• Inside Real Innovation: How the Right Approach Can Move Ideas from R&D to Market -- And Get the Economy Moving, Nov/2010

Inside Real Innovation: How the Right Approach Can Move Ideas from R&D to Market -- And Get the Economy Moving, Nov/2010

Author(s) Eugene Fitzgerald, Andreas Wankerl, Carl Schramm
ISBN10 9814327980
ISBN13 9789814327985
Format Hardcover
Pages 248
Year Publish 2010 November

Synopsis

This breakthrough book gives a ground-floor view of the innovation process, showing how fundamental innovators really work. Then, it connects that knowledge to the bigger picture, explaining why the “innovation system” in the United States is failing to work as it once did, and what all parties can do to build a better system for the future.

Inside Real Innovation is written by distinguished practicing innovators. They debunk the concept of innovation as a linear process, from research to development to product in the market. They present a simple model for understanding it as a highly iterative process, in which you cycle repeatedly through many factors in the areas of Technology, Market and Implementation — until the right pieces come together. Co-author Gene Fitzgerald tells the story of his own major innovation, tracing it along the winding path into products we use every day. The authors then proceed to tell the larger story of how the vaunted American “pipeline” for carrying this process has been pulled apart.

The book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in a strong innovation system: investors, innovators and people in corporations, universities and government.

“Kudos to the authors of Inside Real Innovation. After debunking the age-old dogma about real innovation being a linear process, they clearly demonstrate how the cornerstones of Technology, Market, and Implementation must work together iteratively to realize ideas in the marketplace. As a university professor who has founded five companies to date, I especially commend this book to US government and university IP policy makers.”
--Jerry Woodall, National Medal of Technology Laureate

“Inside Real Innovation offers a compelling and worrisome look at the US innovation system. The authors argue that the US has been living off fundamental innovations done decades ago. This book must be read by scholars and policymakers with a concern for US economic performance.”
--Gary P Pisano, Harvard Business School

About The Authors:
Eugene Fitzgerald is the Merton C Flemings SMA Professor of Materials
Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Visiting Professor of
Management in the Johnson School at Cornell University and Fellow in the
Singapore-MIT Alliance. He is Founder and Board Chairman of Innovation
Interface. Building upon his early experience at AT&T Bell Labs, he has created
and led a series of fundamental innovations, from early technology to final
implementation in the market. As a serial entrepreneur, he has been a founder or founding team member of five start-up companies.

Andreas Wankerl is Operations Director of the Innovation Interface. He
conceptualized its beginnings and co-founded its precursor, the ‘Business of
Science and Technology Initiative’ at Cornell University. The Innovation Interface
works with corporations on innovation processes and innovation projects at the
corporate/university interface. With a PhD in Electrical Engineering and after
managing international sales and customer relations in the semiconductor
equipment industry, he returned to Cornell to earn his MBA and to start what has become the Innovation Interface.

Carl J Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, is an international authority on entrepreneurial innovation and economic growth. He has served on two Department of Commerce innovation committees during both the Bush and Obama administrations, advises government leaders worldwide on economic expansion, and serves on the Prime Minister of
Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council. Trained as an economist and lawyer, Schramm has founded and cofounded several healthcare finance and information technology companies. His commentary appears in major publications such as Foreign Affairs and The Wall Street Journal, and his book, Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, is available in
nine languages.