Up on the seventh floor of Pfizer’s cold, black-and-gray exteriored world headquarters in New York is a weird little room with a quirky little poster that will be used (and copied) more and more if Pfizer does things right.

It’s the “Innovation Room” for Pfizer’s innovation team, which occupies the seventh floor in New York. The space has germinated many of Pfizer’s Dare To Try initiatives – the project Pfizer’s used to try and encourage innovation within the company.

Image: http://medcitynews.com

Great founders start businesses not to create a company but to solve a problem, to serve a calling, and to understand that they have a purpose that can actually make a meaningful difference. But of course, they also want their businesses to survive – and thrive – after they’ve moved on.

Great performance can never come without great people and culture, and the opposite is also true – great people and culture are affiliated most with high-performing organizations. We can argue over which drives the other. But there is one undeniable truth: when a company is in its earliest days – when there is no performance or numbers to speak of – the key differentiators are the team, their purpose, and their culture.

Image: https://hbr.org

When kids are sent off to school, they’re expected to learn reading, writing, mathematics, science, social studies and a host of other subjects by the time they graduate from high school. In addition, one Washington, D.C.-based organization is trying to develop future leaders by helping schools adopt another component to their curricula—character.

As many of my consulting clients seek to move in new directions, I am increasingly involved in helping arts organizations select their leaders. This has forced me to consider what characteristics are essential for a strong arts leader. I am consistently drawn back to the realization that the best arts managers are, at heart, entrepreneurs. They have a strong sense of direction and clear plans, but they are able to adapt the implementation of their plans to the opportunities that present themselves. They are ever-watchful of possibilities to create exciting programming, events and announcements and to engage their institutional families in that excitement. These managers run the most dynamic, visible and fun arts organizations with which to engage. Not surprisingly, these organizations also have the happiest and most engaged donors and board members.

I got the following question the other day.

“If you get a chance, I’d request you to write a blog post about various business decision related conflicts or misunderstanding that might occur in a partnership and how you folks at the Foundry Group resolve it. My partners and I grapple with such challenges quite often.”

Every VC firm is different so to answer a question like this, it’s important to remember that the answer is one specific to Foundry Group. Never forget that VCs Are Like D&D Characters.

Science is awesome.

It’s a fact, and if you don’t believe me, check out NASA’s imagery, the Interior Department’s amazing Instagram account or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s futuristic efforts. Or just binge watch “Breaking Bad” like the rest of us and learn the importance chemistry plays in people’s daily lives: Yeah, science!

And because science is awesome, science practitioners -- also known as scientists -- possess intrinsic value to the American public and decision-makers. As scientists, their research, knowledge and opinions matter. Would you rather listen to biased politicians and nonscientists dissect key issues like global warming, or would you rather listen to thousands of trained scientists at NASA who unanimously agree on factual data?

Image: Bryan Cranston as Walter White, left, and Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman in a scene from "Breaking Bad." // AMC/AP

Every startup needs a couple of advisors with deep experience and connections in your business domain or financial skills to complement your technical focus. Advisors need to be mentors, looking ahead and directing you on key actions to take or avoid. Unfortunately, many prefer the role of critic, looking backward to highlight your mistakes. These people don’t help you or your startup.

If someone asks, “Which is the world’s best startup accelerator?” Y Combinator is the only word that comes to mind.

Though in the recent times, Y Combinator has associated itself more with a seed funding organisation, than an accelerator, the reputation lives on. Even people with little knowledge of the global startup scene know Y Combinator, Paul Graham, and, now, Sam Altman (who took over from Paul Graham early last year).

Image: Ankit Solanki, Archit Gupta and Srivatsan Chari with YC partner Geoff Ralston

As you enter into countless live and virtual conversations this week, here’s a question to consider. Are you the firehose or the nozzle? Here’s a quick description of each and a few ways to tell the difference.

To get the mental picture of a fire hose, imagine the real thing hooked up to a fire hydrant on a summer day. The water is turned on full force and is just gushing everywhere and in no particular direction. There’s a lot of waste and, other than getting the street soaked, very little is being accomplished.

I am naturally driven to push through a challenge. When my work to-do list looks like a mass of deadlines, I sacrifice many other important things for the sake of getting it all done. When I’m sick, tired, or unfocused I like to pretend I’m the Energizer Bunny, continuing to move ahead at all costs. Sound familiar to you?

This driven, move ahead, push-through-it-all way of being to make a deadline is where I live if I allow myself to run unchecked. I’ve learned that it doesn’t serve me well, and if I really want to focus and be productive over the long haul, I know I need to spend some time doing other things that will foster those qualities.

These are the concluding paragraphs of Marine Auger’s book, Et si vous rendiez votre entreprise intelligente? which I have loosely translated. It is accompanied by an image showing the three components of an intelligent enterprise: organizational; managerial; and cultural. These are supported by the foundation of intelligent communication.

Image: http://jarche.com

It’s interesting to look back on your career and see the moments or people that made a difference. I do it a lot these days. We are in the early stages of an exciting growth plan at Saberr and I’m always looking for inspiration.

Thinking of starting your own business? Join the other 40 percent of people looking to do the same.

It seems the workforce has presented us with more tools and freedom to venture out on our own now than ever before. Almost any one has access to creating their own website, selling their goods in an online store, and gathering a small team of software developer friends to create the next Angry Birds.

(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) March 16, 2015 – With the rise of entrepreneurial ecosystems – elements within a community that support firm formation and growth – how can local leaders measure success? That's the subject of a report released today by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Most communities fall short in assessing the performance of their entrepreneurial ecosystems, according to the paper, "Measuring an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem."

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Plastics. Computers. Metamaterials?

Almost half a century after Dustin Hoffman was taken aside in “The Graduate” and given the famous “one word” line about the future, it may be time to update the script again. And metamaterials appear to have the same potential to transform entire industries. Over the past 15 years or so, scientists have learned how to construct materials that bend light waves, as well as radar, radio, sound and even seismic waves, in ways that do not naturally occur.

Image: Eben Frankenberg and Tom Driscoll of Echodyne with a prototype radar in a test chamber. Credit Kyle Johnson for The New York Times

The world changes a little faster these days. As concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tick up year over year, more and more of the sun's heat gets trapped. That heat affects the planet in a variety of ways: raising global average temperatures, melting ice, increasing downpours, lengthening droughts and more. And this global warming is already transforming some of the places humans hold most dear.

Image: Global warming is already transforming some of the places humans hold most dear. Credit: Daniel Nepstad

When Apple announced, last year, that it was developing a watch that had the functions of a medical device, it became clear that the company was eyeing the $3 trillion health care industry; that the tech industry sees medicine as the next frontier for exponential growth. Apple’s recent announcement of ResearchKit shows that it has an even greater ambition: It wants to also transform the pharmaceutical industry by changing the way clinical trials are done.

Image: Jeff Williams, Apple vice president of operations, discusses ResearchKit. (Eric Risberg/AP)

Disruption is creating myriad opportunities for entrepreneurs and SMEs according to speakers at this morning’s Creative Innovation Conference. 

Peter Diamandis, chairman and chief executive of XPRIZE Foundation and co-founder of the Singularity University told the conference the opportunities for entrepreneurs continue to expand.

Read more: The future is more predictable than you think: Five trends that will disrupt your business

Sending cold emails can be risky business. Not only are you putting yourself out there, but there’s a good chance that your email won’t even be opened, read, or responded to. However, while luck plays a huge factor in the art of the cold email, there are ways to increase your chances of getting a response.

So, let’s imagine that you’re in your office, and have about 15 minutes before you need to walk out of your building to get to a meeting. What do you do in those 15 minutes?

Many readers probably answered “check email.” Checking email has become the default work-ish activity for many professionals. I said work-ish because while checking email may be work-related, for most people it is not a central activity of their work.

Image: http://chronicle.com