In recent years, new office designs have encouraged employees to get moving. Cafes and lounges beckon workers when they need a break. Open staircases spur them to climb floors rather than take the elevator. Sit-stand desks offer them a chance to stretch while continuing to work.

Image: https://www.nytimes.com

Innovation — it’s one of the most elusive and yet important concepts in our world. With the rapid pace of technology, the word conjures thoughts of a Hyperloop, SpaceX moon voyages and other grandiose concepts that are part real, part science fiction. We often credit this rise to the boom in Silicon Valley decades ago, where our world seemed to evolve almost instantly. That era was the dawn of many products and services that have become integral to the fabric of our daily lives.

When faced with the need to innovate, many companies establish “skunkworks” or special units to be their innovation engines. Obviously, this only adds to the silo-rific corporate culture, in which the “chosen few” are deemed to have all the best ideas, leaving the rest of the company scratching their heads on how they can contribute. This is how innovation gets a bad rep.

As Taiwan continues to bolster its reputation of being a tech juggernaut not only in Asia, but across the world, Taiwan’s Startup Terrace launched the Startup Terrace International Cooperation Ceremony, an initiative created to build a reliable network that bridges collaborations between overseas Taiwanese enterprises and the ASEAN startup ecosystem.

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50 years ago, humankind took its first steps on an otherworldly body. That mission to the Moon, Apollo 11, opened the door to the decades of space exploration that followed. While it has been difficult in recent years to muster the political or financial support for space travel, we are on the cusp of a new era of American spaceflight that stands to extend our reach back into the cosmic deep.

A Babylonian clay tablet helped unlock an understanding for how our ancestors saw the world.

Dating all the way back to the 6th century BCE, the Imago Mundi is the oldest known world map, and it offers a unique glimpse into ancient perspectives on earth and the heavens.

Image: https://www.visualcapitalist.com

In May 1980, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping proclaimed coastal Shenzhen his nation’s first special economic zone, open to foreign investment and international trade. Halfway around the globe, Silicon Valley was just then becoming a household name. Apple IIs sprouted on desktops and American living rooms were filled with kids playing Space Invaders on their Atari 2600s. The biggest overseas threat to U.S. technological dominance was Japan.

Union Budget 2019-20 had some bright spots. The enduring issue of angel tax for startups has been resolved to a large extent, perhaps completely. There are encouraging plans to get India skilled in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and virtual reality (VR). And the critical gap in research to achieve the well-intentioned goals in the emerging fields of AI and IoT would hopefully be addressed by the setting up of a National Research Foundation, which was another major announcement in the budget speech.

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After bouncing back last year both in dollars raised and number of deals, the initial public offering (IPO) market was expected to at least approach that success this year.

Instead, the 2019 market for first-time public issues of biopharma stock has had its ups, and mostly downs. For U.S. and Western exchanges, a relatively quiet first quarter has been followed by a busier second quarter, according to Evaluate: Q1 saw 13 IPOs totaling $1.04 billion, followed by 20 IPOs totaling $1.952 in Q2.

Most people think innovation is all about ideas, when in fact it is more about delivery, people, and process. Entrepreneurs looking to innovate need to understand the execution challenge if they expect their startup to carve out a profitable niche in the marketplace, and keep innovating to build and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.

The fifth annual MIT SMR and Deloitte study of digital business reveals digitally mature organizations don't just innovate more, they innovate differently—leveraging ecosystems and cross-functional teams that play critical roles.

Executive summary

FOR the past five years, MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte1 have investigated digital maturity, focusing on the organizational aspects of digital disruption rather than the technological ones. We’ve examined companies at the early, developing, and maturing stages of digital transformation and have seen increasing signs of separation between more and less mature organizations. This year’s research finds that the gaps can often be explained by a company’s approach to innovation: Digitally maturing companies are not only innovating more, they’re innovating differently.

Not everybody loved Lee Iacocca, the automotive legend who died July 2. Before saving Chrysler in the 1980s, he lost his job at Ford Motor Company following years of conflict with a C-suite rival.

The way Iacocca tells the story in his autobiography, chairman Henry Ford II called him into his office shortly before 3 p.m. on July 13, 1978, and fired him. “Sometimes you just don’t like somebody,” the Ford family heir explained to his departing president.

In our always-on culture, employers expect workers to be reachable and responsive at all times. However, research shows that constant connectivity may be counterproductive when it comes to engagement and productivity levels.

Today’s smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day, which is the equivalent of spending 2.5 hours a day just opening and closing the phone. A single text message, which takes approximately 2.2 seconds to read, can double error rates on basic tasks; even worse, workers find that it takes an average of 11 minutes to get back into the flow of the previous task. Our phones have become compulsions, rather than tools of efficiency.

SPARKS, Nev. — U.S. Manufacturing has a workforce problem. But a new survey conducted by Leading2Lean (L2L) reveals that there is an unlikely hope for a new generation of workers that will spur industry-wide innovation.

The 2019 L2L Manufacturing Index, an annual measurement of the American public’s perceptions of U.S. manufacturing, found that adults in Generation Z (those aged 18-22) are 19% more likely to have had a counselor, teacher or mentor suggest they look into manufacturing as a viable career option when compared to the general population. One-third (32%) of Generation Z has had manufacturing suggested to them as a career option, as compared to only 18% of Millennials and 13% of the general population.

Several of the most valuable startups in the world of venture capital went public during 2Q, creating an unparalleled stampede of billion-dollar companies onto the public market. Uber. Slack. Pinterest. Beyond Meat. By this point, you probably know the names.

Now, we can look at the numbers. The figures from the first half of 2019 are in. And when it comes to VC-backed exits, they paint a picture of how truly extraordinary the past three months have been.

Cleveland State University has launched a new webpage, designed to more easily connect potential inventors and entrepreneurs with university researchers and local resources.

The CSU Innovation page aims to "streamline access to innovation" at the university, said Jerzy Sawicki, vice president for research at Cleveland State.

Image: Crain’s screenshot - The Cleveland State webpage designed to connect with entrepreneurs can be found at https://innovation.csuohio.edu.

The US labor market looks markedly different today than it did two decades ago. It has been reshaped by dramatic events like the Great Recession but also by a quieter ongoing evolution in the mix and location of jobs. In the decade ahead, the next wave of automation technologies may accelerate the pace of change. Millions of jobs could be phased out even as new ones are created. More broadly, the day-to-day nature of work could change for nearly everyone as intelligent machines become fixtures in the American workplace.

Entrepreneur and master connector JJ Jones shares the story of his windy road to success from the suburbs, to the hood, to the south and (eventually) to Las Vegas. Jones talks about how his musical aspirations as a teenager led him to meet the Maloof brothers and land a job as their driver, as well as how his experiences with the pair taught him things that he couldn’t have learned in school.

New entrepreneurs are always looking for a shortcut in getting their venture story and plan across to investors, and closing on the funding they need. An effective tool I see used more and more, as a prelude to a more detailed business plan, is the Business Model Canvas, first introduced by Alexander Osterwalder back in 2008. It forces you to bridge the gap between idea and execution.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among young people between the ages of 15 and 34 in the United States, and clinicians have limited tools to identify those at risk. A new machine-learning technique documented in a paper published today in Nature Human Behaviour (PDF) could help identify those suffering from suicidal thoughts.