Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Research tells us diversity enables teams to work at full potential. The differences in gender, race, generation, culture, education, values, and economic background all play a hand at digging up different angles, examining not-so-obvious details, and constructive conversation surrounding the task at hand.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Planning for business growth is hard to do. Actually growing your business is even more difficult. How do successful companies navigate one of the most challenging junctures of business? John Oechsle, president and CEO of Swiftpage, which was recently named the number three fastest growing company in Denver, has some growth-related tips for entrepreneurs.
Image: Free Digital Photos
Move over, Boston and San Francisco – Texas seems to positioning as the next biotech hub.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation is opening up a new incubator in Houston – following the same template it’s got in place in its existing Cali and Massachusetts centers. It’ll be affiliated with the Texas Medical Center, a massive health care system that’s one of the biggest biomedical research clusters in the U.S. The new incubator will be housed within TMC’s new Innovation Institute, and called J-Labs @TMC. Mod.
Image: The J-Labs facility in San Diego
The way we manage our organizations is largely ineffective for the complex challenges we face, whether driven by the environment, demographics, economics, or politics.
Hierarchies assume that management knows best and that the higher up the hierarchy, the more competent and knowledgeable that person is. But hierarchies are merely centralized networks. They work well when information flows mostly in one direction: down. Hierarchies are good for command and control. They are handy to get things done in small groups. But hierarchies are rather useless to create, innovate, or change. Hierarchies are ineffective when things get complex.
Image: http://jarche.com
In 1996, two Stanford University graduate students developed PageRank, an algorithm that ranked Internet search engine results, as part of a research project. The algorithm was patented, and the patent was assigned to Stanford. The students went on to form a company based on this algorithm, licensing it from the school in exchange for 1.8 million shares of this new company.
Image: Free Digital Photos
I have had a front row seat as companies have struggled to enter the emerging world of the Internet of Things — first, 10 years ago as a vice president at Ambient Devices, an MIT Media Lab spinoff that was a pioneer in commercializing IoT devices, and then as a consultant.
One of the biggest obstacles is that traditional functional departments often can’t meet the needs of IoT business models and have to evolve. Here are some of the challenges that I’ve observed:
Image: Free Digital Photos
The seeds of crowdfunding phenomenon Indiegogo were planted when Danae Ringelmann saw firsthand how difficult it was for performance and other artists to get funding for their work.
It seemed that it didn’t matter how good the idea was, if they didn’t have contacts who could help them land cash, the project would die. So, she started pitching a new fund to her colleagues at JPMorgan Chase & Co. It would be a classic fund where the limited partners could choose the productions in which they would invest.
Image: Free Digital Photos
You’ve been offered a job but the salary wasn’t the number you were hoping to hear. Or you’ve received a bid on a project and it’s under what you think it’s worth. Instead of accepting the deal in disappointment or firing back with another amount, sports agent Molly Fletcher says it’s time to start a conversation.
Image: Free Digital Photos
When investor Kevin O'Leary takes a sip of BeatBox Beverages' neon Blue Razzberry Lemonade on the latest episode of ABC's hit show "Shark Tank," he flatly proclaims, "This tastes like sh--."
But even though he would rather enjoy a fine Merlot than the entrepreneurs' fruity boxed wine, O'Leary concludes with the rest of the Sharks that BeatBox is on the verge of something big.
Science edged closer on Sunday to showing that an antioxidant in chocolate appears to improve some memory skills that people lose with age.
In a small study in the journal Nature Neuroscience, healthy people, ages 50 to 69, who drank a mixture high in antioxidants called cocoa flavanols for three months performed better on a memory test than people who drank a low-flavanol mixture.
Image: Free Digital Photos
Youngsters aren’t the only ones who get the latest high-tech gadgets. Sometime in the next decade or two, homebound retirees could be early adopters of an important new technology: the home-help robot.
As robots become safer, smarter, and more capable, robotics companies are eyeing elder care as a huge potential market. A rapidly expanding elderly population could also necessitate other new forms of home-assistance technology.
Image: A European project has equipped some elderly people’s homes with technology including telepresence robots. - http://www.technologyreview.com
Academic energy research does not go far enough to address developing countries’ needs, SciDev.Net reported this month — part of a wider call by experts for more research on practical solutions such as cookstoves, bicycles and lighting. The lack of research relevance shows the gap between research and creating products that poor people can actually buy.
Image: Free Digital Photos
The public life-cycle of a Kickstarter rarely ends in tragedy. Often, if a Kickstarter manages to get covered by the media before its funding round end, or even starts, it can meet its goal within days, and superfluous funds continue to roll in over the next few weeks. By the time its crowdfunding stage closes, the creators, backers, and media alike are excited and proud to have ushered this new project so quickly to a place of prosperity, eager for it to continue to grow.
Image: An all-terrain camera slider, successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2012 and effectively abandoned by the creator in 2013. - Kickstarter
The majority of tech start-ups that have gained a $1bn valuation in the past decade hailed from outside Silicon Valley, according to research that casts new light on the global growth of fledgling digital companies. The research into “unicorns” – fledgling tech groups that are valued at $1bn following an initial public offering, sale or publicly-declared funding round – found that 60 per cent of major internet or software companies were created outside California’s Bay Area.
Image: Mojang's Minecraft game
Artem Kulizhnikov, founder of a startup designed to help musicians annotate music, is packing his bags to leave Moscow in December.
His destination: Dubai or Singapore, where he sees a better chance of securing funding for his second company.
“Russian venture-capital funds want to invest their money only in Russia, but we want to build an international business and they won’t support us,” Kulizhnikov, a former analyst at investment firm Alor SPB, said at a forum at Moscow’s Digital October center on Oct. 10. “We don’t need that much. Maybe $5 million to $10 million, to hire engineers, specialists, etc.”
Image: Source: Elena Kulizhnikova via Bloomberg
In his book, "Rich Habits — The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals," Tom Corley outlines several habits that distinguish the wealthy from the nonwealthy.
It got me to think, How many people operate on autopilot and don't stop to monitor their everyday patterns? Below I've summarized 19 of his habits for success (nine culled from his book and the next 10 from his recent article in Success) plus two of my own. If you're not actively engaged in these 21 things, you are, in effect, leaving money on the table.
Image: Free Digital Photos
Over 25 years ago, Michael E. Gerber wrote a best-selling business book called The E-Myth: Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It. The E-Myth (“Entrepreneurial Myth”) is the mistaken belief that most businesses are started by people with tangible business skills, when in fact most are started by “technicians” who know nothing about running a business. Hence most fail.
Are you on the job hunt? The Mashable Job Board is the ideal place to search for your next big move. More than 3,000 employers in tech and digital have posted on our board, and they're looking to fill positions from Mashable's community.
Each week, we highlight 10 recently posted openings. Check out some of this week's newest listings, below, and be sure to read our Job Search Series for valuable career tips.
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There's an entire world of oddball inventions floating around the Internet. Exhibit A: the Chork, a combination chopstick/fork.
Some of these inventions are hybrids of familiar, everyday objects, while others don't seem to be like anything else we've seen before. While they probably won't be available at Walmart anytime soon, they stand as testaments to the absurdity that sometimes springs from the human mind.
Image: HOODIEPILLOW
The digital business landscape has changed tremendously over the last couple of years and personal branding is starting to play a crucial role online. Having a strong personal brand can do so much more for you than just win you a new job. It adds credibility to your name and can improve the reputation of any business associated with you. In business, people aren’t buying products, but people. With the advent of social media, it’s also easier to be won over by someone’s personality than by their marketing strategy.
