Andrew Hargadon

Reid Hoffman on social networks

Reid Hoffman, Founder of LinkedIn wrote a wonderful article on The real way to build a social network that is a must read for anyone who recognizes the value of networks for innovation.

The iEconomy

The NYT article on Apple and employment, How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work , offers valuable insights into the future of manufacturing. But there is a way out.

Fostering the entrepreneurial spirit

Celebrating the launch of Ruhstaller, a new brewery named after Sacramento’s first premier brewer (Captain Frank Ruhstaller, 1881) by one of our former students, J-E Paino (proprietor), along with Peter Hoey (brew-master).

Entrepreneurs and Society: Kauffman Foundation's "3 Things" video

The Kauffman Foundation just posted a nice sketchbook talk by CEO Carl Schramm (embedded below), summarizing the good and vital research the company has supported that looks at the role of entrepreneurs in society.  These numbers should guide both policy and personal decisions.  

Problem-finding, by Tom Kelley of IDEO

Albert Szent-Gyorgi, who won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for discovering vitamin C, once said “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” 

When it comes to innovation, or its cousins invention and discovery, we tend to think of it as a process of discovering solutions.  In fact, it is more often a process of discovering the right problems. Tom Kelley, of IDEO, talks so eloquently here about the value of finding the right problem in talking about how IDEO's designers were able to discover a new problem in what was essentially an old and mature market, kid's toothbrushes.  

BMEA2011 Elevator Pitches

Elevator pitches are a great way to share some of the ideas that have been brewing here at the Biomedical Engineering Entrepreneurship Academy.  

One of the first and easiest ways to prototype a potential venture is the well-crafted elevator pitch.  With this in hand, anyone can get great feedback from potential customers, mentors, advisors, investors. Sure, you can communicate alot more detail with more time, but that leaves less time to listen and learn. Below are the BMEA2011 elevator pitches—all based on research being conducted in university labs around the country: 

Biomedical Engineering Entrepreneurship Academy 2011

This morning our 2011 Biomedical Engineering Entrepreneurship Academy comes to close.  45 university research scientists from across the country, full professors to first year grad students, arrived on Monday morning with their research and the desire to see it become a reality. After an intensive week of work, they're pitching their proposed businesses for the first time and to a jury of potential investors.

The Kitchen Table Test

Anyone in my position has seen somewhere in the low thousands of pitches. Everything from students to entrepreneurs to corporate intrapreneurs. I was struck by this recently, looking at someone present a chart of the size of their market and the rate at which customers would flock to this young venture’s offerings. When I questioned the numbers, he blustered on with full confidence.

What's the problem with LEDs?

LED lighting is clearly a path forward.  The challenge, as with all "promising but currently too expensive" new clean energy technologies is how to get from here (low volume, high costs) to there (high volume, low costs).  The bulk of cost reductions typically come from economies of scale, which moves industries down the learning curve. So what brings us the larger volumes?  Is it more government subsidies for research?  Is it regulations or rebates that drive market demand?  In a recent Technology Review article (LEDs Are Getting Ready for the Spotlight), Josie Garthwaite describes another option, which follows on my earlier post about finding new problems for old solutions.

Finding new problems

What if innovation was not about solving problems?  This thought nags me whenever I'm forced to read about the grave responsibility of "innovation" to solve such persistent problems as climate change, healthcare, poverty, and education.  Or listening to how innovation might solve all of Acme, Incorporated's problems but especially that gaping hole in Q3 revenues for 2012, their obsolete technology platform, or declining share values.