Open Innovation and Innoventure

This week I attended the Innoventure conference in Greenville, SC. It was a very impressive collection of venture capitalist and a number of leading edge entrepreneurs. I was impressed by the entire conference. The Swamp Fox group that put it own should be commended.

Two of the speakers were especially good. The Proctor and Gamble speaker mentioned the open innovation site connect direct.

https://www.pgconnectdevelop.com/pg-connection-portal/ctx/noauth/PortalHome.do

This site has some interesting possibilities.

The other impressive speaker was from General Electric. The part of his presentation that was interesting was the information that 25% of the wind turbines come from Greenville, SC. They are now making the 1.5MW generator and will be making the 2.5MW unit there as well.

Aggressive Technology Engagement

I've been researching lately the ability of industry partners and of DoD to insert new technology in the new business environment and I've concluded that nothing short of outright aggressive insertion will keep many businesses afloat. DoD will fall far behind our adversaries in the next ten years unless we ally closely with industry leaders in a number or new technology areas.

DoD especially is moving technically toward commercial network architectures and most of the research funding is coming from the commercial sector not from DARPA and DoD sources. That could mean a talent drain on DoD engineering resources in personnel as the rift between industry and DoD pay scales diverges.

The answer to both business and DoD technology insertion is smart, pro-active technology search and rapid technology insertion and development. It's not a case of maybe, it's a case of survival for both.