“How to Jump-Start Entrepreneurship” by Philip Delves Broughton is an op-ed piece in the Dec. 26 Wall Street Journal that wisely notes how complex the recipe for entrepreneurial success is. But the real magic sauce, he argues, is connectivity. Start-ups and innovators need to be connected to those who know how to solve the many …
Startup companies, unlike our “too big to fail” banks, can’t afford to make too many Enormous Mistakes without perishing or losing much of their value. One of the Enormous Mistakes that some startups make is neglecting intellectual property. That includes neglecting opportunities to protect their business, as well as the need to make sure they …
Innovators and business leaders doing their best to achieve commercial success need to understand the set of innovation fatigue factors that they face. These include personal factors due to the bad behavior of individuals; corporate or organizational fatigue factors reflecting inadequate systems, culture, or flawed judgment; and external fatigue factors due to the burdens of …
Chemical engineers interested in innovation and entrepreneurship should consider attending the AIChE 2010 Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City. On Wednesday, Nov. 10, I will chair a session featuring four outstanding speakers on topics that should be of interest to many engineers, including university researchers, corporate researchers, and managers. If you are conducting research that …
Ethanol as a biofuel may soon reach practical limits in the US and frankly is clouded with questions about its economic and environmental utility. However, the fermentation systems for producing ethanol can be adapted to produce much more valuable products using special microbes developed at some of the most promising green energy and biotech companies. …
In my ongoing work on analyzing the intellectual property landscape in biofuels, one of the most impressive companies I’ve run across is Amyris, a renewable products company whose clever use of synthetic biology goes far beyond biofuels. Amyris was founded by Kinkead Reiling, Neil Renninger, and Jack D. Newman who met at Berkeley and founded …
Amyris: Great Story of Open Innovation and Renewable Products Read More »
Today I’m pleased to share a guest column from a friend, Brian Argo of Brian Argo & Associates LLC. Brian specializes in technical scouting, intellectual property searches, and formulation of cleaners and personal care products. He has a wide variety of experience in innovation and offers an interesting perspective that I thought would be useful …
The lifeblood of innovation is capital. Investment of capital is the primary difference between great ideas and great teams that go nowhere and those that change the world. From the airplane to the iPod, from wonder drugs to wonder software, innovation requires invested capital to bring concepts to commercial reality. Angel investors play a crucial …
The road to innovation fatigue is paved with good intentions embodied in laws, regulations, and even corporate policies. Leaders at all levels must be aware of uninteded innovation-killing consequences that may follow from their good intentions. Staying in touch with the “voice of the innovator,” as we advocate in Conquering Innovation Fatigue, is vital in …
Beware the Unintended Innovation-Killing Consequences of Laws and Policies Read More »
Almost like something out of a Utopian science fiction novel, two neighboring research communities, Fusionopolis and Biopolis, stand as R&D beacons to scientists and companies across the globe, rising from the small island nation of Singapore and its remarkable research park, One North. Fusionopolis and Biopolis are visible fruits of a dramatic new focus on …