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9 Most Important Elements of a Business  Osterwalder's business canvas helps illustrate how a company intends to make money. It's made up of nine key points that represent any company's complete business (for much more detail, read either The Startup Owner's Manual or Osterwalder's Business Model Design (Wiley). 

The notion of "externalities" has become familiar in environmental circles. It refers to costs imposed by businesses that are not paid for by those businesses. For instance, industrial processes can put pollutants in the air that increase public health costs, but the public, not the polluting businesses, picks up the tab. In this way, businesses privatize profits and publicize costs. While the notion is incredibly useful, especially in folding ecological concerns into economics, I've always had my reservations about it. Environmentalists these days love speaking in the language of economics - it makes them sound Serious - but I worry that wrapping this notion in a bloodless technical term tends to have a narcotizing effect. It brings to mind incrementalism: boost a few taxes here, tighten a regulation there, and the industrial juggernaut can keep right on chugging. However, if we take the idea seriously, not just as an accounting phenomenon but as a deep description of current human practices, its implications are positively revolutionary.

"Meet the Elite Business and Think-Tank Community That's Doing Its Best to Control the World The large foundations of America's industrial giants have played a truly profound - and largely overlooked - role in the shaping of modern society By Andrew Gavin Marshall Alternet, June 19, 2013 Straight to the Source For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Politics and Democracy page. "The corporate-policy network is highly centralized, at both the level of individuals and that of organizations. Its inner circle is a tightly interwoven ensemble of politically active business leaders..." -- Academics William K. Carroll and Jean Philippe Sapinski In an article titled "The Global Corporate Elite" in the journal International Sociology, William K. Carroll and Jean Philippe Sapinski examined the relationship between the corporate elite and the emergence of a "transnational policy-planning network," beginning with its formation in the decades following World War II and speeding up in the 1970s with the creation of "global policy groups" and think tanks such as the World Economic Forum, in 1971, and the Trilateral Commission, in 1973, among many others."

One reason I love getting to know social impact entrepreneurs is that they are among the most sincerely passionate folks you'll ever meet.  They're not just enthusiastic and driven. Social impact entrepreneurs care deeply and passionately, about their projects in a very personal way.  And their missions are often so profound and inspiring that I get goose bumps just hearing them talk about it.  Occasionally, I even get a little choked up as I imagine what they want to accomplish and the impact they would have if they were to succeed. I was moved in just this way recently when I met a wickedly smart and infectiously passionate entrepreneur whose simple vision could have profound, life changing impacts for children all over the world.  (Wow… I just got a lump in my throat just thinking about what she wants to accomplish.) Moreover, her idea is not only brilliant and potentially highly impactful - it's also a very simple idea and straightforward to execute on.  That's part of what makes it so brilliant. (Out of respect for confidentiality, I am not disclosing the particular entrepreneur or her mission.  However, she did review this piece prior to posting.) But once I felt that I understood her project (and cleared my throat) I found myself doing what I always seem to do - rooting around for the biggest, hardest problems that will challenge the success of the business. In my view, she had some potentially fatal issues.

Sentiment Analysis is a terribly difficult problem. The problem is in defining the problem - the input is the problem - but you can't avoid it, IT IS the future, and I'm very optimistic about it! Professor Bing Liu started off the Sentiment Analytics Symposium yesterday with the statement above and I couldn't agree more. Subsequently he gave the pre-workshop audience a detailed 3.5 hour overview of the state of text analytics. It was not surprising to me that almost a quarter of the audience were young developers (MacBook Pro in hand), with the hopes to learn how to incorporate their own sentiment analysis engines into their business applications.

Bennett is a consultant on social capital and networks, and the creator of "The Hands We Shake" lecture series on how to build, grow, and sustain social capital.  He is an expert in networking strategy and social capital retention.  As a trusted adviser, he has helped start-ups, small businesses, non-profits and individuals develop a comprehensive strategy to build and cultivate their social capital.  Bennett advises his clients on how to locate and access social capital within their present networks and create a framework for future network strategy.

Visible is the leader in social media monitoring, analytics, and services for enterprises globally. Visible's award-winning technology and expertise helps businesses analyze social media conversations to better understand consumer preferences, market dynamics, competitive strengths and weaknesses, and other information critical to a company's reputation and brands. Visible is the solution of choice for many Forbes Global 2000 companies in a variety of industries including financial services, pharmaceutical, automotive, consumer products, retail, travel and hospitality, telecom, technology, and agencies.

Bing Fund is looking for startups that are building online or mobile experiences that incorporate fresh insights. Participants are not required to use Microsoft technology. We enroll startups into our program on an ongoing basis, investing in and working with a small number at any given time. Here's what we offer: * Subsidized use of unique APIs from Bing's data ecosystem * The opportunity to access certain technology assets developed by Microsoft Research * Assistance from Bing Fund team members who specialize in design, engineering, marketing, and building businesses * Consultations with Subject Matter Experts at Microsoft, some of whom are world experts in their areas * Exposure to Microsoft executives * Connections with our partners and customers * Funding * Co-workspace for startups located in the Seattle area.

Have you noticed that as we dematerialize consumer goods (that is, change their atoms to bits), we're less likely to own them? Businesses like iTunes have furtive terms of service that turn out to merely license the music you think you're buying. And then there are fee-based services that forgo media ownership entirely, such as Spotify. As visionary and Wired cofounder Kevin Kelly puts it, "Access is better than owning." 29 That sentiment is the driving force behind a new economic model called collaborative consumption, where consumers use online or off-line tools to rent, share, and trade goods and services. Some people refer to it as Zipcar capitalism, from the eponymous car sharing service wherein subscribers-who apparently without irony call themselves Zipsters- rent vehicles by the hour.

How Big Data Became So Big By STEVE LOHR Published: August 11, 2012 This has been the crossover year for Big Data - as a concept, as a term and, yes, as a marketing tool. Big Data has sprung from the confines of technology circles into the mainstream. First, here are a few, well, data points: Big Data was a featured topic this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with a report titled "Big Data, Big Impact." In March, the federal government announced $200 million in research programs for Big Data computing.