We at Fuentek are big believers in the power of specific, tailored marketing messages for technology transfer. Our approach focuses on the AMMO: Audience, Message, Mechanism, Outcome. In today’s Stories from the Field post, I’m going to share specific details of how we used this method to help a client accomplish a successful tech transfer outreach event. NASA’s Glenn Research Center approached us about putting together a technology showcase that would introduce Ohio businesses… Continue reading →
Most of you who have read my posts know that I am a strong advocate of open innovation innovation and its application in conjunction with tech transfer efforts. I truly believe it is through the combining of diverse interests and capabilities that meaningful innovations are developed and important impacts can occur. So today I want to summarize what to me are the most important things to keep in mind as you consider open innovation partnerships in your tech transfer work. 
I always read a lot about open innovation and innovation—mainly sourced from my Twitter® and RSS feed—and then leverage the best practices and lessons learned in my work with our clients as they try to build partnerships and relationships to support innovation. Lately I’ve run across a few things that I think are worth sharing with our readers. 
Fuentek president Laura Schoppe and I are putting the finishing touches on a new webinar that will provide technology transfer offices with specific solutions for securing open innovation-style collaborations and partnerships. It’s called Implementing Open Innovation: Symbiotic Success for Tech Transfer Offices (TTOs). We’ve blogged before about how Symbiotic Innovation is the notion that technology spin-out (commercializing technology) and spin-in (technology sourcing, collaborative R&D partnerships) are interdependent activities that are best pursued simultaneously. Every R&D organization has technologies or expertise that might meet the needs of external users (spin-out) as well as needs that might be solved by external technologies/expertise (spin-in). Spin-out asks, “Who needs what I have?” Spin-in asks, “Who has what I need?” Symbiotic Innovation recognizes that the “who” in both questions is the same. 
Sometimes the most straightforward tech transfer situation can turn into something completely different. Sometimes the simple spin-out of a technology can morph into a larger collaborative R&D partnership. This is why Fuentek always takes a Symbiotic Innovation approach when helping our clients with technology transfer. And today’s Stories from the Field post describes just such a case. 
If you are with a high-tech, manufacturing, or other company in Ohio, you won’t want to miss the 
Calling all women professionals in the Triangle area! Don’t miss out on the chance to see ABC correspondent and author Claire Shipman speaking at the November 15th Women Against MS (WAMS) Leadership Luncheon. Her topic: Womenomics, which is also the title of her best-selling book, co-authored with Katty Kay. I think Ms. Shipman says it best in this video, but put simply: Women have more power in the workplace than they think they do:… 
We’ve been blogging a lot about trade shows recently. (Have you taken 
I just returned from a fantastic trip to conduct a technology transfer training session for inventors at NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC). I led a session for some of GRC’s brightest and best—those developing new innovations to meet the challenges faced by NASA missions. We wanted to give these innovators information about how the technologies they develop can be used beyond what they originally envisioned—and how they play a key role in the technology transfer processes of licensing and partnering. 