Eighty percent of Americans buy their first house between the ages of 18-34. While the Millennial Generation’s (born 1982-2003) delayed entry into all aspects of young adulthood has sometimes been characterized as a “failure to launch,” the generation’s  preference for single tract, suburban housing should become the fuel to ignite the nation’s next housing boom as Millennials  fully occupy this crucial age bracket over the next few years.

According to a study by Frank N. Magid Associates, 43 percent of Millennials describe suburbs as their “ideal place to live,” compared to just 31 percent of older generations. Even though big cities are often thought of as the place where young people prefer to live and work, only 17 percent of Millennials say they want to settle  in one. This was the same percentage of members of this generation that  expressed a preference for living in either rural or small town America. Nor are Millennials particularly anxious to spend their lives as renters. A full 64 percent of Millennials surveyed, said it was “very important” to have an opportunity to own their own home.

The recipients of 81 new Health Care Innovation Awards were announced last week by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The Health Care Innovation Awards program, created through the Affordable Care Act, is setting out to fund projects that test new payment and service delivery models while delivering high-quality care and lowering costs.

Combined with the 26 awards announced last month, HHS has distributed money to 107 projects that plan to save the healthcare system an estimated $1.9 billion over the next three years.

Each year, the University of Maryland business development team looks forward to spending three days in early summer at arguably the most significant annual event for the life sciences industry: the BIO International Convention. Held this year in Boston, the convention brings together industry executives with corporate and academic scientists in an ideal forum for networking and marketing within the biotech industry.

The audience is ideal for the work of the university, the BioPark and the state. One of our primary objectives as attendees and exhibitors is to market the pipeline of UM bioscience technologies available for licensing. Over the course of the convention, one-on-one partnering sessions will allow our tech transfer team to conduct as many as 20 key meetings to market therapeutics; vaccines; drug targets in oncology, neurodegenerative disorders, autoimmune disorders, infectious disease; and devices. We’ll also engage with existing bioscience and pharma partners to promote and expand funding of research and clinical trial contracts with UM’s bioscience faculty and clinicians. Our final focus will be marketing the BioPark as an ideal location for bioscience companies and promoting the Park’s existing base of nearly two dozen bioscience companies. Several existing tenant companies, including Paragon Biosciences, SNBL, Vigilant Bioservices, Gliknik and Ablitech will join us at the show.

I recently read a study that confirmed my suspicion that most people don't remember what we present to them in a sales call. The data suggested that the average buyer in a meeting will only remember one thing–one!–a week after your meeting.

Oh, and by the way: You don't get to choose what that one thing is. Sigh.

So what have sales professionals done about this? They have worked on "honing the message," developing a "compelling unique advantage" and, of course, the ultimate silver bullet: a surefire elevator pitch.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?  If you don’t feel as successful as you’d like to be, then the answer is “YES” and if you’re already successful, you probably don’t think about it much.

But there are quite a few people who do think about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.  There are countless entrepreneurial assessments that quiz you on specific behaviors or success traits.  Then there are the personality profiles such as Myers-Briggs or the DISC profile that try to identify specific communication or personality styles.

The received wisdom, magnified in the years following the dot-com bust, is that the universe of top-performing venture capital firms is very small. Fewer than 30 firms perhaps compose the privileged lot. As for the rest -- 840 as of 2011 -- limited partners have largely been disappointed with general partners' poor to middling returns. Yet investors continue to pour money into their coffers, despite the fees and investment risks.

The reasons behind the concentration of elite VCs are more readily understood than the reasons why institutional investors persist in backing mediocre performers. In the self-perpetuating ecosystem of early-stage betting, firms like Sequoia Capital get first dibs on the best deals that they source from successful entrepreneurs who seed other ideas that feed into the VC firms' network.

It's a familiar sensation. We've got used to brinkmanship in the eurozone crisis, wondering if we'll get through the next few days without economic calamity.

For nearly 30 months since the bond market first focussed its attention on the risk of Greek default, it's been rare that the time horizon has stretched much more than a few weeks ahead, amid repeated bouts of apocalyptic warnings of collapse.

American research universities are essential for U.S. prosperity and security, but the institutions are in danger of serious decline unless the federal government, states, and industry take action to ensure adequate, stable funding in the next decade, says a new report by the National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. As trusted stewards of public funds, universities must also meet “bold goals” to contain costs, enhance productivity, and improve educational pathways to careers both within and beyond academia, the report says.

Congress requested the report, which was written by a committee that includes industry CEOs, university presidents, a former U.S. senator, and a Nobel laureate. It recommends 10 strategic actions that the nation should take in the next five to 10 years to maintain top-quality U.S. research institutions. The report builds upon Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a landmark Academies’ study on U.S. competitiveness.

Starting a business is usually the result of a personal dream or need. Investors tell me that they invest in people, more than the idea. Customers buy from people, not from a company, at least at the startup stages. That’s why it’s important to build a personal brand, in parallel and before your business brand. This will kick-start your business, and improve your odds of success.

So what does it mean to “brand yourself?” Branding yourself means making yourself visible, and communicating via all avenues your personal value and what your stand for, with total clarity and consistency. It’s especially important to highlight your uniqueness in some easy to remember way, so people will think of you and what you do, in case they need your product or service.

As the name of a recent conference in San Francisco suggests, there’s a war for talent going on right now. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Over the last couple of years I’ve been fortunate enough to talk to many successful entrepreneurs and executives from some of the fastest-growing companies in the world. While the specifics of those conversations remain confidential, I’ve noticed some general trends that seem to separate the winners in the talent war from those who aren’t doing as well.

Here are five I’ve picked up on:

The talent war winners aggressively seek out passive candidates. It’s the heat-seeking missile approach to recruiting and they do it because they know that they have to go find top talent, not the other way around. They do whatever they can to determine where the people they are looking to hire are likely to be. Often this is knowing what company an ideal candidate might have worked for previously, what school they attended, what Meetup they are going to next month or even what online communities they are hanging out on.

One of the most frustrating things I’ve experienced as a leader is putting months into recruiting an amazing VP or engineer, only to have them change their mind at the 11th hour because of a ridiculous counteroffer. This is the big risk you face when aiming for the best people on the planet (see: “Hiring Rockstars”) as they are the “beating heart” of their existing employer, and the incumbent company will often go beyond great lengths to keep them. They may be prized recruits for you, but they are absolutely the most critical people at their current employer. For instance, Google has been rumored to be especially aggressive at countering with restricted stock grants in the millions of dollars for their top people. But they aren’t alone. Any employer will do whatever he or she can to keep key talent.

Madison is getting a new tech business accelerator: gener8tor.

Its goal: To provide money and mentoring to young tech companies early on, before they’ve gotten any other outside investment, and give them a running start, said Joe Kirgues, a co-founder of gener8tor.

Gener8tor has offices in Madison, at 1 E. Main St., and in Milwaukee. It picks up where 94Labs left off; 94Labs also had Madison and Milwaukee offices and closed its doors in March after about a year.

Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA) announced today that the University of Pennsylvania will receive $9,202,760 for healthcare innovation programs under the Affordable Care Act that are expected to generate an estimated $12.2 million in cost care savings over the next three years and improve outcomes for patients.

The Healthcare Innovation Awards were announced by U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius as part of an HHS program to save the healthcare system an estimated $1.9 billion nationwide over three years.

No matter if you’re welcoming it or dreading it, one day your little one may come up to you and whisper/shout those few little words: “I want to be an entrepreneur.”

Of course, you want to support whatever career path your child chooses, but you know first hand just how hard it can be. Starting a business can mean late nights, no social life and a big financial commitment. And then, some businesses still don’t make it.

This infographic is about the mindset of an entrepreneur, and the first actions you would need to take to become one. To do a startup, you need to think very simplistically in many ways. From what I have seen working with hundreds of startup founders, it is often those that stay “hungry and foolish,” as Steve jobs put it, that are able to find a solution to a problem people have and build a business out of it. By foolish, I mean simplistic but focused thinking. the more you complicate the problem you are solving, the more unsolvable it becomes. However simplistic this infographic is, if you just do what it says, you will get what you put in.

From Silicon Valley to Peoria, Illinois, cash-strapped startups look for inventive way to finance their business – often handing out equity to employees, consultants, vendors, and other service providers.

It’s a logical solution. After all, cash may be in short supply, but there’s a virtually endless amount of work to be done, from coding and web development, to PR, sales, general operations, or sage advice from an industry veteran. Seen in this light, it seems harmless enough to dole out some paper shares or options to get critical services that will take your business to the next level. And giving equity as compensation can help build loyalty among contractors and consultants, as they now have a truly vested interest in your company’s success.

Just in time for Father's Day, Nick Balletta, chief executive officer of TalkPoint, a webcasting company based in New York, reflects on the parallels of being a father and a founder in this Entrepreneur.com piece.

In both roles, he says, you have  to admit when you're wrong, lead by example and, more often than not, pick up the cheque.

 A perk to being an entrepreneur? "I very rarely have to remind an employee to brush their teeth or wash their hands," Mr. Balletta writes.

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

- Albert Einstein

The state's venture capital arm, the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation, is announcing at an event tonight that it will adopt a new name: MassVentures.

"There were too many similar acronyms out there, like the MTTC and the MTC," says president Jerry Bird, "and we just think MassVentures better describes what we do, and who we're serving."

Bird has also scraped together $14 million in new funds to invest in tech startups. Much of it comes from money that MassDevelopment, the state's economic development agency, has asked MassVentures to manage. About $3 million comes from liquidity events in MassVentures' prior portfolio companies, Bird says, and another $6 million comes from the state's new START program, announced earlier this year.

Richard Thalheimer is the founder and former CEO of The Sharper Image, and creator of RichardSolo.com. The Sharper Image grew over thirty years to become a 200 store chain with $800 million of sales. After Richard retired from Sharper Image in 2006, the company several years later went into bankruptcy, and the stores closed. However, his love for gadgets lives on, and after his departure, he launched RichardSolo.com, an online store of new, interesting and useful products. Additionally, Richard serves on the Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Ballet.

In this interview, Richard tells the story of how he came up with the idea for The Sharper Image, his advice for entrepreneurs who are looking to take their idea and turn it into a business, and more.