Comments on: Luck, Curiosity, Naivete: The Essential Ingredients of Innovation http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2008/12/16/how-to-light-an-inspirational-fire-seattle-ceos-discuss-at-fireside-chat/ Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:30:41 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: srini n http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2008/12/16/how-to-light-an-inspirational-fire-seattle-ceos-discuss-at-fireside-chat/comment-page-1/#comment-43706 srini n Sat, 27 Dec 2008 09:17:57 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=6966#comment-43706 Inspiring article indeed. It is understandable that the CEOs favor small units for being the fountainhead of innovation. Yet, like IBM and 3M do, institutional support (read: funding) for breaking new frontiers in technology and product invention is a sine qua non. The idea of hedging by getting VCs with diverse focus is not really new but nonetheless worth repetition. The challenge lies in improving the 'hit rate' of innovation and the shrinking of the idea-to-application lead time. A combination of these two can reduce the over all costs and make new products/technologies affordable thus setting up a virtuous cycle. Inspiring article indeed.

It is understandable that the CEOs favor small units for being the fountainhead of innovation. Yet, like IBM and 3M do, institutional support (read: funding) for breaking new frontiers in technology and product invention is a sine qua non.

The idea of hedging by getting VCs with diverse focus is not really new but nonetheless worth repetition.

The challenge lies in improving the ‘hit rate’ of innovation and the shrinking of the idea-to-application lead time. A combination of these two can reduce the over all costs and make new products/technologies affordable thus setting up a virtuous cycle.

]]>