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.
It happens to everyone. You have a colleague at work who wants things his way or the highway. Or you have a client who’s never happy. There is no escaping difficult people at work or in business. More challenging still is the fact that you’re not likely to say or do anything to make them change. All you can do is be professional and follow these steps to dealing with difficult people.
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Last week, 10-year-old entrepreneur Vivienne Harr stole the show at the National Small Business Week kickoff event at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters. Harr, founder of the charitable lemonade company Make A Stand, shared her "lemonade lessons" with the crowd of small-business owners and advocates.
Image: http://www.businessinsider.com - Make A Stand founder Vivienne Harr.
The Angel Capital Association (ACA) today launched a campaign to protect startups from a devastating loss of angel capital if the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) increases the financial qualifications for accredited investors. The "Protect Angel Funding" initiative is a call to action to the startup ecosystem—from angel investors to economic development organizations and entrepreneurs – to urge regulators to preserve the definition of who qualifies as an accredited angel investor. Protecting this important investment class is critical to preserving the economic fuel it provides to startups and job creation. If changes proposed by "investor protection" organizations are enacted by the SEC, nearly 60 percent of angel investors would be eliminated.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 requires the SEC to review the definition of an accredited investor in 2014 to determine whether it should be modified "for the protection of investors, in the public interest and in light of the economy." Currently, an individual accredited investor is defined as someone with $1 million in net worth excluding the value of a primary residence, or annual income of $200,000. At issue is whether these financial thresholds should be arbitrarily raised based on inflation.
When Peter Deng emerged from Stanford’s d.school — armed with Post-It Notes and the desire to do something meaningful — he knew he didn’t want a typical job. He wanted something as fluid and flexible as the academic environment he was leaving, where ideas were championed and given space to thrive.
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While failure is something we typically strive to avoid, Sarah Lewis describes it as a necessary gift. In her new book,The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, not only does she position failure as something we should embrace, she argues that it encourages innovation.
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Every day, millions of people don uncomfortable clothes and drive to vast buildings full of drab desks and chairs. They do not make anything with their hands in these buildings. They do not direct machines to make things. Instead, they largely email and call people in other similar buildings for eight hours, then repeat the morning’s drive in reverse. Chances are, you are one of these people.
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SAN FRANCISCO — A statistical model is not a product — yet.
Data nerds might be incredibly good at creating fancy data models and tools, but if they want to take those skills and create a company, they need to make sure they build an actual product that actual people want to use, says Scott Rainey, a partner at Redpoint Ventures.
Image: Michael O'Donnell/VentureBeat
Write one. Your resume checks off key words and gets your information in front of someone, but it’s not enough to get you an interview. Use the power of the cover letter for your own good (or evil, if you’re applying for a job selling drugs or weapons to kids).
Image: http://www.fastcodesign.com
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently handed out advanced manufacturing technology grants to 19 U.S. universities and nonprofits as part of ongoing efforts to strengthen manufacturing and innovation output and performance through technology roadmapping.
The grants, which range from $378,900 to $540,000 for up to two years, are the first presented by one of NIST’s newest programs. The Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia (AMTech), launched last year, is a competitive grants program to create or strengthen existing consortia, driven by industry, to address “high-priority research challenges impeding the growth of advanced manufacturing in the United States” (i.e., bridge the gap between R&D and technology).
Image: NIST handed out 19 advanced manufacturing technology planning grants to support technology roadmapping efforts in the U.S. Credit: Chrysler Group; Flickr; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Here's a short clip from a recent Business Journals webinar on “The Secrets to Attracting and Hiring the Best Talent," featuring The Muse CEO Kathryn Minshew and former Microsoft executive Dana Manciagli.
Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Google + Email Print The Business Journals recently hosted a webinar titled “The Secrets to Attracting and Hiring the Best Talent." In this short clip, the panelists talk about how to target millennials when recruiting and hiring.
Image: http://www.bizjournals.com
Like weeds in a green lawn, people who are “different” — whether behaviorally or neurologically — don’t always fit into standard job categories. But if you can arrange working conditions to align with the abilities of such individuals, they can add significant value.
Image Courtesy of nirots / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Officials from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recently told SciDev.Net that they have found high-level policymakers from many nations have a poor understanding of how best to support innovation in firms.
Image: Flickr/Eskinder Debebe/United Nations
Thomas Edison and the Cult of Sleep Deprivation
The Atlantic
Sleep no more! Thomas Edison doth murder sleep. The inventor claimed he slept just four hours a night and apparently forced the same standard on his employees, who responded by falling asleep a lot. “At first the boys had some difficulty in keeping awake, and would go to sleep under stairways and in corners,” Edison said. “We employed watchers to bring them out, and in time they got used to it.” The no-sleep thing became part of the Edison mystique, Olga Khazan writes in The Atlantic, with biographies describing his 4 a.m. interviews of job candidates and his catnaps on lab benches between marathon work sessions. Sleep deprivation was seen as manly. Psychologists began promoting the idea that people didn’t really need much sleep after all. But I guess it’s logical that the inventor of the incandescent light bulb would consider sleep to be his ultimate competition. –Andy O'Connell
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The ten social enterprise startups in FastFWD, the unusual Philadelphia based super-group accelerator focused on public safety, just held their pitch day at an Investors’ Circle conference.
The program is also accepting applications for the next 12-week session, set to start Sept. 11.
Image: Philadelphia City Hall (Photo credit: michaelrighi)
There has been an increase in startup quality due to the now-legendary improvements in process espoused by Steve Blank, Alex Osterwalder, and their lean startup principles.
Yet legions of angel and seed investors have not upgraded their knowledge and kept pace with these massive shifts. Investors need to change their investing practices and incorporate the lean startup paradigm. Here’s why:
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Even though companies want innovation, resistance to it is strong. After all, innovative ideas, by their very nature, are risky. They are likely to cause some form of change, and people are naturally fearful of change. A new disruptive innovation might be seen as a threat to someone’s job or their status in the organization. People worry that a highly innovative project might steal away some of their resources in terms of budget and manpower.
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The right mental approach can make or break any endeavor. If you’re attending the wedding of your wife’s (annoying) cousin, and you go in grumbling, you definitely won’t have fun. But if you’re determined to enjoy yourself, you’ll make the most of that open bar and cheesy music and have a wonderful night out with the love of your life. It’s all about your attitude. Crowdfunding is no exception to this rule. It can provide a plethora of benefits, but only if you approach it with the right mindset.
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As a mentor to startups and new entrepreneurs, I continue to hear the refrain that business plans are no longer required for a new startup, since investors never read them anyway. People cite sources like this BusinessWeek story last year “Real Entrepreneurs Don’t Write Business Plans,” or even my own article a while back, “10 Reasons Not To Write A Business Plan First.”
Our current tax code is broken, and it is hurting families and hurting our ability to create good-paying jobs in this country. Last week, we learned that the economy grew 0.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014. One-tenth of a percent growth is unacceptable. Hardworking families and small businesses are struggling in this economy, wages are flat and businesses aren’t growing.
Beyond having the dubious distinction of the highest corporate rate in the world, the United States is also the only country that allows important pieces of its tax code, like the research and development tax credit, to expire on a regular basis. Businesses cannot grow and invest when the tax code is riddled with instability and uncertainty.
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MENLO PARK, Calif. — Apple once owned it, but officials there now cringe at its utterance. Nearly every tech company chants it, as if in a rote-like trance. Reporters roll their eyes.
Innovation is a simple enough word, though it's tossed around in high-tech circles as much as paradigm, synergy, pivot and disruptive.
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