cycle of send and receive.

But letting email set the pace and structure of your working life makes sense only if answering email is the single most important part of your job. Unless you work on the frontlines of customer support, there’s probably a lot of other work that’s more important – even if it doesn’t feel as urgent as the message that just arrived. Committing to a minimum and maximum amount of time you’ll spend on email instead allows you to undertake focused work when you need to – and just as important, to take actual downtime.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Marketing Intern at Family Futures

I have a strange situation and need some input from you all. I have been offered an internship this summer which means if I take it I would graduate in the Fall. Would you graduate a semester later for an internship or would you turn it down?

Most everyone uses social media during their job search – and increasingly our social presence (or “social footprint”) is how we are represented to colleagues, networking contacts and potential employers.

Despite this importance, people continue to make major mistakes on social media. And especially during the job hunt, these blunders could be costing you dearly.

Here are the six most common mistakes I see young professionals making with their social presence. If you see yourself with any of these shortcomings, take a moment to think how to fix them… now.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

In naming Satya Nadella as the new CEO of Microsoft, those leading the search for Steve Ballmer’s replacement have apparently concluded that a company being outmaneuvered on so many fronts needs some genuine technological expertise at its helm.

A 22-year company veteran who started out working on the Windows NT operating system software and went on to lead Microsoft’s relatively successful Azure cloud business, Nadella clearly has the requisite technical chops. And, given his particular background, the appointment could mean Microsoft focuses more on cloud and server software and services, and spends less time trying to, for example, outdo Google in search or Apple in mobile devices.

Image: flickr.com

During the first Global Crowdfunding Expo, which took place in San Diego, California, last week, some interesting data on the sector were presented. Crowd Valley has written out a few highlights from those data, which might be useful in complementing the information included in the Global Crowdfunding Market Report  that will be published shortly by Crowd Valley.

So much of our lives revolves around the Internet. We rarely go a day without checking an online account, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or email. Some of us even keep those tabs open all day. 

But with openness comes drawbacks. There has been a considerable amount of scrutiny levied on tech companies, from inconsistent privacy policies to quietly supplying the government with user data. As Internet users grow increasingly concerned with their privacy on Web, many people have begun questioning the amount of data they should share online—some have even deleted their accounts as a response to perceived invasions of privacy.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

How many medals will the U.S. walk away with at this year's Winter Olympics? What about perennial runner-up China? Two brothers, Dan and Tim Graettinger, think they have the answers, and you’ll be surprised to hear how they got them.

Dan thought up the idea to Nate Silver the Olympics while watching NBC’s nightly medal count during the 2010 Winter games. Inspired by Google’s 20% rule, where you dedicate 20% of work time to personal interests, Dan pitched the project to his brother, a data analyst. Over the next four years, the two collected more than 30 datasets and ran regression after regression until they found a model that matched the past two Winter Olympics with incredible accuracy. The first chart pictured below shows which countries the brothers’ model predicts will win it all at this year’s Games.

Image Courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In his recent State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama argued that "the nation that goes all-in on innovation today will own the global economy tomorrow" and that China isn't exactly "standing on the sidelines." A new U.S. federal report shows just how hard Beijing is working to get into the game.

Now that three-plus decades of China's so-called one-child policy has helped create what the International Money Fund calls a "sharp decline" in the pool of extra (read: cheap) labor, Beijing is urgently looking for ways of designing its own products rather than manufacturing someone else's. Put another way, it wants to shift from making iPhones to inventing them. Beijing is urgently looking for ways of designing its own products rather than manufacturing someone else's. Put another way, it wants to shift from making iPhones to inventing them. A recent report by a respected U.S. federal agency -- which shows Chinese high-tech output nearing that of the United States, China committing an increasingly large portion of its wealth to R&D, and a huge jump in the number of Chinese graduates with engineering degrees -- suggests it may soon have that chance.

Image: http://www.foreignpolicy.com 

The Olympic Winter Games are about to start in Sochi, Russia, and once again, the internet is the place to turn to if you want to watch the competition unfold in real-time, as opposed to the hour-long tape-delay in place on broadcast and cable TV. And this time, NBC is promising to stream everything: All competitions across all 15 sports, totaling more than 1,000 hours of live coverage.

There’s only one catch: Just like two years ago for the London Summer Olympics, NBC is once again requiring users to authenticate, meaning that live streams will only be available to viewers who subscribe to cable or satellite TV. Read on to learn how that works and how you actually watch anything once you’re authenticated:

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12982516@N02/6666712871 

By now, I hope you’re fired up and ready to make a lasting difference in your life. The question now is, how? It might seem like an easy question at first, but let’s face it; it’s pretty hard to know how you’re going to make that change. There are so many things to do, and so many different pieces of conflicting advice out there for making changes, which makes my head spin just thinking about them.

Raise your hand if you’ve been there. I know I have. Kinda makes you want to just forget about this whole participating in your own becoming, huh?

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40629365@N00/3748831524 

Of the Fortune 500, 32 companies are headquartered in Illinois. Many of them have opened pipelines to startups — seeking partnerships before being disrupted by them.

That's not to say big companies can't create on their own — many do, said Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Foundation Clinical Professor of Technology at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Image: Workers finish putting a Motorola sign where the Santa Fe sign once stood atop the building at 224 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago on July 3, 2012 for the incoming new tenant Motorola Solutions, Inc. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune) 

We’ve all had those days when we have a million things to do, but can’t seem to get ahead on any of them. Not only do unproductive days detract from your business’ success, it can also have an effect on your well-being, affecting your mood and stress levels. While simply throwing in the towel, heading home and returning to the office refreshed the next day may seem an attractive option, there's still a chance to turn around your day and boost your productivity.

Follow these six steps and rescue your unproductive day:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Perhaps the biggest problem I see with a lot of young entrepreneurs I meet is a tendency to think in black-and-white terms when the real world is almost entirely made up of shades of gray.

Virtually all the successful people I’ve known over the years are multidimensional thinkers who ask a lot of questions and look at things from many points of view before arriving at what is usually the right decision. That said, they didn’t all start out that way.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

People focus too much on the inspiration, but, like conception, having a good idea isn’t much of an accomplishment. You need the action and follow through, which involves the right people, know-how, money, resources, and years of hard work.

While you're still working a full-time job, here is a list of things you can do on the side to explore an idea for a great new business:

Image: http://www.entrepreneur.com 

One hundred and fifty applicants for 30 spots. That was the target as business-school administrators at the University of Texas at Austin laid the groundwork for a new master’s-degree program in business analytics. This past fall, they welcomed the inaugural class: 52 students selected from more than 400 applicants. The average GMAT score was 710, highest of any graduate program at the business school. One-year revenue from the self-funded program is projected to total about $1.7-million.

Image: Roger W. Winstead, North Carolina State U.