A business plan can take many forms, depending on the venture. A four-person management consulting firm may produce a leaner plan focused on service expertise and industry experience compared to a 20-employee widget maker, which would also have to describe products, manufacturing techniques, competitive forces and marketing needs, among other details. But most plans will include the following main sections:

Being far-sighted about your strategy can help you prepare for the big global changes already unfolding.

I’ve spent quite some time trying to understand the world of tomorrow – as far away as 2035. I’ll then be 66 years old and ready for retirement, which puts things into perspective - at least for me.

This actually started during my university days more than 20 years ago, when I decided to attend a seminar about the aging population. I was finishing up a course in demographics as part of economic history. The topic of the seminar may sound boring to some, but intrigued me based on the focus of the past semester.

From managing and structuring information to fostering internal learning and smooth communication, the military holds lessons for businesses operating in uncertain environments.

The military has developed efficient methods for operating in uncertain environments. Armies typically operate in two main modes: risk management in peacetime and uncertainty management in wartime. The two modes enable structure and organisation in times of peace and agility in times of conflict. In peacetime for example, strictly following protocols can keep units safe and organised, avoiding unnecessary injuries or accidents, but while in conflict situations, decision-making is distributed and flexibility is given soldiers to give them agility and effectiveness.

We live in a cluttered world! Cities are cluttered, towns are cluttered, markets are cluttered… So is our mind. “Too much to do, very little time…” has almost become like a universal phenomenon, creating stress in almost everyone’s life. Even when one is on leave from work, the mind gets no rest. From the moment it wakes up till the time it goes to sleep, the mind is always engaged in something – either in something utterly useless or something very important.

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When President Obama announced the release of a new federal College Scorecard in his weekly address on Saturday, he said the website would give Americans "access to reliable data on every institution of higher education."

The next recession may have started on Aug. 24, 2015 when the Chinese stock market dropped another 7 percent and for a total of a 40 percent loss from its peak. That day, U.S. stock markets followed suit and plunged 1,089 points within minutes of the start of trading. The markets slightly recovered, but are still down 12 percent year for 2015.

A few years ago, before the Internet was pervasive, before everyone carried a smartphone and before do-it-yourself software tools were available for free, it was difficult to reach a critical mass of new customers without spending a million dollars on a website, custom software and television advertising. Now you can match a big company with worldwide reach for a few thousand dollars.

People often tend to associate large universities with less individualized instruction and, overall, less prestige.

But our seventh annual ranking of the 50 best colleges in America suggested otherwise.

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The Cowboys may be America's team, but when it comes to the most popular team in every state, Dallas can only lay claim to a handful.

Vivid Seats, a site that specializes in the sale of tickets for live events, collected data on the sale of NFL tickets to see which teams are most popular in each state. Using the billing address on all orders, Vivid Seats was able to determine which team's games produced the most sales in every state.

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Your spit says a lot about your health, and now there’s wearable technology being tested to track it.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have demonstrated a mouthguard with electronic sensors that can detect concentrations of certain chemicals in saliva. Such a gadget could be useful to soldiers, pilots, athletes, and even hospital patients.

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“Do I really need to sleep?” As I travel around the world talking about sleep, I am asked this question over and over. The answer has always been clear—yes, everyone needs to do it. Just like hunger, thirst and sexual desire, the urge to sleep is a physiological drive. Exactly what spending a third of our lives unconscious gets us, however, has long mystified scientists.

While recent posts have highlighted some of the happy encounters inherent in my work, it’s not all roses. Over the last few weeks I’ve been involved in a number of  situations that were unpleasant. For reasons I don’t fully comprehend, the universe seems to throw these challenges to me in bunches. I wind up dealing with several in a short period of time and then, thankfully, am free of them until the next batch gets dropped in my lap. A number of people have seen through my usual friendly demeanor and realized that when the situation calls for it, I can be as tough as required so they know who to call when things get rough…

Molly Graham has seen a lot. Her team at Google leapt from 25 to 125 in just 9 months. During her 4+ years at Facebook, the company exploded from 500 employees serving 80 million users to 5,500 employees and over 1.1 billion users. (Her job was to sort out the culture, compensation, and performance systems to help make that possible — no big deal.) And now, as COO of productivity tool startup Quip, she’s both laying the groundwork for her team to grow, and catering to a customer base of startups (Instacart and New Relic among them) who have the pedal to the metal.

Relative to other affluent countries, the United States devotes disproportionate resources to health care with disappointing results. Complex insurance rules and distorted market signals create massive inefficiencies, frustrated patients, and providers burdened by excessive paperwork. Recognizing these problems, entrepreneurs are increasingly applying information technology to health care equipment, monitoring, treatment, and service delivery, creating a sector known as digital health. These technologies, once embedded and distributed around the country, hold the potential to substantially alter the efficiency and quality of health care through the better generation, processing, and use of information; the reduction of overhead costs; and the empowerment of patients.

MIT mechanical engineering undergraduate David Dellal spent a good portion of his summer in Paris studying what makes France’s innovation ecosystem tick. With guidance from the Innovation Diplomats, or “iDiplomats,” program launched through the MIT Innovation Initiative, Dellal interviewed government officials, academics, corporate managers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists while networking at various city innovation events.

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The massive, ongoing surge of migrants and refugees into Europe has brought up horrendous scenes of deprivation, along with heartwarming instances of generosity. It has also engendered cruel remembrances of the continent’s darkest hours. But viewed over the long term, this crisis may well be the prelude to changes that could dissipate, and even overturn, some of the world’s most-storied and productive cultures.

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Let me start with a personal experience. In a former job, I worked for someone who could be called a “micromanager.” This person was very nice, but would ask why I came in at 8:03 a.m. instead of 8. Mind you, I was not an hourly, non-exempt employee. I didn’t work in a call center nor was I a shift worker who needed to relieve a tired colleague. I managed my workflow independently of others. Frequently, I worked past 5 p.m. and on most days, I ate lunch at my desk. So why did I come in at 8:03? Traffic was heavier than normal that day. I left my home at the same time every day — some days I would arrive at work at 7:45 a.m. and others at 9 a.m.

I have provided venture debt to over fifty entrepreneurial companies and concluded that borrowing is often a better option than equity for a lot of entrepreneurs. I am not talking about seed companies — they don’t have any monthly cash flow to make loan payments — but for companies that have rapidly growing sales and are just becoming profitable. If you can increase your company’s sales with a loan then you are better off with debt.

The organizational challenges of transitioning to digital are enormous. In this interview, McKinsey director Kate Smaje reveals what leading companies do differently, the qualities required of a successful chief digital officer (CDO), and what organizations must do to make digital change happen. An edited transcript of her remarks follows.

In the alphabet soup that is today’s crowded C-suite, few roles attract as much attention as that of the chief digital officer, or CDO. While the position isn’t exactly new, what’s required of the average CDO is. Gone are the days of being responsible for introducing basic digital capabilities and perhaps piloting a handful of initiatives. The CDO is now a “transformer in chief,” charged with coordinating and managing comprehensive changes that address everything from updating how a company works to building out entirely new businesses. And he or she must make progress quickly.