The University City Science Center has been a key driver of growth and a source of stability for the Greater Philadelphia region’s technology sector since its founding in 1963. A dynamic hub for innovation, entrepreneurship and technology development, the Science Center ofers programs that provide support for frms at all stages of the business life cycle. Over the past half-century, the Science Center has leveraged its diverse suite of targeted programs and initiatives alongside its considerable portfolio of ofce and lab space to help power University City’s ongoing evolution into a leading hub for innovation.  

Between June 2015 and June 2016, we’ve created more spaces and places for people to engage with the Science Center; honed and expanded our programs to support innovation and entrepreneurship; and enhanced the way we talk about our role in Greater Philadelphia’s innovation ecosystem.”

On January 20, 2009, President Obama issued a simple and powerful pledge: to restore science to its rightful place. Coming into office, the President was committed to reinvigorating the American scientific enterprise through a strong commitment to basic and applied research, innovation, and education; to restoring integrity to science policy; and most importantly, to making decisions on the basis of evidence, rather than ideology.

WASHINGTON — Throughout this week, the Obama Administration will highlight America’s capacity for creativity and invention and how our innovative progress over the last seven and a half years has helped continue to make our economy the strongest and most durable in the world.

As part of this effort, at the third-annual SelectUSA Summit in Washington, DC, before an audience of business leaders, economic development officials, and investors from around the world, President Obama will announce that the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) will lead the new Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, in partnership with the Department of Energy.

Sometimes when I sit down to write…nothing good happens. Such was the result when I initially sat down to write this missive.

Nothing good takes many forms. Sometimes it’s a blank screen that stays blank no matter how long I stare at it. Other times a few words or paragraphs appear but they are, to be brutally honest with myself, crap. Worst of all, nothing good means I get frustrated and aggravated.

Seeking to break free of the bad state I was stuck in, I engaged in my favorite mind-clearing activity, walking around outside and letting my thoughts run free. It worked nicely. Relaxed me, drained the frustration, gave me uninterrupted time to think about some client issues…and about what I wanted to write.

Excitement is swirling about the new Harry Potter film being released this November. More properly, it’s a prequel, since it takes place long before Harry’s parents were born, but a lot of us Potter fans are getting our Hogwarts on, anyway. (I’m summoning my inner Hermione and yes, thank you, I was very much like her as a child – minus the wand and the incantations.)

So a few weeks ago, that was my state of mind while I was having a therapeutic cup of coffee with the head of Talent Acquisition at a very large company, whom I’ll call ‘Tracy.’ At least the headache-du-jour was not the common problem of attracting applicants. Tracy had nailed that one, years ago. Admittedly, it’s less of a challenge when your company is pretty much a household name. And branding as a preferred employer hadn’t been much of a concern either, for the same reason.

Legislators' latest attempt to create a "crowdfunding" investment initiative designed to benefit North Carolina companies would also require the state Department of Revenue to publicly post its answers to taxpayers' written questions.

The Senate voted unanimously Monday for legislation allowing in-state companies to seek up to $2 million in equity or bond offerings every 12 months. Each investor could give $5,000. At least 30 states and federal regulators permit crowdfunding.

Sometimes when I sit down to write…nothing good happens. Such was the result when I initially sat down to write this missive.

Nothing good takes many forms. Sometimes it’s a blank screen that stays blank no matter how long I stare at it. Other times a few words or paragraphs appear but they are, to be brutally honest with myself, crap. Worst of all, nothing good means I get frustrated and aggravated.

New York City ranks first overall among the top 25 cities for women entrepreneurs, ahead of San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin, according to the Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities Index (WE Cities), released today at the White House’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit.

The report measures a city’s ability to attract and support high-potential women entrepreneurs who want to grow their business. Research for the report began with an April 2016 symposium chaired by David Ricketts, a fellow at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard.

This cliche, which has uncertain attribution (Winston Churchill, Rahm Emmanuel, M. F. Weiner) is a priceless line that gets tossed out periodically, especially in the middle of a crisis.

Over the years I’ve been involved in many business crises. I qualify this, since my crises have never involved life and death or the survival of the human race. But they are still crises. Some have lasted moments while others have lasted months, and I can think of one that went on for three years – or at least took three years to dig out of.

Perhaps no sector in the U.S. economy generates more angst than manufacturing. Over the past quarter century, manufacturing has hemorrhaged over 5 million jobs. The devastation of many regional economies, particularly in the Midwest, is testament to this decline. If the information sector has been the golden child of the media, manufacturing has been the offspring that we pity but can’t comfortably embrace.

Yet manufacturing remains critically important. Over the period from 1997 to 2012, labor productivity growth in manufacturing—3.3% per year—was a third higher than the rest of the economy. Clearly manufacturing is no technological laggard, accounting in 2012 for 68.9% of all R&D expenditures by U.S. businesses and employing 36% of the nation’s scientists and engineers, the largest share of any industry.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

There is community of purpose and action, resulting in heavy conflicts of interest, among policy makers and professional lobbies. The revolving door is the image of the continuity of each other. The same can also be said of the interweaving between policy makers and high-level government bureaucrats – today, professional lobbyists or bureaucrats; tomorrow, politicians; and vice versa. In the United States, following the presidency of Harry Truman – who did not use the revolving door once his presidential term ended – a growing number of characters in between politics and interest groups went through this door. As Teachout (Quid pro con. Democracy ! A Journal of Ideas, (36), Spring - Retrieved from http://www.democracyjournal.org/36/quid-pro-con.php) wrote, “The revolving door between Congress and the lobbying industry – roughly half of all retiring members of Congress go on to become highly paid lobbyists – encourages lawmakers to serve their future bosses instead of their current constituents.” In Italy, director generals of ministries and even ministry officials pass directly through the revolving door, without a reasonable period of time in between, to occupy government positions and seats in the Parliament.

What's true in life is true for managers in 2016: Some things change, some things stay the same. But how do you know which ones fall into which category? For starters, effective managers do what they've always done: lead a team of people to efficiently convert a vision into an actual reality. They know how to head off problem scenarios and mitigate those that do arise before they spiral out of control.

A small but growing cohort of Fortune 500 companies made headlines recently when they broke with tradition and ditched the annual review.

Executives claimed performance reviews were often inefficient. Neuroscience backed them up. One study found that the dread filling employees prior to a review can restrict creativity. Another revealed that performance reviews foster a fixed mind-set in which the employee believes they’ll never be able to improve and achieve professional growth.

Image: Flickr user Sebastian Sikora

The University System of Maryland is hoping a new $25 million venture capital fund it established will help spin off more commercial businesses — with the system reaping the benefits in the long run.

The USM's Board of Regents recently approved a plan to invest $10 million over the next four years to invest in startup companies developed by professors, students and recent grads from all 12 of the USM's institutions. The additional $15 million will come from outside investors, the state and other venture capital groups.

Image: Companies at all USM schools, include the University of Maryland, Baltimore, will be… more UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE

MOSCOW—Russian venture-capital funds are shifting their gaze to outside the country, contributing to an exodus of capital amid an economic crisis and Western sanctions.

A robust startup scene emerged in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and venture-capital funds followed closely behind. New companies sprung from the scientific and academic communities Russia nourished during the Cold War, including Doroga TV, a vehicle-tracking GPS service, and Kuznech, an app that allows customers to shop by browsing online images. But funding is now looking for better opportunities outside Russia.

Mention the word “plan” to most managers and the image that springs to their minds might well be a travel plan. Drawn up by travel agents, these lay out in clear and certain terms the sequence of your trip and what to expect when, specifying: where you’re going from, your destination, where you’ll stay en route and when, how you’ll travel, and so forth.

Writing and delivering performance reviews can be one of the most challenging tasks for any manager. It’s difficult to give a review that successfully navigates the emotional and interpersonal dynamics while also balancing the complex, competing goals that are present in most performance reviews. In my work as an executive coach, one of the most frequent requests I get from clients is to provide feedback on performance reviews they’ve drafted before they deliver them. Most of the time, my feedback centers around asking them the following five questions.

You can start a business just about anywhere; it’s true. But over the past four weeks we’ve taken a particularly close look at some of the cities across the U.S. where entrepreneurs seem to be starting them the most. What we’ve found is that not only are there cities that seem to serve as hotbeds for entrepreneurial activity in general, it goes a bit deeper than that.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

Click. You did it. You just launched your first crowd-funding campaign. After years of brainstorming, months of planning, and long hours perfecting the campaign, you are on your way to making your idea a reality. But, hours pass without a single click, and then days go with only a few signing up for the lowest price of entry. There go the dreams of changing the world.

Image: Chris Herbert, Founder TrackR Credit: TrackR