The weekly meeting is a staple in many offices. It’s the way new managers learn to lead teams. But is it worthwhile? Weekly meetings have their defenders and haters. Here are three arguments for and against them, and how to manage them if they’re bound to happen anyway.

THE CASE FOR THE WEEKLY MEETING Meetings ensure communication. Every team has items that must be discussed. Standing meetings ensure there’s a time and place. Jenni Levy, a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania doctor, instituted a regular meeting when she was the lead physician in a three-physician practice.

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I really hate the word pivot. It implies a simple, carefree flip-of-a-switch that occurs at a single point in time. In contrast, the changes our company have made in our short 1.5-year lifespan have been complex, nerve-wracking, evolutionary processes.

Unfortunately, the word has become one of those trite buzzwords that you overhear in coffee shops all over Silicon Valley and beyond (thanks to Silicon Valley, the HBO show).

Image: http://www.doxiq.com/ 

Two hours into a recent board meeting, I was fried. My eyes had glazed over, and I found myself wondering: Why do some board meetings leave me energized while others suck the very life out of me? I did the math and came to the sobering conclusion that, in the past fifteen years, I've spent thousands of hours in meetings like that one.

Image: sxc.hu 

In What Is Life? (1944), one of the fundamental questions the physicist Erwin Schrödinger posed was whether there was some sort of “hereditary code-script” embedded in chromosomes. A decade later, Crick and Watson answered Schrödinger’s question in the affirmative. Genetic information was stored in the simple arrangement of nucleotides along long strings of DNA.

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Do you feel tranquilly calm when surrounded by green fields and blue skies? Or perhaps slightly alarmed when staring at a red stop sign?

Color has been known to have a powerful psychological impact on people’s behavior and decisions, and this knowledge has been harnessed all too well by designers and marketers alike. Color can often be the sole reason someone purchases a product, where 93% of buyers focus on visual appearance and almost 85% claim color to be their primary reason for purchase!

It is well established that, on average, people with college degrees earn quite a bit more over the course of their careers than do those without. That earnings premium is one of higher education’s major selling points. A slew of studies—especially recently—have sought to quantify the return on investment, examining annual or lifetime earnings by attainment level or subject studied.

Image: Courtesy Douglas Webber The earnings premium for college graduates is well established, but a degree isn't the only difference between graduates and others. Douglas Webber, an assistant professor of economics at Temple U., delves into other factors that matter. 

President Obama has declared Wednesday the first ever National Day of Making, to honor and encourage America's innovators, disruptors and entrepreneurs. "I call upon all Americans to observe this day with programs, ceremonies, and activities that encourage a new generation of makers and manufacturers to share their talents and hone their skills," he announced in his presidential proclamation solidifying the event. 

Image: via White House 

At least some astronauts who spend six months aboard the International Space Station come back to Earth with stiffer arteries than before their flights, a new study reveals.

Stiff arteries in seniors here on Earth can lead to higher blood pressure and, potentially, problems with blood flow to the brain. But no blood pressure changes in astronauts have been noted so far, scientists said.

Image: During Expedition 35 in 2013, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield performs an experiment by the University of Waterloo's Richard Hughson called BP Reg, that examines the risk of fainting for astronauts. - NASA  

Most of the time, when London-based private equity firm Sovereign Capital administers an emotional intelligence test on a prospective hire, the results are not too dramatic. “We look at it as a tool that helps us get our hiring decisions a little bit more right,” says Matthew Owen, a partner there. “For most candidates, the results are pretty vanilla — we see where (applicants are) stronger and where they are weaker. But every now and then, we get some incredibly useful insights.”

 

Ever since he published The Innovator’s Dilemma, in 1997, Clayton Christensen’s theory of “disruptive innovation” has been gospel in management thinking. It holds that established industries tend to be blindsided and then overthrown by upstart new technologies that are simpler and less costly and, at first, not as good. For instance, personal computers, as opposed to big, lumbering mainframes, or discount stores as opposed to old-fashioned department stores.

Medtronic Inc., an active acquirer and financial backer of new medical technologies, has moved its tax domicile overseas with the $42.9 billion acquisition of rival Covidien PLC, a deal that Medtronic says will free up billions of dollars that can be more easily and flexibly deployed to technologies being developed in the U.S.

But investors in these U.S.-based technologies see things differently. The merger means that the medical-technology industry is consolidating, several venture capitalists said, which takes options off the table for young companies struggling to bring new treatments onto the market.

Image: Medtronic headquarters in Minneapolis Bloomberg News 

Today Google launched Web Starter Kit, a download that consists of all the templates and tooling developers need to create sites that function on any device and any display.  

Today’s Internet users don’t have just one device. They prefer as physical keyboard for their PCs but they want as touch screens on mobile. These days, no two screen sizes are alike. Users expect the same website to perform differently depending on the device by which it is accessed. 

Image: http://readwrite.com/ 

Startups are hard. You’ve heard that a million times. Those that we survive with become family. It’s something you can’t know unless you’ve ever been in the trenches. Working hard together at a big company just isn’t the same.

This week’s kerfuffle over Yo centered on many facets, but none got more attention than the nascent startup’s $1.2 million in venture capital funding.

The reaction to this investment across the web came in several flavors. Founders complained that their own startups created far more value for society than an app that essentially acts as a doorbell, and yet, they had not received any venture capital funding. Another strain of incredulity focused on the investors themselves, who must have either been stupid or crazy to invest in such a “useless” product.

Image: http://techcrunch.com/ 

PHOENIX — Just a one-hour plane hop from Silicon Valley in California, a growing community of app developers, programmers and entrepreneurs here are trying to get a little more sunshine for their tech ideas.

The "Silicon Desert," as locals call it, is thriving, with start-ups taking advantage of the lower cost of living, tight-knit community and talent from one of the nation's largest schools — Arizona State University — to help sprout new tech ideas.

Image: Jefferson Graham 

Tim Draper, the founding partner of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) venture capital firm, recently won an award from SVForum for being a Silicon Valley visionary at its annual Visionary Awards. (His father, Bill Draper, by the way, previously won the same honor for being a pioneering Silicon Valley venture capitalist.) Draper used the opportunity to talk about his ballot initiative to divide California into six different states.

Image: Business Insider - Tim Draper 

Long famous for its imitation skills, China is now adding innovation to its portfolio.  In fact there are several specific features, on both the supply and demand sides, that give China an edge in innovation even when stacked up against developed countries.

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The winners of the iPhone Photography Awards don't need fancy camera equipment to get the shot. Just their digital devices, a keen eye, and, you know, a perfect moment.

Not everybody can be Annie Leibovitz, and that's fine. Plenty of people are making do by applying a keen eye for stunning visuals to an iPhone screen. And there's a contest where these folks are recognized for doing just that.

Image: 1ST PLACE -- 2014 PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR © JULIO LUCAS, BRADENTON, FL UNITED STATES 

I’m puzzled. Maybe you can help me figure out this conundrum that keeps poking at my mind’s eye. It’s seriously driving me nuts. I just can’t seem to make sense of how people claiming to be aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders mostly follow the pack.

Think about it. All that online searching for inspiration, business ideas, social media and personal branding tips, advice on personal improvement and productivity, the lowdown on how others made it big, not to mention other people’s personal habits and favorite apps.

Body language is older and more innate for us as humans than even language or facial expressions. That’s why people born blind can perform the same body language expressions as people who can see. They come pre-programmed with our brains.

I’ve always been incredibly fascinated with body language and how it helps us achieve our goals in life. The power of body language is probably best described by Amy Cuddy’s famous quote:

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