Fitness startup Apex Resistance and Conditioning has invented what co-founder Adrian Cornish refers to as “the world’s first wearable gym,” a pair of futuristic looking shorts paired with resistance bands dubbed the Bionic Resistance Shorts.

The Bionic Resistance Shorts add resistance to the wearer’s movements using elastic bands and sturdy fabrics to enhance workouts. Cornish and co-founder Nathan Roy launched sales of the $99.99 shorts three weeks ago out of the Louisiana Business and Technology Center at the LSU Innovation Park. So far, they’ve sold about 60 pairs with essentially no marketing beyond a website.

Leadership is a critical trait to possess if you’d like to advance in your career. However, when you’re at the bottom of the totem pole, you may think the ladder to manager is difficult to climb. As long as you are mindful of certain skills, though, you can do very well. We recently had a management discussion where so many great gems were shared, and we figured we’d highlight some of the best ones.

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Social media platforms are undoubtedly the best places to promote your business and enhance your reach in a cost-effective manner.

To build a strong presence and following on these platforms you will have to share both original and curated content.

Creating original content can be both exciting and challenging. In the context of small and medium enterprises, it proves to be a greater challenge setting aside the amount of time and effort it demands.

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It's not just because these foods are tasty. It's because they make us feel less alone

In mid-July, I was visiting my hometown in Minnesota when I happened upon the unmistakable scent of something deep-fried. I was at a concert, and no matter how off-brand a dietary choice of corn dogs and cheese curds may be for a health writer, I went for it. How could I not? I spent two thoroughly enjoyable summers during college working at the Minnesota State Fair, and that experience continues to make corn-and-grease-dipped hot dogs not only appetizing but somehow irresistible, too.

In the midst of the content marketing rush, great content is becoming increasingly elusive. We can’t all be Red Bull overnight, but while everyone tries to become a content publisher, let’s take a step back and look at what we’re doing.

Whether it’s crafting posts for social platforms, or penning a new blog post, it’s vital to examine the content we create. We have to be brutally honest about whether we’re adding to the sea of sameness or actually creating something worthwhile.

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They came from all over the world - Entrepreneurs, Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Banks, Corporations, NGO’s and Policy Makers including the Presidents of the United States and Kenya to celebrate and to recognize the enormous contribution Entrepreneurs and Angel Investors have on societies, economies, and the universe.   Started by President Obama 6 years ago as part of his initiative to promote entrepreneurship as a tool for growth, President Obama and President Kenyatta opened the 6th annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), co-hosted by the United States and the Government of Kenya. During the Summit both Presidents announced new commitments to promote entrepreneurship as a driver for economic growth, social inclusion, and secure communities.

In order to succeed, we need to create value and grow. Sound familiar? In a fast-paced startup, the business environment is always in flux. You need to be able to course correct at a moment’s notice, and make changes to products, programs, campaigns, and internal activities based on insight from your data. But it isn’t good enough to just make data available — you need to build a culture where everyone has metrics that they track and manage and that they are held accountable for.

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Many leaders would say they already delegate a lot, yet plenty of employees would say their bosses are micromanagers who don't delegate enough.

Disagreement about what delegation actually means is one major reason for that gap. Managers tend to see delegating as binary choice—either hold on or let go. Framed in those stark terms, the notion of letting things go can strike fear into managers' hearts. Thus begins a vicious circle: As their employees push for more autonomy, leaders tend to hold on more tightly. To some degree or other, it happens every day in every organization.

David Segal was 27 years old when he opened his first tea shop in Toronto in 2008. He didn't want the space to have the stuffy, pretentious look and feel so many other traditional tea shops he'd been to had—the kinds of places that seemed designed for tea connoisseurs. "You felt like you had to know something to go into these stores," says Segal.

Image: David Segal Photo: Olivier St-Onge

1. "If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." - Albert Einstein

2. "If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself." - Rollo May

3. "An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." - Oscar Wilde

4. "Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." - John Steinbeck

Ten years is a long time. When we started First Round in 2005 with the idea to fill the gap between individual angel investing and Series A investing, many on Sand Hill Road dismissed our model as a “cute” novelty. Boy how times have changed. What began as a crazy, contrarian idea has now led to a Series Seed Surge — in the last 4 years alone, over $4 billion has flowed into seed stage and 200 new firms have been formed.

As over-used as the word “innovation” may be these days, there is no denying that building a culture of innovation is at the top of most corporate agendas.  After all, a company’s own employees are uniquely positioned to understand the intersection of business operations, product development pipelines, and customer demand.  New growth should be spurred from within.  Yet attempts to build a culture of innovation – where employees share new ideas, then use fast and cheap processes to get breakthrough solutions to market – often fall flat.

As the world of work continues to evolve at a rapid pace, innovation continues to become both a top priority and a top challenge. For most companies, innovation is handled behind closed doors in a secluded part of the company that only a few have access to. This type of innovation is no longer practical, scalable or effective when thinking about the future of work. In order to succeed and thrive in this rapidly changing world, organizations must adapt by implementing five innovation models, all five of these are crucial and are part of a broader innovation ecosystem. The five innovation models are:

Physicists have found an explanation for rogue waves in the ocean and hope their theory will lead to devices to warn ships and save lives.

“A device on the mast of a ship analysing the surface of the sea could perhaps give a minute’s warning that a rogue wave is developing,” said Professor Nail Akhmediev, leader of the research at The Australian National University (ANU).

“Even seconds could be enough to save lives.”

Ever wondered what traits successful entrepreneurs have in common?

Three startups are founded every second across the world, as hopeful entrepreneurs take a stab at their dream venture.

The dream will be short-lived for most, however, as 90 per cent inevitably fail. It’s a risky business, and there may not yet be a way to guarantee success, but perhaps there are some lessons to be gleaned from statistics released by US venture capital firm First Round.

The University of Arizona says its technology commercialization arm hit all of its goals in its second full fiscal year of operations, including logging more than 200 faculty invention disclosures and forming 12 startup licensee companies.

Tech Launch Arizona (TLA) also topped the prior year’s results in patents filed and issued, exclusive license and option agreements, and license royalties, in the recently ended 2015 fiscal year, the UA said.

Image: Paul Tumarkin / Tech Launch Arizona

Intellectual property has come to the center of attention in every economy around the world. Universities are the heart of creating new inventions from the ground breaking research that they perform everyday. Technology transfer plays a critical role in transferring those inventions to the market in order to create products that touch our lives everyday. The profession of technology transfer has evolved over the years and is one of the most coveted professional tracks for scientists, engineers, lawyers, and marketing professionals. Often times this is not a choice people actively make in the early stages of their career, it is choice they are aware of later in their career. 

Taking a long lunch seems like a surefire way to get behind in your work, but the practice can actually boost your output when you return, says Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Two Awesome Hours: Science-Based Strategies to Harness Your Best Time and Get Your Most Important Work Done.

"Many of us feel guilty, like we aren’t doing enough, but the idea that we need to work more hours is based on a model that doesn’t fit us," he says.

You want to be more productive and better at your job. Here's a suggestion: Sink your toes into the sand or lounge on that picnic blanket in the woods, and, whatever you do, put that smartphone away. Because people who manage to unplug during a vacation are better at their jobs than people who can't cut the cord.

We live in the age of FOMO, never more than a swipe away from work. But all of this connectedness is not only detrimental to our health, it's a prescription for burnout.

Many of us are familiar with the concept of Getting to Yes, an iconic negotiation strategy developed by Harvard professor Roger Fisher and others. For many managers, however, the more difficult day-to-day challenge is “getting to no” which is what we call the process for agreeing on what not to do.

“Getting to no” is a classic management issue because the vast majority of us tend to accept requests and assignments without first filtering them by what’s possible, what’s urgent, and what’s less of a priority.