All the places your company touches its customers are called touchpoints, and they come in three forms: human, dumb, and smart. Here's what to know about all three.

Sure, all the leadership books you read tell you that “persistence” is the common trait of anyone who has had a significant impact on the world. But how do you know if you should persist at what you're already doing--or whether a different path would be better?

The U.S. medical discovery-to-patient process moves at a glacial pace and is in desperate need of an overhaul; lessons learned in Silicon Valley can be applied to eliminate bottlenecks. How One Mind for Research and FasterCures are collaborating with industry, universities, and government to tackle the issue.

Serial innovators don't look for opportunities. They look for concrete problems that cause potential customers significant pain--problems with solutions for which customers would be willing to pay. Here are the 3 criteria for knowing you have an interesting problem to solve.

The startup Womply recently brought us Groupon-like "effortless offers." Today it launches Loyalty Cloud, hoping to slice through the messy customer-loyalty market with the "simplest loyalty program ever for local merchants."

A growing group of customer experience professionals are working hard to make some of life's most frustrating experiences not just tolerable, but delightful. While customer experience isn’t a new concept, organizations are just starting to formalize the people, processes, and technology to make it all happen.

Smart businesses build buzz and establish market need before they do the work of creating whatever it is they're selling.

In a downturn, your company doesn't have to outrun the economy. You just need to outrun your competitors. That's why earning their trust is even more important in tough economic times; here are four solid steps to get started.