The Innovation Gap

The Sept 8th issue of Network World had an interesting article by Johna Till Johnson on whether the Innovation Gap is real. This is a very good question. I've been in both government and industry and have looked at both sides of this equation. Small companies that are hungry and on the edge of finance and technology are more innovative than large companies in general.

The small companies I've worked with to put proposals together for SBIR submissions have been high on enthusiasm and maybe a little short on technical know how. Many of these small companies don't have the staff to help the engineer or inventor to put the papers together. Some of their writing is a bit rough. However, in over 15 proposals with large companies last year many of them were very good technically but didn't have the enthusiasm and innovative spirit that small businesses exhibited.

In reviewing 82 SBIRs last year for military customers, the enthusiastic proposer scores higher.

"Convince me you want to get the job done.

Steve