In the not-so-distant future, Glen Burchers believes, the gadgets in our homes—not to mention our homes themselves—will be replete with microprocessors, enabling the automation and remote control of everything from your lights to your laundry. Until this is a widespread reality, he'd like to sell you a wall outlet.

Not any old wall outlet, though. It includes an ARM processor, runs Google's Android mobile operating system, and can connect to the Internet. This means anything you plug into it can be controlled via your smartphone, and it will also track how much power your devices are consuming.

Open Innovation is an effective method for gaining ideas from outside an organization, but in order to achieve long term sustained Innovation, companies need to establish a structured repeatable process. Breakthrough innovations still have to come from within the company through hard work and consistent efforts.

A great example of this is Procter & Gamble Co., which successfully introduced its Open Innovation program to seek help from outside partners in everything from product design to packaging. Collaborating with outside partners increased P&G’s rate of product development, but at the same time it decentralized the company’s research and development (R&D) department. As a result, R&D spending became more closely tied to immediate profit concerns – meaning short term results and smaller, incremental inventions over market-changing breakthroughs.  A focus of Concept to Launch.

Last year I wrote about my modest moves toward a standing desk at work; I was using a lectern to stand up when reading. As I wrote then,

it’s pretty obvious that sitting at a desk, hunched over a computer, is not the healthiest way to spend eight hours (or more) of every day. The human body isn’t optimized for such immobility. Standing desks alow you to stretch and move while you work—you burn more calories than sitting.

Because of these benefits, I decided when I began my new job to move to a standing desk for the bulk of my work. Full disclosure: GeekDesk generously sent me a review unit of their GeekDesk Max for this experiment. I will review this specific product at the end of the review time. The GeekDesk Max can be adjusted electronically, and preprogrammed with up to four set heights. This allows me to transition easily from standing to sitting as I need to during the day (health experts have noted that standing all day, with no break, might be as detrimental to health as sitting all day).

North Carolina has received a second installment of $15.2 million in federal funding through the State Small Business Credit Initiative, a component of the Small Business Jobs Act signed into law in 2010, Gov. Bev Perdue's office said Tuesday.

The funds support the North Carolina Capital Access Program, the North Carolina Loan Participation Program and the North Carolina Fund of Funds Program, which work through banks and credit unions to spur financing for small businesses. The payment, one of three the state is slated to get, is expected to generate more than $152 million in additional private financing.

For much of the past century, the vast expanse known as the Great Plains has been largely written off as a bit player on the American stage. As the nation has urbanized, and turned increasingly into a service and technology-based economy, the semi-arid area between the Mississippi Valley and the Rockies has been described as little more than a mistaken misadventure best left undone.

Much of the media portray the Great Plains as a desiccated, lost world of emptying towns, meth labs, and Native Americans about to reclaim a place best left to the forces of nature. “Much of North Dakota has a ghostly feel to it," wrote Tim Egan in the New York Times in 2006. This picture of the region has been a consistent theme in media coverage for much of the past few decades.

In order to comply with the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011 and to ensure that awardees are using the program to support progress towards commercialization of research and development, the Small Business Administration has issued new benchmarks that concern eligibility for Phase II awards from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs (Federal Register notice here (PDF)). While Phase I awards typically do not exceed $150,000 total costs for six months, Phase II awards are larger – typically up to $1 million over two years. The benchmarks reflect Phase II transitions rates, that is, a company's success rate of following previous Phase I awards with Phase II awards over a certain period. Companies that have won awards previously but do not meet an agency's benchmarks will not be eligible for a new Phase I award for a certain period from that agency. Each agency has specified a rate and time period. The benchmarks are open for comment until Nov. 15. The SBA will issue final transition rates by Dec. 17.

A baby beluga whale born at the end of August is starting to shed its slate-colored skin for the more mature creamy-white covering, and the baby is a "she," aquarium staff have just announced.

The ever-growing calf, now 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, will make her public debut Friday (Oct. 26) at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Both mom and baby are plumping up, as the calf weighs about 205 pounds (93 kilograms) and is steadily packing on 12 to 15 pounds a week. Her 1,200-pound mom Mauyak has nearly tripled her normal diet — downing up to 88 pounds (40 kg) of fish daily — to accommodate a hungry, nursing calf.

I mentor many college students, including those at Colgate University (my alma mater) for the school’s own entrepreneurship program, TIA – Thought Into Action Institute.

There are a few classic mistakes that just about every young entrepreneur makes when starting a business. Avoid making these to save yourself precious time and money.

My grandfather is still going strong at 88. And I don’t mean just getting by. Perhaps he’s slowed a bit, but his clients wouldn’t know it. An entrepreneur with an automotive parts aftermarket distributorship, he services his customers’ needs with "high touch," often showing up in person to deliver their goods. And who is helping him keep his books? You guessed it. My 82-year-old-grandmother.

It’s becoming less frequent that we hear of someone’s "traditional" retirement. With people feeling healthier and living longer, coupled with a down economy that has reduced retirement savings, many Americans of traditional retirement age are choosing to continue working or even go back to work — for themselves.

The new SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Law (buried in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012) made a number of radical changes in these programs - many of them harmful. The extent of the harm will not finally be known until the SBA finalizes its Policy Directive, which carries the force of law. The SBA has published what it calls AFinal policy directive with request for comments@ in the Federal Register Volume 77, Number 151 (Monday, August 6, 2012). But it is really not Afinal@ as 1) the comments requested therein have yet to be dealt with and 2) the document itself postpones finalizing some of the more difficult decisions to the end of this year. Nonetheless, we can determine many of the implications now.

Probably the most onerous implication is that the SBIR and STTR programs will both become VERY MUCH more competitive than in the past. Historically, about 1 of every 9 applications has won an award (average across all 11 agencies). Now, when the provisions of this new law, and the SBA Policy Directive in place, we can expect that to move to something in the range of just 1 in 20 applications can win funding. That is a awful lot of proposals to write for a $150,000 revenue prize. This situation is primarily due to the diversion of funds to a plethora of uses other than funding Phase I awards.

As a co-founder of RockThePost, the leading crowdfunding platform for entrepreneurs, I naturally advocate for startups to get funding via crowdfunding, as it provides several additional benefits that can prove very useful early on.

On the flip side, other options to obtain funding include personally funding your venture, reaching out to friends and family, angel investors, and of course, the world of venture capital. Venture capital is popular among entrepreneurs not only for the money, but also to gain access and tap into the resources that are available through the alliance.

The United States and Europe might dominate people’s perceptions of the world’s best nations right now, but a new crop of countries is on the rise. 

We spend a lot of time looking at country rankings--everything from the best places in the world to be a woman to the worst countries for food security. These realities on the ground all feed into overall perception--or branding--of countries. If perception is favorable, that can translate into investments as well as commercial and economic development. And that, if done right, can lead to better lives for all citizens.

Y Combinator, one of the most visible and successful incubator programs in Silicon Valley, held its annual Startup School last week. Startup School is a half day of talks by some of the most visible and successful entrepreneurs in the Valley, and is held on the Stanford Campus. This year, the roster of speakers started with Mark Zuckerberg, and included Ben Silbermann, the founder of Pinterest, Travis Kalanick, cofounder of Uber (a smartphone-based car service), and Tom Preston-Werner, the founder of GitHub, in addition to legendary investors Ben Horowitz and Ron Conway. Here are what I consider the seven crucial takeaways for entrepreneurs.

At FailCon, the annual conference in San Francisco, not only is it okay to f*** up, it’s a badge of honor. The bigger the failure, the better.

The conference was filled to the rafters with bright-eyed young entrepreneurs. However, a few representatives from household-name companies were also attending. Corporations like Microsoft and SAP are increasingly investing in their innovation and design teams in an effort to be more like a startup. And they got some good advice on how to act like a startup from Bennett Blank, Intuit‘s innovation lead

The Maryland Innovation Initiative on Monday named a new board chair and unveiled its first two programs designed to provide funding to support the commercialization of technologies at five universities in the state. Robert Hallenbeck, vice president of BD Biosciences, has been appointed to chair of the organization. Patrick O’Shea, vice president and chief research officer at the University of Maryland, College Park has been named vice chair.

A critical component of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the U.S. is the mergers and acquisitions market. I’ve sifted through a number of studies and estimates, and it’s safe to say that the vast majority (over 90 percent) of the successful private company exits in 2011 and 2012 have been through company sale or M&A. (IPOs may represent a higher percentage of VC-backed company exits, but remember that only a minuscule proportion of all startups – even successful ones – are funded by VCs.)

The 2012 Digital States Survey, conducted every two years by the Center for Digital Government (CDG), amasses an impressive inventory of strategies employed by states across the country to advance state priorities using technology. Entries received are analyzed by a CDG panel of analysts, executives and Senior Fellows, who score responses in several categories. Weighted scores generate an overall grade for each state, as well as a list of the highest achievers in individual categories. The notable examples of best practices are:

Hundreds of companies are pursuing open innovation strategies (OI) to kick start creativity and crack difficult R&D problems.  OI is a relatively new approach to fostering innovation.  Instead of relying solely on internal R&D, OI programs help firms leverage expertise and resources outside of the company.  In many cases, this has proven to be a smart and cost-effective way to become more innovative.  However, the reality can be very different.  Opening up your innovation strategy to outsiders is not always easy nor does it always pay immediate dividends. Managers seeking to maximize OI’s potential should first look to establishing the right management practices and program tactics.

Conceptually, OI is a more distributed, participatory, and decentralized approach to innovation, based on the fact that knowledge and problem solving today is widely distributed. The premise is that no company, regardless of its size and capability could innovate effectively and efficiently on its own.  There are two sides to OI.  The first is the “outside in” approach through which ideas and technologies are brought into the firm’s own innovation process.  This is the most popular type of OI.  The other, less commonly recognized approach is “inside out,” where a firm’s dormant or under-utilized technologies are disseminated externally, to be incorporated into others’ innovation processes.

For the French Fauvist painter and color gourmand Raoul Dufy, blue was the only color with enough strength of character to remain blue “in all its tones.” Darkened red looks brown and whitened red turns pink, Dufy said, while yellow blackens with shading and fades away in the light. But blue can be brightened or dimmed, the artist said, and “it will always stay blue.” 

Scientists, too, have lately been bullish on blue, captivated by its optical purity, complexity and metaphorical fluency. They’re exploring the physics and chemistry of blueness in nature, the evolution of blue ornaments and blue come-ons, and the sheer brazenness of being blue when most earthly life forms opt for earthy raiments of beige, ruddy or taupe.