As a follow up to a $1 billion initiative last year that funded projects across the nation designed to improve outcomes and save money in the healthcare system, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services today announced a second, $1 billion round of Health Care Innovation Awards.

According to CMS, funding will be awarded to provider groups, health systems, payers, states, public-private partnerships, for-profit organizations or any other parties that have developed innovative payment and delivery models to improve population health, quality of care and cost efficiency.

There are three things that astound me about most organizations: The cro-magnon way performance reviews are done; the pitiful way brainstorm sessions are run and; the voo doo way decisions are made.

What follows is an elaboration of the third -- 12 common phenomena that contribute to funky decision making. As you read, think of the teams you work most closely with, which of these behaviors describes them, and what you can do to change the game.

For those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, it’s sometimes difficult to look back at the gadgets that were hailed as so cutting edge when we were children without thinking, “Holy crap did I really carry that around in my pocket?” Our smartphones, our consoles, our televisions, everything we use today is so much sleeker, slimmer, smarter, that it’s difficult to believe that once upon a time, we used to get by without them.

Customer service has always been reactionary, meaning someone has to wake up and answer website email requests. That’s just not savvy enough to hold today’s fickle, less loyal, and ready to jump customer. Great startups are getting ahead of the game with “anticipatory customer service,” like providing smart phone access to product and account data to head off complaints. This exemplary customer service is just savvy marketing.

Self-service technologies, social media, and smart phones have created a new set of expectations for high-tech consumers today. You should assume that they will want discounts to match competitors, and answers to technical questions in real time, rather than waiting in some phone or mail queue.

Imagine that you are twenty years old and you have just been deployed to Uzbekistan at a staging area for military incursions into Afghanistan.  You are in the most alien environment imaginable and still trying to get your bearings. You have been trained by the Air Force to maintain military aircraft and your knowledge is about to be tested. A pilot comes up to you as you are struggling to install a part and informs you that if he can’t get the plane off the ground in the next five minutes, there is a Seal team down range that may not make it out.  “Holy s#!t”, you think. “This is real. Somebody else’s life is in my hands.”

Google CEO Larry Page took the stage today to wrap up a nearly four-hour long keynote that kicked off the Google I/O developers conference here.

Page, who is dealing with a scratchy voice caused by vocal cord paralysis, didn't pitch products, but was more philosophical, talking about innovation, negativity and the future of technology.

Google CEO Larry Page speaks at the Google I/O developers conference (Image: Screengrab) "Today, we're still just scratching the surface," said Page. "Google is working on so many innovations. I got goose bumps about it."

The world’s cities are all trying to emulate Silicon Valley’s example and become the next global hub. Leading cities such as London, New York, Tel Aviv, Beijing and Berlin are all creating friendly conditions for startups to thrive, but other incipient companies in more unlikely places are also prospering.

Below, we've rounded up 25 startups Russia to New Zealand, Lagos to the Himalayas and Krakow to Uruguay to show that innovation is not about being in the right place — it’s about doing the right thing.

Quebec City, May 15, 2013-- Frank T. Piller holds the Chair of Managementat RWTH Aachen University (RWTH), where he directs the Technology & Innovation Management Group. In addition to being one of Europe’s most prestigious institutions, RWTH is regarded as the top German university for the quality of the engineers and managers it graduates (WirtschaftsWoche, April 2013). Mr. Piller is also co-director of the MIT Design Lab’s MIT Smart Customization Group (affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Prior to taking up his position at RWTH, he taught at the MIT Sloan School of Management (Behavioral & Policy Sciences Group, Innovation & Entrepreneurship Group, 2004-2007) and Munich-based TUM Business School (1999- 2004).

“We are fortunate to be working with a champion in a cutting-edge discipline aimed at created value for companies and organizations that adopt a problem-solving process such as that proposed by Seeking Solutions. The results we’ve seen at each of our events are so impressive that Mr. Piller agreed to serve as our special advisor and international ambassador. Thanks to his vast network and influence, we are convinced that he will enable us to speed up our development dramatically,” said Yahya Baby, co-founder of the Quebec City-based company Seeking Solutions.

New Jersey’s Technology Accelerator Welcomes New Teams at Opening Event on Campus of Montclair State University Montclair, New Jersey – May 16, 2013: Tuesday May 14th was cause for celebration as the teams of hopeful start-ups who will comprise TechLaunch’s Class of 2013 were introduced to each other and some of the Mentors who will be guiding them on the challenging 16-week LaunchPad 2 program beginning on May 20. The Class of 2013 represents an interesting blend of technology entrepreneurs sure to captivate the investors who will convene in September to evaluate their business models on Demo Day. They are, in no particular order:

30 Second Showcase Show off your work…in 30 seconds. Freelancers and Creatives can use the proprietary 30 Second Showcase mobile platform and nuanced approach to presenting their work—in place of traditional business cards —to make an introduction, get noticed, and get hired.

I was not born a leader. When I was born (and this was a very long time ago), there were serious defects in my leadership blueprint. First, I had two X chromosomes at a time when one Y was needed in order to be a leader. Actually, nobody knew what a chromosome was back then, so 42 Extra Long was the preferred measure, and I didn’t reach my full 5’2” until I was 25.

Recently, the marketing director for a tech start-up told me that her CEO was furiously drafting job descriptions for a half-dozen summer interns. She was planning to bring a small army of youngsters on board to help push her business into overdrive this summer. As the director of marketing looked at her CEO quizzically, she asked, "you know you need to manage all those interns, right?"

Interns can be a great addition to your team, but beware of the well-meaning twenty-year-old who lands in your lap without any direction or guidance. If you're planning to hire an intern (or two or three), here are four things to do before they walk through the door to ensure a successful summer for everyone involved:

LIFESTYLE OF CHOICE

“Some people value creative freedom above all else. Some value work/life balance. Still others have their eye on the big bucks. For me, success is the ability to be picky about the projects I take on while still making enough money to pay the bills…all on a part-time schedule that leaves time for myself and my family. Entrepreneurship has made that flexibility possible.”

- Steph Auteri | career coach, writer, and editor, Word Nerd Pro

I have a long-standing love affair with Mexico. As a surfer who’s lived there in the past, I’ve come to love the culture, the people and the incredible countryside.

But Mexico has more than just great beaches, food and rich culture. It has a booming economy with positive GDP growth, a bustling engineering and innovation community, and an ecosystem ripe for entrepreneurial growth.

There is a persistent, unspoken belief that entrepreneurs must work 70-100 hours per week in order to be successful. In fact, this is often glorified. Despite philosophies like The Four Hour Work Week becoming wildly popular, long work weeks have remained the norm.

Rahim Fazal (disclosure: Rahim is a member of Empact Sphere) is the co-founder of Involver, which raised $10M and eventually sold to Oracle ORCL +0.94% in 2012. In his words, “Over-working is a very important and pervasive problem. It impacts people at all of the phases of the company’s lifecycle and can be very damaging to the founder, the company, and its people. When you’re young and don’t know any better, you follow that as a heuristic. It’s completely false.”

What do a startup king, a social network innovator, a hip hop prince, perhaps the best actor on television, and two absolutely hilarious dudes have in common? They're all among the Most Creative People--and we can learn quite a bit from the way they work.

Max Levchin: Always be asking questions

We talked to PayPal founder Max Levchin about how he keeps snagging startup ideas. Turns out it's a lot about controlling chaos in ways we've discussed about why ideas come at random and why you need to document everything.

Bill Gates--builder of empires, incenter of toilets, changer of education systems--is one prolific polymath.

So perhaps it's not surprising that he's drawn to another of history's most famous multitaskers.

How so? When we met with the nerd-philanthropist-titan earlier this year, he showed us his "endearingly wonky" side, a veteran geek given to graphs, gadgets, and world-changing aspirations. In a new profile on 60 Minutes, he opened up about an important personal inspiration and possession: one of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.

500 Startups today is announcing the next 28 companies to take part in its Accelerator program, unleashing a largely international class of startups who have come to Mountain View to accelerate their startup progress. There are 28 companies in this Accelerator class, and as usual there’s a bunch of diversity there. (And, as has become tradition, the class made a ghetto fabulous music video to accompany the announcement.)

The group is more than 70 percent international, with 20 companies coming from outside the U.S. That’s no big surprise, as about 15 percent of the 500 Startups portfolio in general is made up of companies outside the U.S., but over the last several batches, the accelerator has skewed heavily toward overseas and non-Silicon Valley companies.

Commencement speakers are considered to be successful and are supposed to give advice. So when I was asked to address the doctoral and master’s degree recipients at Kent State University this past weekend, I thought a lot about what success means to me and what I could tell them as they pursue their dreams. I decided to talk about rock climbing.

I told the graduates and their guests how I had started rock climbing as a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I told them about the countless weekends I had spent outdoors with my fellow climbers. How we had hiked, climbed and shared stories by the campfire.

No.

The one word the best entrepreneurs never accept.

I said it.

Now let me walk you through a broader story because avoidance of the word in and of itself will seem cliche. Stay with me.

When I was little I had a role model for entrepreneurship – my mom. She was a natural leader. She was president of the UJA in Sacramento. From this I saw civic involvement and leadership first hand.

An article published by The Economist earlier this year, quoted research by the pressure group, Partnership for a New American Economy, which found that some 40% of Fortune 500 firms were founded by immigrants or their children. An earlier report in 2011 entitled Immigrant Founders and Key Personnel in America’s 50 Top Venture-Funded Companies concluded that more than half of America’s top 50 private venture-funded companies — as ranked by Down Jones VentureSource — were founded by immigrants.