Examples of excellence – Page 2 – Practice of Innovation

NAE & NSF Value Creation Best Practices

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Curt

Value Creation Best Practices

The premier R&D and value creation programs at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) are Engineering Research Centers. These are initiatives where multidisciplinary teams address grand challenge opportunities with $50M of funding over ten years. The centers are formed from leading U.S. universities and commercial partners. The goals of the initiatives are: 1) paradigm-shifting research, 2) training of students in team science and value creation, and 2) societal impact, including through commercialization. A 2017 study by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) I was part of made major recommendations for how the centers could be formed and managed to make the biggest societal impact. As shown below, the NSF is now implementing these new practices. I am extremely excited about this because I believe the changes made will have a major impact on the output of the centers and the ability of students to become successful value creators. The management of the NAE and NSF are to be congratulated. (more…)

Finding High-Impact Opportunities

Posted on March 10, 2018 by Curt

Colliding Exponentials

Jack Ma with Curt Carlson and John Zhang. The book is "Innovation" by Carlson and Wilmot. — Jack Ma with Curt Carlson and John Zhang. The book is “Innovation” by Carlson and Wilmot.

Executive summary: Solutions to many unmet customer and market needs are enabled by the convergence of exponentially improving technologies. Convergence science requires intensely collaborative and sustained value creation methodologies.

At the Internet of Things (IoT) conference in China last fall, with a thousand participants and many from manufacturing, I listen to Alibaba’s Jack Ma. He talked about his early career and some of the mistakes he made. He then, surprisingly, told the audience that they were all losing money, whether they knew it or not, because most of them were going away. (more…)

Meaningful Work

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Curt

Innovation for Jobs: I4J

16996360_10154825933781508_7972711192435125292_n-2 — Vint Cerf, David Nordfors, and Curt Carlson at the I4J conference.

According to Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, “The American workforce has more than 100 million full-time employees. One-third of those employees are … engaged at work. They love their jobs and make their organization and America better every day.

At the other end, 16% of employees are actively disengaged — they are miserable in the workplace and destroy what the most engaged employees build. The remaining 51% of employees are not engaged — they’re just there.” (more…)

A Competitive World

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Curt

Taiwan Silicon Valley Innovation Center

President Tsai, the Taiwanese delegation, and speakers at Plug-and-Play on January 14, 2017. I am second from the left.

President Tsai of Taiwan came to Silicon Valley to open a new center devoted to innovation and entrepreneurship between the two countries. It is an example of how regions are working to improve their competitiveness by seeking out and leveraging the best global partners and resources, including venture capital. Below is a summary of the comments I made at the ceremony. (more…)

A Solution to Poor U.S. Economic Growth?

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Curt

Law of Accelerating Cost

Executive Summary: America’s economic growth has been in decline for decades and some feel nothing can be done. The “Law of Accelerating Cost” (LAC) postulates that to maintain economic growth as a constant percent of GDP, exponentially more R&D resources over time are required. We have not been making these investments since the 1970s. These resources can be effectively obtained in three ways:

Increased federal and corporate investments.
Better use of existing funds by using value-creation best practices.
Movement away from areas of low economic return to focus on areas of major impact to the economy.

An important part of the solution that addresses our economic decline lies in satisfying these factors. The largest and most efficient solution is achieved when these factors are combined. (more…)