What’s the key to getting your employees to adopt new internal workflows? According to Adobe’s Scott Belsky, make it fun.

“When it comes to rolling out an internal enterprise tool, a lot of the adoption of new technology comes down to internal merchandising,” said Belsky, the chief product officer and EVP at Adobe Creative Cloud.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”

This was said by Thomas Edison, known as one of the most outstanding inventors of the last century. Though he fervently used intellectual property protections and filed more than 1,000 patents in his lifetime, Edison understood the importance of using his external contacts to foster innovation and pave the way for his inventions to yield their full potential. In particular, he worked with a network of experts to develop the first direct current electrical circuit, without which his light bulb invention would have been virtually useless.

Because a majority of new jobs come from new or young companies, it’s a bad sign that entrepreneurship in the U.S. has been receding over several decades and still has not matched its pre-recession levels. It’s similarly foreboding that the innovation gap between the U.S. and global competitors is closing fast. To reverse those trends, we need more entrepreneurs.

Image: Dr. Thomas Gold at the Towards Collaborative Practice conference in Budapest, November 2018. Courtesy Dr. Thomas Gold.

Most of you who start new ventures don’t think of yourselves as sales experts. In fact, you may feel on the opposite end of the spectrum, more focused on delivering the perfect solution and managing the finances to grow the business. Yet in today’s competitive and rapidly changing world, top notch sales and marketing skills are critical to the success of every business.

When ClearObject CEO John McDonald this month announced new owners for his Fishers-based company, which specializes in internet-of-things integration, he put the upside succinctly: “If cash is oxygen, we just strapped on a big oxygen tank.”

Cash is indeed oxygen for young tech companies in central Indiana, whose fate—wither or prosper—hinges in no small part on finding deep-pocketed backers, typically venture capital firms, to fund rapid growth.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of death in the western society, being ranked third most lethal neoplasia in the United States in both men and women.1 In 2014, the American Cancer Society estimated that approximately 136,830 new cases of CRC will be diagnosed in the United States, with more than 50,000 Americans expected to die due to disease progression or complications.1,2 The lifetime cancer-related costs are considerable and differ by cancer site, disease stage, age at diagnosis, and treatment phase. Considering direct healthcare costs, CRC is the second most important neoplasia with estimated expenses of more than $14 billion.3,4

In the past, change was slow. Business leaders believed if they made the right choices from “the list” of well-scoped projects, and the projects ran according to plan, they would usually get the results they expected.

In a slow world, project success was about choosing the right projects and then executing well. Changing direction along the way was a sign of an at-risk project, probably because of the wrong choice up front, a bad plan or weak execution.

I was in denial for about a year and a half before I admitted that I needed to fire Randy.

His work performance had made the conclusion inescapable for years, but he was so darned nice and likeable that I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Not only did I like him, I also knew his income was crucial to his family. Furthermore, over the nine years he worked for me, his income had grown to the point that he would find it difficult to get comparable compensation.

The incubator space 1776 at Cherry Hill Mall had its grand opening Thursday, signaling how the mall is changing to provide amenities beyond shopping for clothes.

The 1776 workplace is on the second floor next to Urban Outfitters, and includes Founders' Market, a retail shop with products from local artisans and independent businesses. The space has more than 11,000 square feet for startups, small businesses, and other retail or ecommerce ideas, and can house 250 members, representing 100 to 150 companies.

Image: COURTESY OF PREIT

2019 has kicked off with a wave of innovative health care solutions highlighted at mega-conferences like CES and the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference - from the introduction of the first wearable blood pressure monitor to virtual home health care for seniors to online vision tests allowing patients to renew prescriptions from anywhere at anytime. We are truly living through an age of disruption spurred by technological advances.

This is the world I could only dream of when I first launched Prescience International in 2004 - the world that did not exist when I found myself battling a life-threatening infectious bug bite from a hospital bed in Beijing and was told I wouldn’t make it. It’s the world that I have dedicated my career to building as the Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS – fighting for those patients and consumers who are waiting for the types of inventive solutions that address their specific needs.

Image: Melinda Richter

(Bloomberg)—A Boeing flying car designed to whisk passengers over congested city streets and dodge skyscrapers completed its first test flight on Tuesday, offering a peek into the future of urban transportation the aerospace giant and others are seeking to reshape.

A prototype of its autonomous passenger air vehicle completed a controlled takeoff, hover and landing during the test conducted in Manassas, Virginia, the maker of military and commercial jets said in a statement Wednesday.

Image: Boeing - Boeing's autonomous passenger air vehicle prototype in Manassas, Virginia.

Which countries are the top data producers? After all, with data-fueled applications of artificial intelligence projected, by McKinsey, to generate $13 trillion in new global economic activity by 2030, this could determine the next world order, much like the role that oil production has played in creating economic power players in the preceding century.

The number of large U.S. manufacturing facilities has dropped by more than a third since 2000, devastating many communities where factories were the lifeblood of the local economy.

One promising way to revive America’s manufacturing might is not by going big but by going small – and going local. Digitally-assisted manufacturing technologies, such as 3D printing, have the potential to launch a new generation of manufacturing startups producing customized, locally-designed goods in a way overseas mega-factories can’t match.

It’s not as if Serbia has a great image in the world, even when people recognize it by its name and don’t confuse it with Syria or Siberia. Although not crucial, based on my professional experience, the branding of a country is an important factor affecting the success of the country’s scientists and designers.

In Serbia, young people are going for it, but the ruling party also declaratively supports the one thing that grows best in this small country in the southeast of Europe. For years, it seemed to be a matter of speculation whether it was the raspberries or the wheat of Vojvodina.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s FY 2020 budget proposal includes $56.5 million in new funding to attract businesses to Opportunity Zones. Other new innovation funding would support manufacturer hiring credits and a seed fund for minority entrepreneurs. Under the governor’s proposal, TEDCO, the state’s primary innovation agency, would see its spending increase from $27 million to $45 million.

GE is in the midst of spinning off several companies to generate cash as it undergoes a huge restructuring. Sources say it will include GE Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of GE, that invests in healthcare as well as nonhealthcare startups.

As medications go, aspirin is often considered a wonder drug. Its pain-relieving, inflammation-taming powers can treat headaches, minor aches and pains and even lower the risk of heart disease, stroke and possibly even dementia.

But all of those benefits may come at a price, according to the latest study to analyze aspirin’s risks and benefits, especially for people who take the drug as a way to prevent having a first heart event.

Innovation has always been about generating good ideas by challenging the status quo with new viewpoints. That is why diversity is fundamental to the sustained success of any innovation ecosystem. Promoting diversity in entrepreneurship and technological innovation can deliver greater economic and societal value.

If you’ve ever wondered how startups connect with big companies, whether to pilot innovations or to make them their customers, a meeting of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) New Jersey called “Implementing Open Innovation: Lessons from Leaders,” held in late October, gave a range of answers.

Panelists from New Jersey companies Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick), ExxonMobil’s Research and Engineering Technology Center (Clinton) and Evonik North America (Parsippany) were on hand, along with a representative from Accenture Ventures (Dublin, Ireland).

Image: John Bell of J&J at ACG New Jersey | Esther Surden

In this month’s Science Agenda column Scientific American’s editors make the case for widespread adoption of midwifery care in the U.S. One major advantage of such a shift would be a reduction in the cost of childbirth. Midwives boast lower rates of cesarean section and other pricey interventions compared with those of obstetricians. Moreover, women in midwifery care might choose to give birth at home or in a birth center, the costs of which are typically a fraction of those associated with hospital delivery.