Distinguishing innovation ecosystems from entrepreneurial ecosystems
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exploring the challenge of improving the productivity of the ecosystem surrounding a research university like Purdue. There some interesting reading on the topic, but...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Universities as Anchors for Regional Innovation Ecosystems
In the midst of all the political gridlock in Washington, it’s easy to become cynical about the long-term competitive prospects of our nation’s economy. But shift your focus to the nation’s regions,...
View ArticleConnecting technology development with market opportunities
Last week, I spent time with my Fraunhofer colleagues focusing on a particular challenge facing the pace and scale of innovation. The work in innovation management at Fraunhofer aligns well with the...
View ArticleHere are my take-aways from the Global Innovation Summit 2014
Here are some of my takeaways from the Global Innovation Summit that I attended in San Jose last week, a fantastic event. Before you go any further, though: Pull out your January 2015 calendar and mark...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Visualizing regional innovation ecosystems: A high level perspective
Depending on your purpose, there are multiple alternatives for visualizing regional innovation ecosystems. These visualizations are best seen within the context of a strategic purpose. In other words,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Adapting the Fraunhofer model to the US market: Innovation ecosystems
This morning a friend shared an article that triggered some thoughts: Behind Germany’s Success Story in Manufacturing For the past year, I have been developing an approach with our colleagues at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Testing our approach to Innovation Acceleration in New Jersey
In April, the New Jersey Institute of Technology launched the New Jersey Innovation Institute. In July, the Department of Defense announced a $5.6 million dollar award to support the Institute’s first...
View ArticleInnovation districts: Simple guidelines
For those of us who have been around a while, the new push to regenerate cities with innovation districts appears like yet another fad. But is it? Clearly, Brookings, the major proponent of the shift...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Moving our innovation thinking from barriers to ecosystems
Introduction Commercialization of federally funded research at universities faces a bewildering array of obstacles. The reason: innovation — the translation of knowledge into value (or money) — emerges...
View ArticleRebuilding our industrial commons
For over 30 years, U.S. manufacturing has been in relative decline in the face of relentless competitive pressure. Rebuilding our relative competitive position in manufacturing will not come easily....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Learning more about the “How” of clusters
Ever since Michael Porter began promoting the concept of clusters in the mid-1990s, a lot has been written about the What and Why: What are clusters and Why are they important. Not so much useful has...
View ArticleWhat’s next: Horizontal innovation
The next big transformation in economic development is coming. It’s about time. Remarkably, most economic development organizations are still playing a game invented in Mississippi in the 1930s. It...
View ArticleInnovating in a world of complex networks
Betting against the U.S. economy has never been a smart idea. Time and again, our economy has shown remarkable resilience to overcome major disruptions, collapses and failures. From the several panics...
View ArticleThe shiny attraction of tax cuts
Years ago, as I was working on consulting teams, we helped companies like GE globalize their production. That meant moving jobs out of the U.S. The only way for the U.S. to adjust to this new global...
View ArticleStart-up and innovation ecosystems: Testbeds
It’s no surprise that academic research often lags behind market developments (Brown & Mawson, 2017). What if, to help us close this gap, we thought of practitioners and policy makers as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Designing platforms to design ecosystems
Ecosystems form on top of platforms. Ecosystem design starts with platform design. By designing the platform and guiding interactions on the platform, ecosystem builders can encourage the formation of...
View ArticleSlowly Understanding the Impact of Globalization
In 1984, I joined a boutique consulting firm, an offshoot of BCG. We had two major clients: GE and Volvo. For GE, we assisted the appliance division and their small motor business understand how to...
View ArticleDeveloping a University’s Two Ecosystems
Universities can develop two distinct, overlapping ecosystems: one targets at start-ups; the second focuses on innovative companies. To date, most universities concentrate on the first, less so on the...
View Article