Corporations have rediscovered venture capital, plunging into the industry in search of ideas and products to keep their businesses humming.

But their timing has never been especially good. They jumped in during the dot-com bubble only to head for the hills when things turned sour.

This time out, they seem to be especially interested in early-stage companies and some are behaving like venture firms. Have things changed? Are they in for the long haul?

The Arkansas Research & Technology Park has had an economic impact of more than a half-billion dollars since it opened 10 years ago, according to a new economic impact analysis released Thursday by the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas.

UA officials unveiled the report at a special event commemorating the 126-acre park's 10th anniversary. Construction on the research park began in 2003 and its first building, the Innovation Center, was dedicated on Oct. 15, 2004.

Image: Phillip Stafford, president of the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation, addresses the crowd at the "Celebrating 10 Years of Innovation" event held Thursday at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park. (Photo by Russell Cothren, University of Arkansas)  

I had the opportunity recently to interview Rory Mullen, West Coast Director, IDA Ireland, and ask him a few questions about the innovation climate in Ireland and how the government is contributing to an increase in the innovation capacity of the island.

1. In what way is Ireland’s tech scene similar to that in Silicon Valley?

Mullen: I’d say one of the biggest similarities between Silicon Valley and Ireland is in the innovation. What I mean is that it’s hard when you’re a business in the U.S. to think of markets outside of the country. And when companies do start to think of it, they encounter culture problems. Adapting a product for the European market is made easier with Irish people who are very well traveled and familiar with the U.S.

Image: http://www.innovationexcellence.com

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "It saddens me, and the SBA community, to hear of the death on Monday of Roland Tibbetts, widely acknowledged as the father of today's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

Mr. Tibbetts' legacy and accomplishments are some of the most important in the world of high-growth, technology-driven small business. The SBIR and STTR programs together have awarded approximately $40 billion through 150,000 grants across almost every field of endeavor – advancing the frontiers of human knowledge, our national competitiveness and economic vitality.

The arrival of cooler weather often means more sick days. The cold and flu season is upon us and nowhere do germs lurk more than a shared office space.

The flu costs American businesses approximately $10.4 billion a year and is responsible for 200 million days of diminished productivity and 75 million days of work absence.

Follow these tips to ensure viruses don’t eat into your work time:

When it comes to banishing paper and clearing clutter, there’s a lot of advice out there. Touch each piece of paper once and deal with, delegate or ditch it. Clear off your desk at the end of every day. Go paperless!

Sure.

For most of us, the conventional advice just doesn’t work. The paper piles grow higher and we feel overwhelmed by them. Fortunately, there are a few experts who had some fresh advice that just might work.

I’m so used to hearing bullish projections on digital health, it’s refreshing when someone contradicts that assessment. Maybe contradict is the wrong word. But Thomas Rodgers, who joined McKesson Ventures last month after a couple of years with Cambia Health Solutions, thinks it will take a lot longer for the technology to enjoy mainstream adoption.

“I think it will be 15-20 years until it is intertwined with medical care. It will take a shift away from fee-for-service and it will also take generational change. Millennials who grew up with technology will need to start getting sick

Change starts with hiring. Tech job descriptions are usually geared towards males and have long lists of skills, most of which aren’t needed or can be learned on the job. Women who don't identify with each and every skill tend not to apply for these jobs, but that doesn't dissuade men. Interviewing committees are also usually all-male and ask questions geared toward boys. (Dropbox, for example, would ask “What is something that you’re geeky about?")

Women must be interviewed for every job opening and become part of every hiring process. Companies must recruit from colleges where there are high proportions of women and minorities and hire for competency rather than credentials.

The bone-strengthening powers of milk have been claimed over and over again in advertisements, pop culture and around the dinner table. But a new study published in the BMJ suggests that the truism may not be true. High milk intake, the study found, doesn’t appear to protect against bone fracture and in fact may lead to increased mortality.

Researchers looked at questionnaires from more than 100,000 people in Sweden on their dairy consumption habits. The study, which followed up with many of the participants after 11 to 20 years, found that high milk intake was associated with higher mortality in both men and women, as well as higher bone fracture in women.

My business is all about surfing. Surfr App connects people to places, ultimately surfers to surf spots and nearby travel resources like food, lodging, and surf shops at more than 9,000 locations around the world. 

But surfing is all about business, too. In fact, surfing can teach you a lot about entrepreneurship.

Jennifer Magnolfi, Founder & Principal Investigator at Programmable Habitats LLC, on how digital work, and the Internet of Things will fundamentally change the how we use the buildings and neighborhoods we work in. For more, read the article Workspaces That Move People.

Image: Free Digital Photos

November 3, 2014, is the last day to submit an application for FY14 grants through the Economic Development Administration’s Regional Innovation Strategies program.  The current solicitation includes three different types of awards: i6 Challenge grants, Science and Research Park Development Grants; and, Cluster Grants to support the development of seed capital funds. See previous Digest article for details or watch SSTI’s webinar with EDA officials about the program.  View the solicitation (EDA-HDQ-OIE-2014-2004219)…

There's a haunting, scary, messy truth about being an entrepreneur. Those who dream about entrepreneurship think about the freedom of being able to chase big dreams, the thrill of building empires and the joy of making a mark on the world by doing something better than any other person in a field has yet done. 

There’s something to all this. Entrepreneurship is indeed fun, rewarding and freeing. But there’s a back side to entrepreneurship that nobody likes to talk about much. Being an entrepreneur can be grueling, spirit breaking and downright tough. I hope you have thick skin. You’ll need it. Here are the six scary truths of entrepreneurship...

Startup accelerators have been around for almost 10 years now, and the landscape is starting to change. We’re seeing more and more international accelerators, as well as programs for niche industries and niche demographics.

In Accelerate: Founder Insights into Accelerator Programs, authors Luke Deering, Matt Cartagena, and Chris Dowdeswell list over 200 programs – and provide a startup accelerator ranking of the top 30.

In sport, we don’t just want to know who won. We now want to know how to replicate success and then improve on it. And to do this, we’re using data — and lots of it. The field of “big data” analytics has come to sport and athletics, with massive implications for sport as we know it.

The Women’s Tennis Association recently approved real-time data capture, which means that court-side coaches can now advise their players during a match on best shot placement or serve direction using little more than a smartphone or tablet. It could be argued that this detracts from a player using their instincts to make their own decisions. But it means that to tennis fans watching, it’s easier to understand what makes a good player great and why their opponent lost, while players have an even keener competitive edge.

Accept that you will fail.

These are the words that stuck with Jon Oringer throughout his pathway to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

In this short video, he explains how his inquisitive mind set him apart and how he nearly got kicked out of Columbia University for using college servers to run an online ad business.

 

The Hong Kong scientist who invented a simple blood test to show pregnant women if their babies have Down syndrome is now testing a similar technology for cancer.

Yuk Ming “Dennis” Lo says screening for signs of cancer from a simple blood draw could cost as little as $1,000. The test works by studying DNA released into a person’s bloodstream by dying tumor cells.

The idea is to create a cheap screening test that people might get annually at a doctor’s office to spot a tumor at its earliest stage, when it’s more easily treated. “It took 13 years to develop the prenatal tests, but the path was untrodden,” says Lo, who is based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “Cancer will take a shorter time.”

Image: http://www.technologyreview.com

In the decade after the founding of the BioCrossroads initiative, money spent on life sciences research and companies more than doubled, to more than $25 billion, according to a new report released Thursday by the Indianapolis-based life sciences business development group.

That infusion of money—much of which came from out of state—has helped Indiana companies and universities increase the number of life sciences patents, technology licenses, startups and venture capital deals faster than the rest of the nation, according to the report.

Kansas City is known for its jazz music, barbecue, historical war sights and art museums. Although if you've asked anyone over the past month, KC is known for just one thing: baseball.

The Kansas City Royals made it all the way to the World Series for the first time in 29 years. The run was incredibly impressive, but sadly came to an end on Wednesday night with a Game 7 loss to Madison Bumgarner (and the San Francisco Giants. But really though, mostly Madison).

Image: FLICKR, DOC SEARLS

If you don’t have kids of your own, you probably know as much about working parents as you do about different brands of diaper cream — not a lot.

Conventional wisdom may tell you that employees with children may not be as productive or reliable as those without. After all, kids get sick, parents have to pick them up from school, and employees with small children in the home aren’t going to be too happy to take your late-night phone calls.

Image: http://under30ceo.com