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.
Smartphone cameras may be used for selfies more than any other purpose, but those selfies can now reveal a lot more than our levels of vanity. By taking photos of our own bodies – including body parts (and bodily fluids) – patients and physicians are now getting a far more detailed view of our well-being, tracking our health, making diagnoses, and so much more.
I used to be an extremely disorganized person.
Friends complained I was “flaky” because I was often a no-show--no excuse other than I simply forgot.
One of my German professors even had a running bit with the rest of the class whenever we had an off-campus excursion. It went a little something like, “Wo ist Rachel?” (“Where is Rachel”) to which the class would reply in unison, “Keine Ahnung!” (No idea!”)
They say when speaking that you should repeat your message at least three times. Here’s the first: Bayh-Dole has succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. It was not created to benefit universities but the American taxpayer. You are the stewards of a public trust and have an obligation to defend and protect the law in the same way as the Founders of AUTM protected it for you.
Predictive analytics are often used in strategic workforce planning (SWP), to forecast and close the gap between the future talent you’ll have versus the future talent you’ll need. Now, powerful analytical tools are driving that organizational calculus. Those tools predict who will leave and when, where talent will be plentiful and scarce, and how talent will move between roles. But there’s a catch: Very precisely matching talent to “the future” is of little value if that future doesn’t happen. For example, it can take five years or more to develop today’s high potentials into leadership roles. Can you know today the five-year future for which you should prepare them? Increasingly, you cannot. Yet, because HR strategy typically reacts to organization strategy, SWP often assumes a single future as its goal.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Knowledge and innovation generated at universities can lead to the creation of high-impact spin-off businesses. Whether it is through the licensing of intellectual property, partnerships or other informal arrangements, the tech transfer process can play a critical role in shaping new industries and regional economic development.
According to a 2014 international survey by Deloitte, 50% of millennials want to work for a business with ethical practices. The findings suggest that many within the generation believe the success of a business should be measured by more than just profits — including how the company contributes to improving society as a whole.
Image: FLICKR, KATE TER HAAR
Oladapo Ajayi is a former financial analyst for a leading asset management firm and founded his own fashion start-up business, Orange Culture, straight out of school when he was just a teenager. Now he is on the MBA trail, looking for business schools in Europe that will foster an entrepreneurial spirit and help him raise investment from venture capitalists.
His fledgling fashion company is successful, but since he took a step back into a non-executive role to pursue other interests, he has been pondering how to pay for an expensive business school program.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
I've just finished reviewing 180 business pitches for muru-D and will look at another 100+ for Startmate over the next few weeks.
I've whipped together my thoughts on the written applications submitted:
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Boston may soon be floating in innovation districts. Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced on Friday the formation of a “Neighborhood Innovation District Committee” with one purpose: to expand innovation within the city of Boston. A news release states the Neighborhood Innovation District Committee "will seek to identify policies, practices, and infrastructure improvements to support the development of innovation districts throughout the city."
Image: W. Marc Bernsau | Boston Business Journal Boston Mayor Marty Walsh with one of two "data dashboards" he uses to keep tabs on the city.
I was reading Danielle Morrill’s blog post today on whether one’s “Startup Burn Rate is Normal.” I highly recommend reading it. I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. Danielle goes through some commentary from Bill Gurley, Fred Wilson and Marc Andreessen about burn rate and then goes on to discuss her own burn rate and others publicly weigh in.
Google is daring, creative, and by multiple accounts an enviable place to work—but is the way it’s run a model for other companies to follow? After all, quintessentially Googley practices like giving people free time to pursue projects are easier to follow if you enjoy very large profits from a product that has remained unbeatable for a decade.
Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt—now the executive chairman—and longtime Google executive Jonathan Rosenberg argue that Google’s management practices are in fact generalizable to any company that employs what they call “smart creative people.”
Image: Jonathan Rosenberg and Eric Schmidt - http://www.technologyreview.com
Will advances in neuroscience move reasonable people to abandon the idea that criminals deserve to be punished? Some researchers working at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy think the answer is yes. Their reasoning is straightforward: if the idea of deserving punishment depends upon the idea that criminals freely choose their actions, and if neuroscience reveals that free choice is an illusion, then we can see that the idea of deserving punishment is nonsense. As Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen speculated in a 2004 essay: “new neuroscience will undermine people’s common sense, libertarian conception of free will and the retributivist thinking that depends on it, both of which have heretofore been shielded by the inaccessibility of sophisticated thinking about the mind and its neural basis.”
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Starting and running a company is a team effort. Yes, it takes a leader (entrepreneur), but you can’t do it alone, without a team. Maybe only you and a co-founder comprise the team at first, to provide key skills, back you up, and test your ideas. As the startup grows, the team has to be able to really push you in making growth decisions, rather than you pulling them along.
I’ve spent almost two weeks writing this. At first it was too personal, then it became too anecdotal, so I’ve settled on a list of things which I think are concrete lessons I can impart, and which are easily digestible. Hope you find it useful! Ecommerce is hard The startup world is largely populated by tech people. Or led by tech people. I think that ecommerce went through a phase where technology was a barrier to entry, but that phase is over and it’s now becoming a barrier to growth, markets and customer data.
Can creativity be taught? Here are insights from Professors Jacob Goldenberg, Rom Shrift and others on this seemingly elusive topic (from Knowledge@Wharton, August 27, 2014):
“I think there are individual differences in our propensity to be creative,” says Wharton marketing professor Rom Schrift, “but having said that, it’s like a muscle. If you train yourself, and there are different methods for doing this, you can become more creative. There are individual differences in people, but I would argue that it is also something that can be developed, and therefore, taught.”
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
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om Reed’s Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act, or “RAMI,” passed the House today with a strong showing of support from Members on both sides of the aisle. Reed has been a tireless advocate for U.S. manufacturing through his bill to create manufacturing innovation hubs across the country and has spent the last year meeting with district manufacturers for input and educating Members of Congress on the need to stay on the cutting edge of manufacturing in America.
It has been more than 10 years since Dan DeSantis, Neil Adelman and I started BlueBridge Networks (www.bluebridgenetworks.com). It was my first foray into the life of a tech entrepreneur - long hours, low pay, genuine camaraderie and a common goal of building a data-center company at time when no one knew what it was and why they needed one for their data.
Startup companies are always challenging, especially during a time when there was very little support for them.
In my column last week, we looked at the significant, indeed in some ways radical, shifts occurring in the world of work. Fueled mostly (albeit not entirely) by technology, the decoupling of work from a desk at an office means that we are now free to work anywhere, anytime – for good and ill.
That we all work when, where and how we want is not news, of course. Neither is it news that the not-so-great recession transformed work and business, too. Large corporations realized that they didn't need to keep all those full-time employees with the attendant healthcare costs and other benefits when they could get most of what they wanted by hiring part-timers and independent contractors.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
For once, let’s pretend appearance matters more than performance. If you are fashionable, shouldn’t it reflect in your gadgets? Here’s a list of 15 fashionable gadgets that will incite jealousy in friend and foe alike. Not only are these gadgets fashionable, they perform great too.
1. Motorola Moto X (2014)
This may be true, but small business owners are expected to “hold the helm” through both calm and rough seas. So when should you lead and when should you manage? As people, we need leaders. Whether it’s the President of the United States, a religious leader or the “head” of your family – we look to leaders to guide us through difficult or uncertain times, to set an example, and to demand a high level of ethics from those around us.
image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
