AnnaLee Saxenian, author of the classic book "Regional Advantage," still thinks the area's future is bright.

Tsedal Neeley, Harvard Business School professor, explains how globally distributed teams can collaborate better together.

Fred Kiel, author of "Return on Character," explains his research on why being good benefits the bottom line.

Denise Lee Yohn, author of "Extraordinary Experiences" and "What Great Brands Do," explains what we can learn from retail and restaurant brands

The bestselling author describes her creative process and explains why she was always determined to have a career.

The champion diver explains how visualization and ambitious goal-setting helped him achieve double gold medals in back-to-back Olympic Games and why he now serves as a mentor to younger athletes and a spokesman for LGBT causes.

Basecamp CEO Jason Fried says too many people find it difficult to get work done at the workplace. His company enforces quiet offices, fewer meetings, and different collaboration and communication practices. The goal is to give employees bigger blocks of time to be truly productive.

Michael Mankins, Bain & Company partner and head of the firm's Organization practice, explains how organizations unintentionally fail to manage their employees' time and energy. He also lays out what managers can do to reduce what he calls organizational drag. Mankins is a coauthor of "Time, Talent, Energy: Overcome Organizational Drag and Unleash Your Team’s Productive Power."

Mihir Desai, professor at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, argues for re-humanizing finance. He says the practice of finance, with increasing quantification, has lost touch with its foundations. But he says finance can be principled, ethical, even life-affirming. And demonizing it or ignoring it means that the rest of us – those not in finance – risk misunderstanding it, which has all kinds of implications for how we make decisions and plan for our futures. Desai is the author of the new book, "The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return." He also writes about finance and the economy for hbr.org.

Phil Knight, former chair and CEO of Nike, tells the story of starting the sports apparel and equipment giant after taking an entrepreneurship class at Stanford and teaming up with his former track coach, Bill Bowerman. Together (and with the help of a waffle iron) they changed how running shoes are designed and made. Knight discusses the company's enduring culture of innovation, as well as the succession process that led to former runner and Nike insider Mark Parker becoming CEO.

Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism adviser to U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, has made a career of investigating disaster warnings. The way he sees it, catastrophes can happen at any time, so why should decision makers ignore a Cassandra? Now a cybersecurity firm CEO, Clarke is an expert at figuring out who is a conspiracy theorist and who is a credible source. He explains his method through a few case studies—on the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, and others—from his new book, “Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes.”

Andrew Liveris, the CEO of Dow Chemical, discusses the 120-year-old company’s ambitious sustainability agenda. He says an environmentally driven business model is good for the earth—and the bottom line. Liveris is one of the CEOs contributing to Harvard Business Review’s Future Economy Project, in which leaders detail their company’s efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

Amanda Goodall, a senior lecturer at Cass Business School in London, argues that the best leaders are technical experts, not general managers. She discusses her research findings about doctors who head up hospitals, scholars who lead universities, and all-star basketball players who go on to manage teams. She also gives advice for what to do if you’re a generalist managing experts or an expert managed by a generalist. Goodall is the co-author of the HBR articles “If Your Boss Could Do Your Job, You’re More Likely to Be Happy at Work” and “Why the Best Hospitals Are Managed by Doctors.”

Whitney Johnson, an executive coach, argues that on-the-job learning is the key to keeping people motivated. When managers understand that, and understand where the people they manage are on their individual learning curve — the low end, the sweet spot, or the high end — employees are engaged, productive, and innovative. Johnson is the author of the book “Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve.”

Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, analyzes the economic impact of India’s unprecedented demonetization move in 2016. With no advance warning, India pulled the two largest banknotes from circulation, notes that accounted for 86% of cash transactions in a country where most payments happen in cash. Chakravorti discusses the impact on consumers, businesses, and digital payment providers, and whether Indian policymakers reached their anti-corruption goals. He’s the author of the article “One Year After India Killed Off Cash, Here’s What Other Countries Should Learn From It.”

Daniel Libeskind, a former academic turned architect and urban designer, discusses his unorthodox career path and repeat success at high-profile, emotionally charged projects. He also talks about his unusual creative process and shares tips for collaborating and managing emotions and expectations of multiple stakeholders. Libeskind was interviewed for the July-August 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Howard Yu, Lego Professor of Management and Innovation at IMD Business School in Switzerland, discusses how the industrial cluster in the Swiss city of Basel is a unique example of enduring competitive advantage. He explains how early dye makers were able to continually jump to new capabilities and thrive for generations. He says the story of those companies offers a counter-narrative to the pessimistic view that unless your company is Google or Apple, you can’t stay ahead of the competition for long. Yu is the author of “LEAP: How to Thrive in a World Where Everything Can Be Copied.”

Gerry Anderson, the CEO of DTE Energy, and Robert Quinn and Anjan Thakor, professors at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the Olin Business School at Washington University, respectively, discuss how an aspirational mission can motivate employees and improve performance. Anderson talks about his own experience. Quinn and Thakor explain their research showing how leaders can foster a sense of purpose that sharpens competitiveness. They wrote the article “Creating a Purpose-Driven Organization” in the July-August 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Roger Martin, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, offers two main reasons General Electric has lost its competitiveness. GE’s stock has been removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Martin blames pressures from activist investors as well as a short-sighted mergers and acquisitions strategy. He’s the author of “GE’s Fall Has Been Accelerated by Two Problems. Most Other Big Companies Face Them, Too.”

Katherine Phillips, a professor at Columbia Business School, discusses research showing that African-Americans are often reluctant to tell their white colleagues about their personal lives — and that it hurts their careers. She says people should expect and welcome differences at work, and she gives practical advice for strengthening connections among colleagues of different racial backgrounds. Phillips is a coauthor of the article “Diversity and Authenticity,” in the March–April 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Kathryn Hume, VP of integrate.ai, discusses the current boundaries between artificially intelligent machines, and humans. While the power of A.I. can conjure up some of our darkest fears, she says the reality is that there is still a whole lot that A.I. can't do. So far, A.I. is able to accomplish some tasks that humans might need a lot of training for, such as diagnosing cancer. But she says those tasks are actually more simple than we might think - and that algorithms still can't replace emotional intelligence just yet. Plus, A.I. might just help us discover new business opportunities we didn't know existed.

Beth Comstock, the first female vice chair at General Electric, thinks companies large and small often approach innovation the wrong way. They either try to throw money at the problem before it has a clear market, misallocate resources, or don't get buy in from senior leaders to enact real change. Comstock spent many years at GE - under both Jack Welsh's and Jeffrey Immelt's leadership - before leaving the company late last year. She's the author of the book "Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change.”

Bill Kerr, a professor at Harvard Business School, studies the increasing importance of talent clusters in our age of rapid technological advances. He argues that while talent and industries have always had a tendency to cluster, today's trend towards San Francisco, Boston, London and a handful of other cities is different. Companies need to react and tap into those talent pools, but moving the company to one isn't always an option. Kerr talks about the three main ways companies can access talent. He's the author of the HBR article "Navigating Talent Hot Spots," as well as the book "The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society."

Rose Hollister and Michael Watkins, consultants at Genesis Advisers, argue that many companies today are taking on too many initiatives. Each manager might have their own pet projects they want to focus on, but that trickles down to lower level workers dealing with more projects at a time that they can handle, or do well. This episode also offers practical tips for senior-level leaders to truly prioritize the best initiatives at their company — or risk losing some of their top talent. Hollister and Watkins are the authors of the HBR article "Too Many Projects." with. They are the authors of "Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women.”

Nick Morgan, a communications expert and speaking coach, says that while email, texting, and Slack might seem like they make communication easier, they actually make things less efficient. When we are bombarded with too many messages a day, he argues, humans are likely to fill in the gaps with negative information or assume the worst about the intent of a coworker's email. He offers up a few tips and tricks for how we can bring the benefits of face-to-face communication back into the digital workplace. Morgan is the author of the book, "Can You Hear Me?: How to Connect with People in a Virtual World."

Gary Pisano, professor at Harvard Business School, studies innovation at companies large and small. He says there’s too much focus on the positive, fun side of innovative cultures and too little understanding of the difficult truths behind sustained innovation. From candid feedback, to strong leadership, to individual accountability and competence, to disciplined choices, Pisano says leaders need to understand and communicate these realities. He's the author of the HBR article “The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures” and the new book “Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation.”

Efosa Ojomo, global prosperity lead at the Clayton Christensen Institute, argues that international aid is not the best way to develop poor countries, nor are investments in natural resource extraction, outsourced labor, or incremental improvements to existing offerings for established customer bases. Instead, entrepreneurs, investors, and global companies should focus on market-creating innovations. Just like Henry Ford in the United States a century ago, they should see opportunity in the struggles of frontier markets, target non-consumption, and create not just products and services but whole ecosystems around them, which then promote stability and economic growth. Ojomo is the co-author of the HBR article "Cracking Frontier Markets" and the book The Prosperity Paradox.

Safi Bahcall, a former biotech CEO, began his career as a theoretical physicist before joining the business world. He compares the moment that innovative companies become complacent ones to a glass of water freezing, becoming ice. The elements are the same, but the structure of the company has changed. Bahcall offers ways for growing companies to avoid these inevitable forces and continue to innovate. He's the author of the book "Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries" and the HBR article “The Innovation Equation."

Nicholas Pearce, clinical associate professor at Kellogg School of Management, says too many companies and individuals go about their daily business without a strong sense of purpose. He argues that companies that are not simply profit-driven are more likely to succeed and that the same goes for people. He says individuals who align their daily job with their life’s work will be happier and more productive. Pearce is also a pastor, an executive coach, and the author of the book "The Purpose Path: A Guide to Pursuing Your Authentic Life's Work."

Patrick McGinnis, creator of the term FOMO, engages business leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians and more about the paths they’ve taken in life – and what they’ve let go of. In this episode, he speaks with Zola CEO Shan-Lyn Ma and Female Founders Fund founder Anu Duggal about how women are driving diversity in the start-up world. "FOMO Sapiens with Patrick J. McGinnis" is part of HBR Presents, a new network of business podcasts curated by HBR editors. For our full lineup of shows, search “HBR” on your favorite podcast app or visit hbr.org/podcasts.

Joseph Fuller, professor at Harvard Business School, says that the story we hear about workers being afraid for the future of their jobs might not be right. In surveying 11,000 people in lower-income and middle-skills jobs and 6,500 managers across 11 countries, Fuller discovered that, contrary to what bosses believe, many employees are excited about new technologies and willing to be trained in new skills. But they don't always know what they need to learn or how to access and pay for it. Organizations can do a better job of identifying the skills gaps they have or will soon face and using their existing workforces to fill them. Fuller's project is a joint venture between the HBS Project on Managing the Future of Work and the Boston Consulting Group’s Henderson Institute. He's a co-author of the HBR article “Your Workforce is More Adaptable Than You Think."

Deborah Ancona and Kate Isaacs, researchers at MIT Sloan School of Management, say many companies struggle to be nimble with a command-and-control leadership culture. They studied Xerox’s R&D outfit PARC and the materials science company W.L. Gore & Associates and found these highly innovative organizations have three kinds of leaders: entrepreneurial, enabling, and architecting ones. These roles work together to give direction and avoid creative chaos. Ancona and Isaacs are coauthors of the HBR article "Nimble Leadership."

Matt Beane, assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, finds that robots, machine learning, and AI are changing how we train for our jobs — not just how we do them. His study shows that robot-assisted surgery is disrupting the traditional learning pathway of younger physicians. He says this trend is emerging in many industries, from finance to law enforcement to education. And he shares lessons from trainees who are successfully working around these new barriers. Beane is the author of the HBR article “Learning to Work with Intelligent Machines.”

Laura Morgan Roberts, professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, says that organizations are still falling short on promoting racial diversity, particularly in their most senior ranks. While many large companies have "inclusion" initiatives, most leaders still shy away from frank discussions about how the experiences of their black employees and executives -- including their feelings of authenticity and potential for advancement -- differ from those of their white peers. She points to several ways we can change these dynamics. With David Thomas and Anthony Mayo, Morgan Roberts is co-author of the book “Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience.”

Dave Ulrich, professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, argues today's companies need to replace old hierarchical models with he calls a “market-oriented ecosystem.” From research at Alibaba, Google, Huawei, Supercell, and others, he shows the impressive results of orienting teams and processes toward market opportunities. Ulrich is the coauthor, along with Tencent senior advisor Arthur Yeung, of “Reinventing the Organization: How Companies Can Deliver Radically Greater Value in Fast-Changing Markets.”

Scott Young, who gained fame for teaching himself the four-year MIT computer science curriculum in just 12 months, says that the type of fast, focused learning he employed is possible for all of us -- whether we want to master coding, become fluent in a foreign language, or excel at public speaking. And, in a dynamic, fast-paced business environment that leaves so many of us strapped for time and struggling to keep up, he believes that the ability to quickly develop new knowledge and skills will be a tremendous asset. After researching best practices and experimenting on his own, he has developed a set of principles that any of us can follow to become "ultralearners." Young is the author of the book "Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career."

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, professor at Harvard Business School, believes the world demands a new kind of business leader. She says so-called “advanced leaders” work inside and outside their companies to tackle big issues such as climate change, public health, and social inequality. She gives real-life examples and explains how business leaders can harness their experience, networks, innovative approaches, and the power of their organizations to solve challenging problems. Kanter is the author of the book "Think Outside the Building: How Advanced Leaders Can Change the World One Small Innovation at a Time."

Kim Scott, a cofounder of the executive coaching firm Radical Candor, says that too many managers give meaningless positive feedback, while many others are highly critical without showing any understanding. Scott, who previously worked at Google and has consulted for Twitter and Dropbox, says leaders should learn to give honest feedback in the moment, while also developing a relationship that shows how the hard feedback is coming from a place of caring. She explains the steps managers can take to challenge more directly while also communicating empathy. Scott is the author of the book "Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity."

ValeGift aims to shift the Brazilian gifting culture from traditional products to personal experiences.

For dog and cat lovers who love their martinis shaken, not stirred or wine connoisseurs expecting their Cabernet or Chablis poured just so, Paws4Claws offers the top product cat and dog themed products to bring sure to bring holiday cheer!

If you are still looking for that cool gift for your friend or family member, make sure to stop by GiftNowOnline.com where you will be able to find one of the largest varieties of unique products and items ever found online.

Arttowngifts.com helps customers make Valentine's Day unforgettable with gifts that will make this special day one to remember.

For Valentine's Day 2013 King Jewelers is offering special savings on an exclusive selection of fine jewelry, watches, diamond studs, diamond pendants and fashion accessories that is sure to make locating the ideal Valentine's Day gift stress free.

Be A Doll, known for their personalized action figures, has developed a new product "Be A Bust". Submit 2 photos of your loved ones and get a 4 inch likeness of their head and shoulders, mounted on a stained wood base of your choice.

Make it the best Easter ever. Decorate with style, entertain with ease and give beautiful unique gifts to create a memorable EGGCELLENT holiday. It is about Family, Eggs and Bunnies of course.

Uniwatches launch their official YouTube channel with video reviews of timepieces and expand their collection of Nixon and Hugo Boss watches.

GoldMax USA announces the grand opening of two new stores in Murrieta, California at 40790 California Oaks Road, Suite B and C and 39209 Winchester Road, Suite 102.

Climbing coconut and arecanut trees to harvest their prizes is strenuous, dangerous work, and requires a young body. But in Dakshina Kannada, India, "there is a substantial migration of well-educated youngsters to the cities for white collar jobs," K. Ganapathi Bhat told India's The News Minute. "There is a huge scarcity of employment in labour-intensive sectors like agriculture, especially those skilled in climbing trees."

"Having been born in a family with an agricultural background, it was painful to see the ripe coconut and arecanut either eaten by birds or falling across the fields," Bhat says. At 60 years of age, he's too old to climb the trees himself. But unlike most farmers, he has a Bachelors of Science in Physics, Chemistry and Maths. Thus he cobbled this together:

The bike-based contraption runs on gas, using what appears to be a chainsaw motor. After testing it out for two years on roughly 2,000 arecanut trees on his own farm, Bhat reckons the "mileage" is 90 trees per liter of gas (360 trees/gallon), and that the machine can carry an 80kg (175-pound) person to the top of a 30-meter (98-foot) tree in 30 seconds--safely. If the brakes fail, a backup brake kicks in to jam the wheels in place. As long as your tree isn't mushy and algae-covered (he tested those, too, and found the performance unsatisfactory), you're in business.

Here's more footage of the machine in action, including Bhat jumping up and down on it, to demonstrate that it safely stays in place:

Although he's been approached by several manufacturers, Bhat has turned them down, as he's not interested in profit. "I wish to partner with an organisation that would help me share the technology with the farmers to benefit them," he says. "I do not wish to seek royalties for such a venture. But I want to make sure that this product reaches as many farmers as possible, so that, in some way, it helps in the development of the overall agricultural scenario of the country."

Dutch restaurant ETEN, which is part of Amsterdam's Mediamatic Arts Centre, is trialing an innovative approach to social-distancing dining. As reported by Reuters, a series of small greenhouses (max. capacity: 3) has been constructed along the waterfront outside of their restaurant.

Servers wear gloves and facemasks.

Food is served on long planks, so the servers can slide them onto the tables without entering the greenhouses.

Ditto for busing the dishes afterwards.

If I can point out one flaw, it's that the tables need those server-summoning buttons they have in Asia. In the photo below, you can clearly see the two dudes on the right are desperate for refills.

And while the solution is Dutch, the marketing contains a bit of French. "Organisers call the project 'Serres Séparées' (Separate Greenhouses)," Reuters reports, "because they say it sounds better in French."