In providing technology transfer services to R&D organizations, Fuentek has developed strategies for maximizing team strengths and skills, solving organizational pickles, and communicating value to leadership. Today’s post can help significantly improve your capabilities and operations. For example, when it comes to understanding how your IP management team is performing, metrics are your greatest ally. They help you get where you want to go by accurately revealing where you are.

Learn best practices in getting the intellectual property (IP) portfolio under control at a webinar offered by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM)®. Streaming live on June 6, 2018, Prioritizing Your IP Portfolio provides a where-to-start strategy for optimizing and prioritizing the IP portfolio. The presenters are René Meadors, Dr. Nichole Mercier, and Fuentek’s Laura Schoppe.

Now that we’ve sprung forward into Daylight Savings Time, it is also time for university technology transfer offices (TTOs) to spring ahead with their summer internship programs. March is usually the month when TTOs issue their “Apply Now” announcements for summer interns. But all is not lost for TTOs who are just getting started. Although there are significant advantages when you begin planning a new summer internship program the previous fall, March is not too late to start. For example, it was last spring when a university TTO asked Fuentek for help with establishing their internship program. They wanted to start that coming summer, so we jumped in to help them, using the tricks that we have learned over our long history of establishing effective internship programs…

This week finds me online discussing a range of topics that may be of interest to our readers. On Tuesday it’s “Achieving Brilliant White Light with Amber LEDs” for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. On Thursday it’s “Using Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) Techniques to Assess University Patents” for Tech Transfer Central.

Innovators can be a huge asset in helping market their technologies to potential partners, licensees, and investors, as they bring unique knowledge and expertise to any discussion. However, successfully communicating the value of their inventions in a discussion, presentation, or networking event can be challenging for innovators precisely because of their knowledge and expertise. We recommend training inventors to ask themselves the following key questions as they evaluate how their innovation might fit into a particular market:…

This Friday, April 19th, at 1pm EDT I will be a panelist in a webinar called “Open Innovation Best Practices for University Tech Transfer.” Sponsored by Technology Transfer Tactics, this 1-hour webinar is designed to help universities be successful in open innovation partnerships. A paradigm shift toward open innovation is underway among universities. This shift has been coming for a while, as R&D budgets have been cut year after year. Universities had to employ concepts like open innovation in order to streamline processes.

My colleague Danielle McCulloch and I had a great time last week presenting our Effective Technology Marketing webinar. If you were watching the #TTOmarketing hashtag, you know that we tweeted quite a bit. Of course, 140 characters isn’t much, so today I’m going to elaborate on a few of my favorite tweets from the webinar. Prep is key in discovering Who What When Where Why How and How Much for yr #techtransfer marketing. I think these seven questions are…

If you’ve kept up with Fuentek’s webinar series, you know by now that we are committed to perfecting and sharing technology transfer best practices. In our previous webinar, we gave step-by-step, how-to details on performing market-based technology assessments so that tech transfer offices can be more proactive and efficient in selecting the technologies to market and identifying the key next steps. Now, our new webinar, “Effective Technology Marketing: Getting to the Negotiating Table,” goes a step further in helping you make the most of a limited marketing budget.

A conversation on one of the AUTM® discussion groups a bit ago focused on formalizing a technology transfer office’s (TTO’s) triage process. The director initiating the discussion was contemplating using interns for technology triage because his resources are limited. He also wanted his licensing project managers to remain focused on getting deals executed. Overall, his plan was to start providing feedback on inventions in a standardized format and within a certain timeframe. And part of the goal was to improve relations and build credibility with faculty.

I am proud of how Fuentek has offered knowledge leadership and training for tech transfer professionals across the U.S. through our white papers, webinars, and other educational services. Now, we’ve linked up with a company in Spain to expand that knowledge transfer to European organizations looking to increase the return on investment for research and development through tech transfer. Specifically, we’ve recently partnered with Knowledge Investors of Vigo, Spain, a company that collaborates with universities, companies, and investors to generate and develop business opportunities within the fields of science and technology. If you don’t speak Spanish, click the inglés link in the upper-right corner of their site….