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In an organization, it's human nature to resist change and to stick with the status quo that's often more comfortable and safe. Some of your teammates in your company may be devil's advocates who claim they want what's best for the business while they oppose initiatives for Innovation. As a leader and innovator-in-chief of your company, it is critical to drive the culture of Innovation throughout the organization even in the face of opposition.

Bring up the subject of digitizing medical records and you're likely to get a paradox of a discussion. Everyone thinks it will help save money and improve health care, and everyone has grave reservations. Get ready to hear more as a massive economic stimulus bill works its way through Congress, which includes IT health care spending measures. Although lawmakers are close to pulling the trigger. ensuring the privacy of patients' electronic health records (EHR) remains a top concern. "I very firmly believe that the Achilles heel of health IT is privacy," said Sen. Jim Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who chaired a hearing this morning examining the appropriate safeguards government should insist on before it doles out billions of dollars to help providers computerize patients' records. Champions of health IT argue that EHRs and interoperable systems to integrate data among providers would drive down healthcare costs while greatly reducing medical errors. Just 17 percent of physicians currently have even basic EHRs. The Center for Disease Control has estimated that as many as 98,000 preventable deaths occur in U.S. hospitals each year, many of which could presumably been avoided with more accessible patient data. "If 100,000 Americans were being killed by anything else, we'd be at war," Whitehouse said.

Every day for one hour, Olympic-level athletes all over the world have an appointment they cannot break. The swimmer Dara Torres, a 12-time Olympic medalist, squeezes her hour into training, running errands and caring for her 3-year-old daughter. The curler Nicole Joraanstad schedules her hour at dawn, but says it often interrupts her sleep. The Olympic decathlon champion Bryan Clay makes himself available at night, when he is most likely to be home with family. Since Jan. 1, Olympic-level athletes have had to schedule their daily availability - hour and place - three months in advance so drug testers can find them, according to new World Anti-Doping Agency rules. And violating those rules can have serious repercussions. Three missed drug tests within an 18-month period during an athlete's appointed hour count as a positive drug test and can result in a one- to two-year ban from competition. Because the element of surprise is crucial to effective testing, athletes are also subject to random out-of-competition tests at any time. And they are tested at competitions. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee said, "Sports today has a price to pay for suspicion." But some athletes say the rules have gone too far. "It's absolutely too much," Torres said in a telephone interview. "Why make this more cumbersome when we do so much already? We're at the point where we have to find a middle ground." Never before has there been so much protest regarding out-of-competition testing. Athletes in nearly every sport as well as organizations like FIFA, soccer's international governing body, have publicly criticized the doping agency's regulations. At least one lawsuit challenging the rules is in court. Sixty-five Belgian athletes, including the world-class Quick Step cycling team and its star Tom Boonen, filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that the new rules violate European privacy laws.