CEO transparency. It almost sounds uncontroversial. A CEO should tell her staff everything! Right? Right?!?

Of course not.

It’s a hard topic to write about because it’s almost an accepted norm that total transparency is good. It is not.

One of the longest running newspapers in the world, which started as a notice pinned to a coffee shop wall, will soon permanently stop the presses.

Lloyd's List, which calls itself the "world's oldest newspaper," will transition to an online-only publication by December.

It began in 1734 as a bulletin of information about ship arrivals, departures and casualties in London and continues to cover news of maritime commerce, insurance and energy.

Image Courtesy of Jeroen van Oostrom / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some people are not cut out to be entrepreneurs. This is a good thing, or the business world would be chaos, with everyone trying to do their own thing. So what about you? How do you know if you should be running your own company, or concentrating on that queue of work that someone else has built for you?

I’ve hit this before, but I still hear from too many unhappy entrepreneurs. Now is the time to put aside your fantasies, and take a hard look at who you really are, before you commit to the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

Image Courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One of the latest developments in nanotechnology has come from SLAC and Stanford scientists is the nano accelerator, a fabricated chip that is made of fused silica at only 3mm long. Lthough small, it can accelerate electrons at 10 times the speed of conventional accelerators.

Image Courtesy of Keattikorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The United States is embarking on a truly historic journey toward near-universal health care coverage this week. Starting Tuesday, the federal government will make it possible for millions of uninsured Americans who can’t get health insurance, or can’t afford it, to obtain coverage with the aid of government subsidies. It is a striking example of what government can do to help people in trouble.

Image Courtesy of TeddyBear / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There are approximately 7 billion+ people wandering around this planet at any given time, about 3/4 of which are considered adults and, if we’re being generous, have the potential to come up with great ideas once in awhile. And, if those roughly 5.2 billion adults have even just one brilliant idea a month, that’s over 60 billion opportunities for innovation per year that enter the collective human mind. Even if you cut these numbers in half, to account for things like unvoiced inspiration or infinite circumstantial variables, it’s boggling to consider what kinds of genius we’re missing out on — and why we aren’t missing out on stuff that’s not so genius.

Image Courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Discussions of Tesla Motors sometimes seem couched in the terms of a religious tale: Tesla as David vs General Motors in the Goliath role.

One company is the plucky Silicon Valley electric-car startup that's never built a vehicle with a gasoline engine. 

Image: Mark Lennihan/AP Photo/File

Cities are ripe with sharing opportunities. That's kind of the point of cities, when you think about it. Shared infrastructure, culture, and space are what make cities dynamos of the global economy. And when citizens and governments plan a city together, an even more shareable city is possible. Increased innovation, resilience, and prosperity can follow. That's what Park Won-soon, mayor of Seoul, South Korea, is banking on with his ambitious "Sharing City" initiative. 

Image: Jimmy McIntyre - Flickr

Many entrepreneurs are convinced that banks are not worth the effort for startups, especially early-stage ones that still don’t have a revenue stream, or collateral to back up their financing needs. A question I get all the time is “Can I ever expect any backing from my bank for a great opportunity?” The short answer is that some banks will help, if you do your homework.

The first thing to remember is that banks only do loans – they don’t do equity investments like angels and venture capitalists (and vice versa). To get a loan, you generally need to satisfy their 3 C’s – credibility, capacity, and collateral. That traditionally translates to at least two years of positive cash flow, with enough assets or receivables to cover at least 80% of the loan.

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It may be all grown up now, but once upon a time, Google wasn’t a global tech giant famous for quirky campuses and dessert-flavoured mobile operating systems. It was just a startup, working out of a garage, led by two students who would later become billionaires. But the search engine millions use everyday didn’t always look like the Google you’re probably used to — and the logo once had an exclamation mark reminiscent of another Silicon Valley titan.

Arthur Ventures, a Fargo-based venture capital firm that uses financial muscle to help fledgling companies grow and prosper, is itself growing.

Formed in 2008 with an initial fund of $11 million, Arthur Ventures recently announced the establishment of its Growth Fund II, a $45 million pool of money that brings the total value of assets under management at Arthur Ventures to more than $65 million.

Image Courtesy of KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The democratization of technology wrought by the mobile Web and a proliferation of app stores has made it easier than ever to succeed as an entrepreneur—and at an earlier age than ever before. Which poses a tough question for some high-school students who've managed to strike it rich with a hit app: Do they really need to go to college at all?

Image Courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To keep innovating, we need to keep making things. Here's how we can reinvent the country's ability to make things, so we're not just an economy of ideas that we send overseas for others to put together.

Lauren Bigelow is the CEO of the Growth Capital Network (GCN) which does project management, evaluative and analytical work. But what she really does is help connect entrepreneurs and technology innovators to the capital and business advantages of starting up their business in Michigan. A main focus for Lauren is executing programs to connect entrepreneurial and growth companies with the capital to accelerate their vision. With this platform, Lauren runs the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, the Midwest Green Technology Entrepreneur Academy and the Midwest Midmarket Capital Survey. “We’re trying to address the full ecosystem behind new business start-ups, including venture funds,” says Bigelow.

Image: Lauren Bigelow, CEO, Growth Capital Network

Today’s great post is from Bilal Zuberi @ Lux Capital. In it he asserts that Friends Don’t Let Friends Have a Lazy VC/CEO Relationship. I see this play out so many times in so many ways that – while it seems obvious – it’s an important reminder to all entrepreneurs who hear their friends complaining about their relationship with a VC.

It was 15 years ago in this very garage that a young Larry Page and Sergey Brin started building one of the the world's largest tech companies. Google's co-founders rented the space -- along with three rooms inside the house -- while they were still living in the dorms at Stanford, less than two miles away. (The co-founders used Stanford's servers to host their new search engine.)

Google now owns the house and doesn't use it for much. On Thursday, the company announced changes to Google's search product from the garage to commemorate its 15th anniversary.

Image: Courtesy Mashable

As Google celebrates its 15th birthday, we think its as good a time as any to look at the scope of the search giant.

More than 1.1 billion people use Google search each month, making 114 billion searches. Google's Android operating system is found on 79% of smartphones. Google Maps is the most used smartphone app, employed by 54% of smartphone users.

Despite the never-ending supply of candid images, manipulated pictures and amateur cellphone shots, the art of photography still thrives in the digital age.

National Geographic, an institution for first-rate photography, celebrates its 125th anniversary in October. In honor of the milestone, the publication's latest issue is devoted to the "Power of Photography."

Image: National Geographic: Machu Picchu (1913)

The crowded field of crowdfunding just got more crowded and more controversial. You've heard about Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, GoFundMe and Razoo. Crowdfunding platforms now number in the hundreds. You can crowdfund your movie, album, hospital stay, birthday, or social good project. Now, there's equity crowdfunding. It might just be startup heaven or startup hell.

Image Courtesy of isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Founders can now launch their start-ups in one of the world’s most popular travel destinations, with an incubation program launched in Minas Gerais in Brazil offering a one-year visa and access to coworking space, mentoring and education, and $US35,000 in seed capital.

Image Courtesy of zole4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net