Over the past five years, CIOs have increasingly become business managers who are maniacally focused on controlling costs. They have had some great achievements. For example, one of our large utilities customers has been able to cut their IT budget by more than 20 percent in two years. They did so while also enabling faster onboarding for newly acquired companies and making the most of their data center consolidation efforts, application portfolio analysis, service desk convergence, and heavy automation at all levels.

Point: If you’re stuck on how to solve a problem, see if nature has already solved that problem.

Story: Nature has already solved many challenges; the best solutions have survived and improved through evolution.

Consider this example: termite mounds such as those of the Macrotermes michaelseni exist in African environments where the external temperature varies from 35°F at night to 104°F during the day. The living areas inside the termite mounds, however, maintain a constant internal temperature within one degree of 87 °F, day and night.  Millions of years of evolution perfected the termites’ construction habits so that their mounds’ passive solar design and networks of air conduits create a self-cooling ventilation system.

Now that you know how not to be a social media or content robot, let’s look at another great marketing tool that is often abused: email marketing.

I know. When you’re busy and doing everything yourself, it’s easier to slap together an email as fast as you can without bothering to customize it or really consider what would provide the most value to your customers.

But if you don’t do this, you’ll quickly see your contact list shrinking and your sales dwindling.

Never fear!

Marissa Mayer recently demanded all Yahoo employees work in a corporate office. They're no longer allowed to work from home, unless it's with good reason. Yahoo has faced world-wide backlash for this decision. That's because many people have proved to be successful, despite not working in an office environment.

Think the digital divide is behind us now that personal computers are ubiquitous? Consider the recent failure of an e-textbook effort in a wealthy school district outside of Washington, D.C.

The e-textbooks used in the project, run by the Fairfax County Public Schools, worked only when students were online—and some features required fast connections. But it turns out that even in such a well-heeled region, many students did not have broadband access at home and were unable to do their homework, sparking complaints from parents that led the school system to approve the purchase of $2-million in printed textbooks for those who preferred a hard copy.

Once a year, under one grand ceiling, all the greatest car manufacturers come together to show off their newest creations in arguably the best motor show of the year: Geneva. This year has brought the world some of the most outrageous and technologically advanced cars ever to grace the automotive industry. And many of the craziest ones are actually being built.

StepOne Ventures, a non-profit organization located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is seeking a Chief Executive Officer. StepOne Ventures is a new 501c3 venture development organization whose long term goal is to establish Louisiana as a nationally significant center of high growth entrepreneurship and innovation. StepOne Ventures will initially focus on creating a highly productive entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Baton Rouge area, and then expand throughout the state. Step One Ventures will also manage all aspects of a separate for profit venture capital fund, called the Ion Fund, and the CEO of Step One Ventures will have responsibility for the day to day operations of this fund and its success.

The CEO position requires an experienced business professional who has a combination of executive, fundraising, and community leadership skills, and significant experience in the management of a complex organization while interfacing with a wide range of partners, entrepreneurs, financial supporters, collaborators, and the community.

Send applications to Dustin McMahon, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Marissa Mayer may have decided that working from home doesn’t work anymore for Yahoo, but that doesn’t mean that working from home isn’t the best option out there for some tech companies. And for startups it seems like a no-brainer. Here’s why:

No rent, no utilities. This is big, obvious reason that everyone should already know: if your team works from home, you don’t have to rent office space or pay for anything like heat, internet connections, electricity, phone lines, or anything else like that. There’s a big expense that just vanished from your budget. Poof!

Being a part of the Russians doesn’t mean you get a free bottle Russki Standard at tech events. Unfortunately. But what it does mean, is that you join a massive group of incredibly talented programmers and hackers and recently business-savvy tech folks, together with a whopping 150-million people all sitting in their warm homes tapping away at their keyboards.

The Russian tech scene has exploded in the last five years, with companies like search engine Yandex completing an IPO on the NYSE and startups popping out of the snow like daisies in Namaqualand. A quick word on Yandex – it is the most visited .ru website, four times more than Google.

We’ve covered how to search for your next start-up gig using some traditional and not-so-traditional methods. But once you have a potential position in mind, the battle has only just begun. Now, you have to figure out how to score an interview.

In the start-up arena, there’s much more room to be creative than the typical “submit and cross your fingers” method. Actually, standing out is basically required in order to land an interview.

It's a substantial shot in the arm and vote of confidence for these young startups. BDC Venture Capital, Canada's largest institutional venture capital investor, has provided four companies that recently completed the program of Vancouver-based startup accelerator GrowLab with $150,000 each in seed funding, for a total commitment of $600,000. ePACT, KarmaHire, Procurify and Spacelist were all judged to be "venture-ready" by a joint BDC Venture Capital and GrowLab selection committee. This means they each developed a solid product that showed significant early traction and, most importantly, they are each led by a team of entrepreneurs who proved they were determined, capable and eager to take on the world. The companies were free to turn down the investment, but all four took up BDC Venture Capital's offer.

I caught up with John Taylor, research and financial affairs executive at the National Venture Capital Association, for some perspective on Draper Triangle Ventures’ new fund.

Draper reached first close last week, meaning it can start investing the $40 million it has raised; the fund is expected to reach at least $75 million. It will be Draper’s biggest fund to date.

That’s a special achievement, Taylor said, as it’s been tough going for venture capitalists raising funds and he believes that’s due in large part to the slow down in public offerings.

It’s called the Safe, Quick, Undercarriage Immobilization Device (SQUID). And according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science & Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Office, it’s a Spiderman-like “super-strong webbing … to stop vehicles in their tracks.”  

S&T said that a need to stop vehicles remotely that was identified by the law enforcement community resulted in S&T issuing a solicitation, and that the SQUID was the response.  

With funding from S&T and the expertise of Engineering Science Analysis Corporation’s (ESA) engineers, the SQUID prototype began development in 2010. And it was a success, S&T said.

Big news was made at HIMSS13 on Monday when, in an unprecedented collaboration, some health IT heavy-hitters joined forces in an effort to push the needle on interoperability. 

In announcing the launch of the CommonWell Health Alliance, executives from Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, Greenway and RelayHealth touted what they say is a first-of-its-kind organization: a collaboration of rival vendors, uniting to enable care integration and data liquidity. 

It's easy to get completely addicted to coffee on Wall Street. When you start out as a young analyst, the boring hours between spreadsheets and pitch books are spent going on Starbucks runs.  And of course, everyone needs a pick-me-up working those 14 hour days.

What was the first fast food company? What was the first credit card company?

If you’re like most people, you probably didn’t know the answers were White Castle and Diners’ Club. While both companies still exist, they now have relatively small share in what has turned out to be very large markets.

In an earlier post, I argued the benefits of the so-called first mover advantage are exaggerated:

While being first in category helps, it doesn’t guarantee success. Atari was the first video game, Visicalc the first desktop spreadsheet, and Mosaic the first Internet browser. None are leaders in their categories. This is not just a technology phenomenon. Gablinger was the first low-calorie beer but lost the market to Miller Lite.

Yesterday my husband and I were talking about the essence of the entrepreneurial spirit.  In the course of the conversation, he pointed out that of the 4 siblings in my family, 3 are entrepreneurs: we have all started and built our own businesses. I commented that the entrepreneurial spirit is in our family genetics: both of my grandmothers were suffragettes who took it upon themselves to continue  their education and had careers before they were married. One of my grandfathers left the Mennonite church to become a lawyer (and a Unitarian!), while the other was the son of Danish immigrants who crossed the country with all their belongings piled in a cart to claim land in Nebraska and start a new life.  My grandpa Einar was their oldest child, and the first day he came home from school, my great grandmother gathered his younger siblings in the kitchen and made Einar teach them (and her) all the English he’d learned in school that day.  She did that every afternoon until. they were fluent.

Let’s be honest: Living the life of an entrepreneur can take a huge toll on your health. Amid the long days of work and erratic scheduling, it’s difficult to find time to exercise or plan a healthy meal. However, it’s incredibly important to make a healthy lifestyle a priority, especially for entrepreneurs. You’ll find that your mood, productivity, energy levels, and happiness will all improve as a result.

With that in mind, here are five strategies to get you back on track.

1. Don’t be chained to your desk.

It’s easy to get stuck at your desk, but it’s actually a big problem if you don’t find a way to watch your diet and activities during the day. Wendy Chant, in a recent contribution to SheKnows, said

Great entrepreneurs have long been the epitome of people with a great work ethic. But many complain to me that it is becoming harder and harder to find team members and employees who demonstrate and live the same culture. Somewhere along the way, work ethic seems to have been replaced by a pervasive sense of entitlement, especially in the younger generations.

Now is the time to assess your own situation, set out clearly what you expect from each and every team member, and unleash the entrepreneur inside every employee. As a guide, I enjoyed the analysis of Eric Chester, in his book “Reviving Work Ethic,” which provides a leader’s guide to ending entitlement and restoring pride in the emerging workforce.