While many companies obsess about how to turn their data into value, we find they spend too much time on the "data" and not enough time on the "people" side of the equation.

Getting the people side of the equation right, however, is not just about hiring the best talent (though that's important, of course). In our experience, companies overlook two critical items: 1) Identifying the roles they really need and 2) building a "customer-service" mentality in their advanced analytics bureau.

Last week, I observed six senior Fortune 100 executives discussing a desperately-needed digital strategy. They each sported the obligatory hallmarks of business success: expensive Italian suits, carefully manicured hairstyles and company-issued smartphones resting on dark leather compendiums. You could almost smell the overhead. As the meeting progressed, it was clear that these Ivy-schooled individuals were slick, sharp, and well-structured. But when the time came to discuss promising start-ups in their industry, the surprising bitterness began:

Cambridge University’s vision for boosting the UK economy through technology innovation and increasing the scale and impact of industry-academia collaborations was powerfully conveyed at the Vice Chancellor’s annual summer drinks reception.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz turned the event into a showcase of innovation with global potential as students from several university departments plus its School of Technology shared the secrets of their successes.

Sir Leszek, who invited the School of Technology to jointly host the event, said the contributions on show were just a sample of the talent evident in the university’s latest generation of bright young entrepreneurs. He said the mixture of passion and invention shown in developing some world-leading advances showed the way forward for the university and the UK.

One of the many things in life I take for granted is having the ability to quickly glance at my wrist and know exactly what time it is. When you think about it, checking the time is a very simple, innocuous action that most people do reflexively numerous times throughout the day. What a lot of people with the sense of sight don't realize is that this is a luxury not afforded to those who are blind. The current landscape of watches for the blind involve socially awkward and poorly made watches that rely on either tactile senses of touch or the audio route of hearing. Unfortunately, using a watch that announces the time draws unwanted attention to somebody who's attempting to surreptitiously check the time (imagine trying to check the time during a conference or board room meeting), or using an analog 'touch' watch which is prone to being changed to the wrong time when you touch the hands on its face.

The year is only half over, but one of the biggest biotech stories of 2013 is going to be the resurgence of the biotech IPO market. It’s a good news/bad news story, depending on where you stand, and how far you look out into the future.

First, the good. The IPO surge is a vote of confidence in biotech from generalist investors who have spent years ignoring the industry. It’s good news for biotech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who back them. A lot of money will get pumped into researching and developing drugs for diseases that have been long neglected, like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Regional innovation clusters will get a boost. Many small companies will have more negotiating leverage when they talk to Big Pharma companies about acquisitions. It might spur more much-needed venture investment in biotech startups.

If there’s one thing everyone in healthcare can probably agree on right now, it’s that there is an awful lot of data being generated each and every day. What to do with that data, however, is another question.

As Ted Driscoll, digital health director at venture capital firm Claremont Creek Ventures, sees it, the explosion of data is a definite boon for personalized medicine. Indeed, he said recently, “Medicine is becoming synonymous with big data – the data sets are just huge, now – but we had to wait for the IT revolution to happen and mature” in order to begin to put that data to use.

We often hear public leaders say “our diversity is our strength,” which has become somewhat a cliché over the years. While I don’t doubt their sincerity in believing what they say, I wonder how many truly understand what it means to have a large, diverse, and global population in their communities.

This past weekend, I attended the Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association’s (CBA) 18th annual conference, which attracted scientists, educators, businesses and entrepreneurs from the region as well as delegations from several cities in China. It was a high-energy conference hosted by an all-volunteer crew of local community members.

It’s Friday, and around the world, employees are anxiously waiting for the weekend to commence. But where, exactly, are the workers who deserve that time off the most? Every year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) compiles employment data from each of its 34 member countries.

One of the longest-standing criticisms of the Canadian economy has also become one of the most urgent, given the rapid evolution of global competition: We have never been particularly renowned for our innovation. Yes, we are supremely blessed with natural resources and are pretty good at exploiting them, but (with some notable exceptions) we’re generally followers rather than leaders when it comes to producing great new ideas that change the world.

As chief innovation officer at Massachusetts-based design consulting firm Altitude, Heather Andrus has seen firsthand that companies are bending over backwards to beef up products with connectivity to cloud services—regardless of whether it makes sense. Phones, computers and tablets have so far been the focus of developers and entrepreneurs but one area that has yet to see a lot of smart, cloud-based innovation that consumers really love is in home appliances and gadgets.

“It’s really about finding a way to leverage the value for the consumer and use connectivity to deliver that,” Andrus told FORBES. “And a lot of clients just think, ‘if it’s connected, people will love it.’”

As China’s economy catches up with America’s in pure size, it’s worth asking whether China will eventually assume the top spot when it comes to innovation as well. The U.S. retains a strong global lead in research and new inventions, in large part because the U.S. continues to attract innovators from the world over—including from China. But to stay on top, the U.S. needs immigration reform that makes it easier for scientists and technology developers to come and stay in the country.

China is churning out ever more science and technology graduates and climbing the global rankings in patent applications. By 2004 it was the fifth-largest producer of academic scientific publications—behind only the U.K., Germany, Japan, and the U.S. And in 2011, China’s ZTE (000063:CH) alone made 2,826 international patent filings—the most of any company in the world.

It has been two years this week since the Kauffman Foundation took extensive research and data analysis around new firm formation, crafted a single document, and labeled it “The Startup Act.” Renaming the conversation that PDE had started earlier around how policymakers can make it easier for startups to emerge, create jobs and grow, was very effective in getting policymakers in Washington to take a look at entrepreneurship through the lens of helping new and young firms. But how far has America come in getting something done on their behalf?

The original proposals captured in the Kauffman Foundation’s “Startup Act” document took quite divisive issues and set them in the context of job creation, a non-partisan topic. They included:

My name is Cathi Kennedy and I am the program coordinator for the MSc in Patent Law. This week I’m attending the Association of University Technology Managers’ (AUTM) Central Regional Meeting in Indianapolis. Representatives from universities, law firms, and industry are here to exchange ideas, network, and learn about new trends and practices in the field.

Having neither a technical nor legal background, I am here to observe and absorb information and meet nice, very smart people who are interested in hearing about the MSc in Patent Law program.

Engineers and developers are some of the first people to latch onto startups that succeed. And we trust them to pick Silicon Valley’s hottest new tech companies.

So does LinkedIn. The professional networking site analyzed millions of interactions between around 290,000 San Francisco/Peninsula/Silicon Valley-based engineers/devs and local companies with fewer than 500 employees.

It is difficult to pick up a major business publication today without reading about venture capitalists (VCs, defined as professionally-managed VC limited partnerships that invest in early-stage ventures), about their skills in finding great investment opportunities, and about the ventures they fund. And lately in states like Minnesota, it is also about how they can create jobs if the governor would speak favorably about the need for VC and offer some state pension money for them to invest. And since we all like to talk about our successes, the stories are about how entrepreneurs secured VC and soared to wealth in a very short time via an IPO or a strategic sale. This can lead other entrepreneurs to think that this is the only model for success, that there is no other way to build a major company, and that they should write business plans, attend VC conferences, seek VC, and give VCs control of their venture.

Blogging is extremely valuable to a company’s success, even if it’s a start-up. Most new companies have very scare marketing budgets. This is largely due to the fact that many choose to direct resources towards quality control, ensuring their products and services are ready for the market.

Business blogs are very easy to manage. And, to top it off, blogging is relatively affordable, and in some cases free, form of small business marketing. As long as you’re knowledgeable and passionate about your industry niche, you can have a successful business blog. That’s what makes blogging such an efficient marketing tool for start-ups.

Time tends to terrorize us: the slow acceptances that no matter what you apply to your scalp; your hair will keep falling out, that the smile lines gathering around your eyes will continue to congregate; that yes, that youthful metabolism is on its way out.

What to do? Perhaps rather than wring our hands, we can learn to appreciate age as we age and how the nature of happiness tends to mature.

Profound transformations have reshaped the higher-education landscape in roughly 50-year intervals. During the early 19th century, the colonial colleges were joined by several hundred more religiously founded institutions. The mid-19th century saw the rise of public colleges, culminating in the Morrill Act of 1862. The turn of the 20th century witnessed the emergence of the modern research university as well as the articulation of the Wisconsin Idea, that public universities should serve the public, as well as the appearance of extension services. The 1960s saw the transformation of normal schools into comprehensive universities, the rapid proliferation of community colleges, the end of legal segregation in higher education, and sharply increased federal aid to colleges and universities.

When I was starting out in the social innovation sector, there was a clear, defined line between the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. Back then, you chose sides; I went the nonprofit route.

Recently, though, that line has blurred. In conversations with dozens of new entrepreneurs over the past year, I’ve noticed that many of them start by identifying a problem they want to solve, and only then do they decide whether to take a for-profit or nonprofit approach.

While employment has steadily climbed since the recovery began, only a select few states have seen jobs return to pre-recession levels so far.

Last month marked the four-year anniversary of the end of the recession in June 2009. Updated Labor Department estimates published Friday show the extent to which states are regaining their economic footing.