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innovation DAILY

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.

Brain

All entrepreneurs must know how to be innovative if they want to succeed in the business world today. This is not something that happens because of a lucky accident. You must understand innovation and creativity to use them both. Below are 27 things that you should consider to bring yourself to the sort of success that you want to obtain.

1. Do Not Be Afraid To Break The Rules

You have to break the rules. If you do not, you will just create what someone else already made.

2. Ideas Come From Everyone Who Works Hard

You have to be dedicated to working. Do not just sit back and wait for a good idea or it will never come.

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NewImage

The folks at Bing sent along the infographic below. It's based on a survey that the Boston-based marketing network CampusLive conducted in April of 700 college students, and 100 adults working at startups.

Some interesting tidbits: 7 percent of students think working at a startup "makes me sexier"; 22 percent say their romantic partner "puts up with a lot." Fifty-two percent of students are interested in startups. Forty-eight percent of students say that more money — presumably funding — would encourage more students to devote themselves to startups.

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Stem Cell

From early fetal tissue research to the first successful human treatments, this timeline documents the progress in stem cell science, and the policies that have impeded or promoted it.

The stories of research involving human embryonic stem cells and the policy governing that work are intertwined and stretch back into the mid-1970s. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade, discussions began about how to conduct ethical research on human fetal tissue. Since that time, scientists have made great strides—most notable the isolation of human embryonic stem cells.

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regret

The poem “Maud Muller” by John Greenleaf Whittier aptly ends with the line, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’” What if you had gone for the risky investment that you later found out made someone else rich, or if you had had the guts to ask that certain someone to marry you? Certainly, we’ve all had instances in our lives where hindsight makes us regret not sticking our neck out a bit more.

But new research suggests that when we are older these kinds of ‘if only!’ thoughts about the choices we made may not be so good for our mental health. One of the most important determinants of our emotional well being in our golden years might be whether we learn to stop worrying about what might have been.

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Money

Many entrepreneurs actually refuse to do financial projections beyond the first year, insisting that no one can predict the future. They need to realize that investors ask for projections, not merely as predictions, but more as commitments from the founder and his team. If you are not willing to commit, don’t expect anyone to back you.

In reality, you need to set these projections as goals for your own use, to convince employees as well as investors that you have a business which is challenging, but achievable. Projecting the financials should be the last step of your business plan preparation, since it assumes you already know the opportunity size, customer buying habits, pricing, costs, and competition.

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You don't know Jack

In today’s fast-paced and global tech world, internationalization is often on the minds of entrepreneurs and CEOs. If done correctly, it’s a great step that will make your business thrive on a global scale. However, there are a few essential insights an entrepreneur/CEO needs to break into a new country successfully. This is both easier and harder than you think it is. Easier, because you’ve already built up your business in one market. Harder, because what you don’t know how to do, you really don’t know. And there’s no faking it – examples of internationalization gone wrong are a dime a dozen (think “All Your Base Are Belong To Us” or i18nguy). If you’re seriously considering venturing beyond your core domestic audience, make sure you cover your bases and internalize these lessons.

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Laptop on the Beach

Just because you can Skype into a company meeting from a beach in Boracay, doesn’t mean you should.

Tourists are increasingly connecting to the Internet while on vacation, according to a recent study from Michigan State University. The walls between work, home, play, and now that last frontier of relaxation, vacations, have pretty much crumbled. Ubiquitous Wi-Fi, cell coverage, smartphones, tablets, and wee laptops are partially responsible, along with high-pressure jobs and workplaces that expect you to be reachable at all hours.

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NewImage

Many entrepreneurs I know feel guilty about not quitting their day job when initiating their startup, worrying about not giving their all to an employer, juggling the multiple roles, or even a legal conflict of interest. I’ll try to offer some guidelines to address these issues, but I generally recommend you keep the day job until your new company is producing real revenue.

The exceptions to this advice would be if you are being paid for your startup position by external funding, or if you have enough money in the bank for both you and the startup to survive for at least a year. Otherwise, I suggest that founders be up-front with their employers, with an honest commitment that the “side” work on the potential startup will not jeopardize committed results.

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model

Walking through Times Square recently, I came upon a hot dog vendor promising something astounding. On the side of his cart hung a giant sign advertising "Hot dogs with an innovative new design!!!!" 

Since I work in innovation--and am a huge fan of all things carnivorous--I had to check out this miracle of modern gastronomy. 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered the "innovative new design" consisted of three elements: a bun, a cylindrical serving of meat (i.e, a hot dog) and Heinz ketchup. 

Convinced the subtle nuance of his artistry must have blown right by me, I quizzed the chef about the innovative nature of the design (I let the "new" part slide because I assumed it was just marketing). 

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crowdsourcing

To be upfront about where we stand, yes – we are great supporters of tapping into the wisdom of the crowd for many pursuits – for citizen engagement, open innovation, or crowdfunding. That said, we realize that it’s important to be aware of the fact that there are risks to consider. This article is a response to the concerns raised by people we meet along an organization’s path of considering crowdsourcing to fulfill a particular need for their organization or their constituents.

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Singapore

Bankers have always been a worldly crew, and since Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship and moved to Singapore, we've thought that island deserved our attention.

So we started digging and we found out that bankers are heading there in droves. In a recent Telegraph survey Singapore dominated a list of places that bankers said they wanted to work, with 27% of the vote it even beat out NYC.

Boston Consulting Group recently named Singapore the country with the world's densest population of millionaires -- 17 percent of all households, to be exact.

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twitter

It's a beautiful day in San Francisco: sunny but not too hot, a nice breeze but not too windy.

So a lot of Twitter employees had lunch out on the rooftop garden of their office.

Their brand-new office, that is—three floors of 1355 Market Street in what real-estate developers are calling "Mid-Market." (Over the weekend, we broke the news that Twitter had moved out of its old offices at 795 Folsom.)

San Francisco gave Twitter and other companies that agreed to move to the still-sketchy neighborhood significant tax breaks, which helped keep Twitter from flying south to the suburbs.

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Apple's Tim Cook

Update: Apple just revealed a bunch of new products, revamping its lineup of laptops, and refreshing its mobile and desktop software.

We took live notes of everything as it was being revealed. Those notes are below.

For individual pieces of news, follow these links:

Apple revealed a new MacBook Pro. It has a retina display, and it's almost as thin as a MacBook Air. However, it's much heavier. It starts at $2,100.

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Fat

Scientists have long associated sleep deprivation with obesity, but whether one causes the other has been unclear.

According to two new studies, sleeping fewer hours than your body needs does in fact impact how you interpret unhealthy food choices.

In one of the studies, 25 men and women of normal weights were placed in an fMRI scanner and then shown photos of nutritious and unhealthy foods. This experiment was conducted after the subjects had either gotten four or up to nine hours of sleep. The other study examined 23 healthy adults after nights of normal and restricted sleep, where the participants rated their food cravings while inside a fMRI scanner.  

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Bob Rice

Investor Bob Rice has helped a lot of startups get off the ground.

He says entrepreneurs have a limited time window to impress VCs and should present their idea "almost like a headline in a newspaper."

"You need to be able to get you point across within a minute  while you've got someone’s attention ... before they start to wander," says the managing partner at Tangent Capital. "It's almost like a headline in a newspaper."

This means that before you go into telling your entire story, you need to tell the most important part of your story."

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Breakfast

Mornings are a great time for getting things done. You’re less likely to be interrupted than you are later in the day. Your supply of willpower is fresh after a good night’s sleep. That makes it possible to turn personal priorities like exercise or strategic thinking into reality.

But if you’ve got big goals--and a chaotic a.m. schedule--how can you make over your mornings to make these goals happen?

Because I write about time management frequently, I’ve gotten to see hundreds of calendars and schedules over the years. From studying people’s morning habits, I’ve learned that getting the most out of this time is a five-part process. Follow these steps, though, and you’re on your way to building morning habits that stick.

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Dude relaxed in Office

Being an entrepreneur certainly has its perks. But having the ability to be your own boss requires at least a dozen strong qualities in order to succeed. Cultivating these twelve characteristics of a successful entrepreneur will help ensure eventual success.

1. Honesty – In the world of being in the business of you, honesty is one of the greatest qualities for success. Develop a culture of honesty, both with yourself as well as with your customers. Nobody benefits if you lie to yourself about the workload you are truly able to handle. Likewise, your small business does not yet have the consumer confidence that corporate giants have with the public. Let this be an advantage. Build trust with the customer by demonstrating transparent honesty in every way possible.

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Money

Many young life-science companies in North Carolina can be made or broken by the types of grants they receive.

These grants fund early research and help take a company from the planning phase to getting the seed, angel, venture and other investment capital to take their product or service to market.

Two of the most helpful grants for these types of companies are Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants.

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Dice

Gearing up for a venture fair to pitch your company’s medical device or therapeutic can be a nerve-racking experience, but it’s also a moment of truth for a company to get an indication of how investors respond to your company.

Among the panelists at a recent seminar organized by BioStrategy Partners in suburban Philadelphia were a couple of organizers for these venture fairs. Jaine Lucas of Mid Atlantic Diamond Venture Partners and Marc Kramer of Angel Venture Fair discussed some of the coaching and other assistance they give to startups, but they also offered lots of constructive advice for entrepreneurs evaluating whether they are ready to present at venture fairs and what their priorities should be. Joshua Tarnoff, Complexa CEO, shared some insights as a serial entrepreneur. Tim Pelura, Immunome CEO, was the moderator.

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Cloud on the ocean

The oceans have warmed in the past 50 years, but not by natural events alone.

New research by a team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and international collaborators shows that the observed ocean warming over the last 50 years is consistent with climate models only if the models include the impacts of observed increases in greenhouse gas during the 20th century.

Though the new research is not the first study to identify a human influence on observed ocean warming, it is the first to provide an in-depth examination of how observational and modeling uncertainties impact the conclusion that humans are primarily responsible.

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