innovation DAILY

AT LAST, it seems, something is to be done about the dysfunctional way America’s patent system operates. Two recent developments suggest calls for patent reform are finally being heard at the highest levels. First, in 2013, defying expectations, the House of Representatives passed (by an overwhelming majority) the Innovation Act, a bill aimed squarely at neutralising so-called patent trolls. These are individuals or companies who buy up lots of patents and then use them to extract payments from unsuspecting victims. Second, the US Supreme Court agreed to rule on what is the most contentious issue of all: which inventions are actually eligible for patent protection.

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The last exclusively domestic ladder manufacturer in the US helped Wooster, Ohio, claim a title it’s been chasing for a long time: Top Micropolitan Area in America.

By recording more corporate facility projects than any other small-town area in the US in 2013, Wayne County captured a crown that had eluded it for decades.

Image: Bauer Corp. considered New York and North Carolina before deciding to expand its ladder manufacturing operation in Wooster, Ohio. Photo courtesy of Bauer Corp./Wayne EDC 

LinkedIn is the best place for business professionals to post information about themselves, regardless of your discipline. As a business professional, regardless of what your function is, you need to be findable to those in your field. And to be findable among 300 million other professionals will take some hard work –  but it is doable.

Tech giants are winning the war for talent and Silicon Valley office space, encouraging start-ups to go on a global hunt for a new heartland.

In Asia, Singapore wants to be the answer. The government has established numerous schemes and initiatives to encourage entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to set up shop there.

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Fierce Biotech today published the top 15 sites in the US for biotech venture capital in 2013.  This according to figures from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) as compiled by Thomas Reuters.  The findings are not terribly surprising in terms of the rankings -- except it might be a mild surprise that San Francisco outspent Boston/Cambridge on the VC front last year.  Otherwise, the rankings look to make sense.  Here is the summary below in terms of place, dollars and numbers of deals.  The total dollars for the US was $4.5 B.

Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

The odds of success are against you, the efforts required to keep your head above water are massive (as is the stress) and at the end of the day, your competition may come out with a better product that sinks your entrepreneurial battleship and sends your customers overboard.

Image: N1178719 Adrian Trendall 

A great white shark called Lydia is set to make history. First tagged a year ago off the Florida coast, she's on her way to becoming the first tracked white shark to cross the Atlantic.

Lydia is being monitored by the marine nonprofit Ocearch as part of its ongoing project to help researchers and scientists gather previously unattainable data on shark movement, biology and health. The 14-foot-6-inch great white has migrated more than 19,000 miles since being tagged, and is about to cross the mid-Atlantic ridge -- closer to Europe than the United States.

Image: Researchers from Ocearch use a hydraulic platform to safely tag sharks like Lydia. Credit: Ocearch. 

Innovation is arguably today’s favorite business buzzword. Companies and countries that innovate are the business and cultural leaders, while those that lag are relegated to lower profitability and less political sway. The United States has had a preeminent role in global innovation for more than a century, but the rise of China and its focus on growing an innovative business culture threatens to upset the balance. There will be individual corporate winners and losers in each country, but the nascent competition between China and the United States will be an overall positive development for both nations, driving each to innovate smarter and faster.

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In honor of Employee Appreciation Day and putting people first - championing a culture that wins the talent wars, we're sharing these 20 examples of organisations who are using the digital economy to reshape the way business is done curated by Paul Taylor, Innovation Coach at Bromford:

Image: http://frontendofinnovationblog.iirusa.com 

Why do the number of spirals in a sunflower match up with the integers 34,55, 89 and 144; numbers found in the famous Fibonacci Sequence? Scientific American editor John Matson explains.

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Is New York City ready to contest in high-tech against Silicon Valley? Fuggedaboutit.

Gotham is so far behind in every conceivable measurement — from engineering prowess to employment and venture funding — that even the idea is somewhat ludicrous.

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When you’re fresh out of college or want to work for yourself, starting a business and partnering up with someone is the exciting way to go. Going into business with someone can feel very similar to falling in love. Everything seems beyond fantastic, you’re elated with joy and nothing seems impossible. A business relationship isn’t dating though; it’s a totally different relationship, but with comparable similarities. If you feel you started a business relationship with the wrong person, here are some warning signs that you should take into consideration before going out on your own.

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Debt isn’t always a dirty word in the world of startups.

Yesterday I heard John Hoesley from Silicon Valley Bank give a brief presentation on venture debt as a funding mechanism for startups at a capital connections event hosted by BioOhio. He mentioned that SVB has seen an uptick in its venture debt business over the last few years as venture capital dollars have become more scarce and companies have turned to alternative sources of funding.

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While President Obama’s FY15 budget request is unlikely to find much support in Congress this year, the document has traditionally served as a useful guide to the administration’s priorities and to federal programs related to research, regional economic development, manufacturing, entrepreneurship and STEM education.

It is 6:00 a.m. David is starting his first day as the “leader in residence” at Crotonville, GE’s global leadership institute, with a jog around the running trail with a couple of twenty-somethings who are half his age and might be five levels below him on an org chart. Their run is companionable; their discussion, candid. It is a serendipitous moment of connection that the three will always share.

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Suppose you’re meeting with a group of managers and staff members to determine who your key stakeholders are. (It’s an important task, because with limited resources, your organization or unit can’t do everything for everyone.) People will submit their ideas, and in no time at all you’ll have a large list — and potentially a nightmare. If you don’t focus on the relationships that matter most, management and staff will be running in all directions, not meeting anyone’s needs very well.

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Real leaders, the kind we want to follow and emulate, are rare in today’s global, hyper-competitive and financially driven-world.

Often in their place are fast-track wannabes and impostors focused on unsustainable, short-term results. Instead of mentoring employees and looking for long-term solutions to lasting profitability, they seek to drive performance by bullying and focusing on personal glory over the success of the entire organization.

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Barcelona has raised as one of the finalists cities to the European Capital of Innovation Award, also called ‘iCapital’, a prize created by the European Commission to distinguish the city that has created a better ‘innovation ecosystem’ linking citizens, government agencies, associations and companies.

As announced by the board of experts that will judge the prize, Barcelona is one of the favorites to become the iCapital for all the efforts that the city has done for introducing the use of new technologies to bring the city closer to citizens. This is just a result of the emphasis that Barcelona has put on being an international benchmark for using technologies to develop smart city management.

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Researchers from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland discovered an unusual assortment of marine creatures while exploring the South Pacific's New Hebrides…

Image: http://www.livescience.com 

TORONTO - Information technology giant Cisco has named Toronto as the location of one of four new global innovation hubs.

The California-based company, which is the world's largest maker of computer-networking equipment, said it will invest $100 million in the Toronto centre over the next decade.

Image: http://www.windsorstar.com 

It’s invariably the unseen stories, the hidden, off the beaten track, unprepared accounts that evade our attention, but seem to be an indication of the bigger matters. Like how an Iranian businessman didn’t hesitate a second to invest in an Israeli startup founded by former Israeli defense military personnel. It’s an investment that’s emblematic of a better future – and in a world of political strife, this investment means more.

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If you answered architect, you’d be flat wrong! According to U.S. News and World Report’s list of 100 Best Jobs in 2014, software developer is the top job in America right now. Software developers are in great demand and make handsome salaries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that 140,000 new software developer jobs will be created by 2020.

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Would you rather be intelligent or disciplined? While most people would probably choose intelligence, discipline -- the ability to forgo immediate gratification in pursuit of a great goal -- is actually a greater predictor of subsequent life success.

“One great thing about self-control is that unlike other characteristics like intelligence, it’s easy to improve,” says Nathan DeWall, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky who studies self-regulation (he’s also an ultra marathon runner).

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A number of devices now exist that turn smartphones into medical monitors, but they tend to focus on specific vital signs and you’d have to carry a number of separate components to measure a variety of parameters. A new iPhone case called Wello from Azoi Inc. is planned to be released later this year combines a one lead ECG, thermometer, pulse oximeter, and supposedly even a cuffless blood pressure sensor in one device. It will also come with an optional spirometer for measuring airway flows and volumes.

Image: http://www.medgadget.com 

The White House on Thursday announced it is looking to fill a new roster of external entrepreneurs and technologists willing to serve short-term assignments to tackle some key government challenges.

Round three of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program will pair up talented individuals from outside government with top civil servants to work on one of 14 projects aimed at addressing key challenges and making government services smarter and more efficient.  

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When we read, our eyes move across a page or a screen to digest the words. All of that eye movement slows us down, but a new technology called Spritz claims to have figured out a way to turn us into speed-readers. By flashing words onto a single point on a screen, much like watching TV, Spritz says it will double your reading speed.

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Here’s the ultimate leadership litmus test: Would your employees still work for you if you didn’t pay them?  

To answer this question, I traveled to Saddleback Church, a so-called mega church that wouldn’t be able to fulfill its mission without volunteers. On a typical Sunday at its main campus in Lake Forest, Calif. (where I visited), more than 1,000 volunteers are needed to make sure that the 20,000 attendees are welcomed, parked, fed, inspired, and connected.

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A few years ago, a landmark Stanford study came out showing that people tasked with remembering one digit made much better decisions than people charged with remembering seven digits. The two groups were each presented with a choice to eat calorie-laden cake or healthy fruit. The seven-digit crowd ate 50% more cake. The culprit: Cognitive load. 

Image: http://firstround.com 

It’s that time of year again: the W2 and 1099 forms have all been sent out. You're staring at a new collection of tax forms, and it’s peak season for the tax prep software industry and accountants.

Have you wondered if you are one of those Americans who have left money on the table by overpaying your bill to Uncle Sam? Most likely, you want to do all you can to get as big a refund (or pay as little as possible) this year. Here are six simple filing fixes to help you put more money in your wallet this year:

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Misao Okawa blew out the candles of her birthday cake on Wednesday and became the world's oldest person at the ripe old age of 116.

The daughter of a kimono maker, Okawa was born in Osaka, Japan, on March 5, 1898 — a year when Queen Victoria sat on the British throne, New York added surrounding counties that would become the five famous boroughs, and the Philippines declared independence.

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When we were in college, most of us heard about legendary summer internship programs at companies like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn with summer days filled with baseball games, cool swag, and even free sushi at lunch. While all those special treats are a dream to the average college student, how many interns actually end up returning to those companies as full-time employees?

J. Craig Venter is the latest wealthy entrepreneur to think he can cheat aging and death. And he hopes to do so by resorting to his first love: sequencing genomes.

On Tuesday, Dr. Venter announced that he was starting a new company, Human Longevity, which will focus on figuring out how people can live longer and healthier lives.

Image: Karen Xu, a scientist at J. Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics, prepares samples of microorganisms from desert soil and rock. Credit Michal Czerwonka for The New York Times 

China's first venture capital (VC) fund focused on solely female entrepreneurship - the Wuhan Cybernaut Women's Innovation Entrepreneurship Venture Capital Fund - has been established in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.    The fund was co-planned and launched by the Wuhan Women's Federation and Silicon Valley-backed Cybernaut (China) Investment.

Image: http://www.womenofchina.cn 

I am very proud that my son just published his novel, Uncommon Stock. It’s a fictional thriller about two entrepreneurs starting a new technology company.

One of the most powerful pieces of the book that resonated with me was its focus on resilience, the ability to bounce back after a setback/disaster, with total commitment towards achieving a specific.  For young students searching for a career,  parents of children who are striking out on a career, teachers who counsel students on career choices and clinicians who help clients learn work/life balance and enhance health, they may be unaware of the dynamic emotional and commitment struggles that underlie successful entrepreneurship.

Startup incubator DreamIt Ventures Austin is kicking off a new microfund this week that will benefit the companies involved with its second accelerator program.

The microfund, which will run through a partnership with AngelList, allows accredited investors to crowdfund money for startups. Everyone who participates in DreamIt Austin’s microfund will need to make a $2,500 minimum investment that will fund all nine companies within DreamIt’s Austin program — that means you can’t just pick and chose to fund only the companies you like.

The rumors were true – kind of: The Founders Fund has been out raising a massive amount of cash for a fifth fund, but it’s not $750 million as originally thought. It’s $1 billion, the fund said today.

Most known for backing Facebook, Spotify and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, FF is a “stage agnostic” fund that focuses on aerospace, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, energy, health and consumer Internet.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

This Memo explains the objectives of the Innovation Union Scoreboard and provides an overview of the research and innovation performance of EU Member States and some associated and neighbouring countries at national and regional levels, as measured by the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2014 and the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2014.

Justin Rosenstein wasn’t sure what had happened. One of his company’s highest performing enginners seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for the work. “He had gone from super dedicated to detached,” says the co-founder of Asana, an app that powers teamwork without email. “Something wasn’t right. He seemed to be in an existential funk.”

So he took him for a walk and asked one simple question: “What’s wrong?”

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There have recently been some angry grumblings from the blogosphere about the government wanting to stick its fingers in the crowdfunding pie. The concern across the internet seems to be that new regulations will destroy the rapidly-growing crowdfunding industry that brought us the Pebble Watch and the Veronica Mars movie.

I am here to paraphrase Mark Twain and assure you that the rumors of Kickstarter’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

Last week was Global Innovation Week 2014 and one of the highlights was the Global Innovation Summit (GIS) in Silicon Valley.

The focus of the GIS conference was on the great topic of ecosystem development - a topic of great import to conference leaders Victor Hwang and Greg Horowitt, venture partners at T2 Ventures and authors of The Rainforest: The Secret to Building The Next Silicon Valley.

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