Innovative projects to build Smarter Cities can drive economic growth and even help make local companies more profitable. That’s what is happening in the city of Lyon, France, which is undertaking a massive transportation project to improve mobility in the region and build a more sustainable transportation network. Lyon’s Optimod project is incredibly innovative, building an intelligent transportation system to provide citizens with predictive notification about traffic patterns. Real-time decision support will help traffic engineers detect and evaluate incidents, suggest best steps to decrease traffic congestion across the transportation network and enable faster incident response time so citizens don’t waste time in traffic. But what I find even more exciting, if not surprising, is the connection to helping local business.

Tried anything recently that didn't quite work out? Congratulations! You're on your way to a breakthrough.

Bottom line, there is no innovation without "failure." If your perception of failure is "something to avoid," you can kiss innovation goodbye. Failure comes with the territory. If the word puts you in a foul mood, use another one -- like "experiment," for example.

"The way to succeed is to double your failure rate." -- Thomas Watson, Founder of IBM

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none." -- Miles Davis

"99 percent of success is built on failure." -- Charles Kettering

While many organizations focus on addressing problems, the most successful focus on raising the bar. One of the ways they do this is by creating a culture where innovation thrives. When this organizational strength is magnified, it can become a source of competitive advantage.

One of my clients asked me to help identify the best practices of leaders who were the most innovative in his organization. In many interviews and meetings, there was very little discussion about brainstorming, generating ideas, prototyping, and the like—the kind of things most of us think about when we consider institutionalizing innovation. Instead, I heard what many of us would call excellent practices for leadership. My one-sentence conclusion: Excellence in leading innovation has far less to do with the leader having innovative ideas; it has everything to do with how that leader creates a culture where innovation and creativity thrives in every corner. Okay, maybe I cheated by having a sentence with a semi-colon but you get the gist in short form.

In the recent presidential campaign, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney said anything meaningful about how to fix the U.S. innovation system. Both ran as status quo candidates who acted as though there was nothing to fix. Virtually no one who follows the issue agrees with this, but for the moment the political system remains oblivious.

About ten years ago, I began to hear murmurs from high-tech industry people that American innovation wasn't working as advertized. Some of this was disappointment tied to the dot-com bust, but most of it consisted of people looking ahead in their particular technology-based industry and not seeing much. I had a number of off-guard conversations at wedding receptions or post-conference airport cabs in which someone would say, "we don't really have a next big thing in the pipeline anymore." I heard this from a pharma scientist in 2002, then from a corporate computer engineer, and something similar from IT executives at different firms over the ensuing months. Official reports started coming out, such as "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" (2005), which warned that the U.S. was losing its innovation lead. At the time, however, most people assumed, like Romney and Obama this year, that the innovation system just needed a few tweaks and bigger inputs --- more funding for research, more science and engineering (STEM) graduates.

How businesses are being helped by UCF's Business Incubation Program.

I have learned to pay attention in life when the hairs stand up on the back of my neck or my stomach churns, as if my gut instinct is saying, “Something’s not right here.” I also get an equally powerful flutter in my chest when something is going well. I may know these things about myself now, but in my first year of business, I discounted my intuition in a big way.

Even though I spent several years in the first part of my career working to shape microbusinesses in developing countries, I decided I needed a business advisor to help guide me from the moment I called myself an entrepreneur. On the recommendation of several people I trusted, I invested heavily in programs, business coaching and a mastermind group with a single advisor.

Geneviève Fioraso, France’s minister for higher education and research, has announced plans for restructuring public research to make transfer of its personnel, expertise and technology to industry easier, and thus promote innovation, competitiveness and employment.

The transfer reform includes facilitating researcher mobility between the public and private sectors and introducing courses in innovation and entrepreneurship for researchers.

Fioraso said the policy was part of the government’s global strategy in favour of research, which was geared to consistently support basic research and develop technological research.

On average, it now takes our case study company 267 hours to comply with its taxes, it makes 27.2 payments and pays an average Total Tax Rate of 44.7%

Within the last couple of years, the population of the world has become more than one half urban for the first time in history. By 2025, the world's urban areas are expected to account for 58% of the world population, rising further to two-thirds in 2050. This represents a huge increase from the 29% that was urban in 1950, or estimates of approximately 10% (or less) in 1800. (Figure 1).

Urban areas have also gotten much bigger. In 1800, only Beijing had a population over 1,000,000. A number of others, such as Baghdad, Rome, Xi'an, Hanghzhou and Ayutthaya (Thailand) are reported to have reached between 1.0 and 1.5 million in the more distant past, but all had fallen back below the 1.0 million threshold by 1800 (Note 1). These population declines occurred for a variety of reasons, such as military losses, disease, as well as political and economic instability. In short, before the 19th century, large urban populations were largely unsustainable

After Thanksgiving dinner, many people start to feel a little drowsy. Turkey typically gets the blame. It supposedly contains high levels of tryptophan, an amino acid that is sold in a purified form to help people fall asleep.

But turkey contains about the same amount of tryptophan as chicken, beef and other meats.

If Thanksgiving drowsiness is not about the main course, what is responsible? It may have more to do with the side dishes.

To understand, we first need to digest a little food chemistry.

In my Scientific American column this month, I wrote about the dawn of the brain–computer interface. Forget about keyboard, mouse, touch screens or even voice recognition: the real dream is thinking about what you want your gadget to do.

BCI (brain–computer interface) has long been a favorite of sci-fi movies (paging Professor Xavier!). However, some early BCI products are already for sale. Unfortunately, this isn't the dawn of BCI—it's the pre-dawn. These products are crude, imprecise and sometimes frustratingly nonresponsive—that's how it goes with EEG-based headsets, which pick up only the faintest electroencephalographic echoes of neural activity through the skull. (Beware, in particular, of the toys, which garner Amazon reviews ranging from wildly polarizing to absolutely scathing.) But these technologies are based on real BCI principles, and when they work, they're a fascinating glimpse of mind–machine merging mergers to come. (Below are representative online prices, such as those found on Amazon.)

Scientists and engineers dream about big advances that could change the world, and then they try to create them. On the following pages, Scientific American reveals 10 innovations that could be game changers: an artificial alternative to DNA, oil that cleans water, pacemakers powered by our blood, and more. These are not pie-in-the-sky notions but practical breakthroughs that have been proved or prototyped and are poised to scale up greatly. Each has the potential to make what may now seem impossible possible. —The Editors

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The hot new field of technology startups faces a distressing problem: Women are so underrepresented in these companies’ leadership ranks that less than 10 percent of venture-backed startups are headed by women. On Tuesday, 55 women will emerge from a new program, Empowering Women in Technology Startups, or eWiTS, ready to change these statistics — and the world. The University of Florida Office of Technology Licensing, UF Tech Connect and the Florida Innovation Hub partnered with local women technology entrepreneurs and community leaders to launch eWITS.

A Pilgrim out of time reminds you of the less obvious things you can be thankful for at the Thanksgiving table. Shelf paper, for instance.

Which came first: sitcoms depicting families going around the Thanksgiving table to declare what they’re thankful for, or actual families doing the same because they’re so moved by the spirit? However we’ve arrived here, it’s sort of expected by now that each person sitting around the turkey will have a point of gratitude already on deck. Unfortunately, everybody always trots out the same nonsense about "togetherness" and "love," etc. Now there’s a new website devoted to helping people think outside the bird when it’s their turn to shine.

For independent filmmakers and entrepreneurs, success is rarely defined by dollars and cents. This Thanksgiving, be thankful for the opportunity to define your own success.

As a self-taught filmmaker who spent the last year trying to get his first real project up and running, I've come across my fair share of disappointments, near misses, and financially tight times. As with any startup or personal project, finances are scarce and it's often your passion for the project and support from family and friends that carries it through. For all entrepreneurs (especially those on the artistic side, like me), creating something of your own isn't about making money--it's about being successful in the way that you personally define it.

And this is my definition.

The December 2012 edition of Scientific American describes in detail 10 radical breakthroughs that are poised to change the world. In the process of choosing them, the editors decided to highlight seven other compelling innovations and trends that also have great promise. Here they are.

An Air Bag for Your Bike At $600, the Hövding bicycle "helmet" is pricey. But the design is so ingenious it could change the nature of the traditional hard-shell helmets that cyclists and motorcyclists wear.

DES MOINES — As Ben Milne feverishly sought money for the mobile-payment company he began developing here in his hometown three years ago, investors responded with rejections by the dozens.

Eventually, he coaxed $1 million from a pair of local investors. His app, Dwolla, has since attracted more than 100,000 users, and now moves $30 million to $50 million worth of transactions a month.

So when he decided to seek a second round of financing last year, Mr. Milne, a 29-year-old college dropout, had an easier sell. This time investors courted him. This year, he announced that Dwolla had drawn another $5 million in capital from investors on both coasts, including Ashton Kutcher and a firm with Twitter and Foursquare in its portfolio.

There is, not surprisingly, a lot of activity on the Brainzooming blog on strategic thinking exercises since they are vital elements in effective strategic planning. As The Brainzooming Group looks at it, strategic thinking exercises are devices to help individuals or teams imagine and address ways to advance organizations / products / programs toward important goals.

What are the characteristics of the best strategic thinking exercises? Here are six characteristics we design into the strategic thinking exercises we create for strategic planning engagements with clients. They all need to:

1. Allow everyone to participate – even those with little or no direct experience

With companies like Google creating self-driving cars and augmented-reality glasses, futurist Ray Kurzweil's predictions are starting to sound much more realistic.  Kurzweil, cofounder of Singularity University, became famous for creating the first text-to-speech software. Forbes called him "the ultimate thinking machine." With technology advancing at increasingly rapid rate, and researchers making serious headway into discovering the mysteries of the brain, it seems as if we'll all be reconstituted as a computer someday.

It’s 4.50am. Sunday morning. And I couldn’t sleep. I have much on my mind since I just returned from a week on the road. 5 days. 3 cities.

Late night Mexican food. Beers. Airports. Delays.

I left on a Sunday. I had to miss a full day with my family, camping in the mountains. I returned home Friday night at 10pm – too late to see my kids.

I’m reminded of this feeling. It’s all too familiar. It’s what life was like as an entrepreneur. I didn’t sleep much back then. I was on the road much and I internalized much of the stress so that others didn’t have to.