There’s an elephant in the room when it comes to "innovation." And it’s an ironic elephant given that we're all so hooked on data analytics, a/b testing, and getting metrics for anything and everything. Yet we all throw around terms like creativity, breakthroughs, and disruptive innovation. Companies eat up this stuff--they're fully on board. Innovation is going to shape the future. Sure--if we track and shape it.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today announced the launch of the U.S. Cluster Mapping and Registry project (http://clustermapping.us), a national economic initiative based at Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness and supported by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The U.S. Cluster Mapping and Registry project aims to strengthen U.S. competitiveness by understanding the economic performance of clusters and regions across the United States.

Clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected industries and supportive organizations that make regions uniquely competitive for jobs and private investment. The Cluster Mapping and Registry website provides access to rich, open data about regional economies and clusters, empowering regions, economic developers, and businesses to make key decisions. This new website goes beyond the original cluster mapping data by leveraging broader, more granular, and more up-to-date datasets. It also integrates detailed statistical analyses using county-level business data, including metrics on regional economic performance and business environments.

I’ve been friends with Charlie Sena for almost two decades. Charlie, a longtime entrepreneur, Democratic political operative and fundraiser for former Gov. Gray Davis, recently chided me about what he sees as my “negativity” about California and its future. My response was that, given its natural advantages, this region should not be in such a weakened condition. Decline, I suggest, is not an imperative here, but largely a choice.

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Last fall, I was asked to join an initiative that wants to answer a simple question that demands some very complex answers: How can we reinvigorate the American Dream in the 21st century?

To answer that question, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center launched the Milstein Symposium. The multi-year effort develops nonpartisan, innovative and action-oriented ideas that tackle some of the most pressing economic issues our nation faces today. Each year, three commissions focus on topics such as entrepreneurship, education and infrastructure.

America is still the world leader in creating new medical technologies that have the potential to save lives. So why is it so tough for the entrepreneurs and investors behind these new products to make a living here? One reason, according to venture capitalists, is long, costly delays before getting new treatments to market, in some cases caused by health insurers dragging their feet when it comes to agreeing to reimburse doctors for using new medical products....

THERE'S TONS OF ADVICE ON HOW TO MANAGE THAT COVETED MILLENNIAL DEMOGRAPHIC. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE TWENTYSOMETHINGS WHO ARE ALREADY MANAGERS?

For a generation that's making a name for itself via hashtags, clicks, and iPhone sales, we're shaping the information landscape--and entering change-making leadership positions with new skills and experiences that challenge our "selfie" centered stereotypes.

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DON'T LET SHYNESS HOLD YOU BACK. THESE TIPS WILL HELP YOU TRANSFORM INTO A SOCIAL BUTTERFLY--AND WILL ERASE THE ONES IN YOUR STOMACH.

It’s been several years since I was in high school, yet I can still remember the names of the popular kids. I wasn’t one of them. In fact, I was pretty shy and awkward back then.

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TURNS OUT THAT BREAKING UP WITH YOUR INBOX IS POSSIBLE. WHAT ONE WOMAN LEARNED WHEN SHE GAVE UP EMAIL FOR A YEAR.

Email is stressing us out.

A 2013 study by researchers at Britain’s Loughborough University found that 83% of government employees became more stressed while sending and receiving email. In fact, their blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol levels--the hormone secreted during stress--all increased while they were active on email.

I. Too Much of a Good Thing

I’ll begin by admitting my biases. I don’t like electronic mail. In the pre-Internet days of the 1970s, when e-mail as we know it was invented, it may have been a decent solution to a certain problem—namely, the need for users logged into a single mainframe, server, or network to exchange short messages. But those users were scientists and engineers, and they were mostly sharing technical information.

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If approved for cultivation, the genetically engineered fruit could revolutionize child health in much of the developing world

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU Celine Dion's Response to the Week's Best Viral Video Is Incredible Why Men Should Watch Orange Is the New Black WATCH: New The Order: 1886 Trailer Will Probably Scare the Crap Out of You by Taboola Genetically engineered bananas, packed with micronutrients, are to undergo their first human trial in the United States to test their ability to battle rampant vitamin A deficiency — a large cause of infant death and blindness throughout low-income communities around the world.

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Philip M. Parker, Professor of Marketing at INSEAD Business School, has had a side project for over 10 years. He’s created a computer system that can write books about specific subjects in about 20 minutes. The patented algorithm has so far generated hundreds of thousands of books. In fact, Amazon lists over 100,000 books attributed to Parker, and over 700,000 works listed for his company, ICON Group International, Inc. This doesn’t include the private works, such as internal reports, created for companies or licensing of the system itself through a separate entity called EdgeMaven Media.

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The meeting was going swimmingly.  The team had spent the past two months formulating what it thought was a high-potential disruptive idea. Now it was asking the business unit’s top brass to invest a relatively modest sum to begin to commercialize the concept.

The “world’s first” pre-accelerator programme has launched to support the growth of fast-growth start-ups across Europe, backed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Capital Accelerator Programme.

Unveiled by co-founders City University London and the Accelerator Academy, pre-accelerator FastForward (FFWD) London intends to help shape early-stage start-ups and prepare them for seed funding whilst offering a “fast track” to leading UK accelerators.

Image: http://startups.co.uk/ 

Sometimes it seems like Steve Jobs’ notorious reality distortion field has extended to all of Silicon Valley. Some eager entrepreneurs think their new product is so brilliant and so unlike anything else out there, that they just need to make it available and people will start clamoring over it. Other start-ups develop a core technology that has myriad possible uses and they’re not quite sure which will be most appealing, so they plan to just put it out on the market and let customers decide.

For roughly two decades, the most efficient silicon solar cells in the world used a structure invented in Australia at the University of New South Wales. This week, in a packed conference room at the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference in Denver, Panasonic gave details for the first time about a new structure that allows silicon solar cells to surpass that efficiency, setting a new world record and possibly pointing the way to cheaper solar power that can compete widely with fossil fuels.

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Being effective as an entrepreneur is often about hard work, but even more importantly it’s about smart work. Great entrepreneurs know that time is limited and valuable, so they need to make the most of each waking hour.

There are many factors that contribute to working smart -- but planning and proper sleep are among the top performance increasers.

Image: http://www.entrepreneur.com/ - MATTHEW TOREN CONTRIBUTOR Serial Entrepreneur, Mentor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com 

Winning customers as an entrepreneur in a startup has many parallels to a young army trying to penetrate some formidable new and unfamiliar territory. You need a strategy as well as a goal, and you need to pick your battles well. Even in this age of purpose before profits, a business won’t survive by pretending there are no competitors out there to worry about.

The UpTake: This generation of entrepreneurs isn't tied to what they studied in college or what niche their startup operates in. Reinventing yourself is as important for solving new problems as it is finding your strengths to work in any industry.

Image: http://upstart.bizjournals.com/ - Luxury Market Branding, founded by Lauren Maillian Bias, is a strategic marketing company. YEC 

Everyone seems to love rideshare services Uber and Lyft. Everyone, that is, except regulators and the government-imposed transportation cartels they defend. You know, the ones who have been working off the same tired model of service since the days of the horse and buggy? Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles recently fined the operators of both innovative car services, and last week the government issued cease and desist orders demanding both stop operating or their part-time drivers would face more fines.

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