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.
Paul Graham is stepping down from his day-to-day role at the startup accelerator he co-founded, Y Combinator. Sam Altman, who has been a partner at Y Combinator, will be taking over for Graham. Y Combinator has found and funded billion-dollar startups such as Airbnb and Dropbox.
A landing page is a single webpage where you want potential customers to land in order to capture leads for sales. There are many different features you can include on a landing page. You likely want to include enough information to capture interest and drive sales, but not enough to distract them from your main point. To help businesses sort out the essential elements from the distractions, PPC Hero details what they deem to be the must-haves of an effective landing page.
Image: http://smallbiztrends.com
In 1931, construction workers added the final nail to the Empire State Building in New York. At 1,250 feet high, it was the tallest building in the world, and remained so until the 110-story north tower of the World Trade Center finalized in 1972.
Then came Chicago's Sears (now Willis) Tower, followed by the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the Taipei 101 in Taiwan. In 2010, Dubai completed construction on the massive, 2,722-foot-high Burj Khalifa.
Image: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS JIM TRODEL
1. DYSON For advancing everyday tools to the point of perfection. Engineer James Dyson's bagless vacuums and bladeless fans have made innovation a household word in the U.K. Today, 85% of Dyson machines are sold to global markets, up from 30% in 2007. The company invests more than $2 million weekly in research and development, yielding such products as the recent Airblade Tap: a 10-second digital, motor-powered water faucet that both washes and dries (using 450-mph wind).
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1. BRASKEM For taking the oil out of plastic. Plastic is traditionally made from petroleum, but Brazilian petrochemical giant Braskem is using sugarcane--its nation's natural resource--instead. Its method for making polyethylene captures up to 2 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of plastic produced, and last year, the company developed a line of low-density renewable plastic for shopping bags and flexible packaging. Brands like Johnson & Johnson and Walmart bear Braskem's "I'm green" seal on their products, and the company currently produces 200,000 metric tons of green plastic per year.
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1. XIAOMI For launching low-cost, high-quality smart TVs and -phones to steal market share from industry stalwarts. At just three years old, Xiaomi is a neophyte no more. The consumer-electronics company released four new smartphones last year and sold almost 19 million of them—sales were up more than 150% from 2012—staking out a significant piece of the Chinese market with its low-cost, feature-rich devices. Xiaomi’s founder, Lei Jun, takes a radically new approach to the smartphone business model: Instead of brandishing phones’ high-cost luxury appeal like that Cupertino company, Jun sells them in buzz-generating flash sales at razor-thin margins, then takes advantage of revenue streams provided by software. Last year, Xiaomi’s earnings hit $5.2 billion as users downloaded more than 1 billion apps.
Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
1. NICE SYSTEMS For making apps smarter and more sympathetic. Inside an app, nobody can hear you scream--except the Israeli firm Nice Systems, whose customer-service solutions are used by 25,000 companies. Last year, it rolled out Mobile Reach, software that works in the background of banking, retail, and other apps, and jumps in to help a user the minute she's frustrated. "Enterprises no longer simply pay lip service to customer service," says Nice's director of solutions marketing, Tamar Sharir. Its research finds that smartphone users fail to complete about 60% of transactions, and only 64% of them then call the company for help.
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1. UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION AUTHORITY For amassing a trove of biometric identification to activate benefits for millions of Indians. The government office is using multimodal biometrics--fingerprints, iris scans, and photographs--to build the world's most ambitious identity database. A mammoth ecosystem of agencies deploys its open, scalable model, and the robust system can enroll the identities of a million people a day with 99.99% accuracy. It authenticates people over a mobile phone network using a one-time password or their fingerprints (illiteracy is a problem in India). In the process, it enables instant, paperless provisioning of banking services and welfare benefits to millions of Indians who lacked any identification until now. At last count, 450 million Indians had received their new IDs and used them to make 40 million cash transfers.
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TED Talks have set the bar high when it comes to riveting presentations brimming with inspiring “ideas worth spreading.” They inform, engage and educate. Sometimes they even move us to reshape our careers, transform our businesses and change our lives for the better.
But, let's face it: busy entrepreneurs often don't have the time to sift through TED.com’s 1,600-plus “talks to stir your curiosity” -- even for the 30-minute inspiration injection pay-off? No problem. We’ve selected a trio of the best and brightest TED Talks for professionals. They explore a range of timeless topics entrepreneurs care about, including how to market your ideas like wildfire, positively motivate employees, attain a healthy work-life balance and rock meetings on-the-go.
Image: Seth Godin Image credit: blog.ted.com
After the first run, the 18-year-old American Mikaela Shiffrin led the field by 0.5 of a second.
Image: http://www.nytimes.com
Your inbox will never look the same after this.
A San Francisco-based startup called Streak has developed a free Google Chrome browser extension that's changing the email game: the extension lets email senders see when recipients open an email.
Using the extension with a Gmail account, senders will be notified when someone opened their email and who opened the email.
This advice from Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is one of the standout lines from Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. The Fortune 500 COO says it's some of the best career advice she's ever received — after all, it landed her at Google and then Facebook.
But there are rocket ships beyond Silicon Valley, and for our new series The First 100, we tracked down the first 100 employees at 100 startups and small businesses. These are the early employees who wore many hats, laid the foundation and established the culture for some of the coolest businesses around.
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A drug development company in the Madison area that raised $8 million in financing from angel and venture investors, some of it from outside Wisconsin, received an unhappy surprise from state government when it learned it would be taxed on the capital raised.
That’s not a tax on earned revenue from product sales — the young company is still pursuing federal regulatory approval for its drugs, which have yet to hit the market — but a tax on the capital raised from investors itself.
Image: http://host.madison.com - Tom Still
In a startup culture that glorifies funding, it’s not often that entrepreneurs hear that too much funding can actually harm their company.
For the rare bootstrapped tech startup, there are dozens of seed-stage companies that dream of getting showered in venture capital. I would argue, however, that raising too much capital too early can set unrealistic expectations, sabotage sustainable growth and create an inevitable conflict of interest between the entrepreneurs and investors.
Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Many job seekers are inclined to jump at the first job offer that comes their way. But what if it isn't exactly the type of position you wanted? Should you still take it?
Heather Huhman, a career and workplace expert for the online career site Glassdoor, said that while those who have experienced a long-term job search probably feel as though they should take what they can get, there are other options.
All entrepreneurs need a solid support system of individuals they can turn to for business advice. These supporters can be close friends, family and colleagues, but one of them should fill the role of a knowledgeable, experienced mentor.
"Mentors can be one of the most powerful weapons for an entrepreneur by providing guidance, wisdom and connections," said Lourdes Martin-Rosa, American Express OPEN adviser on government contracting and mentor for the OPEN Mentorship Institute program. "Every entrepreneur should have a mentor for obtaining the best answers to his or her daily challenges during startup and management."
Image: FLICKR, US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
With the Identity Theft Resource Center® reporting a 30% increase in privacy breaches in 2013, there seems to be a growing population out there worried about all the people intent on hurting them. Why is everyone so paranoid these days? My plea to entrepreneurs is to recognize these concerns as an opportunity, to make people’s life better, rather than stoke the fires.
I must be the only one who believes that most of the data gathering in the real world, and on the Internet, is done by businesses to help you find what you want, protect you, and improve your experience, rather than invade your privacy or scam you.
Did you know that it's possible for a human to do a loop-the-loop on foot? Well, maybe not for just you average Joe, but it is for superhuman free-runner Damien Walters.
PepsiMax sponsored the daredevil's attempt, providing him with a human-sized loop the loop in an abandoned warehouse. After working the math out — he needed to be going 8.6 mph at the top — Walters got to work on being the first man to defy gravity in a loop.
Image: http://mashable.com
A recent study suggests that self-reported memory complaints might predict clinical memory impairment later in life.
Erin Abner, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, asked 3,701 men aged 60 and higher a simple question: “Have you noticed any change in your memory since you last came in?”
Image: http://mashable.com
Steve Jobs said innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Michael Porter said innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity. Both ideas describe the importance of innovative thinking within your organization if you are to avoid mediocrity.
America’s greatness is a free market economy. At the heart of a free market economy is competition. Competition drives innovation and innovation is the DNA of the American Dream. Innovation is what defines the entrepreneur and it is the engine that creates value and drives success, success for both individuals and organizations. So why is it that innovation seems accidental in so many businesses and organizations?
