You may be innovating already, but are you looking at the whole picture? Here's how to broaden your scope and think globally.

How firms innovate needs to change. The increasing diversity and dispersion of knowledge, the growth of new markets, and the emergence of new competitors require a global and integrated approach to innovation. Many executives and managers know that the way their firms currently organize and carry out innovation has a limited shelf life. But our research has shown that, despite recognizing the challenge and being aware that their companies are ill-equipped to meet it, very few have strategies in place to transform their firms into global innovators.

There are many things that make humans a unique species, but a couple stand out. One is our mind, the other our brain.

The human mind can carry out cognitive tasks that other animals cannot, like using language, envisioning the distant future and inferring what other people are thinking.

The human brain is exceptional, too. At three pounds, it is gigantic relative to our body size. Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, have brains that are only a third as big.

Image: Viktor Koen / NY Times 

It was a year of consolidation, as venture capital (VC) firms focused on portfolio management and slowed down the pace of investments in India. But 2013 also witnessed some mega deals in the industry (read Flipkart) and a landmark multi-bagger exit for a group of VCs (including backers of redBus).

In short, Kalaari Capital joined the list of most active venture capital investors in 2013 while Inventus Capital Partners dropped out. Here is a look at the most active VC firms of the year, based on preliminary information collated by VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle.

The first question most people seem to ask when contemplating a new startup is where they will get investor money. That’s certainly a valid question, but all the money in the world won’t make your business work if you don’t have a plan to use it, or hate what you are doing. I suggest that there are several important questions before assuming that funding is the gate to your success.

If there is any weakness in security, you can guarantee the criminals will try to exploit it. And if a cyber criminal discovers a weakness in one community, it won’t be long before that isolated crime turns into a trend. The commercialization of malware is rapidly becoming a well-organized and highly lucrative business.

So what can we expect in 2013? Based on what crimes we are seeing around the globe, here is a list of the top six emerging cyber security threats we will likely see in 2013.

The big-league philanthropist helps us all enter the new year with an optimistic perspective on the direction the world is headed in 2014.

Like every year, 2013 was filled with both disaster (Typhoon Haiyan) and heartwarming events (Batkid). Just in case you're feeling like the bad outweighed the good, Bill Gates has popped in to remind us that humanity made great strides in 2013.

Image: annualletter.gatesfoundation.org  

Knowing he can’t do anything about making drivers more safe around bikes, cycling safety advocate Josh Zisson decided to focus on making the bikes themselves safer. Check out his invention--sturdily built and brightly reflective. 

Biking is great for your health. Unless you get hit by a car. And unfortunately, there are lots of cars and biking remains less than completely safe. There were 630 fatalities and 51,000 injuries due to collisions between bikes and motor vehicles in the U.S. in 2009 and many large cities—Los Angeles and New York, to name two--are still struggling to create bike-friendly streets.

Until that happens, however, we can make biking marginally safer by making safer bikes. That challenge inspired Josh Zisson, a lawyer and cycling safety advocate, to build what he calls “the safest bike on the road.”

Most entrepreneurs would agree that fundraising is no walk in the park.

AngelList, the social network for investors, functions as a matchmaking service between founders and investors, and aims to make the process a whole lot less painful.

Using AngelList’s open API, internet entrepreneur and former MySpace developer, Sean Percival, set out to make it even easier for entrepreneurs to connect with the investors most likely to fund their startup.

Johns Hopkins researchers have uncovered strong evidence that mice have a specific set of nerve cells that signal itch but not pain, a finding that may settle a decades-long debate about these sensations, and, if confirmed in humans, help in developing treatments for chronic itch, including itch caused by life-saving medications.

At the heart of their discovery is a type of sensory nerve cell whose endings receive information from the skin and relay it to other nerves in the spinal cord, which then coordinates a response to the stimulus. Published online Dec. 23 in Nature Neuroscience, a report on the research suggests that even when the itch-specific nerve cells receive stimuli that are normally pain-inducing, the message they send isn’t “That hurts!” but rather “That itches!”

This is a guest post by venture capitalist Brad Feld.

I’m glad it’s 2014. Last year was a difficult one for me as I hit a wall of depression that completely surprised me. I was over it by mid year and, while the second half of the year was better, I still struggled with figuring a bunch of stuff out about what I cared about as I turned 48 years old.

Image Courtesy of Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The end of a year is always a good time to reflect on your life; to see what you’ve achieved and plan for the year ahead. For example: this year I attempted to cycle 26 miles in a single day across the Peak District, despite having not used a bike since the 90’s. Next year I intend to buy padded shorts before I even go near a bicycle. Oh and I also intend to get a PhD, but that’s no biggie (gulp).

But what sort of year has it been for the relationship between science and the public? I’d say it’s been a good one.

It may just be that I’m more aware of the science-communication world, having finally given in and joined Twitter, but I can sense that science is losing its reputation as a refuge for the über-nerdy and slowly working its way into the mainstream. Scientific stories and issues are being reported more frequently in the media and there appears to have been a dearth of science-related shows on TV. Whether it’s Professor Brian Cox pointing at the sky, the US-based shenanigans of the nerds in the Big Bang Theory or priests taking ecstasy in the name of science live on Channel 4, science certainly seems to be taking centre stage.

The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. With the Supreme Court ruling last June and President Obama’s re-election in November, the law has no more legal hurdles left to jump.

For that reason, the big decision before states this year is whether or not to expand Medicaid. Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts ruled that the federal government must give states a choice, so the Obama administration has made the offer as enticing as it can: 100 percent of the costs of the expansion population (up to 20 million people) would be covered from 2014 to 2016, and the federal match would never fall below 90 percent after that. That means, according to some estimates, states as a whole would spend as little as $8 billion to expand over the next decade, while the federal government would spend up to $800 billion. But the politics of embracing Obamacare could be tricky for some states. Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, has called the expansion “one of the biggest public policy decisions of our generation.”

Venture-backed companies made less cash for their backers last quarter compared with a year ago, capping a year in which the industry came under fire for not delivering hoped-for returns.

Acquisitions of venture-backed companies totaled $3.52 billion in the fourth quarter, down 29 percent from $4.99 billion a year earlier, according to data from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association.

For the full year, acquisitions totaled $21.5 billion, down 11 percent from $24.09 billion in 2011. The numbers reflect only companies that disclosed deal values.

As an entrepreneur, you have a lot on your plate. Staying focused can be tough with a constant stream of employees, clients, emails, and phone calls demanding your attention. Amid the noise, understanding your brain’s limitations and working around them can improve your focus and increase your productivity.

Our brains are finely attuned to distraction, so today's digital environment makes it especially hard to focus. "Distractions signal that something has changed," says David Rock, co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and author of Your Brain at Work (HarperCollins, 2009). "A distraction is an alert  says, 'Orient your attention here now; this could be dangerous.'" The brain's reaction is automatic and virtually unstoppable.

Q: In our startup we have 4 founders, two of whom are not full time.  We’ve all put in a good sum of cash thus far.  The two founders with the least equity happen to be the two tech founders.  Some of us feel that we made a mistake when allocating shares in the beginning – there is one founder in particular who does not do any work, and he has the second-most equity (the split goes like this: 32%, 26%, 10%, 7.5% with the rest for employees + advisors).  To me, it seems like any outsider would see this as a big disparity and wonder what happened, but one of our guys (Mr. 32%) seems to think that if we can get funding, the VC will correct this wrong.  I’m rather doubtful of that – what VC will want to fund a team that didn’t have the foresight to motivate the biggest contributors and keep them interested?  I’m looking to convince him that we need to fix our own mistakes before pursuing funding.  Am I off base?  

A (Brad): You aren’t off base. Furthermore, this is a common problem and one of the reasons I strongly encourage every founding team to have four year vesting on their stock.

While some founders thinks this simply gives future investors a way to claw back equity in the future, it’s much more often the case that this protects the founders from each other, in cases like this or situations where one of the founders simply leaves.

As a business owner, you are the parent of your company. Planning for the business, getting it off the ground, and making sure it survives and thrives is taxing, time-consuming, and can be incredibly rewarding. It requires you to wear many hats, and you may find yourself serving as the head of sales, marketing, and customer support.

Once the business begins thriving on its own, you need to delegate those responsibilities to other employees so that you can focus on higher-level tasks and because, frankly, you are probably not the best person for every job.

That being said, letting go of key operations can be very difficult for a business owner. Whether you over-manage to make sure people keep doing things “your” way, or to insist on having the final say on every single project, the result will be the same.

Nobody knows how much of the web has been archived for future generations. Now one group of computer scientists are attempting to find out

Museums and libraries have long attempted to preserve cultural artifacts for future generations. Given that the internet is a cultural phenomenon of extraordinary variety and influence, it’s no surprise that archivists are turning their attention to preserving it for future generations.  

That’s no easy task given the rate at which new pages, pictures, videos and audio recordings appear and disappear from the online world. So an interesting question is how much of the web they’ve so far managed to save.

More and more entrepreneurs are hearing about the successful graduates and investors queued behind a few well-known startup incubators, including Y Combinator, TechStars, and the Founder Institute. They dream of appearing at the door, with their idea on the back of a napkin, and popping out a few months later with investor money to burn. The reality is far different.

By way of a definition, a business or startup incubator is a company, university, or other organization which provides resources to nurture young companies, usually for a share of the equity, hoping to capitalize on their success, or at least strengthen the local economy. According to the National Business Incubator Association (NBIA), there are currently over 1250 incubators today in the US alone.

Statistics show that most Americans who make a New Year’s resolution fail to achieve it. A study by the University of Scranton found that only 46 percent of us maintain our resolutions after six months. Why is it that so many of us fail to make a lasting change? And what are the lessons for businesses and regions?

The concept of the Sigmoid Curve. Click to enlarge image.

We might be able to find the answer in the concept of “The Sigmoid Curve,” written about by Charles Handy in “The Age of the Paradox.” Imagine the Sigmoid Curve as the curve of life of an individual, an organization or an entire economic region. The curve initially declines in a time of experimenting and learning, then rises in a period of growth and prosperity, and finally declines leading to the end. The key to sustaining a healthy life, a healthy business or a healthy region is to make a transformation to a new curve before the current one is too far in decline.

Recently I wrote about a new funding source for entrepreneurs: crowdfunding. Right now, small businesses can raise money from the online crowd in exchange for a give-away, such as a product or service. Hopefully sometime in 2013 the rules and guidelines for the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act should be approved, which will allow companies to give equity to crowdfunding investors in the U.S.

I was optimistic that this new funding tool would be used by women entrepreneurs to raise money. After all, women are great collaborators and communicators, both necessary skills if you are going to succeed at crowdfunding.