As a small business owner, it can sometimes feel like you’re expected to be an expert in tax and state law. One common area of confusion and misconception is conducting business in multiple states. By law, if your company plans to conduct business in any other states than your state of incorporation (or LLC formation), then you may need to register your business in those states. This process is called foreign qualification.

For example…

You have a restaurant in Florida and decide to expand into Georgia and South Carolina. Once you have locations open in those states, you’re doing business there and will need to file a foreign qualification in both Georgia and South Carolina.

When you use creative professionals, you can achieve huge monetary as well as emotionally gratifying results. Successfully managed, profits from creative teams grow exponentially, like Apple's value growing by 1000% over the past 10 years. However, it takes a proactive effort. If you give up control and hope for the best, you are on the sure road to losing money faster than in a Depression. Studies show that for experienced companies, new products fail at a rate of 35-40% and for average new firms the fail rate is 90%.

The recipe for prospering in all creative businesses is careful planning and briefing. When you clearly define your goals up front and inspire your creative staff, you will create winning products, services and experiences. This sounds like common sense, however most managers continue to let teams work without a clear sense of direction, hoping they will automatically deliver them what they failed to tell them that they wanted.

The migration of manufacturing from the United States to Asia could be having a significant impact on which advanced technologies are commercialized. Specifically, there is evidence that the shift in manufacturing is curtailing the development of emerging technologies in areas such as optoelectronics and advanced materials for the automotive industry.

In studies with colleagues at MIT, Erica Fuchs, an assistant professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, shows that the relocation of component manufacturing from the United States to East Asia in optoelectronics and to China in composite body parts for automobiles changed the economics of producing the technologies. The result in both cases is that emerging technologies developed in the United States were not economically viable to produce in the Asian countries because of differences in manufacturing practices. And Fuchs suspects similar effects are happening more generally as production shifts to the developing world. Location matters for "which products will be economically viable, which products countries will be most competitive in producing, and which products countries and companies globally are most likely to develop," she says.

Randel L. Zeller, Terry C. Pierce, and Thomas A. Cellucci of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: Science and Technology Directorate, Washington, D.C.

The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) Center of Innovation (CoI), which is managed by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), is designed to create novel capabilities from emerging industry research technologies that eventually enable Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products. Located at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) and near U.S. Northern Command, the CoI leverages the Academy’s state-of-the-art supercomputer and millennial generation cadets to create a truly interagency center. The CoI, the result of a collaborative agreement between USAFA and DHS S&T, has enabled the federal government to conduct cooperative research with private industry technology companies like Intel Corporation.

The CoI has had several major successes:

In July 2009, the CoI conducted the USAFA Mission Fabric Collaboration Experiment, co-sponsored by the Human Factors and Infrastructure Protection and Disaster Management Divisions for DHS S&T, as well as Department of Defense (Rapid Technology Fielding) to evaluate the impact of cutting-edge technology on distributed collaboration. The experiment participants included members from DHS’s Customs and Border Patrol Air/Marine Operations Center, multiple U.S. warfighting commands as well as academic institutions including USAFA cadets.

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Aspiring entrepreneurs face new challenges in the new economy: credit card limits are down, banks are stingy with loans, grants are harder to find and odds are that once-rich uncle is now underwater on his mortgage. Put simply, once reliable shortcuts for startup funding aren't so reliable anymore.

But in some ways, startup funding is actually more accessible now thanks to social networking and crowdfunding platforms that match amazing new ideas with people who want to be part of the next big thing.

At IndieGoGo, we connect aspiring innovators and creators -- inventors, entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, designers -- with the millions of people worldwide who want to be a part of exciting new ventures. Anyone can create a campaign to fund any dream, any passion, any idea that just needs some capital to get started.

Technology and Energy, Cleantech and Natural Resources categories flourish; Nominee employment growth far outpaces US average

JULY 21, 2011 – Despite continuing global economic challenges and persistently worrisome US employment statistics, the 2011 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award nominees’ companies managed to grow and even thrive, with 28 percent overall revenue growth and 27 percent overall employment growth, according to figures compiled by the public accounting firm.

In the two-year period between 2008 and 2010, the 2011 Entrepreneur Of The Year nominees experienced double-digit employment growth (27 percent) at a time when overall U.S. employment actually fell by 5.1 percent.

“The spirit of innovation demonstrated by America’s high-growth entrepreneurs is very strong, and clearly has not been stifled by the recent economic downturn,” said Bryan Pearce, Americas Director of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Program. “Our 2011 nominees demonstrate the importance of entrepreneurship in creating jobs, generating economic activity in our communities, keeping America competitive and driving American innovation.”

The 1,600 2011 Nominees are broken into 10 categories in 26 regions across the United States. As of December 2010, these companies employed some 500,000 individuals and generated total revenue of just under $125 billion.

Employment Growth

Sectors leading the group in employment gains were 1) Technology and 2) Energy, Cleantech and Natural Resources category, which, between 2008 and 2010, posted 89 percent and 58 percent employment growth, respectively.

Regionally, employment growth was led by the Southwest Area North, including Dallas, Texas and the surrounding area, which turned in 69 percent employment growth. Rounding out the top three were the Alabama/Georgia/Tennessee and Central Midwest regions with 67 percent and 60 percent employment growth, respectively.

As computational power rises exponentially, not linearly, so does the rate of change -- and that means the next 10 years should pack in far more technological change than the last 10.

Disruptive technology is, by its very nature, unpredictable, but it is still possible to look at the work being done by R&D labs around the world and see clues as to what the future holds. That's the full-time job of Dave Evans, Cisco's chief futurist and chief technologist for the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG).

Silicon Valley is the world’s success story in an unprecedented age of technological advancement – not to mention the rapid wealth that has come with it. But is Silicon Valley a success that can be replicated, even partially?

Memeburn has checked out the state of similar concepts around emerging markets. This is what we found across four of them.

India

Bangalore enjoys the nickname “Silicon Valley of India”. Besides some who miss the point and criticise the city for not being truly a valley, the defining aspects of the area when it comes to technology are present.

July 21, 2011 I'm often asked if there are any government incentive programs available to young entrepreneurs that most new business owners don't know about.

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council. Founded by Scott Gerber, the Y.E.C. is a nonprofit organization that provides young entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, community and educational resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth. The organization promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment.

A number of major international biomedical companies are negotiating to open research and development centers in Jerusalem. Among the big names in contact with the Jerusalem Development Authority are Pfizer, Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The CEO of the JDA, Moty Hazan, and Chen Levin, the executive director of the Bio-Jerusalem project confirmed the contacts.

For a decade, Israel has attempted to bring large pharmaceutical companies to open R&D centers here, but not with much success. Large R&D centers would give a big push to the biotech industry. Today, the Israeli biotechnology sector is characterized by well-developed academic research, but local industry has not been able to fulfill the potential of the academic research. The state expects the new R&D centers will create a new environment and push the local biotech and biomed industries to reach international levels.

It's happened to every biker. A flat tire in an inconvenient place on your commute, and the nearest bike shop is a long walk away. Most casual bikers don't carry extra tubes or tools with them; and so any repair work on the road can mean an end to a bike ride, and potentially leaving your bike locked up somewhere slowly rusting as you forget about it in your frustration. That's why the idea of the Bike Fixtation is so brilliant: a place for you to buy new parts and then install them yourself.

The Fixtation is really just a vending machine, but with bike parts instead of snacks (though there are some snacks in case you're getting hungry on your ride). What makes it most convenient is the bike mount and tools--attached with aircraft cables to prevent theft--alongside the vending machine. You can replace that flat or adjust your brakes yourself without dealing with the characters who usually are employed at bike shops. Of course, you may not know how to replace a popped tube yourself; now is certainly the time to learn, so you can take full advantage of the Fixtation when it moves into your city.

The National Venture Capital Association's (NVCA) president Mark Heesen posted a blog recently making a case that there is not, in fact, an internet bubble based on his review of second quarter venture capital statistics. He uses the terms "frothy" "but healthy nonetheless" to summarize his view of the data provided by the NVCA and PricewaterhouseCoopers in its Q2 MoneyTree VC Investment Numbers.

Heeson notes that 25 percent of the investment dollars for the period were driven by five deals that were all expansion or later-stage investments - suggesting that venture capital firms are now spending more time than during the dot-com bust to help grow companies before they go public.

He also observed that 60 percent of the total deals for Q2 were second or third rounds of financing, an indicator that those companies were reaching milestones to justify secondary investments.

As a new Congress begins to deal with the federal budget, it is useful to review the budget setting process in the United States as it applies to research and development (R&D). The federal R&D budget process is a complex, often confusing, procedure characterized by a series of lengthy and frequently contentious negotiations between Congress, the Executive Office of the President, and numerous cabinet-level departments and federal agencies, all attempting to respond to an abundance of expectations and conflicting demands. Here we focus on the parts of the federal budget that deal with science and technology R&D funding in particular.

Not long ago state governments were ambivalent about using social media to connect with citizens. Those days are over, if the use of the most popular sites by the nation's governors is any guide. Some 47 of the 50 governors are using Facebook and Twitter, according to a recent Stateline examination of these services; 27 are using the photo-sharing service Flickr and 37 use YouTube. Of course, status updates and tweets are often the work of staffers, not the governors themselves. And it's reasonable to wonder whether feeds of P.R. about ribbon cuttings and bill signings are any more informative than an old-fashioned press release. But one thing's for certain: Americans have more ways than ever to keep up with what the people they elect want to tell them.

As overall VC numbers leveled off in the second quarter, web apps and software continued to be sweet spots for investment through the first half of 2011.

According to data from Dow Jones, even as other sectors slumped, software, including downloadable and boxed applications as well as web-based apps, showed strong signs of recovery from the late-2008/2009 investment nosedive.

In combination, software and web apps companies raised $2.66 billion in a total of 281 deals.

The consumer information services sector includes social media web apps. This particular category received a larger amount of funding and a smaller number of deals year-over-year, raising 25% more capital than in Q2 2010.

Our standard supermarket banana, a variety called Cavendish, may be at the brink of disaster. Chosen for its resistance to a fungal pathogen that wiped out its predecessor, the Gros Michel banana strain, the popular fruit has long battled a related fungus, which has all but devastated the banana industry in certain parts of the world. Now, it appears the Cavendish variety is facing a new threat—the very same fungal disease that drove Gros Michels off the market.

Cavendish bananas account for about 45 percent of the fruit’s global crop, with an annual export value of US$8.5 billion, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It was chosen to replace the original Gros Michel banana after a deadly fungal infection, known as Panama disease (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense), wiped out much of the world’s banana crop in the first half of the 20th century.

Venture capital firms provided a total of $8 billion of funding to start-up companies during the second quarter of 2011, marking a 5% decrease from the second quarter of 2010, Dow Jones VentureSource has reported.

The number of funding deals made between start-ups and venture capital firms also decreased by 2% between the two quarters. The healthcare sector experienced the greatest losses, with capital investments down 17% from Q2 2010, and deals down 12% from Q2 2010. The lone bright spot in the healthcare sector was in medical IT, where 19 deals worth $158 million amounted to a 27% increase in capital invested and a 58% increase in deals.

The success of IT companies was not limited to healthcare-specific firms. Overall, IT companies experienced a 9% increase in capital and a 5% increase in deals relative to 2010. Software companies – especially those targeting business applications and communication – accounted for more than half of the deal volume in the IT sector with 184 deals worth $1.2 billion.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R), on Tuesday, announced an ambitious plan for New York City to regain its historic role as “the technology capital of the United States — and the world” — and eclipse Silicon Valley. He is offering subsidized real estate and $100 million in infrastructure upgrades to any institution, university or consortium that builds a world-class science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island, Governors Island or Brooklyn Navy Yard. Bloomberg projects that, within the first 30 years, this school will spin-off 400 new companies and create more than 22,000 permanent jobs.

Bloomberg has the right idea, but he’s going about it the wrong way. The mayor should indeed improve New York’s crumbling infrastructure, but the key to building innovation is not a new educational institution — it’ll take much more. If the presence of world-class universities could provide New York with a substantial advantage, then, as I’ve written before, Silicon Valley wouldn’t have left Boston’s Route 128 in the dust. And New York would not have raced ahead of Boston to become the second largest recipient of venture-capital funds in the United States, placing behind California.

As people, we’re creatures of habit. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, start a blog or train for your first marathon, to be successful in that goal, you must develop the habit of actually doing it. The habit of running, of eating, of finding that time to write and publish blog posts. And that takes practice.

I write a lot – for multiple blogs, multiple times a week. And in order for me to get that blogging done and still be able to run a business and take care of everything else that needs to get done, I’ve had to adopt the blogging habit. If you’re having trouble committing to blogging, here are some tips and tricks that have worked for me. I’d love it if you’d share what works (or even what doesn’t work) for you.

Nine universities and crown research institutes have launched the Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet) to take more of a New Zealand Inc approach to commercialising science and technology research.

KiwiNet will act as a hub for its member organisations and other parties involved in innovation including local and overseas investors.

The KiwiNet members include three universities and six CRIs: WaikatoLink, Plant and Food Research, Otago Innovation, Lincoln University, AUT Enterprises, AgResearch, Canterbury University, Industrial Research and VicLink.