The hype surrounding “Big Data” does businesses a disservice by making it all look much too easy.

Data analytics and “Big Data” promise to revolutionise marketing. Most companies are sitting on tonnes of data from various sources: financial data, mobile data, transactional data, customer research data, behavioural data, social media data, etc. The combination of new analytical techniques, amped-up computer power and instantaneous online resources has resulted in incredibly powerful tools that have changed the game forever. So powerful, in fact, that analytics can go beyond merely lending support to unlocking new opportunities and strategies, as well as opening up possibilities never before imagined.

If anyone had devised a way to create a genetically engineered baby, I figured George Church would know about it.

At his labyrinthine laboratory on the Harvard Medical School campus, you can find researchers giving E. Coli a novel genetic code never seen in nature. Around another bend, others are carrying out a plan to use DNA engineering to resurrect the woolly mammoth. His lab, Church likes to say, is the center of a new technological genesis—one in which man rebuilds creation to suit himself.

Universities around the world have frequently struggled with the competing aims of serving the public interest by disseminating knowledge created through research, and of ensuring that where possible the intellectual property associated with such knowledge is appropriately protected, developed and commercialised. Both approaches can provide substantial benefits to the university and to society generally.

What can leaders learn from improv comedians?

For five decades, The Second City comedy theatre and school of improvisation has been a launch pad for the leading comic performers of our times, from Alan Arkin to John Belushi, Gilda Radner to Tina Fey, and Steve Carell to Stephen Colbert, and many more.  In a reference to our talent development prowess, we’ve been called the Harvard of Comedy (which is great, except that we think Harvard is the Second City of higher education).

SCOTTISH business accelerator Entrepreneurial Spark will extend its reach all the way to Land’s End this summer as it opens a hub in the south-west of England.

Supported by Royal Bank of Scotland and its subsidiary NatWest, ESpark will open a “hatchery” in Bristol capable of accommodating up to 80 businesses.

Image: Jim Duffy of ESpark, left, with Haydn Thomas, centre, and Gordon Merrylees of NatWest/RBS. Picture: Contributed

Building a company from the ground up can take its toll on you, but these six qualities will lead you to success.

They say entrepreneurship can't be taught, but it can be learned. That's because the best lessons in entrepreneurship are acquired through experience and personal development. Certain personality types do tend to perform better than others as entrepreneurs, but that doesn't mean you can't acquire those characteristics through discipline and a commitment to self-improvement.

Image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

What trait separates successful entrepreneurs from those that fade into the sunset?

Credibility.

Why credibility? Think about the startup entrepreneur who is trying to convince a team of stakeholders and investors to pursue a new and innovative idea without a proven concept. Or the entrepreneur who runs into production problems and needs his business partners to extend credit for a few days, weeks or even months.

*** UPDATE: This book will be FREE for a couple of days. I was inspired by my friends at Startup.co, so check this out and please help spread the word! ***

You have aspirations for creating a startup company that will change the world, but need startup capital in order to make that happen. Where do you start? How can you raise serious funding when you don't have many connections or live outside of a major startup community like Silicon Valley?

In this book, Mike Belsito not only proves that you can find the funding you need for your startup no matter where you're located, but he shares specific details on how you can make that happen. Mike draws on his own experiences raising $1 Million for the Cleveland, Ohio-based startup company he co-founded, and combines it with insights gained by 14 other entrepreneurs and seed-stage investors from throughout the United States, including:

Rebecca Bagley, former president and CEO of NorTech, is leaving Cleveland for her next job.

Bagley has been named vice chancellor for economic partnerships at the University of Pittsburgh. In the job, which is a new one at Pitt, Bagley “will be responsible for coordinating and expanding the university’s significant ongoing efforts in economic development,” according to a news release.

She starts the new job at Pitt on April 7.

Last November, NorTech’s board voted to merge the organization with economic development organization Team NEO. At the time, Bagley said she would step down.

In 1939, the most notorious politician in notoriously corrupt Chicago was Alderman Mathias “Paddy” Bauler. When he managed to beat a reform-minded opponent by just 243 votes (four of which cast by ghost-voters purporting to live at the address of Bauler`s own tavern) he made a declaration that still lives today: “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.”

Outside of ABC's "Shark Tank" or one of its international affiliates, entrepreneurs are not going to find themselves pitching their company to a panel of five charismatic investors competing against each other.

And while that made-for-TV situation may be unique, the principles for what makes a "Shark Tank" pitch successful apply to any more traditional setting, as well.

Image: Taaluma Totes cofounder Alley Heffern presents to the Sharks, with Kevin O'Leary, Lori Greiner, and Robert Herjavec pictured.

Raising the minimum wage across the U.S. may be our best innovation policy. You wouldn’t know it from either our current innovation policy or the partisan catfight, cable news talking heads, and tired political arguments about minimum wage. A higher minimum wage is a good thing. It puts more pressure on companies to innovate to increase the value of their products, services, and business models.

Image: http://itssaulconnected.com 

Humanity has arrived at a critical threshold in the evolution of computing. By 2020, an estimated 50 billion devices around the globe will be connected to the Internet. Perhaps a third of them will be computers, smartphones, tablets, and TVs. The remaining two-thirds will be other kinds of “things”: sensors, actuators, and newly invented intelligent devices that monitor, control, analyze, and optimize our world.

Image: Free Digital Photos

In an era when traditional business plans seem passé and specialized financial advice is only as far away as your smartphone, where do tried-and-true business counseling programs fit into the entrepreneurship equation?

It’s a tough question, and it’s David R. Bobbitt’s to answer.

Image: How does SCORE stay relevant in today’s ever-evolving and increasingly technology-driven world? (Jeffrey MacMillan/Jeffrey MacMillan )

With Europe in a state of flux, is the continent heading for a national identity crisis?

“If you were to ask me about my national identity, I’d have a difficult time responding. My mother is Spanish. My father is German. My wife is Swedish. Sweden is the country where I grew up. Now I’m living in the U.K. To add to my confusion, I’m also supposed to be a European. And to make it even more of a muddle, within my nuclear family we have Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Muslims, Jews, and even Buddhists. When people ask me questions about my background, I find it difficult to position myself and articulate a clear narrative of who I am and what I stand for. I should revel and flourish in the cultural richness of diverse identities but instead I feel empty. What’s going on?”

Image: Free Digital Photos

When Sahil Lavingia founded Gumroad in 2012, he got a lot of attention. At age 19, he was one of the youngest entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and the press went wild with words like “wunderkind” and “prodigy.” But Lavingia has never shied away from admitting what he doesn't know or where he lacks experience. His approach has been largely defined by surrounding himself with similarly brilliant people and watching how things unfold — a method that has turned Gumroad, a platform where people can sell their own digital creations from books to art to music — into one of the best functioning startups that maintains a flat management structure. 

In this highly polarized political environment, states and localities, are ever more taking on the character of separate countries. Washington’s gridlock is increasingly matched by decisive, often “go it alone” polices from local authorities. Rather than create a brave, increasingly federalized second New Deal, the Obama years, particularly since the Republicans took control of the House in 2010, have seen discord rise to a level more akin to that left by James Buchanan, the last president before the Civil War, than Franklin Roosevelt.

The mobile security company I founded, Location Labs, was recently acquired for $220 million by antivirus company AVG. Although I knew from day one our company might someday be acquired, much of the credit for our success goes to solid guidance. Just because you’ve built a successful business from scratch doesn’t mean you’ll kick it at M&A. It’s a whole new world. What questions aren’t you asking? Whose input have you forgotten to get? Which vital steps aren’t even on your radar? If you’re beginning a similar adventure, or if you’re even just exploring, these are the top five things I advise you to think deeply about before you even put a toe in the water.

Staring ever deeper into its own navel, Silicon Valley just can’t stop talking about whether it’s in a bubble.

If you’re on the ground there, it can certainly seem that way. There’s the endless parades of gigantic corporate shuttles clogging the roads, hiring at a frenzied pitch, partiespartiesparties, and venture capital flowing like vodka down a giant ice luge.

Image: http://venturebeat.com - Flickr/Petr Dosek

Jon Gosier is one of those well-to-do tech entrepreneurs you may have never heard of. That might be because he made his money heading not to Silicon Valley, but to Uganda.

It’s there that he was introduced to angel investing, a sort of financial backing used to help startups or small companies get going that typically has a warm and friendly vibe. Gosier found himself investing in several companies not only in Uganda, but also in 11 other African countries, and succeeding nicely along the way. Now he’s hoping he can bring this brand of investing to the land that so heavily restricts it: the United States, of course.

Image: on Gosier is bringing some democracy to the world of startups. SOURCE Jon Gosier/CC Read more: Jon Gosier: Spreading the Wealth | Rising Stars | OZY