Business innovation is an organization’s process for introducing new ideas, workflows methodologies, services or products. Like IT innovation, which calls for using technology in new ways to create a more efficient and agile organization, business innovation should enable the achievement of goals across the entire organization, with sights set on accomplishing core business aims and initiatives. Innovation often begins with idea generation, wherein ideas are narrowed down during brainstorming sessions, after which leaders consider the business viability, feasibility and desirability of each idea. Business innovation should improve one existing products, services or processes; or it should solve a problem; or it should reach new customers. Recent examples of business innovation include the introduction of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, whose creator and namesake James Dyson declared in advertisements that he set out to build a better product by applying industrial cyclone technologies to the household appliance.

The purpose of the business innovation process is to create value for the organization. That value can come from creating new revenue opportunities or driving more revenue through existing channels; from creating efficiencies that save time, money or both; or from improvements to productivity or performance. In short, innovation should lead to higher profits. Additionally, the results of an organization’s innovation process should yield a competitive advantage; it should help the organization to grow and reach — or, better still, exceed — strategic objectives.

Innovation and invention are closely linked, but the two terms are not interchangeable. An invention is an entirely new creation. The process of business innovation can produce an invention, but the term is broader in scope and includes the application of an existing concept or practice in a new way, or applying new technology to an existing product or process to improve upon it. To better understand the difference, consider this: The telephone is an invention, but the smartphone is an innovation.

Business innovation can also be classified as either revolutionary or evolutionary. Revolutionary business innovation yields a drastic change in a product, service, process, etc., which often destroys or supplants an existing business model. This is also known as radical Evolutionary or incremental innovation involves smaller, more continuous innovation, improvements that, while important, are not drastic enough to shift a company or market into a new paradigm. Disruptive innovation is a category that emphasizes the destructive aspect of revolutionary innovation; this term applies to business innovation that leads to the creation of a new market that displaces an existing one or, similarly, a significant upheaval in a category of products or services.

Business innovation, like most business initiatives, has both benefits and risks. Organizations should recognize on the negative side that the business innovation process can be a costly undertaking that does not always produce a return on investment (ROI); that idea considered likely to succeed could still fail; and that stakeholders could fight the changes required to be successful. On the other hand, organizations need to weigh those risks against the benefits of business innovation.

Life expectancy in the United States has been in decline for the first time in decades, and public health officials have identified a series of potential causes, including inaccessible health care, rising drug addiction and rates of mental health disorders, and socio-economic factors. Now, a study led by the Yale School of Medicine has attempted to find out the relative impact of two factors most often linked to life expectancy – race and education – by looking at data about 5,114 black and white participants in four U.S. cities.

The lives and deaths among this group of people – who took part in the study approximately 30 years ago when they were in their early 20s – show that the level of education, and not race, is the best predictor of who will live the longest.

Among the 5,114 people followed in the study, 395 had died. These deaths were occurring in working-age people, often with children, before the age of 60. The rates of death among participants in this group did clearly show racial differences, with approximately 9% of blacks dying at an early age compared to 6% of whites. There were also differences in causes of death by race. For instance, black men were significantly more likely to die of murder and white men from AIDS. The most common causes of death across all groups over time were cardiovascular disease and cancer.

But there were also obvious differences in rates of death by education level. Approximately 13% of participants with a high school degree or less education died compared with only approximately 5% of college graduates.

Strikingly, when looking at race and education at the same time, the researchers found that differences related to race almost disappeared: 13.5% of black subjects and 13.2% of white subjects with a high school degree or less died during the course of the study. By contrast, 5.9% of black subjects and 4.3% of whites with college degrees had died.

Therefore, improving overall quality of education is something tangible that can help reverse (扭转)this troubling trend in reduction of life expectancy among middle-aged adults.

The effects of advertising often work in tricky ways. Many people don’t even realise they are being marketed to when they change their behaviour after encountering advertisements. Advertising is such a powerful psychological tool that an entire field of study devoted to unlocking how advertising influences consumer behaviour has been developed.

Another effect of advertising is educating consumers about specific products or services. This can be part of the persuasion written in an ad. In an advertisement, a company can influence potential buyers by showing how the product works and how it can solve the problems they face. For example, a dog owner who previously thought there was no solution to his dog’s anxiety can learn through a dog vest ad that there actually is a solution, and that solution is the gentle pressure provided by the vest.

Advertisements generally use similar language. Many advertisements are designed to make the viewers take immediate action. Words and phrases often used in such ads include “Buy now!” “Get started!”   and “Try now!”. Specifically, the part of an ad that pushes for immediate action is called “call to action”, which is important to any ad because it drives the viewers or listeners to take action. Besides, companies usually use persuasive language in the rest of the advertisement. This can be a recommendation from a previous buyer, a chart showing the product’s benefits, or a list of the product’s benefits.

Advertising is part of marketing. Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably (可替换地), they aren’t the same thing. Marketing is the broad process of researching consumers needs, collecting and evaluating data related to those needs and developing various strategies for attracting consumers. Advertising, on the other hand, strictly refers to the process of attracting potential customers to make a sale.

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