The Big Idea: Capital Market Funds For Invention - Harvard Business Review

Here is a very interesting idea from Nathan Myhrvold, the former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. As the cofounder of Intellectual Ventures, he has been reviled as a patent troll - a renegade who buys up patents and uses them to hold up companies. Nothing could be further from the truth. In this worthwhile article from Harvard Business Review, he proposes the world needs a capital market for invention like the venture capital market for start-ups and the private equity market for revitalizing inefficient companies. The argument: Inventing—producing useful, patent-worthy ideas—is a dysfunctional, cash-starved activity that’s overly dependent on government largesse because it is not organized as a for-profit activity. A better approach:

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Eight business technology trends to watch

McKinsey's continue to have some interesting news - here is some of their latest on technology... Eight emerging trends are transforming many markets and businesses. Executives should learn to shape the outcome rather than just react to it. Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. Through our work and research, we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

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