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(Rich Bendis who edits InnovationDAILY also edits BioHealth Innovation's Weekly Newsletter)

The term ‘government innovation’ can seem like an oxymoron. But for a small band of disrupters working at the highest levels of government, innovation is actually the prevailing rule of the day.   On Thursday, March 13th, the Honorable Manuel Sager, Ambassador of Switzerland to the United States, and wife Christine hosted an Institute for Education (IFE) Public Policy salon for DC-area policy professionals, members of the diplomatic community, IFE Stewards and members of the press. Officially titled, “Trickle up Innovation: How Governments Can Support Grassroots Scien...,” the salon explored the concept of using the government as a catalyst for private innovation, as well as integrating new ideas from other sectors to tackle some of our biggest policy problems. 

Image: Presidential Innovation Fellows with IFE CEO Kathleen Kemper (center) and John Paul Farmer (far right). Photo credit: Kevin Allen 

Sure, fancy perks and high pay factor in employee satisfaction. But when it comes down to it, what really matters is a workplace where employees are challenged, satisfied, and appreciated.

Contrary to popular belief, such lists of most desirable workplaces aren’t completely made up of technology companies--or even large companies. And many of them don’t provide expensive, lavish perks. They simply know how to give employees what they want.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

After grueling rounds of interviews and meetings with recruiters, don't cozy up to your new desk yet--it's time to get ready for the job-offer negotiation.

Deepak Malhotra, professor of Business Administration in the Negotiations, Organizations, and Markets unit at Harvard Business School, compiled 15 rules for entering job-offer negotiations. We've boiled them down to five characteristics:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood; Cambridge, Massachusetts’ Kendall Square; Lower Manhattan: These are the dense, walkable neighborhoods that have become the new hubs of America’s tech scene, as the center of gravity for venture investment and start-up activity shifts from suburbs to urban centers.

This urban shift in America’s venture capital-fueled innovation economy is detailed in my latest report from the Martin Prosperity Institute, released today at The Atlantic’s Start-Up City: Miami event. (The report builds upon and deepens the analysis developed initially in my Start-Up City series here on the site last year).

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Entrepreneurship almost always involves pushing against the status quo to capture opportunities and create value. So it shouldn’t be surprising when a new business model, such as ridesharing, disrupts existing systems and causes friction between entrepreneurs and local government officials, right?

But imagine if the road that led to the Seattle City Council ridesharing hearings this month — with rulings that sharply curtail UberX, Lyft, and Sidecar’s operations there — had been a vastly different one.  Imagine that public leaders had conceived and built a platform to provide this new, shared model of transit.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

I’m not a venture capitalist, but I’ve headed up several successful technology startups and recently ran an early stage software company that raised almost $2 million in “seed stage” funding. I’m now leading a pre-revenue New Mexico startup raising our first equity-based funding.

As anyone who has done this knows, raising startup funding in New Mexico is challenging – partially because our state is relatively isolated from the national playing field, but also because of the challenges the New Mexico and broader U.S. venture capital communities have faced meeting the returns expected by their investors and the VCs’ ability to raise new investment capital.

Image: HARTMAN: Offers tips on startup funding - http://www.abqjournal.com

In the latest test of 3D printing in orthopedic surgery, neurosurgeons in The Netherlands announced that they successfully implanted a 3D printer skull to treat a 22-year old woman suffering from a bone disorder.

The procedure, carried out by surgeons at University Medical Center Utrecht, was carried out three months ago but was only disclosed after ensuring that the implant wasn’t rejected and the patient made a full recovery. Australian company Anatomics produced the 3-D skull implant.

Image: http://medcitynews.com 

Of all of the perplexing career dilemmas this is a pivotal one. Stay at your job and try to climb the ladder or jump ship in search of greener pastures?

This week's reader question comes from "Trying to Move On Up" in Washington, D.C., and is answered by leadership coach Lolly Daskal and psychologist Art Markman:

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

By now, you probably know that a salary is negotiable.

But that’s just one of the workplace policies and perks up for discussion. Whether it’s explicitly said or not, things like flexible working arrangements, maternity leave and even the projects you get to work on may not be set in stone.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Earlier this month, President Obama announced his 2015 budget, a roadmap for accelerating economic growth, expanding opportunity for all Americans and ensuring fiscal responsibility. The budget supports the President’s Management Agenda to deliver a 21st century government that is more effective, efficient, and supportive of economic growth. One key element of the President’s Management Agenda is accelerating the transfer of Federally funded research from the laboratory to the commercial marketplace – a “Lab-to-Market” agenda.

More and more entrepreneurs are hearing about the successful graduates and investors queued behind a few well-known startup incubators, including Y Combinator, TechStars, and the Founder Institute. They dream of appearing at the door, with their idea on the back of a napkin, and popping out a few months later with investor money to burn. The reality is far different.

By way of a definition, a business or startup incubator is a company, university, or other organization which provides resources to nurture young companies, usually for a share of the equity, hoping to capitalize on their success, or at least strengthen the local economy. According to the National Business Incubator Association (NBIA), there are currently over 1,900 members in over 60 nations.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com 

A few months ago, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Marlene Seltzer, the chief executive of Jobs for the Future, published an article in Politico titled “Closing the Skills Gap.” They began portentously: “Today, nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. Yet, at the same time, 4 million jobs sit unfilled” — supposedly demonstrating “the gulf between the skills job seekers currently have and the skills employers need.”

Actually, in an ever-changing economy there are always some positions unfilled even while some workers are unemployed, and the current ratio of vacancies to unemployed workers is far below normal. Meanwhile, multiple careful studies have found no support for claims that inadequate worker skills explain high unemployment.

Ruth Hedges is the cofounder and CEO of CrowdfundingCollege.com and Crowdfundingroadmap,Inc. She is the creator and key architect of the fundingroadmapand crowdfundingroadmap.com. She has been responsible for pioneering a new and innovative virtual system for business planning, crowdfund compliance and due diligence reporting on the cloud. And she taught the first course on equity based crowdfunding at UNLV, the first university in the United States to teach this very important information.http://www.crowdfundingroadmap.com/education

Image: http://blogs.technet.com 

GEDI’s women’s entrepreneurship index – the Gender GEDI – measures the development of high potential female entrepreneurship worldwide. Defined as “innovative, market expanding, and export oriented,” this gender specific Index utilizes GEDI’s unique framework, methodology, and global approach in order to capture the multi-dimensional aspects of entrepreneurial development. The index was launched in June in Istanbul, Turkey at the annual meeting of the Dell Women Entrepreneurs Network (DWEN) and covered by Forbes Magazine.

Image: http://www.thegedi.org 

When I was 15, my aunt got me a guitar for Christmas — and to this day, it’s been one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. Shout out to Suzy!

The great thing about guitar (besides the fact that it’s an amazing way to pick up girls…I’ve heard) is that it’s pretty straightforward to learn, and you can get to a nice intermediate level quickly — which is what 99% of guys want. We can find a song, learn it in a day and take the guitar to a party that night.

Image: http://under30ceo.com 

Whether you're a fan of bowling or not, this will be the most amazing sports feat you see in your entire day of browsing the internet for amazing sports feats.

Check it out as Andrew Cowen from Rockford, Ill. defies logic by bowling 10 consecutive strikes without ever laying eyes on the lane.

If it wasn't for a misfire on the second frame, Cowen would have literally bowled a perfect 300 game backwards, which would have been even more incredible.

Image: http://www.yardbarker.com 

Being a director of a small to medium enterprise (SME) is both a science and an art. While it requires the same fundamental skills as those required for corporate environments, the unique nature of the SME environment requires additional skills and abilities. As with corporate governance in larger organisations, foundational knowledge of governance principles, King III and the fiduciary duties of directors is essential. This includes both an academic understanding and a practical knowledge of how to translate governance principles into SME-specific board actions that drive real results.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

Distractions posed by laptops in the classroom have been a common concern, but new research suggests that even if laptops are used strictly to take notes, typing notes hinders students’ academic performance compared with writing notes on paper with a pen or pencil.

Daniel M. Oppenheimer, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Pam Mueller, a graduate student at Princeton University, studied the effects of students’ note-taking preferences. Their findings will be published in a paper in Psychological Science called “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note-Taking.”