Have you mastered the five skills that distinguish innovative entrepreneurs and executives from ordinary managers?

In The Innovator’s DNA, co-authors Jeffrey Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton Christensen (The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Solution) built on what is known about disruptive innovation to show how individuals can develop the skills necessary to move from idea to impact.

Should your boss make the decisions for your group? Or should you, as a team member, have a say in them? The answer may depend on the norms of your cultural background. If you have a multicultural team, you can’t work effectively until you’ve addressed these differences in style.

When I first moved to Europe, my new Swedish boss, Per Engman, introduced himself as a typical consensus-building manager. Conscious of my American roots, he explained that this was the best way to ensure that everyone was on board and he hoped that I would be patient with this very Swedish process.

Image: Free Digital Photos

Ever since Marty McFly rode a hoverboard in 1989’s “Back to The Future II,” people have been dreaming of making the floating device a reality. Now, a California start-up says it has it figured out.

When recruiters look through a stack of resumes for candidate screening, what is the vital information they focus upon?

I think this varies from recruiter to recruiter and also depends on the role for which you're applying. For one, I don't look through stacks of resumes anymore. I hate paper. I do everything online. But I'll highlight briefly how I personally absorb a resume.

I’m a strong believer that investors invest in people, before they invest in a business plan, or an idea. But I continue to learn that there are a host of other factors, maybe not even related to you or your business, that could keep you from getting the funding that you need. You may not have control over many of these, but it helps to know, for planning purposes, what is really happening.

This was the question asked to women participants in a workshop organised recently by Youth Business International and partners in Chennai, India.

The answer revealed some of the challenges, but also subtleties about the Indian environment for entrepreneurs. Whilst many said that they would feel pressure from their families to go for the safe option – the government worker – some preferred the riskier choice.

Image: http://www.youthbusiness.org

Whether it’s for setting up offices in new cities, doing the Sand Hill Road fundraising circuit or closing enterprise deals, you may find yourself joining the bi-coastal club unexpectedly. It isn't an easy club to join, as it can be even more challenging to get your startup off the ground and manage a team from a distance while not exactly feeling 100 percent at home in a new location.

The signs of the gap—really, a chasm—between the poor and the super-rich are hard to miss in Silicon Valley. On a bustling morning in downtown Palo Alto, the center of today’s technology boom, apparently homeless people and their meager belongings occupy almost every available public bench. Twenty minutes away in San Jose, the largest city in the Valley, a camp of homeless people known as the Jungle—reputed to be the largest in the country—has taken root along a creek within walking distance of Adobe’s headquarters and the gleaming, ultramodern city hall.

The Intelligent Community Forum today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2015. This select group of communities will now be in contention for the prestigious designation of Intelligent Community of the Year in June 2015. 

The Smart21 Communities of 2015 is comprised of five communities from the United States, four communities from Australia, four communities from Taiwan, three communities from Canada, and one community each from Brazil, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya and New Zealand.  Perhaps surprisingly, no European or Chinese community appears on this year’s list.  Thirteen communities reappeared on the list, with the ICF’s first Kazakhstani city making the Smart21.

Australia is 17th out of 143 countries on the Global Innovation Index.

What is innovation, and how can we be more innovative?

When it comes to innovation in Asia, one country stands head and shoulders above the rest, and that is Singapore. The city-state consistently ranks among the top 10 innovative countries in global surveys.

In the Global Innovation Index for 2014, a joint project by Cornell University in New York, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization, Singapore ranks seventh out of 143 countries.

“Go for it! It’s that simple. Create something great in the world. We’re all entrepreneurs today. We are the ones responsible for creating our own lives, and we can paint it anyway we want. So just go for it and make it happen!”

Trish Costello is the CEO and Founder of Portfolia, creating a social network of engaged investors around entrepreneurial ventures. Portfolia’s digital platform lets individuals and affinity groups discover and invest in private entrepreneurial companies in their areas of expertise and interest.  Companies access both money and markets as investors engage their social networks and combined buying power for the company’s competitive advantage and their mutual long-term financial gain.

The University of Iowa ushered in a new age of accelerated research in biomedicine with the formal opening on Wednesday, Oct. 15, of the $126 million John and Mary Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building (PBDB).

The 256,000-square-foot building on the UI health sciences campus will house “high-risk, high-reward” research in diabetes, deafness, and brain science as well as complex diseases affecting the heart and lungs.

Image: Dignitaries gather for the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the dedication of the Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building Wednesday, Oct. 15. Photo by Susan McClellen. 

…..before you realize it can change the world.

As an innovation junkie and geek wannabe I’ve been paying attention to 3D printing and the exploding maker movement. When I say paying attention, I mean reading about it, watching hackers and hobbyists make stuff, and wondering if there is more to the technology than the brightly colored plastic tchotchkes cluttering my desk. 3D printing really hasn’t affected me yet. That is until I recently chipped a tooth and with the bothersome pea-sized chip in hand had no choice but to visit our family friend and dentist, Dr. Robert Serinsky. Sometimes disruption has to hit you right in the mouth before you pay attention.

Britain is considering harsher punishments for online abuse.

The U.K.’s Justice Secretary Chris Graying told the The Daily Mail he will be introducing a proposal to quadruple the country’s current punishment for online abuse, from 6 months of jail to two years.

Image: Flickr user Cali4beach

People don’t want to cook, and while ordering takeout used to be the fix to that problem, now you can order chef-made food (such as from Munchery) or, better yet, order a chef to your house and temporarily live the life of the rich and famous.

La Belle Assiette, a French startup, lets folks do exactly that. The startup is announcing today that it has raised $1.7 million in seed funding to continue growing and make some key hires.

Image: Free Digital Photos

The days of extended independent living, where a robot could allow you to have a quasi-physical presence with a distant relative, talk to them, perform chores for them and possibly even have physical contact with them, is around the corner. At the Internet of Things (IoT) World Forum last week in Chicago, I caught a glimpse of the future and it isn’t far off.

Whether you like it or not, taking risks is a big part of entrepreneurship (and certainly part of life).

But being able to take risks doesn’t mean recklessness or neglecting your jump strategy until you’re at the edge of the cliff. It means being able to let something guaranteed go in exchange for the possibility of something greater down the road.

Image: Free Digital Photos

For as long as I can remember, I have been in pursuit of optimal performance and health. Even in high school, somehow, I had enough sense to know that food is information, and though we may find within ourselves the most advanced operating system in the universe, there is still much room for optimization.

The startup investing group formerly known as CommonAngels closed on a new $26.5 million fund this week and unveiled its new name: CommonAngels Ventures, a nod to its new hybrid investment model. The investment group is comprised of about 60 active Boston-area investors who collectively invest in early-stage startups in the Boston area and also provide mentorship, expertise and connections for startup founders.

Image: Kyle Alspach Maia Heymann, senior managing director at CommonAngels Ventures.