Dan Haugen

Just as people in their teens and 20s drove the music industry's switch to digital music, it appears some of us in the MP3 generation are now giving an unlikely boost to vinyl records. Sales of new vinyl were up 15 percent last year, according to SoundScan. Anecdotally, it seems much of it is coming from younger music fans in search of nostalgia and sound quality.

Another fad has come full circle. But today's "hoopers" don't use your parents' Wham-O; they prefer larger, heavier rings, usually handmade with irrigation pipe.

Best Buy is using social networking and a philosophy of openness to change the way it interacts with employees and customers.

A caffeinated fan has been tweeting about Caribou Coffee since December. Last week the mystery tweeter revealed himself as a Charlotte, N.C., artist and designer, who signed off a few days ago and officially passed the account's reins to Caribou's marketing department.

A small but growing community of job recruiters are experimenting with social networking as a tool for identifying candidates, soliciting resumes and referrals, and screening candidates.

A recent survey found the nation's top executives are social media slackers. That description doesn't fit Best Buy's new CEO Brian Dunn, however.

A growing number of bioscience companies are doing business across the Minnesota-Canada border. The trend comes on the heels of several years of networking efforts by Minnesota bioscience boosters, who believe the state could be on the cusp of a sea change of collaboration with our neighbors to the north.

A new federal research priority is aiming to empower doctors, as well as patients and health-insurance companies, with better information for making these kinds of decisions. The shift could have major implications for Minnesota’s health-care and medical-device companies.

Minnesota is losing its competitive edge in the life sciences, and staying above average is going to require targeted planning and investment in key areas, according to a recent report.

An affair between a young Amish woman and a small-town businessman produced an unusual, perhaps unprecedented, custody case in northeastern Iowa. The father sought visitation, while the mother feared the daughter might be exposed to mainstream technology and culture.