innovation management: marketing vs product marketing vs sales communications

Many professionals working on B2B innovation projects lump together a broad range of the promotional activities necessary to launch their innovation under the generic concept of “MARKETING” – which creates tremendous confusion when trying to properly derisk and scope the … Continue reading innovation management: marketing vs product marketing vs sales communications

U.S. DOE SSL releases 4 SBIR grants

As part of my ongoing effort to track innovative small companies in the lighting world (see this post and this post for some more ventures), here is a release from the U.S. DOE on their latest Small Business Innovation Research grants: Four SBIR Grants Awarded for SSL Technology (FY14 Release 2 Phase I) The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science has awarded four Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants targeting advances in solid-state lighting (SSL) technology. The FY14 Release 2 Phase I awards will explore the technical merit or feasibility of an innovative concept or technology. The SBIR and … Continue reading U.S. DOE SSL releases 4 SBIR grants

the meaning of “innovation”

“The term ‘innovation’ dated back to the sixteenth-century England.  Originally it described the introduction into society of a novelty or new idea…innovation began to fill a descriptive gap.  If an idea begat a [scientific] discovery, and if a discovery begat an [engineered] invention, then an innovation defined the lengthy and wholesale transformation of an idea into a technological product (or process) meant for widespread practical use.  Almost by defintion, a single person, or even a single group, could not alone create an innovation.  The task was too variegated and involved.” Quoted from The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age … Continue reading the meaning of “innovation”