How many times have you gone to a meeting where there was barely a coherent agenda, or none at all? Or one where it wasn’t clear to most of the people in attendance what they were needed there for? Chances are there was little meaningful discussion before you all disbanded, and that most of the information you covered couldn’t fit into a simple email.

When was the last time you came across an organization with a digital department? I’m willing to bet it was quite some time ago. After all, now that digital i inherent in all aspects of business separating it as a distinct function makes little sense. It’s simply intrinsic to everything.

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you,” Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22. He could very easily have been writing about the internet. We all have stories about an innocuous conversation with a stranger on the subway about buying a new duvet only to have every single Facebook ad become tiny targeted commercials pitching the greatest duvet on the internet. While Facebook adamantly denies listening to people’s conversations, that doesn’t mean they can’t hear what you’re saying through more non-deliberate passive ways. Reply All, the tech podcast, tried to get to the bottom of it and determined that Facebook doesn’t need to eavesdrop on your conversations because they already know everything about you, including where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing, and who you were doing it with. Now, a Vice reporter decided to give it a whirl.

A new technique for estimating the mass of galaxies promises more reliable results, especially when applied to large datasets generated by current and future surveys, according to a research team led by Ekta Patel at the University of Arizona. Published in the Astrophysical Journal, the study is the first to combine the observed full three-dimensional motions of several of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies with extensive computer simulations to obtain a high-accuracy estimate for the mass of our home galaxy.

Bill Gates is giving one of his favorite books to every 2018 college graduate in the United States.

The volume is Hans Rosling’s Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft has called it “one of the most important books I’ve ever read — an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.”

Angel investors — wealthy individuals  — give seed money to startups with the potential to scale. They are also often involved in providing advice, and making introductions to other investors, customers and talent, and sit on the boards of high-growth startups.  

What do successful people do differently? For one thing, they typically wake up very early. Long before they hit the office, they’ve been up and active, performing tasks that will set them up for success throughout the day.

Regulatory and competitive uncertainties in the marketplace lead many life sciences companies to enter into collaborative arrangements with other companies to develop new drugs or medical devices. These arrangements allow for the leverage of expertise that may not have been available in-house – such as a pharmaceutical company that sees promising new science from a biotech startup – while also sharing in the costs and risks of new product development.

Last week, SSTI examined the geography of “America’s Seed Fund,” the SBIR/STTR awards, on a state-by-state basis. A look at how the more than 25,500 awards were distributed at the regional level over the five-year period from 2013 to 2017 yields additional insight. The metropolitan areas with the largest concentrations of SBIR/STTR awards include knowledge hubs with large universities and access to federal R&D, such as Boston, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. Smaller regions with a large federal R&D presence, like Huntsville, Alabama, Santa Maria, California and Dayton, Ohio also rank highly.

The bioscience industry represents the unique confluence of key characteristics for societal and economic progress—extremely high levels of innovation that are saving and improving lives through advancements in biomedical, energy and advanced food and industrial technologies; and expanding a wide mix of employment opportunities with wages and incomes that support a high standard of living. The industry thinks big and is addressing a host of global grand challenges related to diagnosing, treating and curing disease; ensuring a safe, affordable and more sustainable food supply; and leveraging biotechnologies and sustainable approaches to develop biobased fuels, chemicals and other industrial products.

Image: https://www.bio.org

New York City-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc is planning on investing $600 million in biotechnology and other emerging growth companies through Pfizer Ventures. About 25 percent of the funding will focus on neuroscience.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) today announced it plans to invest $600 million in biotechnology and other emerging growth companies through Pfizer Ventures, the company’s venture investment vehicle. In addition to increased funding, Pfizer will extend its leadership as a venture capital investor with an expanded team that leverages expertise across venture capital investing, business development, drug discovery and clinical development.

From Alexander Graham Bell to Tesla's Elon Musk, foreign-born entrepreneurs have historically been a key driver of American innovation--and their presence has grown steadily in recent decades.

According to the Entrepreneurship Rate indicator of the Inc. Entrepreneurship Index, Inc.'s proprietary benchmarked score representing the health of American startups, the percentage of entrepreneurs who are immigrants is currently close to a 20-year high. Today, they are a large reason the Inc. Entrepreneurship Index has remained relatively stable at 87 out of 100 in the first quarter of 2018, down almost imperceptibly from 88 out of 100 in the quarter prior.

Image: https://www.inc.com

There are myriad paths you can follow to success -- but if you believe in some career myths, you’ll end up at the opposite end of successful: overworked, underpaid and unhappy. What are these myths, and what should you believe instead? For the answers, we turned to two career experts who will blow the lid off what success really looks like in today’s workplace.

Fast Company has run thousands of articles on every aspect of productivity. But the one topic that comes up the most, and that really is at the root of a lot of other productivity issues like focus, decision making, and time management, is sleep. No one thinks they are getting enough, and everyone wants to offer advice on tips and tricks and routines around sleep.

Struggling to become analytics-driven? One or more of these issues is likely what’s holding your organization back.

How confident are you that your analytics initiative is delivering the value it’s supposed to?

These days, it’s the rare CEO who doesn’t know that businesses must become analytics-driven. Many business leaders have, to their credit, been charging ahead with bold investments in analytics resources and artificial intelligence (AI).

Universities and health care, “eds and meds”, have been in a huge growth cycle over the last few decades. Many communities have been pinning their hopes on anchor institutions like a university or research hospital to retool their economies for the 21st century.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

Once upon a time, the story goes, rural America thrived, a land of golden fields dotted with wholesome communities of God-fearing farmers. Then the kids — especially the bright ones — left for the city. 

The school closed, and so did the hardware store and one of the churches, and now there’s just a post office and a convenience store where there was once a thriving business district. The post office is scheduled for closure. 

That’s the narrative told by too many rural commentators, casual and otherwise. It’s a narrative that University of Minnesota Extension researcher and rural cheerleader Ben Winchester forcefully opposes. 

Image: Cory Ritterbusch and Emily Lubcke, and their kids Paul (in the red shirt) and Mark. (Courtesy of Cory Ritterbusch)

TAMPA, Fla., June 5, 2018  /PRNewswire/ -- The Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents in 2017 has been announced by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO).  Data obtained from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is used to compile the report, which highlights the vital role patents play in university research and innovation.

JUST AS ATLANTA has a booming film industry and Silicon Valley has become synonymous with technology, Boston has earned its place as America’s hometown for biomedical innovation. With a hyper-educated workforce, a cutting-edge biopharma and medical device sector, and massive investments in research and development, it’s no wonder Beantown has seen such a surge in its innovation economy over the past few years.

Image: https://commonwealthmagazine.org

Three years ago, my Vancouver-based e-commerce site, Shoes.com, was exploding with growth. In the 14 months between 2014 and 2015, we grew from 20 employees to 700 and from $3 million in annualized revenue to $300 million. Then, just as fast, it all went sideways.

That should have been a good thing, or at least a soberingly educational one. It wasn’t, really.