Where in the world are the most innovative people? Who works for the world's most innovative companies? Discover why Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore are ranked as the top countries. Find out why Apple, Google, Monsanto and P&G are ranked as the leading innovative companies. Click on the convenient links below to see some suprising results.

On December 16, 1947, Bell Labs researchers William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain created an amplifier from a germanium crystal that boosted an input signal by 100 times. Various researchers had tried to develop a solid-state alternative to electromechanical switches and delicate vacuum tubes during the war. The Bell Labs Trio demonstrated it for lab officials a week later on December 23: Shockley deemed it ”a magnificent Christmas present.”

And only six months after the Roswell Incident. For the sake of argument, we’ll follow the official story.

Bell Labs announced it six months later. The trade press was ecstatic: Electronics put the three men, who would share the Nobel Prize for physics in 1956, on the cover. (Bardeen became a laureate a second time in 1972 for his work on superconductivity.) The New York Times only gave it a few paragraphs on page 46.

Glassdoor just released its ranking of the 50 best companies to work for in 2013. 20 of these companies are tech companies, including Apple, Google, and Facebook. Glassdoor compiled a bunch of quotes from employees at these firms, explaining why they love working where they work so much.

Facebook is the #1 company to work for in the world, according to a new study by Glassdoor. The career site recently ranked the 50 best companies based on employee reviews and corporate data it collected. After looking at the salaries of even the lowest people at Facebook, it's easy to see why employees are happy there.

We all know what it's like to sit through a bad presentation. We can easily spot the flaws — too long, too boring, indecipherable, what have you — when we watch others speak. The thing is, when we take the stage ourselves, many of us fall into the same traps.

Here are five of the most common, along with some tips on how to avoid them.

1. Failing to engage emotionally. You risk losing your audience when you just "state the facts," even in a business setting. No presentation should be devoid of emotion, no matter how cerebral the topic or the audience. Speak to people's hearts as well as their minds. Look for ways to add emotional texture to your exhibits, data, proofs, logical arguments, and other analytical content. Try opening with a story your audience can relate to, for example, or including analogies that make your data more meaningful.

"We think that the top three obstacles to better gender balance are: Management mindset, leadership criteria, and career management processes " concluded the group of men during last week's leadership team meeting, after an animated debate.

Then I asked the much smaller group of women who had been enthusiastically discussing the topic in a corner of the room to present their analysis. "Self-criticism, lack of confidence and self-selection out of promotion pools" was how they explained the dearth of women in the room — and on this team.

2012 was a transformative year in education.   Between the introduction of the MOOC (the ‘Massive Open Online Course’), and the explosive growth in the number of online offerings, all eyes were on higher ed. In the past twelve months, students were increasingly able to learn from leading faculty at elite institutions beyond the four walls of their classrooms, and soon, professors will be collaborating across universities to collectively create and distribute for-credit curriculum for an online semester.  New high growth players entered the online education marketplace, and universities began to align around interactive platforms.  As online certificate programs became more robust and hyper-targeted towards professional development, more and more students looked to gain these credentials as a differentiator in the work force.

Yup, it’s that time of the year again. The big tech players have started releasing their year in review specials, in the apparent belief that nothing interesting will happen in the next couple of weeks. Twitter and Google have already released theirs, with Facebook the latest to join in. The year’s been pretty big for the social network itself. In May it went public, with its founder Mark Zuckerberg getting married shortly after. Interestingly the first is fairly low down on its top events for the year, while the latter doesn’t crack the list at all.

Let’s face it, consultants have a bad image. Businesses want experienced people who get their hands dirty, rather than experts who give presentations, make recommendations, and disappear. Even consultants don’t like their job, since they don’t often get to see results, and too much of their time is spent looking for the next gig.

The Internet has changed the world. If you need to know how to do something, just look it up online. You will probably find more current alternatives and more recommendations on any given subject than any consultant could muster. For example, there are a dozen articles like this one for every area of expertise.

Even before obesity occurs, eating fatty and sugary foods causes chemical changes in the brain, meaning that going on a diet might feel similar to going through drug withdrawal, according to a study published today by Dr. Stephanie Fulton of the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Medicine and its affiliated CRCHUM Hospital Research Centre.

“By working with mice, whose brains are in many ways comparable to our own, we discovered that the neurochemistry of the animals who had been fed a high fat, sugary diet were different from those who had been fed a healthy diet,” Fulton explained. “The chemicals changed by the diet are associated with depression. A change of diet then causes withdrawal symptoms and a greater sensitivity to stressful situations, launching a vicious cycle of poor eating.”

After more than four decades of negotiation, impasse and posturing, 25 member states agree to create a unitary patent. MEPs who voted for the move promise simplification, lower costs and time-saving for hard-pressed SMEs.

The long-awaited single European patent will become a reality on 1 January 2014, after the Council and the European Parliament endorsed a compromise deal on Tuesday (11 December).

The promise is that the new patent will be cheaper and more effective in protecting inventions, with one patent grant providing protection in 25 member states, patent languages limited to English, French and German (in line with the European Patent Office system), and a single court to deal with disputes.

How do you deliver the perfect sales pitch in 30 seconds? How do you cram in all the wonderful aspects of your idea or innovation so that the listener is hooked. The point is you don’t. Too much information is bad. Keep your message short, simple and to the point. Describe the problem simply, what your solution offers and why is better than anything else happening today. Done. Easily said that done, but these tips will help you perfect your elevator pitch.

Cleantech Open partnered with Chevron to develop a series of videos to provide guidance on the practical things entrepreneurs must do to transform their ideas into thriving businesses. Trond Unneland, vice president and managing executive of Chevron Technology Ventures, and other representatives from venture capital funds discuss how entrepreneurs should prepare and plan for a meeting with a venture capitalist.

You’ve probably already heard or read about the massive shift to mobile computing that is underway. But a picture’s worth a thousand words.

Venture capitalist Mary Meeker gave her year-end “State of the Internet” presentation last week, to much geeky fanfare. In her talk, Meeker, who works for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, used several telling charts to reiterate something we’ve known for a while: the trend shaping the Web is the explosion in popularity of connected mobile devices.

Below are four charts from the comprehensive presentation that illustrate the transformation underway in the market for personal computing devices.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has created a new operating division to translate its academic and clinical research and discoveries into marketable products and services that will benefit patients. The new enterprise, Wake Forest Innovations, is being led by Chief Innovation Officer Eric Tomlinson, DSc, and Ph.D., who is also President of the Piedmont Triad Research Park.

Wake Forest Innovations is investing in novel ways of stimulating conception and development of products and services that will generate new revenue streams by establishing and managing new business partnerships.

Why should smartphones make us choose between using them too much or not at all?

My colleague David Zax has replaced his iPhone with a so-called “dumbphone.” Novelist and media inventor Robin Sloan did the same thing. Tech columnist Paul Miller is offline for a year and loving it. I kind of envy these people, but at the same time, I can’t help but roll my eyes a bit at such permanent, scorched-earth solutions for the problem of being digitally “overconnected.” Smartphones and the internet aren’t a monolithic scourge to all that’s productive, creative and present in the human condition. If I ditched my iPhone, I’d mindlessly check Gmail a lot less. But I also wouldn’t have been able to create some beautiful nature photos on my early morning walk, which made me feel quite creative and present, thankyouverymuch. What I need isn’t “freedom” from technology, but self control: the ability to choose when and where certain features of my gadgets are appropriate to use, and when they are not. 

Michigan is undergoing a once-in-a-generation transformation. It is not yet captured in Forbes’ Best States for Business rankings but our story is well worth your attention.

Michigan is a leader in making things and making things work. But we are innovators first and foremost. We have brought innovation and bold change to state government.

One of our boldest changes is that Michigan will be a freedom-to-work state by April 1, 2013. These reforms will give Michigan workers the freedom to choose whether they wish to join or financially support a union. The bottom line: Michigan businesses will realize greater efficiency and higher potential profits while partnering with a world-class workforce that will be free to decide whether union membership is right for them.

PITTSBURGH, PA – The latest release of the “Fourth Economy Community (FEC) Index” was announced today listing the nation’s top 10 large-sized Fourth Economy Communities. These communities are those ideally positioned to attract modern investment and managed economic growth.  

The “fourth economy” characterizes the most recent phase of our nation’s economy, reflecting a combination of the previous three to include agrarian, industrial, and technological. This new index is intended to serve as a dashboard for community stakeholders to gauge their capacity to attract and retain modern investment.

Thought leadership isn't just for individuals. Here's how your business can use thought leadership to shape people's perception of your company and its products--the right way.

Firms large and small want to be thought leaders. Thought leadership extends from strategic differentiation, a proof point, a demonstration of differentiation. Amid the cacophony of corporate voices, those found to be additive to the dialogue, rather than distracting, can be considered thought leaders. Given our complex world, there are many things that need to be considered, so providing true thought leadership can be as valuable to a brand as the products or services it sells.

Designer Marc Ecko has plans to reform education--and redefine entrepreneurship--by creating a new category of funding: branded venture capital.

When I first met Marc Ecko, the designer-publisher-VC had just been onstage at Uncubed telling an audience of New York techies about how much the word entrepreneur sucked: Hard to say, hard to spell, and "it’s French." The ecosystem needs a new vocabulary, he said, and his venture capital fund has its beginning in as its name: Artists & Instigators.

Americans have longer, but not necessarily healthier, lives due to high rates of preventable chronic disease, according to an annual report on the nation's health released on Tuesday.

Gains in life expectancy contrast with Americans' unhealthy behaviors, which have led to a 28 percent adult obesity rate, a diabetes rate of nearly 10 percent and a high blood pressure rate of more than 30 percent, according to United Health Foundation's 2012 America's Health Rankings.

All three conditions are considered risk factors for cardiovascular disease.