AUSTIN, Texas — As cities continue to invest more in smart city technologies, questions surrounding how to staff those moves can puzzle city leaders.

Martin O’Malley, the former mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland, suggested during remarks at the Smart Cities Innovation Summit that during his leadership — both at the city and state levels — having a chief innovation officer close to the executive was key to driving government away from the status quo and into new possibilities.

Image: At the Smart Cities Innovation Summit, former Maryland Gov. and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (2nd from right) advocated for cities to hire chief innovation officers, Brenna Berman, the chief information officer for Chicago (right) did not. (StateScoop) 

A group of nine team members from as far away as California and Beijing are trying to help Black & Veatch capitalize on entrepreneurial ideas through its accelerator program.

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In 2012 president Obama signed into law the “Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act,” commonly known as the JOBS Act. Embedded in the act are provisions allowing for the loosening of certain SEC regulations to allow for what activists call “equity crowdfunding.” Because it took several years for these provisions to go into effect (Title III of the JOBS Act actually just came into play in May of 2016), their implications for the way businesses are funded have gone very much unnoticed by many Americans. This is unfortunate, because this new way of doing business could potentially revolutionize capital in America.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the owner and developer of the Alexandria Center for Life Science on the East Side of Manhattan, has just launched an incubator space for biotech start-ups.

JOEL MARCUS The new life science laboratory and office platform, which will be called Alexandria Launchlabs, promises 15,000 s/f of space that provides “the necessary resources and collaborative environment to start transforming novel ideas into innovative, early-stage companies that develop products to improve human health.”

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Too many entrepreneurs still believe that “if we build it, they will come.” With today’s overload of information from digital as well as conventional sources, even the best new solutions and services won’t get traction without real marketing. Digital marketing is the cost-effective place to start, utilizing the internet, mobile phones, display advertising, and other digital mediums.

The challenge is where to put those limited resources of every startup, to get the biggest return for your investment. It is search engines, web content, blogs, social media, e-mail direct, on one of many mobile-phone approaches? Every entrepreneur needs a strategy, and some metrics to measure what’s working and how much it costs. Firing randomly to see what sticks doesn’t work.

So, you've got a startup idea. If it's not "Uber for laundry," congratulations, you've taken an important first step. The next hurdle is to find money, and unfortunately, it's going to be complicated.

Angel rounds, Series A, bootstrapping — a lot of funding jargon gets thrown around with little specificity and the fresh-faced Australian startup scene is particularly guilty of this.

Many forward-thinking organizations, these days, are launching all kinds of initiatives to crank up innovation. Their intention is a good one, but their execution is often not. While there's nothing inherently wrong with "organizational initiatives", they often end up being overly complicated, vague, and painfully impersonal. They may look good on paper, but real innovation doesn't happen on paper -- it happens in another dimension -- the human dimension -- the realm of authentic interaction, not theoretical interfacing.

MONTRÉAL, June 10 2016 /CNW Telbec/ - The Mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre, and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Land Occupancy and Minister responsible for the Montréal region, Martin Coiteux, announce the creation of Capital Intelligent Mtl, a group formed initially of 23 venture capital firms, financial institutions and corporations. These 23 members have made $100M in private capital available for the financing of innovative businesses who will contribute not only to building the smart city, but also to the development of know-how and to employment creation in Montreal.

If you're one of the 600 hundred million people around the world who work shifts, trying to plan out your day can be a nightmare. You're given a printout of your schedule several weeks in advance but you might be asked to change shifts at the very last minute. If you have a sudden emergency, you must scramble to find a co-worker who can replace you. The problem is that there's often no formal way to do this: Often, you're left to your own devices, which means reaching out to your colleagues through a Facebook group or texting them on WhatsApp. "They're really relying on just SMS and basic pictures of their schedule," Atif Siddiqi, a former retail employee says.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com

We were pleased to see the interest in our recent blog on the unique number of investigators applying for and receiving NIH research project grants (RPGs). Some of you (through the blog page or through other media) have asked about whether we have similar data for our Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. We have generated analogous figures for SBIR and STTR grants, and today’s post shares this investigation of the question, “How many unique researchers are seeking SBIR/STTR funding?”

Image: https://nexus.od.nih.gov

Late last year, economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science documenting the rising morbidity and mortality in mid-life white men and women in America, especially for those with a high school degree or less.  They attributed this increase, a reversal of historic trends, to an epidemic of alcoholism, other drug use disorders, and suicide. Their findings are a wake up call for the US. Not only is something seriously wrong — it’s getting worse.

Chronic wounds are wounds that do not heal quickly. They bleed frequently, often develop into infections and can turn into ulcers if they are not treated properly.

Treating chronic wounds is a tremendous burden for health care providers and systems. Patients with these wounds often have to be admitted to hospitals. Once admitted, nurses and doctors need to conduct a number of tests, dress the wounds, and monitor the wounds throughout the day. In addition, patients often have to wear a number of medical devices that are bulky and uncomfortable.

In the United States and Europe, over nine million people are affected each year by chronic wounds and this costs over US$ 39 billion.

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Think back to your last off-site meeting. You and the rest of your team likely poured over reports and spreadsheets, facts and figures. Strewn about the table were probably the tools of your trade: reams of data, balance sheets and P&Ls. Managers understand that clear-eyed analysis — both quantitative and qualitative — is the key to building a resilient business. And yet when it comes to measuring and strengthening our own ability to adapt, grow, and prosper, rarely do we apply the same methodical approach.

Working in the family business can be fraught. When your manager is also your parent, sibling, or another relative, how do you keep things professional? Do you ask to be treated the same way as others, or accept that you will have a different sort of relationship at the office? Do you publicly call your mother “mom,” or your father “dad”? And what about getting candid feedback for your own growth and development?

It's not necessarily new for an interviewer to throw in a curveball to keep a candidate on their toes. It happened to me: While applying for college I was asked what sort of light fixture I would be.

But it's become a new norm in Silicon Valley to have nontraditional paths toward hopeful employment: Weird questions, special tests, the whole nine yards. Someone in 2015 was interviewing for a job at Airbnb and was supposedly asked, "What would you do if you were the one survivor in a plane crash?"

As of today, there’s $200 million in fresh investment money looking for a new home. But you have to dream big. The funding is meant for companies that “have the potential to generate $100 million a year in revenue.”

So says University City-based 1315 Capital. The growth-equity firm announced Wednesday the closing of a $200 million fund aimed at commercial-stage pharma, medical and healthcare services companies.

An undisclosed group of individual investors, foundations, state and corporate pension funds raised the stately total.

Image: Adele Oliva, 1315 Capital cofounder. (Screenshot via YouTube)

Business incubation provides vital support to entrepreneurs and early-stage firms at their most vulnerable times. It is often pivotal to their survival and prosperity. For more than 30 years, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/NEP) has been a pioneer in the field. Our experience nurturing young companies in an incubator facility is deep and has been recognized with the prestigious National Business Incubator Association Incubator of the Year Award on two occasions.

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Minister for Industries and Sports E.P. Jayarajan said here on Tuesday that business incubation centres and facilities to encourage start-ups by student entrepreneurs would come up across the State at all colleges.

He was inaugurating a start-up mentoring session organised under the aegis of the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) at the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, Kakkanad.

Mentoring youngsters can be an effective way to develop their interpersonal and professional skills. As a mentor, it is your responsibility to provide support and contribute towards their career aspirations through careful guidance. It is all about using your experience, expertise, guidance and wisdom to prepare your mentees for a better future.

The ability to scale: it’s one of the main differentiators between a startup and a small business, but does everything in your startup have to scale?

While the intuitive answer may be “yes”, there’s actually a lot to be said for doing things that don’t scale.

One of the foremost advocates for this approach is Y Combinator founder Paul Graham. In an essay penned in 2013, Graham points out that a lot of what allows a startup to grow comes from its founder doing things that don’t scale.

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