Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
Accelerators and incubators, are they good or bad for startups? There is a strong sense that despite startups needing a helping hand, whether that might be with funding, work space, facilities or network, there could be a negative effect that these programmes have upon young companies — namely that they never learn to walk on their own two feet.
Most of us, when we get what we think of as a stable job, effectively plug into a solution someone else has devised, taken to market and brought to scale. We hire ourselves out on behalf of solutions for which someone else has found avid users, early backers and paying customers.
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I’ve always been a terribly ‘difficult’ shopper, but also felt that we could live our fast-paced urban lives more sustainably. As an entrepreneur, I’ve found that I can harness these contradictory characteristics in my latest start-up venture, Clear Returns.
I’ve been that demanding shopper, and on occasion, the ‘customer from hell' in Britain’s high streets. Despite having limited time to really hit the shops, I would be the one taking shoes back to the retailer or returning that box to the online store. I wanted the shoes to be a perfect fit; and I knew from commercial experience that things could be made better.
A good salary, great culture, and awesome perks go a long way towards attracting top talent. But many of the most driven and desirable employees want more.
“It is becoming extremely important to be seen as an innovative employer if you want to win the top talent," says Petter Nylander, the CEO of employer branding consultancy Universum. "When we ask the students about top associations with their ideal employers, innovation is one of the most common words.”
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Yesterday, the world lost one of its great thinkers. Ronald Coase, a legendary Nobel laureate in economics, passed away at the age of 102. I was lucky to interact with him briefly last year. He was kind enough to review my book and give constructive feedback. However, Professor Coase influenced me far more than with a simple book review. Perhaps more than anyone, his work made my own career possible.
THE Commonwealth Bank has developed a new way of seeing what makes Australian entrepreneurs tick and what influences them the most.
By exploring seven distinctive qualities which form the foundation of the entrepreneurial mindset, Commbank has come up with seven types of entrepreneur.
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Many experts would have us believe that robots and other technologies are behind the job drought. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
MIT Technology Review editor David Rotman recently wrote an article called “How Technology is Destroying Jobs.” The title not only sums up the article’s thesis, it sums up the view of many pundits seeking to explain lackluster job growth. But technology never has destroyed jobs on a net basis and it won’t in the future..
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How often do you buy a new car? A new house? A new couch? A new raincoat, fridge, or washer and dryer?
And now: How often do you get a new cell phone?
Clearly, the upgrade cycle plays a much bigger role in the tech industry than in any other realm of consumer goods. Most people wouldn't be embarrassed to drive a 2009 Toyota Camry or to put their food in a 2002 refrigerator (or even a 1992 fridge). But walk around with a four-year-old iPhone, and people think you're some kind of caveman.
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Many entrepreneurs have their entire net worth tied up in their companies. For a long time, this is exactly what most venture investors wanted: more to gain (and lose) means a stronger incentive, greater focus, and better performance - right?
No. In many cases this lack of diversification is overkill and actually hampers performance.
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It was getting close to lunch time and the people seated around the table — the CEO and seven of his direct reports — were clearly getting antsy. But it wasn't because they were hungry. In fact, they'd been eating snacks all morning, mostly out of boredom.
The COO was at the front of the room, talking through slides projected on a screen. The conversation was primarily one way, with the COO explaining and, when necessary, defending his work.
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Yesterday, I texted a non-economist friend to say how sad I was to learn of the death of Ronald H. Coase, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1991. She wrote back, "Was it sudden or unexpected?" Well, I answered, he was 102 years old. So no. Not unexpected.
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IN THE world of start-ups the rule of thumb is that young American firms raise twice as much money in each round of financing as European ones—and twice as fast. Three European venture-capital firms that invest in young technology firms are trying to challenge that notion. They recently published numbers that show they are making some headway.
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YOUR TO-DO LIST SHOULDN'T FEEL LIKE A FOREIGN DOCUMENT DESCRIBING AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. INSTEAD, INCORPORATE EVERYDAY (LOW-STRESS) TASKS TO MAKE IT FEEL LIKE PART OF YOUR DAY.
I’m a big believer in the to-do list. Every night I create a list of what I intend to do the next day, and it turns out I’m not the only one. A 2012 LinkedIn survey found that over 60% of professionals reported creating to-do lists, though curiously, only 11% of people said they actually got through everything on their lists. Research from IDoneThis, a service that lets teams share their accomplishments, found that when they had a to-do feature, 41% of to dos were never completed. And only 15% of “dones” actually started as “to dos.”
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With all the concern (and liability) hospitals and their partners face to keep patient medical data secure and private, one new biometric security innovation could offer an interesting alternative to the typical password. This wristband grants users access to their devices by identifying the wearer by their heartbeat.
A Popular Science article said Toronto-based startup Bionym wants to manufacture its Nymi wristband and sell it for nearly $80 when it is scheduled to hit the market next year. According to CEO Karl Martin, it will be able to unlock PCs, Macs, iPhones and Android phones and tablets. But he also sees its relevance wherever passwords and PINs are required.
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This graph is a good visual depiction of how aging baby boomers, advances in technology and shifts in the way healthcare is delivered under reform may influence jobs in the healthcare sector.
In a Labor Day article, PBS directed us to interesting data published last year by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its Occupational Outlook Handbook (h/t @VentureValkyrie). Seventeen of the 30 occupations expected to grow the quickest between 2010 and 2020 are healthcare and medicine-related.
World overpopulation wouldn't be such a big problem (space-wise, at least) if everyone lived as densely as they do in South Korea or New Jersey.
The UN has predicted that the world population will reach 9.6 billion by 2050--nearly 2.5 billion more people on Earth than we have at the moment. In 2013, the annual day in which humanity consumes more natural resources than the planet is capable of recovering from in a year came early, once again. Overpopulation also just happens to be one of those words that immediately triggers images of the apocalypse, despite the fact that nothing in human existence seems more routine than birthing a child.
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In general, what does an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) do?
An EIR is someone who comes from an entrepreneurial background who is put in a position to share their knowledge, wisdom and experience with not so experienced entrepreneurs. They typically work inside large institutions like universities and for-profit companies. EIRs can assist any type of startup entity, no matter if the purpose is social, civic or for-profit.
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If you're a Google Earth expert, you're well aware Google's rich mapping software features historical data on a number of places around the world.
Whenever you see a clock icon, select to view historical imagery from that exact location. You'll then have the option to use a sliding tool to view the site's progress through time.
The notion that innovation starts with a sudden flash of insight, an electric light bulb or an Archimedes in the bathtub moment, is far from accurate. Innovation takes time and effort. It’s less an idea and more a process. Here are the four big myths which, more often than not, act as barriers to innovation and the development of new concepts and designs.
