A fair few venture capital firms and/or their partners are blogging these days. With the new rules on advertising courtesy of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission we could see more of that. Motives differ from brand promotion to offering new ways to communicate with entrepreneurs and potential investors. But there will continue to be a gap between those venture firms who see something to gain from it and those that see it as pointless.

An article from Thompson Reuters’s Venture Capital Journal referenced by PEHub weighed blogging pros and cons for firms. In an interview with Mike Maples Jr., the managing partner of Floodgate Fund who doesn’t blog he said: “We don’t get involved in every debate and have the last word on the topic of the week…We want to be known as the people who find the Godzilla lizards before anyone else. Beyond that, not so much.”

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In my two previous blogs, I noted that 99.95 percent of you will not get venture capital,  and that 99.997 percent of you may want to refuse VC, even if offered. Are these results universal or are there other factors that affect venture success?

One of the most enduring and influential beliefs of the last few decades has been that entrepreneurs need venture capital to build giant companies. This might be true – but only in Silicon Valley.

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On the quad. At a campus concert. At a frat party. On the college radio station. In your dorm room. There are certain songs that can instantly transport you back to your college days.

With college dorm move-in just around the corner, we asked Mashable staff and readers which songs reminded them of the days of dining halls, quadding, football games, red Solo cups and on-campus demonstrations — whether they graduated two months ago or two decades ago.

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Here’s some sobering news for those people thinking of going into business for themselves. The average revenues of sole proprietorships has been trending downward for the last 50 years!

As the figure above shows, the average receipts per U.S. sole proprietorship has dropped by two-thirds in inflation-adjusted terms since 1966. Because three quarters of all U.S. businesses are sole proprietorships, this trend is not good for small business.

A good many startups I know have been “successful” over a couple of years in overcoming the challenges of starting the business, including incorporation, services development, funding, and setting up operations. Yet they still haven’t achieved a healthy growing profit, even though this was one of the main reasons they went into business for themselves in the first place.

It’s no fun on this plateau, just “making payroll,” and watching some employees make more then you as the Founder. At this stage you were expecting to be working on creating a good business valuation to attract future buyers, or at least funding college accounts for your kids.

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The Association of University Technology Managers has released highlights from its latest annual survey of patenting and licensing activity by colleges and other research organizations, and said total income from royalties and other sources for the 194 organizations that responded to the survey was in excess of $2.6-billion for the 2012 fiscal year.

The "Highlights" report that appears on the association's Web site includes information from 161 universities, plus 32 hospitals and research institutes, and one third-party technology-investment firm.

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Now that LinkedIn has become the standard place to present your professional history and credentials — not to mention the fastest way to check somebody else's — the humble résumé has lost its once-hallowed position as the canonical version of your professional identity. Your LinkedIn profile should be the most-viewed and most current version of your professional life. That has many people asking: Do I even need an old-fashioned résumé anymore?

The answer is a highly qualified "yes".

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American universities: unsung heroes in the economic recovery.

University licensing and startup activity continued to see a robust increase during fiscal year 2012 according to survey data published Aug. 5 by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), a nonprofit association of academic technology transfer professionals.

AUTM announces the release of highlights from the AUTM U.S. Licensing Activity Survey: FY2012, a report scheduled for full release at the end of the year. The survey shares quantitative information about licensing activities at U.S. universities, hospitals and research institutions. The survey report is used by universities, hospitals and research institutions as a means to benchmark licensing activity.

The Office of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer will begin new initiatives to facilitate entrepreneurship at the College, executive director Trip Davis ’90 said.

The office, created in April, serves as an umbrella organization for existing entrepreneurial and technology transfer programs, including the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, the regional technology center and the technology transfer office. Davis is working with associate provost Tillman Gerngross to develop the office’s role on campus.

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Startups that have licensed innovations developed at Purdue University or are based in the four-site Purdue Research Park network are eligible to apply for a round of funding from the Emerging Innovations Fund. The cumulative funding of all awards will total up to $150,000.

The deadline to apply for funding is Aug. 31. Applications may be submitted to Jonathan D. Gortat, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., project manager at the Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization, in a Microsoft Word or PDF format. Due diligence will be conducted through Dec. 14, with awards determined later that month. Once a project is reviewed and recommended, investments may be tranched in accordance with milestone events.

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Being a woman has its advantages and its disadvantages, but when it comes to female entrepreneurship, I think women are moving into their own. The statistics are promising as there are 8.3 million women-owned businesses in the US currently, and in the next five years, over half of all small business jobs will be created from women-owned businesses. The world is turning to women to be the new thought leaders – and we are definitely up for the challenge. As female entrepreneurs, we have significant advantages simply because we’re built differently.

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Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, and with more than 30 per cent of small businesses failing in their start-up, it's worth checking out the traits that characterise some of Australia's success stories.

One of Australia's best-known entrepreneurs is Naomi Simson, founder of online gift retailer RedBalloon. She is often asked what character traits are needed to succeed in business.

“I usually defer to businessman and entrepreneur Jack Cowin who puts it better than I ever could,” Simson says. “I saw Jack present at the EY Entrepreneurs workshop, where he opened with the quote 'an entrepreneur needs to be a cross between a microbiologist and an astronomer'. He believes that true entrepreneurs are special in that they can be both detailed and visionary.”

Many people see themselves as entrepreneurs. The reality is that many people can start a business and do well—until problems arise. The true test of any entrepreneur is the ability to overcome the obstacles that will inevitably appear to any business person. If you see yourself as a true entrepreneur, compare your traits with the following list of skills that’ll take your game to the next level.

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While many people don't like to sell, most find themselves having to persuade someone at some point. Persuasion is not just for salespeople and their prospects. You may try to persuade an employee to perform better, or perhaps you want to persuade your boss to take on your brilliant idea. Often the most effective persuaders are your kids. Somehow they come by it naturally while you, the adult, has to work hard to find the persuasive path to success.

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I’ve never been a morning person. But, I love my job as a reporter for CNBC, and it requires waking up REALLY early. I'm based in Los Angeles where I cover media, entertainment, and Internet companies. After years of battling the pitch-dark alarm clock ring, I’ve come to embrace an early wake-up as a key to success. Should I ever have a job that did not require a pre-dawn wake up, I’m convinced I’d wake up well before 6 a.m. to get a head start on my day.

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The news that Amazon’s founder and CEO bought The Washington Post for US$250-million sent shockwaves simultaneously through the media and tech industries today. Old media isn’t exactly going gangbusters. Just a few days ago The Boston Globe sold to Red Sox owner John W Henry for US$70-million, a fraction of the US$1.1-billion the New York Times paid for it in 1993. No, actually if you take into account the Globe’s pension obligations, which apparently sits around US$110-million, it sold for negative US$40-million.

I’ve traveled around the country, and regardless of your definition of success, or the level of success you’ve achieved there are 5 distinct characteristics that differentiate Iowa’s people from the rest of the globe.  Now this article might be a bit biased, so I want to challenge you to create your own list of characteristics that set your states or countries entrepreneurs apart.  I’m writing this though because when people think of Iowa they think of three things corn, farming, and rednecks.

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Patients like it and so do health organizations, but electronic communications in clinical care will likely not be widely adopted by primary care physicians unless patient workloads are reduced or they are paid for the time they spend phoning and emailing patients, both during and after office hours.

Those are some key conclusions of an in-depth examination by investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College of six diverse medical practices that routinely use electronic communication for clinical purposes. The detailed report, the most comprehensive of its kind, appears in the August issue of the journal Health Affairs.

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MedCity News writes about all kinds of startups whether their pitch is more at home on CNN or MIT’s Technology Review. We are always so focused on what’s coming next that we forget to reflect on all the companies we have recently discovered. To solve this, we’ve created a monthly report to make sure none of our readers missed any of these posts.

Our new Monthly Startups Index is a free (e-mail registration required) compendium of the early-stage activity across healthcare. It is a piece of business intelligence that includes MedCity’s deeper looks at select early-stage companies, chronicles the investment activity and other news, and even highlights which startups got the most attention from MedCity readers every month.

Digital health accelerator Healthbox and anchor partner Florida Blue had their priorities straight when they chose the seven companies for their inaugural Florida accelerator program: Address the high populations of seniors and youths in the state.

Companies that do that will have more opportunity to scale and build momentum, they reasoned.