Back in November, I urged technology transfer offices (TTOs) to take caution when using interns. They can be a great help… if you structure it right. There’s a lot more to say about this topic. So, I decided to write a paper detailing the best practices for effective TTO internship programs. My recommendations are based on Fuentek’s experience with establishing TTO internship programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and several other universities.
As I monitor the technology transfer profession via industry newsletters and blogs, a frequently recurring theme is technology transfer offices seeking to keep their costs down by making use of “free” sources of service. It might be internship programs at universities, the federal government considering no-cost patent marketing services (check out our white paper on this topic), or the Texas Tech example discussed in the recent issue of Technology Transfer Tactics, which described the university’s arrangement with a consulting firm that provides a free assessment of technologies’ commercial potential.
Laura Schoppe (far left) and the other judges congratulate the novice NC team during Friday’s awards. What a fantastic time I had being a judge at the 2010 North Carolina Regional Tournament of the FIRST Robotics Competition this past weekend! Not only …
A discussion on the Techno-L forum reminded me of an answer Fuentek came up with a few years ago to the question most commonly facing university offices of technology management (OTMs): What do you do when professors-inventors want to form a start-up b …
Even if you’re not a biologist, you probably know that the term symbiotic refers to a mutually beneficial relationship, where the activities of one have a positive impact on the other and vice versa. (Actually, if you are a biologist you’d know that the more precise term is “facultative mutualism,” but symbiotic is less of a tongue-twister.)
Recently I had a chance to talk with independent consultant Phil Simon for his “Technology Today” podcast. Prompted by a story that ran on National Public Radio, this podcast gave us time to dig a little deeper into some of the issues of being a virtual company.
A couple of weeks ago, Jack and I had the pleasure of being interviewed by National Public Radio’s Adam Hochberg about running a virtual company. The story ran today, and you can read an overview or listen to it here. Our partners at Balancing Professi …
In a recent Department of Labor Women’s Bureau teleconference, I had the pleasure of serving as a panelist with Danette Campbell from the U.S. Patent Trademark Office and Shirley Crews Taylor from the Flexible Workplace Initiative (Flexworks) in Housto …
As a consulting firm, we would directly benefit from the idea posited by Robert E. Litan and Lesa Mitchell of the Kauffman Foundation, published as part of “The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas in 2010” piece in the January 2010 issue of Harvard Business R …
Too often in my work, I see organizations trying to commercialize inventions without really considering the commercial viability of the technology. Just because you can get a patent on an innovation doesn’t automatically mean you should commercialize it.
