I may be a bit old-fashioned, but I have always looked at a business first for its potential ability to be self-sustaining, and provide reasonable profits to feed my family, my lifestyle, and my retirement. Then secondly, I look for it to be a business I can enjoy, with the potential to change the world. Today, these top priorities of many entrepreneurs seem to have reversed.

I used to think this purpose phenomenon was primarily associated with Gen Y (Millennials), who grew up in a world of plenty. Now I see it also in Boomers, like Bill Gates, who have the longevity to enjoy a second career, this time prioritizing the purpose they may have sought in their youth. Even Generation X leaders, like Elon Musk, seem to be focusing more on purpose.

Ralph Chow, Director at Hong Kong Trade Development Council, says a central location in Asia and a free economy are reasons why Hong Kong has a conducive environment for entrepreneurs.

Worries, conflicts and demands in relationships with friends, family and neighbors may contribute to an earlier death suggests a new Danish study.

“Conflicts, especially, were associated with higher mortality risk regardless of whom was the source of the conflict,” the authors write. “Worries and demands were only associated with mortality risk if they were related to partner or children.”

Chief marketing officers and chief information officers aren’t playing nicely. And that fracture is causing the emergence of a whole new C-suite player, the chief digital officer.

“The main reason for the emergence of the CDO position at all is the disconnect between the CMO office and the CIO office,” Tim Bourgeois, executive editor of Chief Digital Officer told me last week.

Numerous studies have shown that Americans of European origin have a more independent, and Asians have a more interdependent, social orientation, as measured by questionnaires asking about agreement with such statements as “I feel it is important for me to act as an independent person.” But this social-orientation difference is about 6 times greater among people from both backgrounds who are carriers of two particular alleles of a dopamine-receptor gene known as DRD4, according to a team led by Shinobu Kitayama of the University of Michigan. The alleles appear to predispose people to acquire behaviors that are considered socially desirable, the researchers say.

All of us know that you have to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur. Launching, let alone sustaining, a new enterprise can be challenging along almost every dimension − mentally, emotionally, and often financially. Historically, this reality has been even more sobering in the health care sector, where the typical hardships experienced by any start-up have been amplified by numerous industry-specific challenges: Extensive regulation, entrenched players with a strong grip on the status quo, confusing paths to entry, and an even more opaque path to payment have made health care a particularly treacherous territory for entrepreneurs.

But ongoing changes in policy, technology, and industry culture are now creating unprecedented opportunities for those with just the right kind of crazy. In our group at Merck, we are witnessing this opportunity firsthand as we collaborate with start-ups in the areas of digital health, big data, and health IT.

Radical changes are needed in finance, taxation and public procurement in order to increase employment in the small business sector, Small Firms Association (SFA) chairman AJ Noonan has said.

Speaking in advance of the SFA annual national conference, which takes place in Dublin today, Mr Noonan said small businesses are starved of working capital and long-term finance.

Angel investors in Canada collectively invested over $89 million in Canada in 2013, with groups in Central Canada investing the bulk ($70 million) of that money. Meanwhile, Canadian accelerator programs reported attracting more than $31.1 million in angel money, venture capital (VC) and government funding.

The new data comes from the National Angel Capital Organization’s (NACO) report entitled “2013 Report on Angel Investing Activity in Canada: Accelerating the Asset Class”.

Since the beginning stages of e-government in the 1990s, one of the promises has been that transforming government through IT would lead to not only increased convenience for users of government services, but also cost savings for government.

But while we have gotten more convenience and higher performance, in many cases, the cost savings have not accompanied them. With all levels of government facing budget crunches, governments will have to find ways to cut costs without cutting services — in other words, boost productivity.

Want to get more done? Plenty of productivity gurus will tell you to check email less frequently. In The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss suggests checking email just twice a day as part of the quest for a more reasonable, productive life.

Since I’m cranking toward a book deadline right now, I thought I’d give that advice a shot. For a week, I checked email just twice during the work day, once at 10:30 a.m. and once in mid-afternoon. The results weren’t life changing, but I did learn a lot about how I work and how other people work with me.

If you want to do more, learn more, and gain more, you might want to think like surfer.

Surfing is a 1,000-year-old sport, and 20 years ago the biggest wave ever ridden was 25 feet. Today surfers push into waves 100 feet tall. Or consider snowboarding: In 1992, the biggest gap ever cleared was 40 feet; today that jump is 230 fe

The Biotechnology Industry Organization today issued the following statement in response to Senator Patrick Leahy’s announcement that he will remove current patent legislation from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s agenda for now:

“BIO applauds Chairman Leahy’s decision to remove the controversial patent bill from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s agenda until greater stakeholder consensus can be achieved.

Reading the headlines, you might think that the most urgent question about national success in innovation and growth is whether the U.S. or China should get the gold medal. The truth is: Germany wins hands down.

Germany does a better job on innovation in areas as diverse as sustainable energy systems, molecular biotech, lasers, and experimental software engineering. Indeed, as part of an effort to learn from Germany about effective innovation, U.S. states have encouraged the Fraunhofer Society, a German applied-science think tank, to set up no fewer than seven institutes in America.

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There is a saying that there are only three types of people in the world: those who watch what happened, those who wonder what happened and those who make things happen. 

Entrepreneurs fall into the last category, of course. They are change agents, people who don’t see the world as it is but as it could be. Entrepreneurs don’t sit on the sidelines and wish for a better world. Rather they go out and create it. They don’t wait for things to be different. They are the difference.

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Five years ago, the GrowFL Economic Gardening® (GrowFL) program was created at the University of Central Florida. Between the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years, it has helped create nearly 3,745 net new jobs in the state of Florida, which also equates to $587 million added to Florida’s economy and nearly $20 million more in state and local tax revenues.

These figures are part of a new Florida economic impact study that credits GrowFL’s influence as a major job booster for second-stage companies, those that have 10 to 99 employees and between $1 million and $50 million in annual revenue.

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“Software is eating hardware.”

That might sound counterintuitive given all the innovative hardware plays in the mix today — from Android Wear, SmartThings, Sproutling and Nest to the hotly anticipated iWatch. But Adam MacBeth, an advocate of the software-first approach, would argue that those products are only as compelling as the end-to-end experience that sets them alight.

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Big-city high-rises often have exercise/pool areas that rival the best-equipped health clubs. I like to use the one in my building as a study. Late one evening, relaxing in the hot tub after a day of constant business activity, I was joined by two young professionals who were having a discussion – actually a debate – on the topic of ‘engagement’* surveys. One is a psych major turned HR manager and the other a product manager with a degree in marketing. I’m going to call them ‘Psych’ and ‘Product.’

Twitter. Dropbox. Zynga. These name brand startups are part of the revitalization of previously underdeveloped and “affordable” neighborhoods in San Francisco.

However, if you are not one of the aforementioned startups, you probably can’t afford to blow through hundreds or even tens of thousands of dollars on annual rent (especially after hiring your developer and engineering teams). While the experts debate if we are in the midst of another tech bubble, it’s never a bad idea to take a more organic approach to growth and to analyze how efficiently you are managing your cash burn rate.

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In an important piece of research recently released, two smart analysts have put numbers to what many of us active in economic development in New York State have long been saying: there exists a deep, fundamental mismatch between the stylistic preferences of regionally based venture-capital firms and the kinds of innovation emerging from the state’s university R&D community.

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Whether you are a front-line supervisor or C-suite executive, navigating the uncertainty of leading people in a rapidly changing world can be incredibly nerve-racking. Decisions are rarely black and white and not everyone will be happy with you all the time. That said, whether you succeed or fail as a leader is up to you. In my work with managers and executives over the years, I’ve found that the first step in becoming a successful leader at any level is being true to yourself and relying on a solid foundation of clearly articulated values.

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