The best survival guides tell you how to be proactive and avoid the probabilities of ending up in a worse case scenario. Of course you need to learn how to recognize a bad situation before it bites you, and you need to know all the secret ways to wiggle your way out, before you succumb.

The challenges stem from the simple fact that every entrepreneur is starting something new, where things are predictably unpredictable. There are unknowns at every turn, leading product development, attracting customers, managing cash, and dealing with human resources and office politics.

After decades of controversy, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new H.I.V. test on Tuesday that for the first time makes it possible for Americans to learn in the privacy of their homes whether they are infected.

The availability of an H.I.V. test as easy to use as a home-pregnancy kit is yet another step in the normalization of a disease that was once seen as a mark of shame and a death sentence.

The OraQuick test, by OraSure Technologies, uses a mouth swab and gives results in 20 to 40 minutes. A previous test sold over the counter required a user to prick a finger and mail a drop of dried blood to a lab.

Analyst Horace Dediu of Asymco has posted another excellent chart, this one showing the ratio of PCs sold to Macs sold each year since the early 1980s (via Philip Elmer-Dewitt, who notes that the peak year for Microsoft dominance was 2004).

As you can see, the chart tells the story of Apple's temporary demise and Microsoft's ascendance, followed by Apple's resurgence over the last 8 years.

The ratio has now fallen back to levels not seen since the 1990s.

It’s been rumored for years. Is Apple finally set to sell a smaller iPad? That’s what Bloomberg says it has heard from two different sources.

Apple is planning to introduce an iPad with a screen measuring “7 inches to 8 inches diagonally, less than the current 9.7-inch version,” says the report published Tuesday. However, this iPad won’t have a Retina display, according to one of the sources.

It could be introduced by the end of the year, possibly in October.

So you’re in your twenties and you want to be an entrepreneur. A Mark Zuckerberg. A Steve Jobs. A Bill Gates. After all, you devoted four years studying for it, another five years (or longer!) paying back student loans. And if you do start a business, you’re probably taking out another loan to kick-start it – and then spending another bunch of years trying to pay it back. Considering the options, a 9-5 job doesn’t sound so bad.

So who in their right mind would walk out of a stable career and risk everything? Well, me. And lots of other crazy, foolishly fearless people like me, who find risk and freedom an irresistible pair.

The vast majority of venture capital firms fail to produce consistent venture style returns to their limited partners, as a renowned money-manager representing prominent limited partners as the investor in venture capital firms adamantly proclaims that number to be less than 35. From knowledge about those 35 firms, the majority of which reside in Silicon Valley, we personally estimate the number of successful venture capital firms with venture as the monolithic thesis (in non-diversified undiluted technology investments) to be no more than a handful.

The silent death of entrepreneurialism

Meaning, entrepreneurs with innovations that promise authentic social economic value that can produce outlier venture style returns have no more than five investors with some verifiable investment merit to choose from, or suffer the devastating consequence of uniform arbitrage that turns outlier entrepreneurial ideas inevitably subprime.

Gov. Rick Snyder is fond of saying the state should not be in the business of picking economic winners and losers.

So when the Michigan Economic Development Corp. announced Wednesday that, through the Michigan Strategic Fund, it was going to invest up to $9 million in four new venture capital funds, wasn't it playing the game of picking winning and losing industry sectors?

And did that, by any conspiratorial chance, reflect a bias in favor of Snyder's former job as venture capitalist?

The world of physics is electrified today with the news that a new particle has been detected that is consistent with the elusive Higgs boson, the long-sought after particle responsible for the forces in our universe. Physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced the discovery on Wednesday amidst a throng of Internet chatter anticipating the result. It’s a grand achievement for scientists collaborating at the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC, pictured), which fired up over 2.5 years ago on the dubious search for the Higgs particle.

Although CERN scientists are hesitant to deem that they have absolutely found the Higgs boson, the new particle is more massive than anything yet seen, a key property expected of the Higgs.

The U.S. Census Bureau has released an infographic in honor of Independence Day. The interesting part from a Silicon Valley perspective? The technology used to collect and analyze the data.

The first census was taken in 1790 with paper and pencil, of course, and was primarily intended to determine the number of military-age men in a country with only 3.9 million people.

Exactly 100 years later in 1890, technology came to the aid of over-worked tabulators as a Census employee, Herman Hollerith, invented a punch-card based calculation system. Interestingly, he later founded the Tabulating Machine Company that 20 years later would become the basis of IBM.

If you’re slouching in your office chair, sit up straight! Medical experts say improving your posture not only prevents back pain, but can provide an added boost to your confidence and physical attractiveness.

LumoBack, a mobile solution for perfect posture, has come a long way since winning a DemoGOD award in 2011. The Palo Alto-based team is working with a slew of physicians and physical therapists to scale a technology that can help millions of Americans benefit from better posture.

“Awareness and active correction of posture is critical for successful prevention and treatment of low back pain,” said Taylor Miller, a physical therapist based in Los Altos, CA. There are many causes of back pain (carrying heavy bags, walking in uncomfortable shoes, etc.) but according to Miller, posture is the critical component.

The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced today a $20-million investment in innovation funds that will support small- and medium-sized businesses in southern Ontario. Minister Goodyear was accompanied by Phil McColeman, Member of Parliament for Brant.

"Innovation is critical to creating high-value jobs and securing a prosperous future for southern Ontario communities," said Minister Goodyear. "The investment announced today will lead to new opportunities for small- and medium-sized businesses in the region, allowing them to grow, develop new products, services and technologies. This will diversify the economy, encourage greater innovation and create hundreds of jobs for southern Ontario."

Switzerland, Sweden, and Singapore top in overall innovation performance, according to the Global Innovation Index 2012 (GII).

The index, part of a report published by INSEAD, a business school, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a United Nations agency, ranks 141 countries on the basis of their innovation capabilities.

It points to the emergence of new successful innovators, as seen by a range of countries across continents in the top 20 GII rankings, as well as the good performances of emerging countries such as Latvia, Malaysia and China, among others. “The GII is a timely reminder that policies to promote innovation are critical to the debate on spurring sustainable economic growth. The downward pressure on investment in innovation exerted by the current crisis must be resisted. Otherwise, we risk durable damage to countries’ productive capacities,” said Mr Francis Gurry, WIPO Director-General, in a release issued here on Wednesday.

“The six rules about creativity come down to the one rule about creativity, which is that there are no rules about creativity. The problem with the conversation around creativity, as it is often put forward in this country, is that if you can find someone who’s creative, and if you can get them to describe what they do…and then you emulate it, then you too will be creative…

The conversation about creativity goes off the rails when we assume it’s a thing. What creativity is is valuable novelty; it’s the ability to produce valuable novelty. And the question of what’s valuable and the question of what’s novel are always up for grabs. They’re always up for renegotiation.”

Clay Shirky shares six insights on creativity derived from his years of watching and teaching creatives. 

THE FOUNDER OF KEEN SHOES VENTURES INTO FURNITURE WITH AN UPRIGHT WORKSTATION CALLED FOCAL, WITH THE AIM OF SAVING US FROM THE SHOCKING HEALTH PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH SITTING ALL DAY.

You’ve probably heard by now that sitting at your desk is killing you. No? Allow me to elaborate. The average person spends a third of their life sitting down, which lowers blood sugar, decreases blood flow, and puts you at risk for diabetes and heart disease. Some doctors even call our culturally ingrained inactivity “Sitting Disease,” which seems a little dramatic, but there’s truth in it.

Face reality. As an entrepreneur, you should assume none of your customers is like you, yet I find that most entrepreneurs assume just the opposite. Customers don’t have your technical base, the passion, and interest in your solution. In fact, even if they did, they couldn’t find you in the clutter. An underrated portion of every startup effort must be about communication and marketing.

By habit, people market to customers like themselves, because they know what they like and need. The challenge is attracting customers not like you, since that isn’t so intuitive. Kelly McDonald, who runs a top ad agency, takes on this challenge in “How to Market to People Not Like You.” Her focus is on companies facing change, which of course includes every startup. Here are my key recommendations from her book:

North Carolina can improve its dismal 9.4% unemployment rate – currently fourth worst in the nation. To understand what that takes, however, requires an understanding of what makes a state’s economy thrive relative to those of other states.

States that thrive are the ones with the highest rate of sustainable, growing businesses along with a robust level of new business creation. In short, states with more business “births” and fewer business “deaths” or downsizing will experience healthy growth. And with economic growth comes jobs.

Although there is some debate on whether or not startup accelerators really turn out the success stories they promise, new accelerators are popping up all over, and startup entrepreneurs are clamoring to get into one.

So, just how hard is it to get accepted by an accelerator? Is the application process onerous? Is it even worth the effort?

To find out, I talked to a few startup entrepreneurs about their accelerator experiences.

A group of Michigan venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and investment bankers has launched RelayFund(TM), Inc., the first equity-based 'crowdfunding' website started in Michigan and one of the first in the nation that will link small investors with startup operators under the provisions of the new federal JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act.

RelayFund(TM) ( www.relayfund.com ) is the creation of investment banking firm Hartwick Capital and investor relations firm Lambert, Edwards & Associates, who view crowdfunding for equity as the next major catalyst in transforming the capital markets and connecting everyday Americans with private equity.

Customers change. Competitors change. Technology changes. If you don’t do anything, new and competitive products catch up and overtake your products and services quickly. A study by A.D. Little has shown that the life cycle of products has decreased by factor 4 the last fifty years. So innovation is essential. But it is time consuming. It demands a lot of resources. And a positive outcome is very uncertain. In this blog Gijs van Wulfen offers a helping hand by identifying five common mistakes to avoid.

In one of my earlier blogs on IM I identified 40 reasons why people are struggling with innovation. And a lot of mistakes are made over and over again. That’s why I like to share with you five ways to commit innovation suicide. So you can avoid them in practice.

We prize our time. People who practice collaborative innovation know they cannot monopolize the waking hours of their sponsors and communities. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores the three C’s of critical question, community, and commitment. Practitioners raise the odds that everyone involved in collaborative innovation will view their time as well spent when they help sponsors address the three C’s in authentic ways.

One sunny day last October found me in Manhattan, walking south on 5th Avenue towards Bryant Square Park. I could see the heads of the lions guarding the library when a young man approached me. He held a clutch of CDs. Each had a homemade vest.