Brad Smith, CEO of palliative care startup Aspire Health, and Michael Bailey, CEO of collaborative health provider startup Unity Physician Partners, have a lot in common when it comes to their recently formed businesses. Both tout the benefits of patient-centered care that takes into account the needs of the whole person, and both raised their first round of venture capital last summer, aided by a big asset touted repeatedly during a Tuesday afternoon Nashville Health Care Council panel: relationships.

Image: Nathan Morgan | Nashville Busine Aspire Health Brad Smith CEO 

Human beings are profoundly social — we are hardwired to connect to one another and to want to work together. Frankly, we would never have survived as a species without our instinctive desire to live and work in groups, because physically we are just not strong or scary enough.

Tons of research has documented how important being social is to us. For instance, as neuroscientist Matt Lieberman describes in his book, Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect, our brains are so attuned to our relationships with other people that they quite literally treat social successes and failures like physical pleasures and pains. 

Venture capitalist Chris Dixon’s declaration, after plunking $50 million down on Buzzfeed, that he was investing in a “technology company” has been causing a bit of head-scratching and gentle mockery in media circles. After all, what most of Buzzfeed’s 500 employees do is create lists and quizzes. That happens to be what many if not most magazine editors in the U.S. have been doing for the past 30-odd years. When magazine editors do it, it’s journalism. When Buzzfeed editors do it, it’s technology.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Finding the right investors is really important. It’s kind of like marriage.  A great spouse makes for a great life, while a bad spouse could cause a lifetime of misery or an ugly divorce.

In finding the right investor, you’re looking for a great, life-long partner and someone you can count on in good times and bad.  So, chemistry is critical.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The University of California, Davis, launched 14 commercial startups during the past year to June 30 — the largest number of new ventures based on UC Davis technology to be started in a single year.

This represents an increase from eight startups the preceding fiscal year.

“Nearly doubling the number of university-based startups is a major milestone achieved by the Office of Research, working closely with entrepreneurial faculty,” said Harris Lewin, vice chancellor for research. “This achievement illustrates the huge potential of our faculty for driving economic development, and is in perfect alignment with Chancellor Linda Katehi’s goals for the campus, and the recent emphasis on technology transfer by our new University of California president, Janet Napolitano.”

When young people ask me what one piece of career advice I would give them, I reply, “Work for a big company.”

This advice is not popular, and there is no shortage of articles that encourage the millennial workforce to cast away tradition and join the exciting world of startups.

But as a big business alum who now runs a successful startup, I would not be where I am today without working for a global leader first. Here’s why:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

I have been to thousands of board meetings. Maybe tens of thousands. I’ve done them in person, on the phone, and on video conference. Most of the time I think I’m additive to the mix. Yesterday I had a board meeting (where I was remote on video) where on reflection I was a lousy participant and miserable contributor to the meeting.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been used for thousands of years to prevent and treat disease and promote wellness.  But, in many western countries, there had been historic resistance to its use because it “was not supported by rigorous scientific study.”

That’s not true today.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

2014 has been heralded as the year for crowdfunding. There are literally hundreds of different platforms for people to choose from ranging from the likes of Seedrs and Platform Black to Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but with equity-based crowdfunding on the rise, consumers and small businesses are faced with a difficult choice.

Civic crowdfunding is a small star in the wider crowdfunding universe. Most of the money raised on Kickstarter-type sites so far has been for private entrepreneurial ideas, like solar roads and smart eye-masks. But that's not to say there isn't potential. Sites like Neighbor.ly and Citizinvestor have shown they can raise funds for parks, libraries, and other important urban features--albeit in relatively small amounts.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

When FundersClub entered the scene in 2012, crowdfunding was still coming of age. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo were gaining traction, but weren’t widely perceived as serious financing platforms. They also left a gap for a company to democratize startup investing online. That’s exactly what FundersClub Co-founders Alex Mittal and Boris Silver set out to do.

Since the introduction of the iPhone in June 2007, mobile apps have become one of the most transformational and disruptive developments in the history of information technology.

Picture this: I was at the Technology Pioneers gathering at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2008. There I was, clutching my Blackberry, when we went around the room introducing ourselves. When AdMob introduced themselves I harrumphed under my breath about the folly of mobile advertising and thought that they didn’t belong in the same legion as hard core technology companies like the rest of us. It’s a good thing nobody asked me my opinion because a few years later AdMob was acquired by Google GOOGL -0.09% (who outbid Apple AAPL +0.32%) for $750 million. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, the global advertising and public relations giant, was sitting next to me and he made a beeline for AdMob after their introduction.

There have been frequent press reports that baby boomers, those born between 1945 and 1964, are abandoning the suburbs and moving "back" to the urban cores (actually most suburban residents did not move from urban cores). Virtually without exception such stories are based on anecdotes, often gathered by reporters stationed in Manhattan, downtown San Francisco or Washington or elsewhere in urban cores around the nation. Clearly, the anecdotes about boomers who move to suburbs, exurbs, or to outside major metropolitan areas are not readily accessible (and perhaps not as interesting) to the downtown media.

Suppose innovation is on your mind today.  Suppose further that you are puzzled by the capacity — or lack thereof — for your organization to be innovative, or to act in innovative ways.  And suppose a little further still that you really and truly want to understand both what it is that makes for innovative cultures and just how your organizational culture stacks up against that understanding.  And, lastly, let’s suppose that you are prepared to be deeply and profoundly honest with yourself.

Hyderabad:  India's biggest incubation hub will be launched in Hyderabad by the year-end or early next year, Telangana's Information Technology Minister K. Tarakarama Rao announced on Wednesday.

The Telangana government is developing the hub in collaboration with International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad, Indian School of Business (ISB) and NALSAR University of Law.

T-Hub, as the incubation centre will be known, is coming up at IIIT campus. The facility will be spread over 80,000 square feet and can accommodate 400 start-ups. The first phase will be ready by year-end or January-February next year and he claimed that this itself will be India's biggest incubation hub.

The question I get asked most often is “would Homebrew like to invest in my startup” (and we do our fair share of chasing too -> “please let us invest in your startup!”). The question I get asked second most often is “if not Homebrew, will you introduce me to some VCs who would like to invest in my startup.” There’s a reason why I won’t – because it means putting my reputation on the line for a founder I don’t really know. And in this business, reputation is very important. That said, Satya and I have made introductions on deals we looked deeply at but passed — in at least two cases these intros resulted in funding. And in many other cases we’ve pinged investors who I thought might be interested even though I didn’t look closely at the deal (usually because it was outside of our themes). What set these entrepreneurs apart from the ones where I just hit ‘archive?’ A lot. So here’s my guide to getting a VC to introduce you to other VCs:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Cities.  Love ‘em.  Hate ‘em.

Whatever your opinion, cities are increasingly the focus of academic, entrepreneurial, and governmental attention.  Why?  Because the world as a whole is rapidly urbanizing. The U.N. Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNESA) projects that by the year 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban centers.

This isn’t simply a matter of demographics.  It means the ways that people live are changing. Rural populations will shrink while urban populations will grow.

Host: Eric Openshaw, Principal - Deloitte LLP 1 Intermediate CPE Credit: Specialized Knowledge & Applications 

Facing continued uncertainty in the global economy, how do venture capitalists feel about investing at home and abroad? The answers may surprise technology, media, and telecommunications (TMT) executives. We'll discuss:

Investor confidence in global investing, fund-raising, IPOs, and government policy. Changing views on the global economy, from a couple of years ago to today and looking ahead. The regional view – investor optimism in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Sectors and sub-sectors that are prime for investment.

The world is constantly evolving, as technological advancement led to many structural and mechanical developments that had happened in the recent times. Prominent evidence of this advancement are the establishment of skyscrapers. These tall buildings provide another dimension in our environment, and had changed the overall skyline of the globe.

Venture capitalists worldwide are highly confident about the U.S. despite a belief by U.S. investors that government can’t get out of its own way, a survey found. Global investor confidence in the U.S. was 4.03 on a 1-to-5 scale, the highest recorded for any nation in three years by the annual survey conducted by the National Venture Capital Association and Deloitte & Touche LLP. U.S.-based investors gave their country an even higher rating of 4.17, up 11% from last year.

Image: http://blogs.wsj.com