Five years ago, The Economist published an article called European Entrepreneurs – Les Misérables, arguing that the continent suffered from a chronic failure to encourage ambitious entrepreneurship. In it, the editors argued that Europe’s issue is not with encouraging entrepreneurship in general, but with creating new businesses destined for growth. 

Even more interesting is that Europe (the European Union in particular) seems to have all the necessary preconditions to avoid a growth entrepreneurship deficit, including the prevalence of high-tech industries, and a well-educated workforce.

Image: http://www.ecosysteminsights.org

The people of Sweden are breaking up with cash. The number of banknotes and coins in circulation has fallen to its lowest level in three decades. Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, estimates that cash transactions made up only 15 percent of all retail transactions last year, down from 40 percent in 2010, thanks in large part to massively popular mobile payment services.

What keeps you up at night? It’s a question we’ve heard posed in nearly every panel and senior leader interview conducted in recent years, and as a result, it has become tiresome and rote. But I believe the effect of this query is more pernicious than simply boring — stay awake long enough to think it through, and you’ll recognize its essentially negative nature. The question assumes that leaders are in the habit — indeed, that they have a responsibility — to let worry pervade their every hour, even those precious few required to refresh, balance, and sustain human effort.

One of the most common complaints I hear from entrepreneurs is that they are overwhelmed by the workload and stress of starting their company. Then there are the additional challenges of balancing the demands of family and friends. Having too much on your plate can turn your dream into a nightmare.

Some people will tell you to just get a bigger plate, meaning hire some help. But with the pressures of the economy, and limited access to outside funding, we all know this isn’t always possible or appropriate. I recommend the opposite, or getting things off your plate that shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Israeli start-ups are now turning to crowdfunding platforms to get their feet off the ground, a departure from the traditional route of asking for larger sums of money from fewer investors.

From 2012 to 2017, nine equity crowdfunding platforms – two of them foreign – invested in some 145 Israeli hi-tech companies, the Israel-based IVC Research Center said in its first report on crowdfunding.

Economists and academic researchers have long been consumed with the question: “Can entrepreneurship be taught?”  I’m not too concerned with this issue as I’ve seen numerous examples and programs that successfully to teach people of all ages and backgrounds on how to be successful entrepreneurs.  But, this sterile nature-nurture debate avoids a more important question:  what is the best way to teach entrepreneurship? 

The topic of creativity tends to conjure conversations about individual geniuses whose artistic or scientific contributions have rocked history—the Ludwig Van Beethovens, the Emily Dickinsons, or the George Washington Carvers of the world.

So it’s not surprising that scholars of creativity have largely focused on the factors that fuel extraordinarily creative people.

The crypto community is once again reeling from a Chinese crackdown and trying to read the tea leaves on Beijing's next move.

China's policymaking is far from transparent, so one can only speculate how long the new restrictions on bitcoin exchanges and token sales might last.

Still, if we view China's actions in the context of its broader geopolitical intentions, we can at least gain a useful picture of what's at stake and the longer-term challenges and opportunities they create for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.

The latest view on which cities are the most innovative – from yesterday, today and tomorrow has just been shared. Cities are where innovation happens, where most ideas form and economic growth largely stems. They are also where significant problems can first emerge and where challenges are magnified. Cities grow because they are a focus for opportunity. As dynamic centres of commerce, cultural eclecticism and knowledge, they are magnets for all walks of life, frequently attracting the best minds. The world’s most innovative cities act as global catalysts for change. As more cities seek to have impact, we need to understand what drives success.

I’m often asked why I don’t take lots of pictures of places I visit. Actually, I rarely take pictures of anything in spite of having a perfectly good camera always at the ready right there in my iPhone. And the pictures cost nothing.

When I was much younger, in the age of bulky cameras loaded with film that had to be developed, I took lots and lots of pictures. It was an expensive endeavor: everything from the camera itself to developing the film was costly.

One day, years ago, while lugging my camera and assorted lenses and whatnot along on a hike through some beautiful Vermont mountains and snapping away…I had a revelation. I was capturing something, marking the moment, but I was not experiencing it.

Since the mid-2000s, organizational change management and transformation have become permanent features of the business landscape. Vast new markets and labor pools have opened up, innovative technologies have put once-powerful business models on the chopping block, and capital flows and investor demand have become less predictable. To meet these challenges, firms have become more sophisticated in the best practices for organizational change management. They are far more sensitive to and more keenly aware of the role that culture plays. They’ve also had to get much better on their follow-through.

Image: Illustration by Lo Cole - https://www.strategy-business.com

Australia's Great Barrier Reef already offers plenty of wonder, but dang, this blue hole is pretty cool.

It was apparently found by marine biologist Johnny Gaskell, who said he spotted the blue hole on Google Maps. He went to check it out with a team, despite it being far offshore, "further than our normal Reef trips."

Image: JOHNNY GASKELL  - http://mashable.com

The SoftBank Vision Fund, the largest technology investment fund in the world, has set its sights on India. In August, the fund added another Indian tech firm to its growing portfolio: It spent $2.5 billion to buy a 20% stake in Flipkart, India’s largest online retailer and its most valuable startup. The deal is the biggest private investment so far in India’s consumer technology sector — and the fund is just getting started. Indian firms will comprise “a big part” of its investments, said Vision Fund CEO Rajeev Misra in a recent media interview. “We are just beginning.”

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- If owning a home is the American dream, the Silicon Valley dream is to build a startup that makes you a billionaire.

But that's not the dream of the entrepreneurs taking the stage to pitch their products Tuesday evening at Google's offices in San Francisco. While most startups are founded with the hope of making millions, these founders' big hope is to make a difference.

Fast Forward is a Silicon Valley startup accelerator, explained co-founder Kevin Barenblat, "where we invest money, mentoring and resources into early stage entrepreneurs. But our entrepreneurs are nonprofits."

Two heads are better than one, but there can only be one top dog—and for good reason. When high-ranking leaders work together, turnover and worsened organizational performance often result, finds a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management. But the problem isn’t ego; it’s paranoia.

In a set of experiments, Lindred L. Greer, associate professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Emma Y. Zhoa, postdoctoral fellow at Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, examined the kinds of struggles that happen in high-powered versus low-powered teams.

Silicon Valley’s reputation is taking its worst battering ever. And it’s probably not just a temporary dip in esteem. I believe that like the media, the legal industry, the financial industry, and the government, the business of technology will remain generally unpopular with the public.

It’s tempting to blame tech leaders behaving badly. But that’s not the only factor. Globalization and the culture wars are facts of modern life. Resentment from the 99% will continue to grow as the gap between the minority rich and the rest of the population widens. Technology is growing increasingly complicated and powerful–and people aren’t happy about it.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

Manufacturing companies are fast realizing that data and analytics can help tremendously in improving operational efficiencies and business processes, and in transforming business models — and they are investing heavily in it, says Jon Sobel, co-founder and CEO of Sight Machine, an analytics company focused on the manufacturing industry.

In a conversation with Knowledge@Wharton, Sobel discusses the changing dynamics in the industry and explains why the focus of solution providers has shifted from offering local solutions to enterprise-level insights. Following is an edited transcript of the conversation. 

Business is a tempting endeavor, and the road to success is lined with powerful distractions. It seems that digital health and many of its participants have discovered this. I'm not going to name names here, but I'm sure that many come to mind.

The false profits, failed profits, style over substance, and even a Steve Jobs wannabe here and there are all standing in line for fame — or is there another darker and more sinister end-point on this journey? It seems to me that our quest for technological advances might just be encumbered by a bit of humanity. From the boardroom to the jail cell, those seven famous sins seem to slither their way into digital health.

In 2016, Intel Capital and Google Ventures were the most active corporate venture capital (CVC), according to a CB Insights report, participating in almost 50 investments each.

They were also the first to launch, Intel Capital in 1991 and Google Ventures in 2009, followed by Salesforce Ventures and Comcast Ventures in 2014 and 2011 respectively.

The Singapore government has announced three initiatives to spur innovation through tech transfer, talent development and smart capital. This includes the launch of an enhanced IP framework, the National IP Protocol, to encourage public agencies to work closely with enterprises, who can develop them into products and services that create economic and social value for Singapore.

The National IP Protocol will grant public agencies the flexibility to grant exclusive licences, non-exclusive licences, and even assign IP to industry – with the end-goal of facilitating commercialization. It will also continue building the government’s community of IP experts skilled in taking publicly-funded innovations to market.