In the business world it’s sometimes easy to overlook the fact that we are all human with our own unique ambitions, challenges and capabilities. But why should that matter to us in purchasing who deal with numbers every day?

Procurement specializes in contracting across the supply chain, managing vendors and providing a template for business success and a more sustainable future. We have to take a more human-centric approach to the way we run our businesses and tackle major global challenges if we are to achieve those ambitions and collectively make a difference.

Why do some innovations succeed while others fail? How can we predict which will succeed and when? These aren’t easy questions to answer but there are some principles that help us understand what success is and isn’t.

Let’s begin at the point where an innovation has been developed, has found some early adopters and has made its first tentative steps towards commercialization. To move beyond this initial phase, an innovation must be “good enough” to meet the needs of a particular market.

“Widespread and severe”—that’s how climate scientists from around the world have described the impacts of climate change in a new United Nations report published today. The report’s findings further affirm warnings scientists like me have been sharing for decades. More than three decades ago, during a congressional hearing on a hot July 1988 afternoon in Washington, D.C., Dr. James E. Hansen told our elected officials that it was already possible to detect a warming of the planet due primarily to an increase in carbon dioxide concentrations from fossil fuel burning.

Knowing all too well how hard it is to start a single new business, I’ve always wondered how several well-known entrepreneurs, including Richard Branson and Elon Musk, have managed to successfully lead dozens of startups to success, and thrive on the process. These special people are called serial entrepreneurs, because they have figured out how to do it over and over again.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Many of us believe that unexpected events or shocks create fertile conditions for major life and career changes by sparking us to reflect about our desires and priorities. That holds true for the coronavirus pandemic. A bit over a year ago, when I asked people in an online poll to tell me how the pandemic had affected their plans for career change, 49% chose this response: “It has given me downtime to rest and/or think.”

Image: HBR Staff

People have long made the choice between writing in blue ink or black ink. But now, we have another: Black ink . . . or super black ink?

Artist Stuart Semple has developed what he believes to be the world’s blackest black ink. He calls it Blink, and you can buy it for $16 a bottle. Intended for calligraphy, pen art, or just a very impressive handwritten letters, Blink brings a super high contrast pigment to a medium anyone can handle.

Image: courtesy Stuart Semple

There will never be enough early-stage venture capital (VC) to satisfy the world’s venture hopes. But these hopes may be misguided by the myths—and the hype—of VC.

VC has many holes that need to be plugged:

·     VCs finance very few and succeed on fewer. Although VCs are very selective and only finance about 100/100,000 ventures, they fail on about 80. Only about one is a home run (HR).

I have always assumed that strong work relationships are the key to productivity, as well as you feeling good and having fun at work. Yet, in my role as advisor to small businesses, I find many people who still believe some old myths that work should never be fun, and create a self-fulfilling prophecy that takes down their sense of well-being, as well as their company results.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Venture capitalists are chatting this week about a recent piece from The Information titled “The End of Venture Capital as We Know It.” As with nearly everything you read, the article in question is a bit more nuanced than its headline. Its author, Sam Lessin, makes some pretty good points. But I don’t fully agree with his conclusions, and want to talk about why.

Most entrepreneurs avoid setting up a board of directors for their new business unless or until they sign up an investor who demands a seat on the board. That implies that a board of directors has no value to the founder, and is just another burden that to be assumed for the privilege of attracting outside investors or going public. In my view, nothing could be further from the truth.

The latest surge in Covid-19 cases generated by the Delta variant is throwing a wrench into plans to have employees return to the office. How can leaders deal with the uncertainty? This article offers six principles: 1) Continue to prioritize employees’ well-being; 2) Be adaptive; 3) Massively step up your communications; 4) Rethink your biases about work; 5) Learn from Zoom natives; and 6) Don’t rush to declare the future.

When a philanthropist as prominent in medical innovation as Michael Milken advocates for the creation of a government agency, we should take notice (“Covid Is the 21st Century’s Sputnik,” op-ed, July 28). The private sector will always be the main engine for innovation. But that engine needs a catalyst to fire initially. Ideally, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) could be that initiator—assuming it can avoid the bureaucratic pitfalls that plague more established government agencies.

Image: A medical researcher takes inventory at the Tulane National Primate Research Center in Covington, La., May 10. PHOTO: KATHLEEN FLYNN/REUTERS

NETT, POHNPEI / ACCESSWIRE / August 3, 2021 / For a long time now, blockchain and gaming have been considered to be a match made in heaven. After all, blockchain has the potential to alleviate many of the gaming industry's long-standing issues. The increasing demand for blockchain-based gaming platforms has seen unprecedented explosive growth within the past year, thanks to blockchain's cutting-edge innovation that has fine-tuned the gaming experience for gamers.

Image: https://finance.yahoo.com

Positioned at the intersection of frontline care delivery and public health, we are able to quickly iterate and incubate innovative solutions for not only what’s needed now, but also what’s next in health care. We are actively exploring new technologies, therapeutics, and best practices for care, reflecting the evolution of how people engage with the health care system.

All signs seem to indicate that by 2022, for the first time, nontraditional tech investors—including hedge funds, mutual funds and the like—will invest more in private tech companies than traditional Silicon Valley–style venture capitalists will.

It lasted only a few seconds: One man walked past another man in a mall in Sydney. When officials later watched CCTV footage of the encounter, they saw that this was the only interaction between the two. But it was enough for one of the men, who didn’t realize that he was infected with the delta variant of the coronavirus, to infect the other.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

BRADENTON, FLORIDA, US, August 4, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Andrew Semple says that bootstrapping in business means you're starting your company without an external funder. Here are more things to note about bootstrapping a business.

People are calling it “the big quit.” Employees are leaving workplaces that don’t suit their needs anymore, as more and more organizations return to in-person work after more than a year of working remotely. Half of workers now report that they will not return to jobs that do not offer remote work.

Image: https://hbr.org

A leader from the company says to ensure medicines keep reaching the patients that need them, the industry must revamp outdated technologies and techniques. People both inside the pharmaceutical industry and outside share many common concerns about the state of the pharma supply chain. Interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, global unrest, severe weather catastrophes, and other events stand to disrupt the supply of essential ingredients and products; these challenges have pharma professionals, government leaders, and others looking for ways to shore up the supply chain and avoid interruptions.

The National Science Foundation officially extended the reach of its National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes across more of the United States. 

On the heels of funding seven institutes in 2020, the agency last week unveiled its establishment of 11 new ones—where officials will strategically pursue AI research in complex realms like augmented learning, cybersecurity, precision agriculture and more.