To become a great entrepreneur, one needs to be creative and innovative. The Creativity Post has a list of 8 tips to cultivate and maintain creativity, including:
“1. Forever curious. Endless curiosity is the number one indication of the creative mind-set. It allows entrepreneurs to challenge what is already “known” to extrapolate that to an original idea. Curiosity infuses you with the determination needed to figure out or learn how to turn an original or innovative idea into a reality.
2. Always open to new things. Thinking this way can be viewed as quieting the opinions of the judgmental mind long enough to allow the creative mind the time and space it needs to generate interesting insights, associations, and connections. This opens creative possibilities, rather than categorizing new things into self-limited dead-ends.”
The day after Steve Jobs’ death last year, Silicon Valley VC Guy Kawasaki gave a speech about the two times he worked under Jobs and what he learned. Some highlights from his list: Don’t listen to the experts; all that matters is whether something works or not; and value is different from price. Watch his talk below:
Should the city of Chicago be in the business of protecting a few politically connected restaurateurs from competition? The video below explores the ethics of the “200 foot rule” in a fun, creative way:
Startup Genome’s 2012 report ranks the top 20 startup ecosystems in the world. The authors used interviews, case studies, surveys, and secondary data to produce the rankings.
Douglas B. Rasmussen, CEE guest speaker and subject of an installment of our Profiles in Liberty series, gave a talk at the Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth (RNH, Rannsoknarsetur um nyskopun og hagvoxt). RNH is “a think tank which seeks to explore how innovation and economic growth are either encouraged or stifled.” Rasmussen’s lecture on the philosophy of Ayn Rand can be seen in its entirety below:
Steve Mariotti, Kaizen interviewee and founder of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), looks back at 25 years of inspiring young people to become entrepreneurs. Congratulations to Mr. Mariotti and everyone at NFTE!
A new Sketchbook video illustrates the impact of Global Entrepreneurship Week, which features over 30,000 events worldwide from November 12 through 18.
Entrepreneur interviews Avi Millman, co-founder of the startup Stray Boots. Stray Boots is an innovative service that turns your smartphone into an unconventional tour guide. This “gamification” of major cities sends users challenges and trivia questions that result in a self-paced, scavenger-hunt-like tour. Different teams can even compete to see who can finish the tour first.
At Entrepreneurship.org, Jonathan Ortmans explores the conditions that are making Africa a great climate for entrepreneurship, including the rise of local investors, mobile banking, and planned tech cities. Ortmans concludes: “The next chapter in Africa’s history will be largely written by its new generation rather than by foreign aid organizations. More importantly, I expect Africa to lead in fresh thinking about problems and in producing world-class innovations that will benefit us all.”
Bloomberg Businessweek reported last month that: “Full-time MBA applications have sunk at at least a dozen of the top 30 B-schools.” What factors are contributing to this drought?
