Last month, Robert D. Atkinson of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, together with our colleagues Mark Muro and Jacob Whiton, published a report calling for a renewed federal role in helping to balance the country’s growing geographic inequities. “The case for growth centers: How to spread tech innovation across America” carefully documents how and why the innovation economy—the driver of much of the nation’s growth—has become increasingly concentrated in a handful of coastal metropolitan areas, leaving much of the heartland struggling to keep pace. It also proposes a way for leaders in Washington, D.C. to boost lagging regions by selecting a small group of “growth center” metro areas (chosen via a competitive process) to receive a package of federal supports.

Do you work from home? If so, others share your situation. The U.S. Small Business Administration says 60.1% of all firms without paid employees are home-based. The same ca be said for 23.3% of small employer firms, and 0.3% of large employer firms.  Work from home? Determine whether to claim a home office deduction, which effectively transforms some personal expenses into business write-offs.

Make Sure You Qualify

There are two tests to pass before you can figure a home office deduction:

Test one: You must use the space in your home as your principal place of business. You meet this test if you do substantial administrative work at home even though you conduct business outside the home (e.g., at customer locations), provided you don’t maintain an office other than in your home. Alternatively, the home office satisfies the test if it’s used to meet with customers, clients, or patients in the normal course of business even though you have another business location. A free-standing structure, such as a studio or greenhouse, can also be a principal place of business.

A bevy of super-tall, glossy skyscrapers is rising along New York City's Billionaires' Row, an area south of Central Park that's home to some of the most expensive real estate in the city.

There's Central Park Tower, which recently became the tallest residential building in the world. Then there's 220 Central Park South, which broke real-estate records when billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin paid $238 million for a spread of condos. Both towers are expected to be finished sometime in 2020.

Most of us understand the peril of adopting too many goals at once, which makes it unlikely we’ll be able to make meaningful progress on any of them. But, recognizing that we have to prioritize, how can we determine which goal is the right one to focus on? Here are four steps to help you identify where your efforts will be most strategic, and how to maximize the chances they’ll bear fruit.

When Ya-Chieh Hsu, professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, wanted to figure out exactly what makes hair turn grey, she started with an obvious, albeit anecdotal, culprit: stress. There are well-known historical examples of the connection between stress and hair greying—Marie Antoinette’s coif reportedly blanched after she was captured during the French Revolution—and studies have even linked stress in animals to greying hair. But for the first time, Hsu and her colleagues figured out the biological reason why stress saps the pigment out of hair.

Image: https://time.com - From Video

Halifax-based venture capital firm Concrete Ventures has received $500,000 from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF), bringing the fund’s total to nearly $18 million. The VC firm has increased the fund’s target, originally $17 million, to $18.5 million.

A new report underscores the shifting position of the United States in the global R&D competition and the continuing rise of China. While two charts from the National Science Board’s The State of U.S. Science and Engineering summarize the changing nature of this international struggle, the underlying data on where the U.S. and China are investing their resources should really grab the attention of policymakers and one would hope motivate action by the U.S.

From Microsoft going carbon negative to Starbucks announcing a (somewhat vague) goal to become “resource positive,” it seems that major companies are announcing new sustainability efforts every day. But which ones are doing the most for our environment? An annual ranking from Canadian research firm Corporate Knights, revealed January 21 at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, scrutinized more than 7,000 companies to identify the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world.

Entrepreneurship has to do with the pursuit of professional success through innovative work. Therefore, the idea is that entrepreneurs are brave and constantly motivated people, always engaged in new projects with invention and obstinate to achieve their professional goals. We know this is very true and real. However, enterprising people often face numerous challenges that, if not well managed emotionally, can put everything to lose!

If you’re a glass-half-full person, you’re going to love Andrew McAfee’s latest book, More from Less. Always optimistic, while still expressing minor notes of caution, McAfee, a research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and cofounder and codirector of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy (with frequent collaborator Erik Brynjolfsson), believes that life on this planet is getting better all the time. He also thinks that though humans face some big challenges, we have at our command all the resources needed to meet them.

As a long-time advisor to entrepreneurs, and a former angel myself, I still find startups confused about the definition of an angel investor, and how and when to attract one. Angels are actually serious investors who invest their own money, versus venture capitalists who invest institutional money, or regular people who invest in crowdfunding. Thus they don’t live or fly above the clouds.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Raising capital is one of the main issues that preoccupies entrepreneurs on a daily basis. Whether you are in the initial startup stage imagining an idea that may become reality or possess an advanced product looking to make its way into the complex sales market, securing investor funding is imperative. A popular investment channel in the Israeli high-tech market is venture capital funds. These funds raise capital from institutional investors and generally invest in projects that carry a high-level risk, in anticipation of significant returns over a relatively short period of time.

If you happened to be born before the rise of technology, you could probably remember your young years playing outside until the sun went down. Outdoor play was a critical part of growing up, and although things have changed in the world, playing in a non-structured environment with peers is just as relevant today as it was hundreds of years ago. 

“Not all heroes wear capes,” the saying goes, and the workplace is no exception. If you take the time to look, you’ll find that acts of selflessness abound in your organisation – from informal mentoring to planning birthday or retirement parties. Are you a workplace hero? If you answered no, that may increase your chances of actually being one.

My forthcoming paper in Social Psychological and Personality Science explores the innate humility that accompanies heroism in all areas of life (not just the workplace). One of its findings is that there is a stark distinction between how we see heroism and how heroes view themselves. The qualities that most inspire us in stories about heroes – taxing sacrifice, persistence in the face of risk or great difficulty – are largely missing from the tales heroes tell about their own actions.

Does watching Shark Tank make you dream about finding an angel investor of your own? Well, stop dreaming and start searching—angels are real and not just found on TV.

In fact, the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Venture Research reports in 2018 that “The angel investor market saw an increase in market participation in more companies but at smaller amounts. Total investments in 2018 were $23.1 billion, a decrease of 3.4% over 2017, and 66,110 entrepreneurial ventures received angel funding, an increase of 7.4% over 2017. The number of active investors in 2018 rose to 334,565 individuals, an increase of 16%.”

Companies and societies are at the precipice of rebuilding their foundations to compete in an age of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Yet, in the real economy — or in the world outside the tech companies — I see more struggle than success in making advanced analytics and AI a management discipline.

Johns Hopkins University is blowing up its business-school curriculum.

Starting in the fall of 2020, the university’s traditional two-year master’s of business administration degree will take a hard turn toward health, with a particularly heavy focus on quant skills, from exposure to coding to data analysis, said Alexander Triantis, dean of the Carey Business School.

The move follows five straight years of declining applications to American M.B.A. programs, according to data from the nonprofit Graduate Management Admission Council, and a 14% drop in applications to Johns Hopkins over the same period.

Image: Brian Gunia, an associate professor at the Carey school, plans to tweak aspects of his class to fit the new health and analytics focus. PHOTO: MATT ROTH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

As the digital health industry gains ground, companies have bandied about all sorts of terminology. Some sell digital medicines. Others sell digital therapeutics. One company that went public last year describes itself as an “applied health signals” company.

The fancy names, of course, are a way to differentiate the industry from the plethora of dubious health apps that populated the App Store once the iPhone became ubiquitous. And it’s not too different in 2020. Today, roughly 318,000 health-related apps are available on the market, according to a report by the IQVIA Institute.

Dictionaries define quiddity as “the inherent nature or essence of someone or something.” In our consulting practice, we’ve found quiddity a useful concept in representing an organization’s founding history and principles that align and anchor it internally, while also serving as a powerful marketplace differentiator.

Anyone who has ever worked in sales or been an entrepreneur in the B2B space has had this feeling before: You just got off the phone after a great sales call. The prospect seems excited, they’re saying all the right things, you feel strong momentum, you finish your day still energized about this new possible opportunity and yet, somehow, the buyer doesn’t call you back. They stop responding to your emails, and suddenly the opportunity is dead.