Organizations need innovation on all fronts, not just in new products, services, or technologies. But many managers don’t innovate because they don’t think it’s their job. Here’s how you can build a stronger innovation culture on your team:

• Implement an immediate innovation. As a team, identify ideas that will reduce costs, save time, or improve customer service. Pick one or two to implement right away to demonstrate success.
• Identify an ambitious goal. Once your team has confidence in its ability to innovate, set a larger goal. Can you reduce costs by 50%? Can you combine services to help customers?
• Continually foster innovation. Include “Innovation” as a category in performance reviews. Recognize colleagues who try new approaches even if the results aren’t perfect. And, give people time to think and experiment.

Paul Davison is in a hurry. Not just to board the plane that’s about to take him to his father’s retirement party in San Diego, or to get through the talking points about his new iPhone app, Highlight. No, Davison is rushing toward the future. “I’m completely convinced that in five or 10 years you’ll be able to walk into a room and know everyone’s name, where everyone works, and what people you know in common,” he says in a sentence that comes out in an unstoppable cascade. Smartphones and apps will become this “sixth sense we all have, and we won’t believe we used to not have that.”

This emissary from the future speaks with authority. Highlight, barely a month old, is tracing a viral path through the early-adopter ecosystem with astonishing speed. There are three things you should know about it. The first is that Highlight conquered this year’s South by Southwest, the Davos of tech, before it starts on Friday, March 9. TechCrunch, Robert Scoble, and others in the tech press have already anointed Highlight the product to watch. And in case this sounds like a dubious achievement, consider that last year’s SXSW standout, GroupMe, was sold to Skype for a reported $85 million less than six months after the conference ended. Foursquare and Twitter also made their names at the Austin (Tex.) gathering.

Project management seems like a classic chicken-and-egg career conundrum: How do you prove you’re adept at managing projects if you haven’t worked as a project manager? Beyond that, what does project management really entail, and how is it different from, you know, being a manager? And what tools do the pros actually use, since there seem to be a new one released every week?

“Project management” can sound like everything and nothing all at once. FastCompany spoke with a project management pro to clarify what it really means to get people moving in the same direction. [Link]

Companies with more women on boards and in leadership positions outperform, financially and otherwise, companies with fewer women—and yet, this information doesn’t typically factor into investment decisions. Now, some firms are giving investors the option to invest in companies that promote gender equality.

And yet, corporate boards make decisions that affect shareholder value, company brand and reputation, global economies and industries, employment, the environment, human rights, the fortunes of suppliers and distributors, health care and pensions, and much more. And studies show that companies with more women on boards and in leadership positions outperform—financially and otherwise—companies with fewer women. 

Louis Vuitton corporate apparently felt that its copyright was being trampled upon when the world-famous LV logo was prominently featured in a poster. The only catch: It was a poster advertising a symposium on Fashion Law and IP, put together by law students at the University of Pennsylvania. In other words, the poster was designed by a group that is eminently knowledgable on how to display a logo without infringing on a company’s intellectual property. The poster converts those LVs into TMs, a design element serving both form and function here. Unsurprisingly, the law school responded with a letter stating the claim was baseless and inviting representatives from LVMH to attend the seminar and learn more about copyright law.

Have a look at the offending poster below.

Totally forgot to post this here. Its a paper I’ve written on Islamic Finance for Small Businesses, an area where hopefully I could do further extensive research on.

Abstract: In order to assure the wider availability of Islamic Financing facilities for SMEs, identifying and solving problems associated with the borrower has to be addressed. Information Asymmetry and Moral Hazard must be determined along with new tools that are suitable to the features of such a market segment where; low transaction costs; little information requirements can be favorable to make a large portfolio of small-size financing profitable.

In this paper we will look at how successful Islamic Finance has become at a global scale, the shortages faced in SME lending and the reasons behind them and a solution developed by a world-renowned research institution.

You can dowload the PDF file here. 

When getting to know new people, about 70% of people lie about things ranging from their feelings to their achievements, but the incidence of deception is higher over email than in face-to-face meetings, say Mattitiyahu Zimbler and Robert S. Feldman of the University of Massachusetts. In a study of undergraduates’ 15-minute conversations with same-sex individuals, those using email had 5 times more lies per word communicated than those speaking face to face. Lying appears to be more common when the communicator is psychologically and physically distant from the person receiving the message, the researchers say.

Lawrence Mak is the product marketing manager at Context Optional, an Efficient Frontier company, where he covers product positioning and communications while moonlighting as a writer for all things social media.

Having surpassed one billion unique visitors this past May,Google has become a part of our daily online lives. Yet Google’s impact is expanding even further. Google+ has now grown to more than 40 million users.

Recently, the company introduced Google+ pages for businesses, designed to help brands connect with customers. While Google+ pages is in its infancy, the social network’s user base is growing, warranting brand attention and testing. Now is a good time to explore how Google+ works and what impact it can have upon the way your brand communicates with customers.

As with any social media channel, begin by asking yourself what your communities want and expect when interacting with your brand, and how this platform ties into your larger business goals. If Google+ makes sense for your brand, create your Google+ page and take a look at these recommendations to develop your Google+ page growth and engagement strategy.

Here are six steps to help jumpstart your brand presence on Google+, and what you should consider when communicating and engaging followers in the Google+ environment.

If you’re a designer, entrepreneur, or creative – you probably haven’t been asked for your resume in a long time. Instead, people Google you – and quickly assess your talents based on your website, portfolio, and social media profiles. Do they resonate with what you’re sharing? Do they identify with your story? Are you even giving them a story to wrap their head around?