Personal Growth — June 3, 2011

Want Growth? Innovate

Innovation, along with increasing existing business, now outranks all other means of potential expansion, including new markets, mergers and acquisitions, and joint ventures.

bigthinkeditor

What’s the Latest Development?

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ survey of 1200 CEOs from around the world found that innovation joined increasing existing business as the leading means of potential expansion. They came ahead of other means such as moving into new markets, mergers and acquisitions, and joint ventures and other alliances.

What’s the Big Idea?

The PwC study “Demystifying Innovation: take down the barriers to new growth,” urges business leaders to create a culture that is open to new approaches to innovation. Interestingly, the study found that a majority of entertainment and media CEOs (57%) expect their company’s innovations will be co-developed with outside partners. And 41% of pharmaceuticals and life sciences CEOs expect the majority of their innovations will be developed in markets outside the country where they are based.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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