Commerce, Innovation and Economies of Scale

The evidence repeatedly shows that big companies are not the same as start-ups. Economies of scale strongly influence the way things are done for the majority of operational procedures. Larger, global firms have traditionally relied on long-established, habitual processes that successfully maintain their already successful businesses. Innovation isn’t discouraged, but can be analyzed with respect to its impact on present enterprise operations, rather than its own merits, as a means to opening new markets or otherwise improving current performance.

Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS  ) is diving into the start-up business. The company announced that it has launched Disney Accelerator, a mentorship and seed-stage investment program. It has begun accepting applications from qualified early-stage companies that boast, in Disney's words, "innovative consumer media and entertainment product ideas." It will select 10 of them for the three-month program. 

The health industry has seen its share of mind-blowing crowdfunding campaigns — Pebble and the Scanadu Scout, for example. But the reality is that most campaigns don’t fare quite as well.

According to Kickstarter’s stats, only 44 percent of campaigns on the platform reach their goal, and one in 10 projects never gets a single pledge. So what does it mean when a campaign doesn’t hit its mark?

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First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage – and then what?

That was the question bugging UC Berkeley psychologist Robert Levenson in the 1980s when the U.S. divorce rate peaked at around 50 percent. So in 1989, he and fellow psychologists — John Gottman at the University of Washington and Stanford University’s Laura Carstensen — launched a longitudinal study of 156 middle-aged and older couples in the San Francisco Bay Area who had survived the slings and arrows of early wedlock, and were in it for the long haul.

“Because everyone demands instant gratification and instant connectivity,” says Goldman Sachs investment banker David Solomon, “there are no boundaries, no breaks.”

Which translates into ridiculous hours.

For the record, there are 168 hours in week. Some Wall Street folk put 120 hours of them into their jobs. As New Yorker writer James Surowiecki explains, it goes beyond finance. In 2008 Harvard Business School did a survey asking after the hours of a thousand professionals: 94% of them worked 50 hours or more per week, while almost half topped 65 hours.

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Many of the Web sites we visit every day are under cyber attack by malicious hackers looking to disrupt business transactions, discourage people from using a particular online service or exact payback for some real or perceived slight. One of the most common ways to bring down a site is to flood its computer servers with so much traffic, they slow to a crawl or shut down because they simply can’t handle the volume. This is known as a denial-of-service (DOS) attack.

Image: Courtesy of Scientific American 

Most new businesses fail--that means most entrepreneurs and CEOs fail right along with them. What makes one person pack up his desk and go home while another shakes it off and tries again?

It’s all in the mindset, says Megan McArdle, author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key to Success.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23289588@N07/2264078477 

In 1981, the federal government established the research and experimentation (R&D) tax credit. Today, with Congress considering comprehensive corporate tax reform some have argued that Congress should jettison the credit and use the savings to pay for statutory rate reduction. For example, in a recent Washington Post op-ed, noted tax economist Marty Sullivan, argued for elimination of the tax. In contrast, ITIF has argued that this would be a mistake and that the credit plays a valuable role in spurring investment in U.S. R&D while also increasing jobs, innovation and competitiveness.

The Maricopa County Industrial Development Authority (MCIDA) has awarded a $1 million grant to the ASU Foundation for A New American University to create a venture capital fund. The fund will be invested in companies that benefit from ASU-supported accelerator programs, helping them take the next step in their development with early-stage manufacturing startup support. Accessing this early-stage risk capital will allow Arizona companies and entrepreneurs to create jobs and wealth. This is in keeping with the mission of the MCIDA: to create and maintain jobs within Maricopa County and help residents achieve a better standard of living and way of life.

It’s been a pleasure to spend the past few weeks in Kansas City learning more about how non-profit organizations are using crowdfunding in their work, and are shaping how communities understand what crowdfunding represents and what goals it can help them achieve.

On January 30 I was delighted to be asked to give the keynote at Kansas City Community Capital Fund’s Annual Community Development Workshop, at the Kaufman Center.

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Almost every business leader has a mental list of big, bold changes he wants to make. Unfortunately, more times than not, nothing seems to change. We get too caught up in everyone’s urgent requests and put off the ambitious decisions. We don’t have a manager to force us to take action, so that big change just stays uncrossed on our mental to-do list.

It’s time to bring those big ideas to the front burner and turn up the heat. Make 2014 the year you stop accepting the status quo and demand more from your company and yourself.

While unemployment is the lowest in 5 years, it is still challenging to find the best employees for your company. Not only do they need the skills to perform their job well, but they also have to fit within the company’s culture. To hire the perfect people, it’s important to ask the right questions. This is a challenge for many small business owners because they typically talk more than the job candidate or they just ask questions which review their resume.

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PULLMAN, Wash. — CLINICALLY speaking, about 1.5 billion people worldwide are overweight. According to the World Health Organization, more than 10 percent of the world’s adults are obese, arguably making them the largest patient population in existence. We can debate the causes, but the long-term consequences of obesity — diabetes, heart disease, cancer — place huge burdens on our society. Public health campaigns have made little impression on this spreading medical crisis.

Image: http://www.nytimes.com - Rachell Sumpter 

Do university graduates lack the hands-on skills they need to succeed in the world of startups? Are MBAs too traditional to keep up with fast-paced technology companies? Is Berlin suffering from a talent drought? Andrew Hoag, managing director, Europe at career accelerator Startup Institute, tackles these questions and more.

As startups in Berlin continue to thrive, demand for jobs in the city’s startups is projected to soar over the coming years. According to a recent study by McKinsey, 100,000 jobs will be created in the city by 2020. Without the right talent, however, the lifeblood of these exciting startups will dry up.

Image: http://venturebeat.com 

Access to talent, proximity to customers and urban living environments all trump government incentives when it comes to which city will land a startup headquarters, according to a new industry-backed report. Endeavor Insight, the research arm of New York City-based startup accelerator Endeavor, surveyed 150 startup executives nationwide whose companies were included in Inc. magazine's list of fastest-growing U.S. firms in 2010, 2011 or 2012. The Omidyar Network, a foundation started by billionaire eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar, provided financial support for the report.

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Imagine someone writes a newspaper story about you and prints the picture of your older, well-known sibling next to the column. It is clear to you why this was done: your sibling is more famous and recognizable. But how does that make you feel?

Following the January 28th State of the Union address, PBS interviewed a number of civic leaders. One of those interviewed was the mayor of Tacoma, a city with many of the challenges and attributes of a second child.

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In Denver city government, this is what an innovator looks like: White-haired, dressed in light blue scrubs and wearing a pair of sneakers, Tara Morse works as an animal care supervisor. Each day, she conducts about a dozen examinations of new dogs and cats that arrive at the Denver Animal Shelter. Not long ago, Morse came up with a simple idea to save her agency about $75,000 a year.

Image: Instructor Brian Elms meets with economic development staff about expanding training sessions to more employees. Benjamin Rasmussen 

Scattered across the globe, concentrated ecosystems are creating our future, from Formula One racing in Southern England, to new furniture design created in Northern Italy and high-tech consumer products designed in Silicon Valley. Design is a key factor in the development of all these cornerstones in the Creative Economy. Dr. Barry Katz has studied how design helped build an ecosystem we have all come to depend on in our daily lives and his new book, Ecosystem of Innovation: The History of Silicon Valley Design, will be available from MIT Press later this year.

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As we climb out of the recession, we look for signs of recovery in the stock market, the unemployment rate, and even our own financial security. And each year, the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative releases another benchmark when it analyzes the state’s innovation economy.

Touchscreen gloves are an essential accessory for smartphone addicts battling the winter chill, but the options for consumers are fairly limited. Purchasing a pair of attractive, touchscreen-compatible mittens usually means paying a pretty penny or sacrificing aesthetics for something a little easier on the wallet.

Nanotips, which is currently funding on Kickstarter, proposes a third solution: Use a conductive, polyamide liquid solution to add touchscreen capabilities to any pair of gloves.

Image: IMAGE: NANOTIPS