Ten years ago, executives pored over numbers and set their 2010 sales goal at $140 billion — four times the amount in 2000. Sales will reach that level this year, according to the median estimate of 21 analysts — right on target.

For the one-time imitator to become a pioneer, hitting the numbers will be just the beginning.

I used to sit down on the job. For hours a day, derriere planted firmly in chair, I read, wrote, and edited. It’s been a torment — I love what I do, but I hate to sit. Over the years, I’ve developed little tricks to burn off excess energy and add activity bits throughout the day, like bouncing my right leg and printing to a printer far down the hallway.

I’ve discovered something better. A few months ago, I fired my chair and brought in a stand-up desk. This move has made a huge difference in my work day. My back isn’t so achy. I’m taking several thousand more steps each day. I feel more alert, especially in the afternoon, and it seems like I am getting more done each day.

My recommendation is to introduce eight-ball into school curricula, but in a specific way. Each kid would be required to keep a log of hours spent practicing on his own time, and there would be no minimum requirement. Some kids could practice zero hours if they had no interest or access to a pool table. At the end of the school year, the entire class would compete in a tournament, and they would compare their results with how many hours they spent practicing. I think that would make real the connection between practice and results, in a way that regular schoolwork and sports do not. That would teach them that winning happens before the game starts.

Yes, I know that schools will never assign eight-ball for homework. But maybe there is some kid-friendly way to teach the same lesson.

We recently attended the launch of Xerox’s Innovation Hub in Chennai (a major South Indian city), their first such venture outside the developed world. The initial mission of the Xerox India Innovation Hub is to develop document management solutions that are relevant to emerging market countries and, at the same time, that help innovate solutions and services delivery worldwide.

India, of course, has been a major destination for R&D among Western firms for some time now. Texas Instruments was leader of the pack, opening their R&D center in Bangalore way back in 1985. More multinationals followed suit in the 1990s. In 2000, GE founded the John F. Welch Technology Center in Bangalore, which is now GE’s largest lab outside the US. And the story is similar for IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, and many others. Our research shows that Fortune 500 companies currently operate 63 “captive” R&D facilities in India (i.e., “captive” in the sense that these MNCs totally own and control all the physical and human resources available in these labs).

So what took Xerox so long? And are they too late coming to the R&D game in emerging markets?

In fact, what appears like imitation on Xerox’s part is really a reframing of innovation in a global context. Indeed, we believe that Xerox is pioneering a whole new way in managing global R&D. Namely: creating lean and nimble innovation hubs in emerging markets which don’t take the traditional “captive” route of owning all resources. Instead, these hubs focus on partnering with local universities and start-ups to get scale and speed in taking cutting-edge ideas to market.

Earlier this spring, Vermont made a new path available. Through an initiative called the Vermont Benefit Corporation, it provided for a different class of organization — one that exists not simply “for profit” but “for benefit” and therefore expands the definition of fiduciary responsibility beyond an exclusive obligation to shareholders to encompass the interests of all corporate stakeholders, including employees, the local economy, and the environment. Are the directors of a Benefit Corporation still obliged to act in the best interests of the company’s owners? Absolutely. But they have legal protection to make investments with an eye to the long term, aiming for sustainable returns, not fast paybacks for shareholders. (To learn more about the Vermont Benefit Corporate Charter see this pdf of the enabling legislation, or you can read an excellent article here.)

Will Patten is the Executive Director of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR), a statewide not-for-profit organization promoting triple bottom line business practices. It is the largest such organization in the US. Mr. Patten was formerly Director of Retail Operations for Ben & Jerry’s, where he retired after a 22 year career.

The following is my list of the Top Three hottest academic areas for a future career in tech:

Data Mining/Machine Learning/AI/Natural Language Processing 
All of these fields help us sift through and organize huge amounts of information or data. When you apply your knowledge in these areas to a challenging problem in the online space, you know that you are working at a scale that is just immense.  It’s much easier said than done.  If you have a passion for this area and have a technical background there are a multitude of open positions that might hold a long-term career for you.  With the move to the cloud and the sheer amount of information on the web, this area of expertise will continue to be in great demand. Microsoft has a great need for both people interested in the research space and the applied space which is very refreshing.

Business Intelligence/Competitive Intelligence
The ability to see trends, make sense of data to a business audience and help to understand your customers requires a special person. Someone with a mix of engineering, BI/CI experience and a business mindset can take this field to the next level. You will help increase any employer’s bottom line and be able to provide organized data that is extremely valuable to any business. You can help drive business decisions and help your internal audience understand what the data is telling or showing you. 

Analytics/Statistics – specifically Web Analytics, A/B Testing and statistical analysis
All of these subjects are offshoots of traditional degrees in CS and mathematics. They all apply to the online world we live in and will also be in great demand as we continue to monetize the web. Retailers, web services, and advertisers will need people in these fields as they try to get the most for their advertising money. As we continue to see the dollar amounts spent for online advertising worldwide, these fields will be hot and we will see online advertising change over time as a result of these positions. 

The first-of-its-kind Clinic of Innovation at Oslo University Hospital works a lot like an outpatient health clinic, but treats ideas rather than patients. Ideas walk in, are diagnosed, and are treated or referred; some are sent home with a prescription for further development, and an appointment for a follow-up visit. In addition to providing technical support, the clinic helps with business model development and commercialization. The brainchild of Drs. Andreas Moan and Kari Kværner, it was launched in 2007 to foster innovation by soliciting ideas from health care professionals, research companies, and others outside of the health care industry.