Congratulations — you came up with a great idea or designed a new invention! Now you may be wondering, “should I file for a patent?” Filing for a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is a great way to guard all your hard work, but there are rules to filing for this creative protection — in short, not everything can be patented.

Minnie Ingersoll, co-founder and chief operating officer at Shift, describes three stages of product management based on her experiences: defining a vision and identifying market fit, deciding what minimum viable product (MVP) to build and the next versions, and lastly, executing on those plans. She says the different phases often appeal to different types of people.

Image: http://ecorner.stanford.edu

Picture this: A vehicle stops outside your home. You get in. Your favourite music starts to play. The news that you are interested in, or the next episode your favourite series, appears on the in-vehicle screen. Today, there’s an obstacle on your usual route, the vehicle automatically figures out and takes an alternate route. It stops at your destination and you get out. Exactly on time.

Image: http://memeburn.com

While SEO (search engine optimization) is not rocket science or brain surgery, it certainly isn’t the easiest paradigm to understand, especially to someone who doesn’t have a background in the internet or technology. Whether it’s the way words sound (meta data optimization) or a particularly technical aspect of SEO (like schema markup), I tend to encounter confusion quite often with those customers who are new to the concepts of SEO.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

When I took the helm of NVCA in September 2013, I accepted the position not as a venture-capital expert but as someone who knew how to get things done in Washington. To get up to speed on this dynamic industry, I took to the road to meet with and learn from as many venture experts as possible.

Image: Bobby Franklin, president, NVCA.  - https://www.pehub.com

Welcome to the special issue of EuroScientist focusing on uberisation of science.

Much has been debated about the impact of technologies on the research and innovation process. The truth is that these changes signify the beginning of a new era. With an increased reliance on geographically-distributed  teams, tomorrow’s researchers are going to be able to reach unprecedented scales of collaborations, not just limited to cooperation between well-funded labs. Researchers from wider afield, including from territories with lower level of research funding, will finally be able to more systematically contribute to the great scientific endeavour of the future.

As governments experiment with innovation labs, sandbox environments and open-source collaboration platforms, the efforts often beg the question, “What are the benefits?”

The Office of Personnel Management’s Innovation Lab, for example, helps agencies develop innovative solutions to workforce problems and find new ways of delivering services and programs through human-centric design, an approach focusing on the people who will be using the service.

Image: https://gcn.com 

American cities seeking to reinvent themselves can do so by using creative financing, among other tools, according to a panel of experts at the 2016 ULI Spring Meeting in Philadelphia. The panel also served as the launch event for the new ULI publication Reaching for the Future: Creative Finance for Smaller Communities.

Municipalities must first take inventory of their competitive advantages, sincerely want to transform, be willing to take on some risk, and use innovative public/private partnerships, said Thomas Murphy, ULI senior resident fellow and a former mayor of Pittsburgh. “There is always money somewhere; it’s the vision of where you want to go that’s important,” said Murphy. “The conversation must begin with the community making a choice of what it wants to be.”

Image: From left to right: Anastasia Mileham, vice president, marketing and communications, 3CDC; John Callahan, former Mayor of Bethlehem, Pennslyvania; Stephen Navarro, executive vice president at CBRE; and Tom Murphy, former Mayor of Pittsburgh and ULI senior fellow. 

Last week, Mitsubishi Motors announced that they cheated on fuel-economy standards. They admitted that this cheating affects about 620,000 cars but that further investigation might bring those numbers up to the millions.

Sound familiar? Last October, I published two blogs about Volkswagen doing exactly the same thing. Only this time, there is a notable difference…

CEO Martin Winterkorn of Volkswagen responded to the news of his company’s massive transgressions by saying he was sorry but quickly added “I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part”. He acted as if someone else was in charge and accountable for running the company.

Local, state and university leaders gathered at the Iowa State University Research Park Thursday for the grand opening of the Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. Research and Development facility.

For those like BIVA President and CEO Albrecht Kissel, the new facility will not only launch the animal health giant forward, but also strengthen the relationship it has with ISU and the Ames community.

Image: Attendees gather outside of the new Boehringer Ingelheim Research and Development Facility at the ISU Research Park on Thursday. Photo by Grayson Schmidt/Ames Tribune 

When you walk toward the horizon, your shadow will always be behind you. Traveling towards the horizon can be blinding at times. Everywhere you look is the familiarity of what’s expected. Those who can look past the obstacles placed front of them will always forge a new path. They will see things others missed, as they were distracted by those common obstacles.

Wayne Gretsky, the great hockey player, credited his success to this particular strategy: “I skate to where the puck will be, not where it has been.”

The NHL playoffs are now underway and while I mostly ignore the world of sports, ice hockey is one game I understand and enjoy watching because I used to play it.

The biohealth industry in Maryland, Virginia and DC needs a strong identity and brand that will help it grow and attract the best talent in the world. At a regional conference on April 18, the community announced a new name and tagline, along with a wordmark:

Don’t have an internship lined up for the summer? Take a deep breath. It’s not too late—so long as you’re willing to put in the work.

It’s true you’re a bit behind, as deadlines for applications at many companies with formal internship programs have already passed. But there's good news: There are still internship opportunities up for grabs.

GlaxoSmithKline CEO Andrew Witty attributes the company's success to sticking to the tried-and-true business model of investing in research and development and not transitioning to an acquisition model.

Witty told CNBC's "Closing Bell" on Monday that the key is to be patient and to see the value of investing in innovation.

"What we have to stay focused on is the fundamentals of the value of innovation and discovery of medicines and vaccines that make a real difference to patients," he said.

It’s a startup shibboleth that entrepreneurship and formal education don’t mix. For icons such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, so goes the lore, finishing a bachelor’s degree would have only stifled the creativity that fueled their companies to stratospheric success. PayPal founder Peter Thiel offers a $100,000 fellowship to “young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom.” Graduate degrees are thought to merely exacerbate the problem of too much thinking, too little doing.

Lita Nelsen is one of the most influential power brokers in the drug industry — and yet there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of her.

That’s because she ran one of the country’s largest and most successful technology transfer offices, an unglamorous yet essential go-between for universities and startups. And any time a venture capitalist, a pharmaceutical company, or a tech titan wanted to cash in on an invention at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, each had to go through her.

Image: JOSH REYNOLDS FOR STAT - Lita Nelsen became an evangelist for tech transfer and a mentor to her counterparts around the world.

A former North Bridge Venture Partners investor is launching a new $100 million venture capital fund with CEOs of some of Boston's most well-known tech companies, including Wayfair, Rapid7, TripAdvisor and DraftKings. After spending nearly two decades as a North Bridge investor, Jamie Goldstein said he launched Pillar with the idea of upending the traditional venture capital structure to make the relationship between founders and investors more equitable and transparent.

Starting a new business is not an informal process, and should never be treated like a hobby between friends. Unfortunately, as a startup advisor and angel investor, I’ve seen too many ventures with great potential get destroyed or set back by legal and other shortcuts that should never have been allowed to happen. The path to true success does not allow for shortcuts.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Things I hear, a lot.

"Man, I'd love to start my own company one day."

"You're a lucky man, Mike!"

And probably the most common one that causes me to have to lie the most often:

"How's life?"

These are things I hear all the time as an entrepreneur. Some people look at my company and believe it to be a successful venture. And to the outside world, it can seem that way. After all, we're over 60 employees, have a few hundred clients and have a wall of awards to show for our efforts.