MBA applications always go up during a bad economy. That is because business school generally attracts people who are lost, and more people who feel more lost when the bad job market is lousy.

But let’s be clear: This is not the type of recession where there are no jobs for young people. This is a recession where there are no GOOD jobs. McDonald’s is hiring in management. There is a bank teller shortage and a shortage of actuaries. There is a shortage of insurance agents. It’s just that people don’t grow up dreaming of these jobs. So they don’t take them. Instead, people who are early in their career - in that time when an MBA sounds like it might work - those people are determined to have only a good job. And if they can’t have that, they get an MBA.

Brad Hargreaves and Matthew Brimer took the stage at last night's Founders @ FAIL NYC meetup to share the most raw moments of their major entrepreneurial failure.

By all accounts, their startup, GoCrossCampus, should have succeeded.

The New York Times wrote, “The game, a riff on classic territorial-conquest board games like Risk, may be the next Internet phenomenon to emerge from the computers of college students.”

The five founders had $1.6 million in funding, more than 100,000 users, and over 100 institutions participating.

The National Innovation Council has been set up to herald a 'decade of innovation' in India [ Images ] from 2011-2020.

The council, approved by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ], is the biggest government initiative to promote innovators across all sectors.

So how far can India succeed in its attempts to boost innovation?

If the Indian government evolves a consensus on various strategies to develop and leverage innovations from both formal and informal sectors, there could be infinite opportunities for India's young and talented innovators.

The formation of a National Innovation Council is a step in the right direction if it actually evolves a model of innovation focussing on inclusive growth.

In countries like Malaysia, New Zealand [ Images ], there is a ministry focused on science, technology and innovation.
In India, the council is still evolving and has a long way to go in terms of charting out a definite course of action. The first meeting of the council is slated for September.

San Diego, CA… Royalties or revenue participation contracts may well become a standard means of investing in the revenue growth of companies now that the U.S. Patent Office has issued a Notice of Allowance of Claims on SINIPCO Pte. Ltd.'s U.S. patent application #20080109344, now allowed, which covers the company’s unique approach to financing and investing in companies.

Arthur Lipper, international investment banker and Chairman of SINIPCO Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) said, "Now SINIPCO licensed stock and other exchanges, through their members, will be able to offer the owners of businesses, ranging from high potential early stage to established and already successful, a means of attracting investor's capital without the need to sell equity-related securities.”

"There are hundreds of thousands of privately-owned, successful-companies throughout the world which will be pleased to trade a profit diminution, rather than sufferan equity dilution as the price paid for additional capital. The exchanges and their members will also be significant beneficiaries of this now patent-protected process," Lipper noted.  

The vast majority of business books are garbage, but over the course of twenty-something years I managed to find five that made a difference. These aren’t books that inspired me, changed my life, helped me find my cheese, or taught me 7 habits.

These are books of substance that taught me how to be a successful marketing executive and provided tools I’ve used over and over to help companies succeed.

No, I’m not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but with all due respect, neither are you, right? Besides, I’ve had, still have, a relatively successful career. So I’m thinking there’s a decent chance that whatever epiphanies worked for me may also work for you. At least that’s the theory.

We are in an entrepreneurial revolution. There has been an epic shift in people starting new businesses. People leave their jobs, either by choice, or by being laid off. With big ambitions, they pursue their passions and start a business. The unfortunate truth is that most small businesses fail. In the next 12 months alone, 600,000 new small businesses will be created. By the end of the year, more than half will have to close up shop forever.

A recent report by the National Small Business Association showed that more than 41 percent of entrepreneurs are concerned about the survival of their small businesses. None of those numbers feel good to me—and I’d guess they don’t feel good to you, either. I agree with the NSBA that “more can be done to ensure entrepreneurship remains a viable, attainable option for every American.” I strongly believe entrepreneurship is the answer to many of the problems America faces.

So what turns the dream of entrepreneurship into a nightmare time after time?

It’s called chaos and it is killing small businesses everywhere. What causes chaos? What are the symptoms? All-nighters at the office. Missed Little League games. Cold dinners and disappointed families waiting for you at home. Does this sound like you? These are all symptoms of chaos.

The people who succeed as start up CEO's approach the position much differently than those who fail as start up CEO's. Not a surprising statement on the surface. It is the way they succeed that is intriguing and perhaps, slightly unexpected. At its core, it is more rock and less talk.

The star CEO's daily activities involve more tactics and sales -- and less strategies and marketing. The successful start up CEO is determined and headstrong but very open to to hearing advice. Continually optimistic but not unrealistic. Tough but fair. Clear on the distinction that innovation isn't an idea alone but creativity backed up by relentless execution.

The rock star start up CEO has a different approach than his or her lower performing peers. The differences aren't superficial or incremental. While no one aspires to fail amongst start up CEO's, some do a much better job of it. This isn't to say that the lesser CEO's were essentially bad people and the better ones good people. It isn't a statement about them as people, it is a statement about them as CEO's.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had a chance to speak with senior economic policy makers in America and Germany and I think I’ve figured out where we are. It’s like this: things are getting better, except where they aren’t. The bailouts are working, except where they’re not. Things will slowly get better, unless they slowly get worse. We should know soon, unless we don’t.

It is no wonder that businesses are reluctant to hire with such “unusual uncertainty,” as Fed chief Ben Bernanke put it. One reason it is so unusual is that we are not just trying to recover from a financial crisis triggered by crazy mortgage lending. We’re also having to deal with three huge structural problems that built up over several decades and have reached a point of criticality at the same time.

And as Mohamed El-Erian, the C.E.O. of Pimco, has been repeating, “Structural problems need structural solutions.” There are no quick fixes. In America and Europe, we are going to need some big structural fixes to get back on a sustained growth path — changes that will require a level of political consensus and sacrifice that has been sorely lacking in most countries up to now.

A large prospective study of 5033 men and women in the Tromsø Study in northern Norway has reported that moderate wine consumption is independently associated with better performance on cognitive tests. The subjects (average age 58 and free of stroke) were followed over 7 years during which they were tested with a range of cognitive function tests. Among women, there was a lower risk of a poor testing score for those who consumed wine at least 4 or more times over two weeks in comparison with those who drink < 1 time during this period The expected associations between other risk factors for poor cognitive functioning were seen, i.e. lower testing scores among people who were older, less educated, smokers, and those with depression, diabetes, or hypertension.

It has long been known that “moderate people do moderate things.” The authors state the same thing: “A positive effect of wine . . . could also be due to confounders such as socio-economic status and more favourable dietary and other lifestyle habits.

The authors also reported that not drinking was associated with significantly lower cognitive performance in women. As noted by the authors, in any observational study there is the possibility of other lifestyle habits affecting cognitive function, and the present study was not able to adjust for certain ones (such as diet, income, or profession) but did adjust for age, education, weight, depression, and cardiovascular disease as its major risk factors.

Middle-aged and elderly Swedish women who regularly ate a small amount of chocolate had lower risks of heart failure risks, in a study reported in Circulation: Heart Failure, a journal of the American Heart Association.

The nine-year study, conducted among 31,823 middle-aged and elderly Swedish women, looked at the relationship of the amount of high-quality chocolate the women ate, compared to their risk for heart failure. The quality of chocolate consumed by the women had a higher density cocoa content somewhat like dark chocolate by American standards. In this study, researchers found:

• Women who ate an average of one to two servings of the high-quality chocolate per week had a 32 percent lower risk of developing heart failure.
• Those who had one to three servings per month had a 26 percent lower risk.
• Those who consumed at least one serving daily or more didn’t appear to benefit from a protective effect against heart failure.

The second idea I’m going to pick out from The Singularity is Kurzweil’s prediction that by 2025 personal computers (I think costing less than $1,000 in today’s money) will have the power of the human brain.

The first component to this prediction is an assessment of the computational power of the human brain. Kurzweil looks at a number of different ways to think about this question and they all yield estimates in the range of 10(exp 14) to 10(exp 15) calculations per second (henceforth cps) – that is one hundred million trillion cps to one billion trillion cps.

Today’s personal computers, or at least those back in 2005 when The Singularity was published provided 10(exp 9) cps and an extrapolation historical increases in computing power going forward yields the prediction that personal computers will have a capacity of 10(exp 16) cps by 2025.

Kurzweil goes on to add substance to this prediction by discussing the technologies that will yield the increase in computing performance that he is predicting.

The tough venture capital market appears to be finally warming up for startup technology companies in Ottawa.

Still, you wouldn't know it based on the few announcements in recent months.

The Canadian Venture Capital Association said that Ottawa-area companies raised $35 million in fresh capital in the June quarter. That is more than three times the capital raised in the March quarter -- good news for a region that continues to hemorrhage technology jobs.

But only about $12 million of the funding was officially announced -- $7.2 million by Energate, a clean technology play, and $5 million by Sidense, a chip company.

The China Technology Exchange officially launched the one-stop service platform for intellectual property, also known as the "IPOS" platform, on Aug. 17 in Beijing, marking a step toward creating an effective channel for capital to flow into technology.

Data shows that merely 5 percent of the 30,000 scientific and technological breakthroughs developed annually are ready for commercialization and enter the market in China. This is far behind the 30 percent utilization rate in developed countries.

Though it has undergone 30 years of development, China's technology market, which is currently the main channel of the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements, has bottleneck problems that still must be solved. These problems include the lack of a standardized price set for technical achievements, a dearth of trading links, an unsound credit system and a shortage of incentive mechanisms,.

'When you look at energy in the longer term, a lot of our renewable energy resources, wind energy, it's all in the north,' says Deputy Energy Minister Claire LePage, who is the government representative on the energy hub task force. LePage is originally from northern New Brunswick and says sometimes the energy hub is not very well understood.

We've all seen and obsessively referenced Minority Report, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's dystopian future, when the public is tracked everywhere they go, from shopping malls to work to mass transit to the privacy of their own homes. The technology is here--I've seen it myself. And it's seen me--and scanned my irises.

Announced today, biometrics R&D firm Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI) is rolling out its iris scanning technology to create "the most secure city in the world," according to the company. In a partnership with Leon, one of the largest cities in Mexico with a population of more than 1 million, GRI will fill the city with eye-scanners that will help law enforcement--and soon marketers--revolutionize the way we live.

"In the future, whether it's entering your home, opening your car, entering your workspace, getting a pharmacy prescription refilled, or having your medical records pulled up, everything will come off that unique key that is your iris," says Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers, who, before coming to GRI, headed a think tank partnership between Bank of America, Harvard, and MIT. "Every person, place, and thing on this planet will be connected within the next 10 years."

In a sector that has generated more than $1 billion in new Hoosier wealth creation and reinvestment over the past decade, TechPoint's mission is nothing short of real and lasting positive transformation. As evidenced by the state’s creation of the 21st Century Fund, the Certified Technology Park (CTP) program, and other unique initiatives for capital formation and patent development, relevant policy can truly catalyze critical change and measurably advance the state's progress in elevating a technology-driven economy.

However, access to capital for Indiana entrepreneurs, particularly early‑stage capital, continues to be the most pressing challenge to financing new Indiana business investment and job creation, especially in capital‑intensive, technology‑based enterprises. In addition, the State must develop a robust infrastructure for entrepreneurial support to increase chances for business success.

Indiana must foster the creation and growth of new, entrepreneurial companies and encourage the development of a vibrant Indiana‑based venture capital community. Additionally, it is important to create a state tax regime where Indiana's tax rates – both in absolute terms and relative to other states – are business‑friendly, enhance our state's economic competitiveness and create new incentives for early stage investments.

Boing Boing readers had a lot to say regarding yesterday's post about Kelly Sutton, the fellow who has gotten rid of almost everything he owns apart from his digital / Internet technology. I asked him to write about his lifestyle and here's what he wrote. It's fascinating.

About a year ago, I came to the conclusion that the most logical thing to be done was to rid myself of all (or most) of my possessions. After meticulously itemizing all of my stuff, I put almost all of it up for sale on a site I built in a weekend, Cult of Less. Yesterday, the BBC News ran an article about myself and a few other folks replacing their physical media with their digital analogs. There are many implications of selling everything, some great and some not so great. I was a bit hasty in my desire to expunge my personal inventory but it's something worth considering. The following are a few things I learned, and where the project is going from here.

More and more, entrepreneurs are turning to the web to start new businesses because of low startup costs — often less than $1 million. Investors are helping drive the trend, in part because they have less money to invest. The average venture fund has shrunk from $166 million in 2007 to just over $120 million at the end of last year, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association and SVB Capital. Smaller funds tend to gravitate toward smaller funding rounds.

But it wasn’t always this way. In 2005, when Jim Andelman and Brian Kelly co-founded Rincon Venture Partners to fund web-based businesses, VC were flush and funding the likes of Facebook.

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Patients with diabetes-associated wounds could receive faster and more effective treatment thanks to a non-invasive device that monitors wound healing and is one step closer to market. Emunamedica LLC, a Florida-based healthcare start-up, has licensed technology for a near-infrared wound monitor from Drexel University. The device was developed by Dr. Elisabeth Papazoglou and Dr. Leonid Zubkov of Drexel’s School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems in collaboration with Dr. Michael S. Weingarten, M.D. of Drexel College of Medicine and their teams. The device received joint support from the University City Science Center’s QED Proof-of-Concept Program and from the Wallace H. Coulter Translational Research Program at Drexel University. It is the first technology supported by QED Program funding to be licensed.

There are 2 models in the field of technology transfer, writes Bill Payne, a veteran angel investor and an Entrepreneur In Residence at BNZ University of Auckland Business School.

Innovations from research labs are either transferred to established corporations or startup ventures. The goal is to transform innovative technologies into marketable products and applications to promote economic growth and/or create money-making opportunities.

About 80% of lab technologies are suitable for established companies and 20% for startups, Payne continues.