As we endure another Michigan winter, many of us are watching the number on our scales climb higher and higher.

“Although seasonal weight gain varies from person to person, there have been surveys that show an average of five to seven pound gain in weight in winter,” says Lawrence J. Cheskin, MD, founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore warns in the article, “5 Tips to Avoid Winter Weight Gain,” on webmd.com.

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A panel of 56 experts on six continents has come up with a list of a half-dozen technologies that “will be most important to teaching, learning, or creative inquiry within the next five years.” The two most imminent, panel members said, are the integration of social media into every aspect of college life and the blending of online, hybrid, and collaborative learning with face-to-face instruction.

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Ryan Smith knew he wanted to build a company he could grow over the long haul. So rather than race to find financiers in 2002, the co-founder and CEO of Qualtrics spent four years bootstrapping his enterprise survey provider from his dad's basement.

That low overhead helped the Provo, Utah, startup reach profitability almost immediately. As the company grew year by year, venture capitalists started circling, reaching a critical mass during year five. Smith says he fielded roughly 100 calls from venture capitalists and investment groups before he finally agreed to a deal in 2012.

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“Startups don’t have time for diversity.”

This statement, from an entrepreneur and investor, and a self-described man of color himself, is a succinct summation of one of the core elements of misguided thinking underlying the problem of homogeneity in the tech startup world.  But it also just scratches the surface.

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In a recent Unify survey of knowledge workers, 79% of respondents reported working always or frequently in virtual teams, but only 44% found virtual communication as productive as face-to-face communication.  The vast majority connected via email, phone, or conference calls even though 72% said video would make teamwork easier.  Only 34% of people use video to collaborate with coworkers. And 43% feel confused and overwhelmed by the mishmash of collaboration technology at their disposal.

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One of the first, and most lasting, pieces of career advice I received came from Linda Bush, my first project manager when I was a wee pup working at McKinsey & Company. “Ask a lot of questions,” Linda advised me. “You might think you are being annoying, but it’s the only way you learn. And trust me, people will tell you when you have crossed the line.”

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A new study at the  Berlin (ESMT) suggests that there are three main practices businesses should undertake to enjoy the benefits of open innovation.

The recent study by Linus Dahlander, Professor and KPMG Innovations Chair at ESMT and Stanford PhD Henning Piezunka, looked at 23,800 organisations which use online feedback mechanisms in almost every sector.

Ask people about the state of customer service and there is a good chance that they will be able to tell you at least five stories of terrible experiences –- and not many positive ones. In a recent survey of more than 400 South African customers, 72% said that they had experienced rage with a business at least once in the last four months. Anyone who has tried to solve a problem with a bank, airline booking, or mobile phone service provider recently will know what this sense of powerlessness feels like.

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If you want to boost entrepreneurship in your community, focus on getting more of your residents to graduate from college and high school. That's the conclusion of a new study by the Kauffman Foundation, which looked at startup rates in 356 metropolitan areas in the U.S. The study found that metro areas with high percentages of college graduates tend to produce the most startups. But it also found that reducing the number of high school dropouts also contributes to entrepreneurship.

Particle accelerators, biobanks, telescopes, scientific databases - these are among the "big science" research infrastructure projects that have become an essential feature of the research world. Their scientific value is obvious. But their economic value can also be great: The World Wide Web was born at CERN. Can we quantify this kind of broader, indirect economic or social benefit? 

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Tonight I am giving a presentation on naming and positioning at Founders Institute Atlanta. In prepping for it I uncovered an old draft article on the subject of naming. It was part of a series of posts on startup marketing that I published back in the summer of 2009.

While a number of articles have been written on startup naming by the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Jason Calacanis, and Dharmesh Shah, I but together my own simple five point framework for startup name characteristics. I hesitate to call them requirements because in today's day and age if you are going to meet all the requirements it would take a pretty good chunk of change that concept and seed stage companies can not afford

The late American author Jane Jacobs and entrepreneur Elon Musk make a funny pair.

Jacobs, who passed away eight years ago, fought powerful development forces in New York City in the 1950s, penning her legendary book, The Death & Life of Great American Cities in 1961, on behalf of pedestrians and everyday city dwellers. Musk is the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, and now an electric car manufacturer, who often espouses on his hopes to colonize Mars. With no small amount of irony, they are two of 100 individuals and teams featured on an inaugural list, called “The Purpose Economy 100,” released yesterday. Those included are deemed to be “transforming our innate need for meaning into the organizing principle for innovation and growth in the American economy.”

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Anyone who saw Bo Jackson play football or baseball knows that he was the greatest athlete of his generation and one of best of all-time.

But few know that Jackson has evolved into an entrepreneur since retiring from professional sports in the 1995. He is an investor in a bank and has a youth sports training facility in Illinois–Bo Jackson’s Elite Sports–that he is going to roll out into other parts of the country.

Chindōgu – the art of inventing gadgets that on the surface solve everyday problems, but upon closer inspection prove to be either so burdensome or embarrassing to use that they are in fact UNuseless.

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Fifteen states have statutes allowing students who are in the United States without legal permission and were brought to this country as children by their parents to be eligible for in-state tuition. To qualify, they have to have graduated from a high school in the state and meet other requirements, such as having been a state resident for two years or three years.

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Y Combinator startups are already an elite bunch, but those with backing from the firm’s partners? The creme de la creme de la creme, if you will.

But that is exactly the idea (and the bad analogy) Y Combinator wants to avoid.

Ever tried to get a child to eat a slice of apple or banana that has turned brown? While the fruit may be just as healthy to eat, the brown color, which often appears after less than an hour, can be a turn-off. A new all-natural spray, which is said to delay the change of color by up to an hour, is now trying to get the crowd’s backing with a campaign on Kickstarter.

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Innovate Calgary: approaching commercialization differently

We are where entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, industry and partners take innovative technology ideas from concepts and startup companies to growing enterprises. Succeeding in the commercialization of an innovation or discovery is best not approached as a solitary endeavour. Engaging the support of the innovation ecosystem can dramatically accelerate the development and growth of a new company, and dramatically increase the probability of success.

Image: Peter Garrett, president of Innovate Calgary believes they are focused on building innovate Calgary as the hub of the innovation community in Calgary and southern Alberta. Photograph by: Adrian Shellard , Calgary Herald 

Silicon Valley venture capital investors are as confident as they were before the Great Recession and are looking forward to an active 2014.

The latest reading of the Silicon Valley Venture Capital Confidence Index, released this week, came in at 3.94 on a 5-point scale. That’s the highest level of confidence since the third quarter of 2007, just before the economic downturn.

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Punta de Mita on Mexico’s Nayarit Riviera is a sanctuary with beautiful, natural surroundings that have been developed to meet executive needs. Is there more to it? Perhaps the presence of seasoned technology executives and innovators in Punta de Mita paves the way for incubation and technology-based economic development. It might be described as a place where naïve and inexperienced technologists meet seasoned leadership and can overcome challenges with funding, guidance and sometimes both.

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