A group of twelve Massachusetts-based CEOs and 12 venture capitalists have formed a new initiative in which they will pair off and form 12 new businesses during the next year, the group announced on Friday at The Nantucket Conference, an annual conference that brings together entrepreneurs, investors, technologists, and executives. The first “12×12” company, LighterLiving, was also announced today. The company is an online “community, blog, and marketplace for holistic fitness and well-being,” founded by Marjolein Brugman, a Pilates expert. Scott Savitz, founder and CEO of Shoebuy.com, will serve …

For the first time since Bloomberg BusinessWeek began its annual Most Innovative Companies ranking in 2005, the majority of corporations in the Top 25 are based outside the U.S. The reason: the new global leaders coming out of Asia

If Asia ever did figure out how to design cutting-edge products comparable to those dreamed up in the West, however, the one-two punch of high-value research and development and low-cost manufacturing would make it almost unbeatable in the battle for global economic supremacy.

Read more at: BusinessWeek (the list)
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{Photography by Dominic}

Somalian pirate operations are becoming increasingly sophisticated, according to a March 10 UN Security Council report (.pdf), with a funding and incentive model that could double as a business school curriculum.
Here is a handy guide to the piracy business plan, based on some of their findings.
Step 1: Round up investors to provide start-up capital.
Step 2: Gather between eight and twelve pirates to form the at-sea team. They will need “a minimum of two attack skiffs, weapons, equipment, provisions, fuel and preferably a supply boat.” Each pirate should bring his …

. . . Grow VC is a new community funding model for technology startups. Here’s how it works: Grow VC will pool 75 per cent of membership fees into a community fund that gets invested back into ‘promising startups’ which are members of the platform. The fund is managed by Grow VC but all the investment decisions are left to members who determine how to invest their portion of the fund into other startup companies that they feel have the most potential. The most successful decision makers get financially …

Companies that you didn’t know were cooperatives:

R.E.I.
Ace Hardware
True Value Hardware
Cabot Cheese
FDT
Land O’Lakes
Ocean Spray

How to start a Coop
What’s a Coop
Related Links:

Social Enterprise
Rochdale Principles
Sudbury School
Learning by Teaching

Having your own iPhone app for your website or blog is becoming an increasingly common way to promote and extend your brand.

However, actually creating that application and getting it into the App Store can be a lengthy and expensive process, especially if you have little development experience. Today PointAbout is launching a new product called AppMakr, which is designed to make creating your own iPhone app simple and inexpensive.
AppMakr is a streamlined system that creates a native iPhone application out of your existing RSS feeds. You can customize elements …

We know that some of you have been eyeing the special Meebo features we launched earlier this year on Mashable with envy. Who doesn’t want to add Meebo Chat, drag and drop content sharing, and extra analytics to their site?
Today, Meebo is handing out an early Christmas present — Meebo Bar — and gifting all those extra special features to anyone that wants them on their own sites.
Read more at: Mashable
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. . . . This would be a far cry from e-mails from folks in some faraway country telling me a long lost relative with the same last name has died and the money could be mine soon. All I have to do is send them some money. Clearly they don’t understand social networking, venture capital and the new marketing order at all. It’s not about the money, it’s about the network!
A few days later, I was forced to face reality. My friends and followers just weren’t doing the …

Read more about Codex Seraphinianus

In the last post I beat you to death about ditching your business plan but failed to provide an alternative.
Okay okay, “Planning = Bad,” but the supposed benefits of planning are still important: designing for profitability, understanding your customers and competitors, focusing your attention, deciding what’s worth doing next, changing directions, and ensuring the founders agree on important issues.
To help you, I’m stealing a trick from therapists.
Therapists don’t tell you what to do. Rather, they ask probing questions that get you to discover for yourself what is true for …

Model of the brain-machine interface for real-time synthetic speech production. The stroke-induced lesion (red X) disables speech output, but speech motor planning in the cerebral cortex remains intact. Signals collected from an electrode in the speech motor cortex are amplified and sent wirelessly across the scalp as FM radio signals. The Neuralynx System amplifies, converts, and sorts the signals. The neural decoder then translates the signals into speech commands for the speech synthesizer.

By implanting an electrode into the brain of a person with locked-in syndrome, scientists have demonstrated how …

Google has become known for creating a fun environment for employees, and has set somewhat of a standard in doing so. We’ve seen the offices of facebook, twitter, collegehumor, and a bunch of others… Now, here’s a look inside Pixar.
See the entire collection of pics at: topcultured
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{Photography by tom arthur}

Old media loves nothing quite so much as writing about their own impeding death. And we always enjoy adding our own two cents – the AP not knowing what YouTube is, the NYTimes guys reading TechCrunch every day, etc.
Speaking broadly, I like what Reuters, Rupert Murdoch and Eric Schmidt are saying: the industry is in crisis, and the daring innovators will prevail. Personally, I still think the best way forward for the best journalists, if not the brands they currently work for, is to leave those brands and do …

Distraction is the enemy of good writing, as anyone who ever puts pen to (figurative) paper certainly knows. There are several text editors out there that aim to limit writers’ visual distractions—DarkCopy, for example, is one—but a new alternative uses elements of Zen to create a multisensory ambience that’s designed to promote concentration.
Originally developed as an internal tool for the copywriters at Barcelona creative agency Herraiz Soto & Co., Ommwriter is a free text processor that uses visual elements and sound to help writers focus their thoughts.
Read more at: …

Social Media and Identity
We are witnessing a profound change in the media and advertising industries due to the emergence of social media. Companies that did not exist ten years ago, like Facebook and Twitter, have captured significant share of the attention economy from traditional publishers. Underscoring this trend is the fact that at the same time that Businessweek was selling for less than $5 million  (plus assumption of debts) to Bloomberg, Foursquare’s pretty cousin Gowalla drove up Sand Hill road and collected $8.4 million for a minority stake.
Amidst this disruption, …

Who will emerge victorious in the fight for the future?

Back in the good old days, Microsoft did desktops, Google stuck to search and Apple made toys for people in polo necks. No more.
The superpowers of the technology world are at war, and like real wars, the battle is happening on several fronts. They’re fighting on the desktop, they’re fighting on mobile phones, they’re fighting in the browser and they’re fighting in your front room.
Who will prevail, and who will end up in a bunker? We chart the key battlegrounds …

Let’s call it the “Paranormal Effect” initiative.
Clearly dazzled by the fact that it could gross more than $100 million on a movie that barely cost $15,000 to make, Paramount Pictures is set to launch a new production wing devoted to films budgeted at less than $100,000. As my colleague John Horn reported today:

“The as-yet-unnamed division’s initial plan is to finance as many as 20 ‘micro-budget’ movies annually starting in 2010… Funds for the movies — about $1 million annually — will be part of Paramount’s existing production budget….Some of …

He’s one of indie filmmaking’s biggest names. If you ever find yourself watching a film you’re not sure who directed… here’s a checklist of signs to know you’re watching one of Anderson’s films.
5- Bill Murray Being Serious
If you’re seeing this comic king in a movie that was made in the past ten years it’s probably a Wes Anderson movie. Of the last fifteen film projects Murray has done four have been with Anderson. It was his role in “Rushmore” that made him an indie-film darling with such directors as …

Spend a wonderful New Year’s Eve relaxing at one of the many wonderful Tuscan thermal spas. You will be surprised by wonderful shows and entertainment accompanying your hot bath in the beneficial and relaxing waters of these beauty centers immersed in nature. You are sure to meet a very unusual way of celebrating the beginning of a new year, however a very pleasant one, which will bring you in a romantic dimension made of soft colors, warm feelings, delicate scents, exotic tastes and invigorating treatments. You will spend this …