While creative ideas are defined as both novel and useful, novelty and usefulness often diverge, making it difficult for employees to develop creative ideas that are high in both. To explain why and when novelty and usefulness diverge and how employees may overcome this tradeoff, this article introduces the concept of the “primal mark”, which is the first bit of content that employees start with as they generate creative ideas. Due to primacy effects, the primal mark may shape the novelty and usefulness of the ideas that employees ultimately develop. To test hypotheses on how primal marks shape the creative process, I conducted two experiments in which participants started with primal marks that contained varying degrees of novelty. The results suggest that familiar primal marks lead to less novel but more useful ideas, whereas new primal marks lead to more novel but less useful ideas. However, the results also suggest a solution to this tradeoff—starting with a new primal mark and then elaborating it with familiar elements, which tends to produce ideas that are both novel and useful. The implications of these results for theory and research on creativity in organizations are discussed.

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Over the past 15 months or so, a California-based venture capital fund has been quietly raising millions of dollars for a handful of technology startups designed to make the government work more efficiently.

It’s called the GovTech Fund, and it’s the first-ever venture capital fund to specifically fundraise for startups dedicated to improving and empowering government technology.

Image: Employees at AmigoCloud, one of the GovTech Fund's portfolio companies, hard at work. // AmigoCloud

The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other research institutions closer to Greater Washington have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the ALS Association in the past few years.

Early indications are that some are likely to see even more in the future as contributions to the viral "Ice Bucket Challenge" have surpassed $113 million.

Johns Hopkins received more than $427,000 from ALSA in fiscal 2014, which ended Jan. 31, according to the nonprofit's 990 tax form. Another $23,537 went to the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins. In fiscal 2013, ALSA made six grants to the university totaling $422,274.

Image: Creative Commons Attribution/Iracaz Johns Hopkins received more than $427,000 from ALSA in fiscal 2014, which ended Jan. 31, according to the nonprofit's 990 tax form. Another $23,537 went to the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins.

As one programs any financing, as in corporate finance generally, the objective is to make 2 + 2 = 5; that is to obtain added value for the issuer. In the course of a financing, the insiders are attempting to raise the maximum amount of money for the minimum amount of equity ("equity" meaning claims on the residual values of the firm after its creditors have been satisfied). A corporation will issue at least one class of common stock because it must; many firms stop there; they pursue the simplest capital structure possible in accordance with the KISS principle ("Keep it Simple, Stupid"). However, in so doing, the corporation may close down its chances to pursue the added-value equation (2 + 2 = 5) because that equation involves matching a custom-tailored security to the taste of a given investor. The top line of the term sheet will ordinarily specify the security the VCs opt to own; the following discussion takes up the most common possibilities.

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Whether you are trying to motivate your team, close a deal with a customer, or get funding from an investor, a casual conversation is usually a waste of your valuable time. These result is a founder who is always “too busy,” but never seems to get the business done and the team moving. All real business is conversations focused on creating results.

Few aspects of corporate culture are more widely disliked and ridiculed than intra-office meetings.

Employees, for the most part, feel that they're tedious. Managers openly complain about their ineffectiveness. The worst part about meetings? Usually, they lead to more meetings.

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The University of California system said it has created UC Ventures, an independent  $250 million fund for investments in UC research-fueled enterprises, including several within healthcare.

With its 10 campuses, five medical centers and three affiliated national laboratories, as well as more than 20 incubators and accelerators, the university system said in a news release it is poised to capitalize on innovation “that is already the target of venture capitalists from around the world.” No tuition or state funding will be used.

The largest mixed-use business incubator in the Middle East has officially opened at a high-profile ceremony in Doha. The Qatar Business Incubation Centre (QBIC) -  a joint project by Qatar Development Bank and Social Development Center – is based at a 20,000 square meter site in the capital’s New Industrial Area, Doha. It will operate under the patronage of Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior of Qatar.

A top Oregon business official said today's announcement that a Portland bioscience incubator plans to expand means good things could happen within Portland's biotech community. "Continued job growth in Oregon depends on our ability to maintain and expand the startup ecosystem that helps turn innovation into economic impact," Sean Robbins, director of Business Oregon (the state's economic development agency), said in a release Monday.

Image: Cathy Cheney | Portland Business Journal The OTRADI bioscience incubator includes a communal break area where tenants can visit and share ideas. Its operators are seeking $1 million to expand the space.

Academic entrepreneurship has long been an obvious choice for patent-holding scientists, and according to the Huffington Post, the career option has also become popular among academics seeking supplemental income. In July, Kerry Ann Rockquemore, founder of an academic support service, published a series describing how established academics can think like entrepreneurs to solve problems on campus and grow side projects into new businesses, as Rockquemore herself has done. On this very blog, Jessica Langer and I have cheerfully urged academics to launch entrepreneurial enterprises, and Dr. Karen offers a how-to webinar on the subject. Recently a reader even created a hashtag in honor of our favorite academic entrepreneur.

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It was July 2006.

Yahoo! had just offered to buy Facebook for $1 billion.

Peter Thiel, Facebook's first outside investor, thought the social network's board of directors should at least consider the offer. But Mark Zuckerberg walked into the board meeting and announced, "Okay, guys, this is just a formality, it shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. We're obviously not going to sell here.'"

One of the burdens of being an entrepreneur is having to make tough decisions. But since opportunities often come disguised as decisions, it’s something business owners have to get used to if they want to experience growth.

Over the life of your business, you’ll be faced with many decisions. Many of these will have a relatively small impact on the success of your business. But some can have an enormous impact.

As entrepreneurs, we are in complete control of our destiny. We steer our own ship, and have two possible outcomes: Sailing into a glorious sunset or crashing and watching the ship sink. This scenario appeals to true entrepreneurs and scares the crap out of those that just aren’t cut out for it.

This 10-point checklist will help you confirm that you are an entrepreneur.

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The millennial generation is living in what one could call a paradox as it relates to entrepreneurship. On one hand, the millennials could be the new great generation. They are the most educated cohort in the history of the United States, they have broad exposure to entrepreneurship in higher education, and popular culture is filled with stories of their entrepreneurial successes, from the kids just getting started to millennial uber-entrepreneurs like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. On the other hand, millennials could be the new lost generation. They are heavily saddled with student debt, weak career prospects, and for all this expanded entrepreneurship exposure, most measures of entrepreneurship among younger workers are stagnant to falling.

Visitors to the Crosspointe Rolls-Royce facility in Prince George County, Virginia, have to don safety glasses and steel-tipped shoes, just as they would at any traditional factory. But then things start to look different. Past the cubicles filled with programmers and support staff sits a 140,000-square-foot factory with spotless white concrete floors, bright lighting, surprisingly quiet equipment, and very few human beings.

Opened in 2011, Crosspointe is the kind of factory that makes a good backdrop to a political speech about advanced manufacturing, as President Barack Obama knew when he arrived less than a year later. It’s global: the U.S. operations center of a U.K. company, it uses titanium forgings from Scotland, Germany, or the United States; shapes them into fan disks; and, after milling, polishing, and testing, ships them off to England, Germany, or Singapore. Once there, each disk will become one of 10,000 parts in a typical engine.

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When you’re out saving the world, it sometimes helps to imagine that you’re a superhero. The startup world is bright and exciting — full of “Pow!” and “Wham!” — but you can’t do everything on your own. In this bright and crazy comic-strip world, your investors are part of your dream team, popping up at just the right moment and kicking butt on your behalf. Finding the right venture capital fund to support your startup is like holding auditions for a loyal sidekick. You need to find a balance between brains and brawn, size and skill. You need investors who offer what your startup lacks and understand how to help you succeed.

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“Are we in a tech bubble?”

We’ve highlighted 10 charts from CB Insights that have most frequently elicited questions of a bubble.  So if you’re of the view we’re in a bubble, here’s 10 charts that should help you make your case.

Note:  We get this question multiple times weekly, and for the record, we don’t think we’re in a bubble.

Image: https://www.cbinsights.com

A leader’s job description can seem like an ever-growing list of bullet points, but the priority for CEOs, CFOs and staff managers alike is always the same: leading their team. The question is, “how?”

As a chief operating officer, my goal has been to foster excellence at my company, N2 Publishing, which is home to a range of personalities, skills and temperaments. I searched long and hard for the key to effective team management, and it is simply this: inspiration.

In 2006, at only 30 years old, Michael Reger raised US$3 million from family and friends to help found Northern Oil & Gas Inc. The young CEO wanted to use breakthrough technologies such as fracking to drill in far-flung regions of North Dakota and Montana. Although his strategy has been criticized as a move that no older, (presumably) wiser CEO would make, the gamble paid off for the fledgling company: It unearthed huge oil reserves in the previously unexplored but now booming area.

Image: Matt Palmquist is a freelance business journalist based in Oakland, Calif.

Ever since a landmark law passed in 1980, universities have been able to reap financial rewards from federally funded technologies they develop by patenting them and selling licenses to companies large and small. Some universities have hit pay dirt, such as the University of Wisconsin with its anti-clotting drug warfarin and the University of Florida with Gatorade.