Data analytics is becoming mission-critical to more and more businesses. One of the biggest challenges they face: recruiting data scientists.

“There are very few data scientists out there passing out their resumes,” LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue said. “Data scientists are almost all already employed, because they’re so much in demand.”

Today, many corporations are doing startup calls, setting up company accelerators, intrapreneurship programs, tech scouting, hackathons and datathons. However, despite these efforts, many companies still do not achieve innovation results.

Getting innovation results is somewhat difficult, but keeping innovation going is even harder. Regular innovation depends on many factors such as the top management’s leadership, the corporate culture, the available resources and the methodology.

Incumbents and start-ups around the world collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on innovation-related activities. Yet according to our analysis of 170 of the largest global companies by revenue, the return on innovation spending has significantly declined.

San Jose will bring high-speed internet to 50,000 homes in the next 10 years thanks to the launch of a “Digital Inclusion Fund” funded in part by the fees the city will charge wireless providers to install technology on light poles, StateScoop reports.

Image: San Jose City Hall. - https://nextcity.org

You’ve heard the horror stories: Small businesses being sued for trademark infringement and having to rebrand their businesses. That means redoing marketing materials, changing domain names and a myriad of other nightmarish tasks — all because the business owner failed to file for trademark protection. Don’t let this happen to you! 

From diving into product design and spreading the gospel of design thinking to sharing tips for earning a seat at the table and navigating life as the only designer at a startup, we’ve collected a fair amount of design wisdom over the years here on the Review.

But like all early-stage startup disciplines, the world of design is constantly evolving and maturing. Subspecialties spin out while best practices, different approaches and new tools emerge. And lately, we’ve had our eye on one recent development in particular: the rise of the small-yet-mighty community of growth designers.

Innovative new technologies are rapidly reshaping our country’s industries, workplaces, mobility patterns, and ways of communicating. Based on our readings of State of the State addresses in 2019, governors are responding to the challenge. Many speeches brim with optimism about the power of new technologies to spur productivity and growth; many also focus on managing the downsides of technological innovation, including privacy risks and a digital divide.

Most people realize that failure is necessary for innovation, and failure in innovation is expected. In fact, failure is something increasingly celebrated. Companies around the world now talk about "wearing failure as a badge of honor."

But should companies really celebrate failure? Do these companies know how to deal with failure, and what are they really learning from it?

Let’s start with some simple math. The #1 reason why Americans value higher education is to get a good job. And although 96% of chief academic officers of colleges and universities have confidence they are preparing students well for the workplace, no one else believes them; 13% of US adults, 11% of C-level business executives and 6% of college trustees have the same levels of confidence in how well college grads are prepared for work.

In recent decades, innovation has become almost synonymous with digital technology. That wasn’t always true, of course. Long before the microchip was invented, we built an industrial economy based on electricity and internal combustion, harnessed the power of the atom and developed life-saving cures.

Nevertheless, lately everything seems to be digital. Entrepreneurs who create software apps and consumer gadgets can find themselves zillionaires in a matter of just a few years — or even a matter of months. Investors, not surprisingly, search far and wide to find the next Facebook or Google.

Changes to Bayh-Dole allowing government to control pricing can only be made through the legislative process. If that happens, it will be a disaster for those suffering the ravages of disease and a death knell for American leadership in the life sciences.

Image: Joseph Allen delivers remarks at Information Technology & Innovation Foundation’s “Preserving Bayh-Dole—the ‘Inspired’ Law Underpinning U.S. Leadership in Life-Sciences Innovation” on March 7. - http://www.ipwatchdog.com

Networking is a critical part of relationship building and there is no event more valuable to building relationships than the proverbial “breaking of bread” with people. I personally run many group lunches & dinners and I attend even more so I’ve developed a set of tips I often pass along in how to make these the most effective they can be.

For American patients aching for relief from the sky-high price of drugs, the news has been decidedly mixed recently.

“It’s unacceptable that Americans pay vastly more than people in other countries for the exact same drugs, often made in the exact same place.  This is wrong, this is unfair, and together we will stop it—and we’ll stop it fast,” President Donald Trump vowed in his State of the Union address on February 5.

As alluring as it sounds, bingeing Netflix all day can be harmful. It could actually make you feel more anxious, tired, or whatever emotion stopped you from getting your work done. Rest is about rejuvenation and recuperation so you can be more successful – not so you can do nothing and hope for the best.

Americans send millions of tons of clothes to landfills each year. Now, New York City is launching a campaign to recycle its citizens’ clothes before they reach the dump.

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith demonstrates how the division of labor is the chief source of productivity gains using the vivid example of a pin factory assembly line: “One (person) draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it.” With specialization oriented around function, each worker becomes highly skilled in a narrow task leading to process efficiencies. Output per worker increases many fold; the factory becomes extremely efficient at producing pins.

In the business of creating new high-growth companies, “tradeoff” is the name of the game. From idea to IPO, from survival mode to success, entrepreneurship calls for constant prioritizing and re-prioritizing.

With limited capital — financial and human — for the first few years of a startup’s life, it’s a perpetual challenge of either/or. Another engineer or an expanded website? A new server or a booth at an industry trade show? Market development or a sales professional?

When I started mentoring entrepreneurs and startups a few years ago, I anticipated that I would get mostly tough technical questions, but instead I more often hear things like “Where do I start?” I find that the basics are actually the hardest to answer, just like your parents found out when they first tried to fill you in on the “facts of life” a long time ago.

In late February, the city of Abilene, Texas, made an announcement: It had ended local veteran homelessness. It was the first community in the state and the ninth in the country to reach that goal, as part of a national program called Built for Zero. Now, through the same program, Abilene is working to end chronic homelessness. While homelessness might often be seen as an intractable problem because of its complexity–or one that costs more to solve than communities can afford–the program is proving that is not the case.

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