In his new book, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters, Benjamin Ginsberg argues that the explosive growth in administration, the decline in faculty influence, and the institutional corporatization of American universities contributes to a loss of intellectual rigor. Here is an excerpt.

Until recent years, colleges engaged in little formal planning. Today, however, virtually every college and university in the nation has an elaborate strategic plan. Indeed, whenever a college hires a new president, his or her first priority is usually the crafting of a new strategic plan. As in Orwell's 1984, all mention of the previous administration's plan, which probably had been introduced with great fanfare only a few years earlier, is instantly erased from all college publications and Web sites. The college president's first commandment seems to be, "Thou shall have no other plan before mine."

KEY WEST, Fla. — Any day now, Diana Nyad will set out to do something no athlete has ever done: swim all day and all night, then all day and all night, then all day again.

She will swim about 60 hours in the churning sea, 103 miles across the Straits of Florida from Cuba to Key West. Every hour and a half, she will stop to tread water for a few minutes as she swallows a liquid mixture of predigested protein and eats an occasional bit of banana or dollop of peanut butter. She will most likely hallucinate and endure the stings of countless jellyfish. Along the way, sea salt will swell her tongue to cartoonish proportions and rub her skin raw.

Most pharmaceutical companies use software to model chemical interactions, with the hope of speeding up the drug development process.  But it's typically a small component of a complex array of approaches. Nimbus Discovery, a startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is using computational chemistry to drive the entire process.

The company emerged from a partnership with Schrödinger, a maker of computational drug discovery software, and venture capital firm Atlas Venture. Nimbus will use Schrödinger's software, computing power, and modeling experts to develop drugs for disease-linked proteins that have historically been difficult to target.

I had the chance to speak with Mark Cuban recently about his view on social media and entrepreneurship.  Although he’s currently a billionaire, he has been an entrepreneur since age 12 when he sold garbage bags door-to-door. Today, Mark founded HDNet, Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions. He has also been an investor in startups, including Mahalo, JungleCents.com, motionloft.com, Filesanywhere.com, Naked Pizza and 140Fire.com. You can see him on ABC’s Shark Tank, as well as on a few episodes of Entourage on HBO. Mark may be best known for his purchase of the Dallas Mavericks on January 4, 2000. He also co-owns the Landmark Theater chain, Magnolia Pictures and Magnolia Home Video along with partner Todd Wagner.

From a conventional management perspective, it probably sounds like common sense. But to anyone who understands the nature of creativity and what motivates creative people, it's a recipe for disaster.

Rewarding people for hard work is a great thing to do, but it's no guarantee of loyalty - and certainly no guarantee of creativity. And using rewards as an incentive - or even a threat - has been proven not to work when it comes to complex, challenging, creative work.

There is a large body of research evidence - from the work of Harvard Business Professor Theresa Amabile and others - that relying on extrinsic motivations (a.k.a. rewards and punishments) has a negative impact on creativity. While it may seem obvious that the stick has a negative impact on creativity, it's counterintuitive that the carrot has the same effect.

Every frat house and bar has its self-appointed beer expert. But if you really want to learn what’s worth drinking and which brews complement your favorite foods, the go-to guy is Matt Simpson, aka The Beer Sommelier.

Based in Marietta, Ga., the fast-talking Simpson has built a formidable one-man business around his knowledge of beer. He studies different styles. He discerns flavor profiles.

TechColumbus has launched TechLounge, an exciting new avenue for Central Ohio’s vibrant technology, research and entrepreneurial community to connect, share best practices and tout successes.

TechLounge is a community-based site where anyone can participate for free. Visitors are encouraged to post videos, photos and company news. Blogs on the site are dedicated to Life Sciences, IT, Startup and Business Resources, and Tech News from Around the World, with new topics to be added as TechLounge expands.

“Every great organization is built upon people and the TechLounge adds faces to names of those that you know or should know,” says TechColumbus Director of Marketing Wayne Henry.

While Google (GOOG) is best known for its amazing search engine, let’s face the reality that it’s much bigger than that. Sure they have AdSense, YouTube and plenty of other high profile assets, but it’s still bigger than that as well. So what is it then? It’s the largest venture capital firm in the world.

How can we make such a loaded statement you ask? The definition of venture capital as we understand it is the process of providing financial capital to startup companies in various stages that have a high-potential/high-risk profile. These startups generally hold a unique business model or novel technology. In addition, venture capital in itself is a subset of private equity.

Today the only “real” difference we see between VC firms and Google is that when a VC firm invests, they call it a “round of funding” and when Google does, its called an “acquisition.” Fine. Call it an acquisition or exploratory marshmallow renewable fuel research for all we care. At the end of the day it makes no difference. We rate Google a BUY because of the unique business model it operates in relation to its VC tendencies along with a few other interesting characteristics.

Gov. Terry Branstad signed into law today a bill that will create a new economic development authority, called the Iowa Partnership for Economic Progress, saying it’s important to the state’s effort to boost the economy over the next five years.

Along with the authority, the law creates a nonprofit group that will focus on sparking innovation in the state. Branstad said public-private partnership is key to raising incomes 25 percent and creating 200,000 new jobs over the next five years, two campaign promises. The new authority will replace the existing Iowa Department of Economic Development, an agency plagued by a film tax credit scandal. “They said it would be a hot day when this was passed,” said Branstad, referring to a heat index today that was expected to reached 115 degrees.

It is time to implement new methods to shake our economy out of this lingering spell of slow growth (a disappointing 2% rate) and high unemployment (hovering around 9%).  And while the large federal budget deficit does not leave much room for implementing more traditional economic remedies, the Kauffman Foundation-at a press conference this morning here at the National Press Club in Washington, DC-suggested it is time for legislation. Startup legislation.

Seed and early-stage rounds are changing for the better. Today’s rounds are smaller in nature than they have been in the past, and that is good for founders and investors.

The size of a seed round typically ranges from $250,000 to $1 million and each one can have anywhere from two to three seed-type firms (or MicroVCs), and between three and ten angel investors. These rounds enable “strategics” to be brought into the early development of the company (which is crucial at this stage of the startup).

Cheaper start-up costs have allowed for smaller early-stage investments. In the 1990s, it might have taken $5 million to start a company. Today, that same company could be launched for $500,000 or less. This has created a new type of investment vehicle that allows smaller funds and angels to invest in and help grow businesses, potentially leading to a better opportunity for larger-scale VCs, or turning these startups into profitable businesses that don’t need follow-on capital. Either way, it’s a good thing.

Paul Palmieri, Co-Founder and CEO of mobile advertising service Millennial Media just gave a really valuable talk at the International Startup Festival in Montreal titled "Investing in Your Influencers." Palmieri talked about how startups can get the most value out of their advisors and friends.

Prior to founding Millennial, Palmieri was a mobile advertising and data executive at Verizon and Advertising.com. My notes from this very interesting strategic talk follow below. I've posted them without comment as I think they speak for themselves, but would love to know what you think of this advice, readers. I'll tell you one thing: hearing these thoughts articulated so clearly makes me think that anyone thinking about joining a new company would benefit greatly from asking about that company's relationship with its advisors.

The Obama Administration recently launched Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2), a new interagency pilot initiative to strengthen local capacity and spark economic growth in local communities while ensuring taxpayer dollars are used wisely and efficiently. 

In addition to the six pilot locations, SC2 includes an Economic Visioning Challenge designed to help additional cities develop economic blueprints, which will be administered by EDA. Six cities will be competitively selected to receive a grant of approximately $1 million that they will use to administer an “X-prize style” competition, whereby they will challenge multi-disciplinary teams of experts to develop comprehensive economic and land use proposals for their city. 

The Administration is currently seeking comment from the public and private sectors on the structure of the Challenge to help formulate the Federal Funding Opportunity. Interested parties should submit comments in writing by e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or facsimile to (202) 482-2838 by August 9, 2011. Click here to read Federal Register Notice.Click here for more information about the four components of SC2.

Brussels, 19 July 2011 – Today Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn announced nearly €7 billion to kick-start innovation through research. The European Commission's biggest ever such funding package, under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7), is expected to create around 174 000 jobs in the short-term and nearly 450 000 jobs and nearly €80 billion in GDP growth over 15 years1. EU research funding is at the top of the political agenda and has now been placed at the centre of a coherent innovation strategy, the Innovation Union (IP/10/1288, MEMO/10/473), which Europe needs if it is to compete with large, dynamic countries like the US and China.

Grants will promote research to tackle the biggest societal challenges facing Europe and the world. Universities, research organisations and industry will be among more than 16.000 funding recipients. Special attention will be given to SMEs, including a package close to €1 billion. There will also be a new EU Prize for Women Innovators whose work has been funded by FP7 or earlier programmes. The majority of the "calls for proposals" (invitations to bid for funds) will be published on 20 July.

Business incubation is growing of businesses from infancy to independence. In the words of Carlos Morales, executive director of the US National Business Incubation Association, “fledgling entrepreneurs” are drawn “out of their basements and garages and into controlled environments structured for the care and feeding of new businesses.”

According to experts, incubators vary in their objectives. There are those operated on a venture-capital basis, which may limit admission to promising growth companies, in which the sponsors take an equity stake (generally 20 to 50 percent of the stock) in exchange for the space, services and management assistance. The aim, we are told, is to profit as the business expands and perhaps ultimately goes public.

Can it be true that Google is an innovation laggard? Surely not. Right now it is riding high, its share price and reputation enhanced by Google + and by strong earnings. In reality however Google spends a fair portion of its time down among the innovation laggards. Go back only to March and the Google story was not so vibrant – what can that story tell us?

The reality of coporate life is companies spend time nursing new initiatives that fail and nurturing new initiatives to success. Only four months ago Google was in the former camp, though right now their innovation kudos is high.

What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth’s magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth’s interior into space. Where does it come from?

Radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium in Earth’s crust and mantle is a principal source, and in 2005 scientists in the KamLAND collaboration, based in Japan, first showed that there was a way to measure the contribution directly. The trick was to catch what KamLAND dubbed geoneutrinos – more precisely, geo-antineutrinos – emitted when radioactive isotopes decay. (KamLAND stands for Kamioka Liquid-scintillator Antineutrino Detector.)

When you’re in business, the lessons seem to come from every direction – it’s true in life as well. In fact, the more we learn and apply, the better our lives can be – and the more quickly we can move our businesses forward. Here are some quick lessons from three of our Small Business Trends experts.

Experience: Does It Cost Too Much?

In “On Experience, Reflection and Change in Business” John Marriotti says, “The worst thing about experience is that you have to live through things to get it, and that can sometimes be painful.” Of course, just because you lived through it doesn’t mean you learned from it.  Sometimes people go through the same types of situations multiple times before the lessons click and stick.  Personally, I’m trying to get it the first time, if I can. Pain is not fun.

Most people understand that a high percentage of startups never make it. So what if you could give yourself a leg up on the competition? Below is a list of tips that may help your startup get to the next level. These ideas are not revolutionary, and many successful startups already have these qualities. Why not ensure yours does too?

1. Hire Great Coders

If you don’t have the skills to code, make sure you find someone with a solid programming background who can implement your idea. You want to make sure that person has built successful websites with features similar to your own vision. That way, you know they have the right skills for your startup. An inefficient coder will take a long time to launch the site, wasting time by making minor changes and fixing bugs. You will lose valuable time and potentially miss the opportunity to capitalize on first-to-market advantages.