On June 10, the Securities and Exchange Commission released rules allowing entrepreneurs to publicly advertise their investment opportunities, finalizing a portion of the JOBS Act of 2012.  These included a final rule lifting the ban on general solicitation and provided guidance on how issuing entrepreneurs could “reasonably” verify their investors are accredited; a final rule disqualifying “bad actors” from investing in private offerings; and a proposed rule requiring entrepreneurs to submit multiple reports and information for solicited offerings.  The Angel Capital Association (ACA) has taken a strong stance on these rules, stating that these rules could greatly reduce entrepreneur access to angel investment, as they require investors to provide their private wealth or income information to issuers or third parties, and also may require entrepreneurs to submit considerable information to the SEC with harsh penalties for missing filing dates.

Image: Flickr - Angel Silhouetted

That he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart … We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

– William Shakespeare, Henry V

There’s been a lot written about the individual characteristics of what makes a great founder, but a lot less about what makes a great founding team and how that’s different from a great founding CEO.

Image: Flickr - Startup business team

Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin recently shared a bevy of tiny happiness tips--let's take a few of hers and add our own. Coffee dates, awesome desks, and other smile boosters below.

1) TAKE A WALKING MEETING

Sitting all the time is killing us (and it saps your energy, too). So we'd do well to bring more activity into our days, like with walking meetings. Whether it's a phone call or a face-to-face, the walking meeting can turn a chore into a delight--especially if you head to the park.

Are you hunched over your desk shoveling salad again?

A number of surveys indicate that a leisurely lunch isn’t a universal perk. A 2012 Career Builder survey found that 10% of workers reported getting lunch out of the vending machine at least once a week. And a 2010 Monster study discovered that 21% of people reported always eating lunch at their desks (7% denied eating lunch at all) and 32% took a lunch break “only if I’m not too busy.”

Image: Flickr - Business man at lunch time

When American progressives dream their future vision of America, no place entices them more than the sparsely populated countries of Scandinavia. After all, here are countries that remain strongly democratic and successfully capitalist, yet appear to have done so despite enormously pervasive welfare systems.

Paul Krugman, the current high priest of progressive economics, approves of Sweden's high level of spending on benefits as an unadulterated economic plus. He says that Sweden, unlike other European states like France, thrives despite its high tax rate and notes that, while half of all children are born out of wedlock, those children have far less poverty than American children. Progressive pundit Richard Florida, for his part, claims that Sweden is the most creative place on Earth, just ahead of the U.S.

Image: Flickr - Stockholm, Sweden 051 - Riddalholmen

Albert Einstein’s assertion that there’s an ultimate speed limit – the speed of light – has withstood countless tests over the past 100 years, but that didn’t stop University of California, Berkeley, postdoc Michael Hohensee and graduate student Nathan Leefer from checking whether some particles break this law.

The team’s first attempt to test this fundamental tenet of the special theory of relativity demonstrated once again that Einstein was right, but Leefer and Hohensee are improving the experiment to push the theory’s limits even farther – and perhaps turn up a discrepancy that could help physicists fix holes in today’s main theories of the universe.

Image: Flickr - Albert Einstein 002

PALO ALTO, Calif.— Drivers here already gawk at Google’s self-driving car zipping around the freeways. In California, Nevada, Florida and the District of Columbia, the future of transportation is now: All four jurisdictions are setting ground rules for self-driving cars on the roads.

The trend is spreading. In this year’s legislative sessions, nine more states debated driverless car bills. While most of the bills died in committees, Michigan’s bill is likely to pass by the end of the year with support from Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, a former tech titan who advocated for the new car technology.

Image: Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval takes a spin in a driverless car in 2011 in Carson City, Nev. Since Nevada became the first state to allow testing of driverless cars, California, Florida and the District of Columbia have followed. (AP)

You’re young and eager to jump into the business arena. You have a hot idea that you are certain is a can’t miss proposition. While there is no guarantee that you will actually succeed in business as an entrepreneur, your youth does provide a number of advantages. What you may lack in experience you can more than make up in enthusiasm and energy. If you are willing to put forth the effort, your youth may very well help you carry the day.

Social Network Savvy

Although many Baby Boomers are adapting social media as a necessity, as a young person, you probably view social media as a necessary part of your existence. You don’t have to learn how to use Facebook and YouTube – you were weaned on those tools. Social media has demonstrated repeatedly that the right content posted at the right time has the potential to “go viral,” that is, become widely circulated almost exclusively by electronic word-of-mouth. And because you understand and use social media so fluently, it is more likely that you will be able to use social media marketing accurately and effectively to promote your company’s products or services.

Image: Flickr - Street8

Should you hire an intern this season or forgo the concept altogether? This can be a tricky question. On one hand, seasonal interns can prove helpful in a small business setting. They can assist with non-critical tasks around the office, add young spirit into a company and cost a business owner next to nothing.

On the other hand, bringing on a seasonal intern can also turn into a nightmare if not managed properly. Here are a few practices to avoid.

Image: Flickr - Intern Retreat

INDIANAPOLIS — A widely praised Indiana program that issued grants to help promising startup companies develop their products has quietly gone dormant, raising concerns among business innovators that it could stifle technology development in the state.

Indiana began offering the matching grants to companies that had won research awards from the federal Small Business Innovation Research program in 2003. It gave out more than $36 million through some 300 grants over about eight years, The Indianapolis Star reported.

Image: Flickr - Stop !

On July 31, 2013, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis will release, for the first time, GDP figures categorizing research and development as fixed investment. It will join software in a new category called intellectual-property products.

In our knowledge-based economy, this is a sensible move that brings GDP accounting closer to economic reality. And while that may seem like an arcane shift relevant only to a small number of economists, the need for the change reflects a broader mismatch between our digital economy and the way we account for it. This problem has serious top-management implications.

Image: Flickr - 198: Digital Capital and Cloud Computing's Asymmetric Risks

Interns are often hired to run social media for small companies that can’t afford a full-time social media manager. Employers assume the job is simple and they have the skills to handle it because they regularly use social media in their personal lives.

However, social media internships, because of the nature of the work involved and skills required, should never be unpaid. Here are a few of the responsibilities of a social media intern:

On June 10, the Securities and Exchange Commission released rules allowing entrepreneurs to publicly advertise their investment opportunities, finalizing a portion of the JOBS Act of 2012.  These included a final rule lifting the ban on general solicitation and provided guidance on how issuing entrepreneurs could “reasonably” verify their investors are accredited; a final rule disqualifying “bad actors” from investing in private offerings; and a proposed rule requiring entrepreneurs to submit multiple reports and information for solicited offerings.  The Angel Capital Association (ACA) has taken a strong stance on these rules, stating that these rules could greatly reduce entrepreneur access to angel investment, as they require investors to provide their private wealth or income information to issuers or third parties, and also may require entrepreneurs to submit considerable information to the SEC with harsh penalties for missing filing dates.

Image: Flickr 

In a bleak job market, like the one that has prevailed during the past several years, does it make sense to head off on one's own? On the basis of recent increases in self-employment, a lot of people appear to think so, with the number of proprietors growing by almost 2 million in the US and by close to 400,000 in the UK during the Great Recession and its aftermath.

Yet, research to be presented at a major management conference this summer sounds a caution about these developments. Self-employment, it finds, entails not just such well-known drawbacks as low earnings, long hours, and risk to personal funds; it also has the further effect, until now unrecognized, of compromising prospects for wage employment if proprietorship falls short of expectations.

Image: Flickr

The UK is losing ground to European rivals as a destination for venture capital investors, with the country securing just 16% of all investment in the second quarter, the lowest share since records began in 2000, according to new figures. In the first quarter, the UK market share stood at 36%.

Image: Flickr

Are high-price packages of frequent-flier miles the next big thing in business?

One Novato, Calif.-based venture capital company thinks so, and it’s already made a deal with United as it gets ready to put its theory to the test in the crowdfunding market.

Wall & Main says it hopes to turn the industry on its head by making airline miles the “centerpiece” of money-raising efforts. The company’s Founding Champion packages will both help fund its launch and enrich supporters with a mountain of miles.

Image: Wall & Main says it hopes to turn the industry on its head by making airline miles the 'centerpiece' of money-raising efforts. The company's Founding Champion packages will both help fund its launch and enrich supporters with a mountain of frequent-flier miles. / AP

I often recommend business networking as the most effective way for a startup founder to find investors, advisors, and even key executive candidates. But what if you are an introvert, or new to this game, and don’t know where or how to start?

The answer is still the same, but I have learned over the years that there is an etiquette to this process, just like there is for social networking. Here are a few of the “do’s”:

Image: Flickr 

Even though Wi-Fi is invisible, we know when it’s not working. Some people have even developed a bat-like sense of guessing where the signal is strongest and moving their laptops to that specific coffee shop table. But artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm wanted to know: what would Wi-Fi look like if we could see those waves pulsing the network to our computers? "I did a Google search that asked, 'What if we could see Wi-Fi?' and I couldn’t find anything, so I decided to make my own," Lamm says.

That search eventually produced these images of what Wi-Fi would look like on the National Mall, which Lamm posted on MyDeals.com. With the help of a NASA astrobiologist, Lamm used 3-D shapes taken from a Washington, D.C. government map to recreate the size and frequency of the waves. As for the NASA connection, Lamm explains that he simply put out a call for help on Craigslist. M. Browning Vogel, an astrobiology Ph.D. who worked at NASA Ames for five years, helped Lamm out.

WASHINGTON - In the downtown of the nation's capital, there is a magnificent building of steel and glass that is now home to what may be a remarkable tech experiment.

The D.C. Public Library took an 11,000-square-foot space and installed 80 computers, including 16 Macs. A 3D printer was added as well as a machine that can print and bind a book from a file in just minutes. There are tablets of all types -- Android, Windows, Apple -- and e-reading devices, available to try out. It opened last week.

There are also glass-enclosed meeting rooms, and areas for large classes and meetings. There are large Web-enabled, interactive systems for displaying material to an audience. It's modern, professional and free to use.