After the release of my first book, FedEx Delivers: How the World’s Leading Shipping Company Keeps Innovating and Outperforming the Competition, I was interviewed by Bloomberg TV and asked a question that pointed to the necessity for unleashing creativity in the workplace. The question was, “If someone were to arrive on earth from Mars and did not know anything about FedEx, what’s the one thing you’d tell him that was the key to FedEx becoming a global success story?”

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The recent release of the Security and Exchange Commission’s initial report on crowdfunding is an important milestone for an industry that is perhaps the most natural byproduct of the internet age. Seen as a logical progression of the medium by those who know it best, internet-based equity crowdfunding is confirmation alternative economic models have a growing role in the marketplace. Proposed government regulation takes it further.

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In 1995, men bought a record $1.3 billion worth of neckties, and sales have been falling ever since, but if you don't buy new ties, the ones you have will soon be out of date. Now, it's all about skinny: skinny shirts, skinny jeans and skinny ties.

CBS News' Terrell Brown met the man behind the company SkinnyFatTies, who says that he can take any old, wide tie and make it fashionable.

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Ask any entrepreneur, and she'll probably tell you that her most important job is getting the right people on board.*

* It's not; the most important job is to not run out of money. But people is a close second.

Yet despite his fact, many entrepreneurs offload hiring to others as quickly as possible. This is a big mistake.

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Angel investment activity in Canada increased last year, according to a recent survey by the National Angel Capital Organization.

The survey, released in September, looked at investment activity in 2012 by 20 angel groups—around two-thirds of identifiable angel groups in Canada. Those groups made a combined 139 investments last year, a 96% increase over the 71 reported investments in 2011. Of those deals, 102 were new.

Australia is richly blessed with an abundance of resources which, along with robust legal, business and political infrastructure, has allowed it to pull through tough times on several occasions.

As we face a slowing of the current boom in resources terms of trade, there is now much casting around for alternative sources of economic growth potential.

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I earned several eye rolls and smirks when I tell colleagues I purchased shares of Twitter (TWTR) yesterday. I think they felt I was yet another victim of the latest tech bubble. How could I buy stock in what is now a $25 billion company that does not (and likely will not) earn money? They lost $65 million last quarter and yet the stock is currently trading around 22x 2014E sales, which is almost double that of LinkedIn (LNKD) and Facebook (FB). What a joke.

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When the Chinese Communist Party’s central committee wraps up the Third Plenum on November 12, 2014, a shift from efficiency to innovation will likely be one of the major planks in its vision for China.  The government’s imperatives are clear: It wants to double incomes by 2020 in the face of a declining population of working-age; an appreciating currency, and, relative to other emerging economies, high and rising wages.  Promoting innovation is also one of the eight key reform priorities in the “383” plan being circulated by the State Council’s Development Research Center.

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When we think about innovation, we tend to think about individual gifts of insight—researchers in crisp, white lab coats, slick tech entrepreneurs with fancy gadgets and VC’s doing inspired deals.

Yet, the truth is that innovation is a messy business. It’s full of blind alleys and half-baked ideas, random collisions and abrupt changes in direction.  Ideas mix and recombine, fail, reemerge and, in the end, a precious few become wildly successful.

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In the late 1800s, elite colleges admitted students from private schools based on entrance exams in Latin and Greek. State schools let in almost everyone who graduated from high schools certified by the universities’ professors. It wasn’t until private colleges opened their admissions to public school students that anyone saw the need for an application. There were more students than the schools could serve, and administrators noted with dismay that selecting based on academic merit alone dangerously increased the percentage of Jewish students.

In her recent TEDTalk, Alexa Meade describes how she followed her creative instincts away from an office job and into an investigation of shadows, space and light in her parent's basement. This curiosity led her to enact a variety of absurd and unorthodox practices such as coating the surfaces of toast and greasy eggs with acrylic paint and submerging her friend in a tub of milk. Yet, as she trusted the weird and wonderful intelligence of her instincts, she eventually blossomed into an artist with a unique practice, which raises new issues about dimensionality, light and materiality within the daunting medium of painting. Any artist would be proud to stake their claim on such an achievement.

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The Federal Aviation Administration announced late last month that it would allow airlines passengers to use personal electronic devices, such as tablets and smartphones, during all flight phases, including takeoff and landing. Phone calls are still prohibited, and the devices will have to be in "airplane mode," but customers can use Wi-Fi if the plane already has it set up.

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Despite having its fair share of skeptics, Google Glass continues to accrue enhancements that could make it a mainstream hit when it officially debuts next year. The latest is from New York-based company Rochester Optical, which promises to release a special prescription lens add-on for the device in early 2014 (image above is not of the unreleased product).

Image: mashable.com

Times are changing. The way businesses raise money may be set to change drastically after the Securities and Exchange Commission last week issued its proposed rules on crowdfunding.

What, before, was often set in motion amid the lush décor of investment firms located in multistory buildings, may in the future be done with a computer and an Internet connection.

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The Wyoming Technology Business Center (WTBC), located at the University of Wyoming, recently won a national competition for institutions that are transforming their campuses into “engines of economic prosperity.” The University Economic Development Association (UEDA) recognized the WTBC for its “Business Incubation and Outreach Program.” The award was announced at the UEDA’s annual summit in Pittsburgh, Pa.

On arrival in France at Lyon’s Saint Exupéry Airport, you wouldn't picture the Alps city of Grenoble as a major French tech hub or a challenger to Paris.

The taxi driver tells me the city is more than 60 miles away. The journey will take more than an hour. Compare that to the 30 minute-drive from San Francisco airport to Silicon Valley. Grenoble already broke a cardinal tech cluster rule: easy transportation links to the rest of the world.

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The Internet of Things promises to bring a new level of convenience to our lives. Could it bring trillions of dollars worth of convenience? Not likely, but that's not stopping a lot of prognosticators out there.

The level of hype around the financial promise of the Internet of Things is truly gargantuan. A May 2013 report from the McKinsey Institute suggests that connecting billions of ordinary devices to the Internet will add between $2.7 trillion and $6.2 trillion a year to the global economy by 2025.

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When search giant Google Inc. wanted ideas for making the world better, it conducted an online contest with a $10 million prize. When DVD-rental service Netflix Inc. wanted ways to improve its predictions of users’ movie ratings, it ran an online contest with an annual $1 million prize. Those big-money innovation contests made headlines, but every day thousands of smaller contests are conducted to help organizations come up with everything from new product names to website designs and software development.

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Applications are due November 18, 2013

DreamIt Health Baltimore is designed to speed the growth and success of early-stage health IT companies through its program in Central Maryland. Powered by the Johns Hopkins University, BioHealth Innovation, and DreamIt Ventures – the program gives participants access and advantages typically out-of-reach to healthcare startups.

Last week the second annual Goldman Sachs Builders + Innovators Summit was held at Dove Mountain in Tucson.  As with last year, GS hosted 100 business owners in various stages of business growth, but all committed to building a very sizeable business.  About 20% of the entrepreneurs had been there last year, with a good mix of new blood in the remaining 80%. 

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