To bridge the Valley of Death: ensure research is properly prepared for commercialisation. And the way to do that? Take the responsibility for technology transfer out of the hands of universities and place it with independent, commercial bodies that have the requisite commercial skills.

This is the view of leading scientist and entrepreneur Greg Winter, who made the case as one of the 130 individual researchers, industrialists, entrepreneurs, movers and shakers of science policy, companies from start-ups to multinationals, funding bodies and other organisations, that gave evidence to a UK Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee investigation into the Valley of Death.

In finance, a bubble is too much money chasing assets, greater asset production and a herd mentality. In startup business plans, a bubble is too many entrepreneurs and too many investors chasing the latest “next big thing,” like Google search engine, Facebook social network, or Amazon e-commerce site. In all these cases, a bust is inevitable, and everyone loses.

The big question is how to spot these bubbles and jump to a better alternative, rather than get sucked into the vortex. Vikram Mansharamani provided some great insights on the financial side in his book, “Boombustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst,” and I believe these can be equally applied to bubbles for startup ideas as follows:

Bezos Expeditions, the personal venture capital firm of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, is currently dredging rocket engines from the floor of the ocean.

The best part of the above sentence is that I’m not kidding. Bezos, worth around $24 billion, can afford the operation. He’s out hunting for F-1 engines, the flame emitters that powered the Saturn V rockets into space. As you surely recall, Saturn V rockets put a human  on the moon.

More governments in Canada seem to be dipping their toes into the venture capital business. The most recent to test the waters is the Province of Ontario, which said Tuesday that it’s investing up to $50 million in a venture capital fund.

According to the province, the fund is designed to help innovate startups and other emerging companies secure financing to grow their businesses and create jobs in Ontario. The hope is to grow the fund to as much as $300 million over time by leveraging the participation of private investors.

Management consultants would have you believe that making a ham sandwich requires a PhD. But building a successful business can actually be boiled down to 3 pretty basic concepts.

Last time I looked, there were 19,200 book titles available for purchase at Amazon under the category "Organizational Behavior." I checked out a few of the top sellers and found a familiar pattern. Not one is written by an author who actually founded, built, and managed his or her own enterprise. The authors are academics or management consultants. Their information may be useful, but I wish more books were written by people who have gone through the experience of building a positive work environment while also juggling trying to satisfy shareholder and customer expectations.

Record a video of yourself on Vine and tweet it to @FastCompany with the hashtag #IUNY13! We're publishing your submissions here. And be sure to register for Innovation Uncensored 2013!

Today, March 20, 2013, marks the first ever International Day of Happiness. This was decreed last year by the United Nations following a meeting on well-being attended by government officials, economists, scholars, and business and spiritual leaders from around the world. It was hosted by Bhutan, a small but visionary country which famously uses Gross National Happiness (GNH) instead of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to index its progress.

The National Science Foundation recently released both a FY-2014 SBIR and a STTR solicitation. These are two separate solicitations. They share a number of common characteristics, but there are also some distinct differences. We’ve highlighted some key considerations below. Note that this is not a comprehensive list and it is critical that you read the solicitation(s) carefully and then contact the relevant program director early in the process, as noted in item #7.

1. Submission deadline, project duration, and maximum budgets differ between the two solicitations.

This is heartbreaking: An entrepreneur puts mind, time, and energy into founding and running a new venture, and then recklessly sabotages the startup’s chances to succeed.

The Enthusiasticus Founder syndrome (not to be confused with the entirely different Founderitis) occurs when novice founders, convinced that their garage gig is the next Google or Amazon, make critical mistakes due to the dangerous cocktail of inexperience and over-optimism. Unfortunately, it causes potentially great ventures to die prematurely and founders to forgo future entrepreneurial efforts.

Thursday, March 14th, the Seventh Annual Wharton Entrepreneurship Alumni Dinner was held at the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia. Over a hundred alums mingled with former classmates and advisors. Discussions of new ventures interwove with recollections of Penn adventures. Josh Kopelman, Wharton Undergrad 1993, took the stage to share the wisdom he has gained since graduating. His witty keynote speech, “Ten Startup Lessons Learned Outside the Classroom,” gave insights for both budding entrepreneurs and more seasoned veterans. 

There is no sure fire way to become a successful entrepreneur, but if you are not being taken seriously by those around you, you will have zero chance of making this dream a reality. Here are a number of key points to consider as you prepare to take your first steps  into the dog eat dog world of modern business.

Have a Plan

All of the drive and enthusiasm in the world is not going to get you anywhere unless you have a clearly defined set of goals and objectives. It is not enough to want to succeed if you are not entirely sure of what it is you want to succeed at. Too many people dive headfirst into business without clearly understanding exactly where it is that they want to go. Your youthful exuberance and desire will get you so far, but there will also be a moment where reality hits you hard in the face. And in terms of respect and seriousness, nobody that you deal with be able to put their trust in you if they feel there is no real substance to back up your raw energy and ideas. 

What young entrepreneur doesn’t need more energy? We are all looking for that boost but rather than order a larger coffee or grab an energy drink why not eat right in the first place? We all know how important breakfast is but what you pick to eat also determines how you will feel the rest of the day. Take the time and effort to prepare the right breakfast and you might just find yourself getting more done during your entire day!

Let us know what you eat each morning in the comments.

1. Eggs

As part of his commitment to creating jobs and driving Illinois' economy forward, Governor Quinn today launched the Illinois Creative Economy Initiative. The initiative will explore innovative strategies to grow the $2.7 billion creative economy in Illinois, which employs thousands of people and is a key driver of tourism to our state. The governor made today's announcement at the Illinois Arts Alliance's "Make Art Work" forum, where he highlighted the significant positive impact the arts have on Illinois' economy.

In today’s guest post on Tech Cocktail I talk about the essential elements surrounding licensing technologies…either to augment your product development efforts (by licensing technology into your company) or to create a new revenue stream by outlicensing technology that you’ve developed. 

You may have heard of couples that strive for exact equality when it comes to chores, i.e. I scrub  a dish, you scrub a dish, I change a diaper, you change a diaper.

But new research finds that keeping score with chores isn’t the best path to a high-quality relationship. Instead the data points to two items that should have a permanent place on a father’s to-do list:

Do housework alongside your spouse Spend quality time with the kids “We found that it didn’t matter who did what, but how satisfied people were with the division of labor,” said Brigham Young University professor Erin Holmes. “We found that when wives are doing work together with their husbands, they are more satisfied with the division of labor.”

Valuations of U.S.-based companies raising later-stage venture rounds in 2012 hit the highest level in 12 years although the rise slowed from 2011, according to industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource. The data show that private investors remained bullish on these companies even in a year when the highly anticipated initial public offering of venture-backed Facebook FB +0.33% proved a disappointment, with critics saying it was overpriced. The data also show a healthy increase in second-round valuations over the last two years to reach a post-bubble high in 2012.

This week’s Economist has a special report on how America’s economy and prospects for the future aren’t as dire as Washington and many media outlets allege. One of the articles seeks to dispel the notion that “Innovation is dead” in America with a bevvy of statistics that should ease the growing fear that the Unites States is a nation of inventors no more.

Yet a question, persists: Why do we still think that? Evidence is there to back up the assertion that we’re still (one of) the files on the cutting edge. How come we have trouble believing America is still a technological trendsetter?

The global population is on track to reach 9 billion by 2050. What are all those people going to eat? With billions of people adding more animal protein to their diets — meat consumption is expected to double by 2050 — it seems clear that arable land for raising livestock won’t be able to keep up.

That’s one reason why I’m excited about innovations taking place now in food production, which especially interests me as someone who worries about the poor getting enough to eat.

I am often approached by people who seek my advice on the current job market for people working with innovation in big companies or people aspiring to do so.

Here you get some of my views in a short video talk. You can also find a short summary below.

Don’t leave your current job!

Very few companies are staffing up on their innovation efforts and it will be very difficult for you to find an innovation job in another company right now. So if you already have a good or perhaps just a decent job, but want new challenges, then I would say that you should stay where you are! I know many very capable innovators who have been out of relevant jobs for years. This is not the time to take chances with your career.

Albert Einstein is often quoted (perhaps apocryphally) as saying, "If I had 20 days to solve a problem, I would spend 19 days to define it." Innovation is a particularly sticky problem because it so often remains undefined. We treat it as a monolith, as if every innovation is the same, which is why so many expensive programs end up going nowhere.

So how should we go about it? Should we hand it over to the guys with white lab coats, an external partner, a specialist in the field, crowdsource it, or what? Before handing them off, you need a clear framework for defining innovation problems and approaches that are most likely to resolve them.