Author Archives: BMarkovits

TrUE Alliance Innovation Genotype™ and Regional Collaborators

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Tri-State University Energy Alliance

The Tri-State University Energy (TrUE) Alliance  is a collaboration between Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the University of Pittsburgh (PITT) and West Virginia University (WVU) to accelerate innovations by addressing challenges and opportunities facing the energy sector of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.  Within the TrUE Alliance each university has a different focus: CWRU is focused on energy storage, PITT on the grid, CMU on energy efficiency, and WVU on shale gas. By applying the Innovation Genotype model we demonstrate a systematic method of identifying and locating suitable organizations, and people to collaborate with and or license intellectual property.
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Identifying Potentially Disruptive Innovators

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Abstract: This paper examines new ways to extract more insights from the invention networks.  We have developed a way of graphing the social influence, diversity of thought and creative intensity of inventors that visually identifies people that we believe are more likely to be the source of disruptive innovations and/or influential subject matter experts.
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National Academies of Science – Thriving in the Innovation Economy through Collaborations of Government, Universities, and Industry

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Thriving in the innovation economy demands a different approach to policy and programs.  It requires a higher degree of collaboration between government, universities, and industry, and the establishment of regional innovation networks to generate new jobs and wealth.  It requires economic development policies that will facilitate the movement of intellectual property and human capital between academia, industry, and our Federal labs and institutions.  Further, it needs to be sustainable.  Thriving in the innovation economy is a journey, not a one-time event.  It is the creation of a persistent regional collective intelligence that continuously produces the innovations that are the foundation of a lasting competitive advantage.  This talk presents a new approach using Innovation Network Mapping, and the concept of an Innovation Genotype™, to accomplish these objectives.

On 2/28/17 GUIRR held a workshop to discuss Innovation Network Mapping and how to build regional collective intelligence to drive innovation and economic growth with Gary Markovits, cofounder and CEO of Innovation Business Partners, Inc., an organization that helps high-growth companies; laboratories and governments increase their capacity for innovation.

Thriving in the Innovation Economy through Collaborations of Government, Universities, and Industry

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Abstract: Thriving in the innovation economy demands a different approach to policy and programs.  It requires a higher degree of collaboration between government, universities, and industry, and the establishment of regional innovation networks to generate new jobs and wealth.  It requires economic development policies that will facilitate the movement of intellectual property and human capital between academia, industry, and our Federal labs and institutions.  Further, it needs to be sustainable.  Thriving in the innovation economy is a journey, not a one-time event.  It is the creation of a persistent regional collective intelligence that continuously produces the innovations which are the foundation of a lasting competitive advantage.  This paper presents a new approach using Innovation Network Mapping, and the concept of an Innovation Genotype™, to accomplish these objectives.
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Innovation Network Based Economic Development

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Abstract: For many regions of our nation the “old economy”, which we depended upon for decades, either doesn’t exist anymore, or is rapidly fading away. The new economy, the innovation economy, demands a new approach to economic policy and programs. It requires a higher degree of collaboration between government, academia, and the private sector, and the establishment of regional innovation networks, ecosystems, to generate new jobs and wealth. It requires economic development policies that will facilitate the movement of intellectual property and trained human capital from academia to the private sector, and leverages the inventions of our Federal labs and institutions. Further, this process needs to be sustainable. Thriving in the innovation economy is a journey, not a one-time event. It is the creation of a persistent regional collective intelligence that continuously produces the innovations that are the foundation of our competitiveness.

This white paper demonstrates the value of using Innovation Network Mapping and Innovation Genotype™ analysis to inform economic development efforts. These techniques enable economic developers to identify the technological strengths of academic, commercial, and government organizations within a city, region, or state. They enable identification of important technical domains, specific organizations, and key individuals, which if joined in collaborative networks, create a force to accelerate economic development. Finally, when combined with several network-based mechanisms for economic development, it results in the creation of a larger regional collective intelligence to drive job creation and wealth generation.
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Innovation Network Time Lapse – NSWCCD 1963-2010

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The following time lapse movie depicts the growth of a government laboratory’s innovation network from the time frame of 1963 to 2010. The innovation network is comprised of 705 lab employees who filed 685 patents during that time. Each node in the network represents an employee and a link between any two nodes represents one or more inventions in which they were co-inventors.
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Culture of Innovation as Collective Intelligence

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We begin by assuming that cultures are created or emerge for a reason. Culture is a means to an end, not the end in itself. Great leaders begin by clearly defining and communicating why their organizations exist and create a culture that can achieve this purpose.

We propose that the power of organizational culture lies in its ability to create a collective intelligence that can acquire and apply knowledge and skills at a rate far exceeding that of any individual. This power derives from the organization’s shared tacit knowledge, collective explicit knowledge, acceptable behavior patterns, and the structure of the underlying social network that contains the organization’s social capital. A culture of innovation is the means by which great leaders create a collective intelligence capable of attaining the organization’s higher purpose in any environment.
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Identifying Potentially Disruptive Innovators

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Abstract: This paper examines new ways to extract more insights from the invention networks. We have developed a way of graphing the social influence, diversity of thought and creative intensity of inventors that visually identifies people that we believe are more likely to be the source of disruptive innovations and/or influential subject matter experts.

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Generating and Sustaining a Culture of Innovation for the Navy’s Pit Crew at Lakehurst

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Designing a culture that helps leadership to enable everyone in the organization to think the thoughts, talk the talk, and walk the walk that will produce the desired results has been the mission of NAVAIR’s Support Equipment & Aircraft Launch and Recovery (SE & ALRE) Department.

NAVAIR SE & ALRE has recently begun applying the Culture as Collective Intelligence (CCI) model, which allows leadership to measure and justify investments in their innovation networks. CCI has six elements. The innermost element is the organization’s WHY, its enduring purpose or reason to exist. The outermost element is the WHAT, the products and services it produces to realize the WHY. The four elements of the middle ring comprise the organization’s culture – the collective intelligence that continuously produces new products and services to achieve its enduring purpose time and again in a volatile and changing world.
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Economic Development in Modeling and Simulation: Inventor and Innovation Analysis

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The objective of this paper is to illustrate that analysis methods applied to innovation networks in the form of patented inventions can be used advantageously for economic development purposes. The results of the analysis can be used to support a range of capabilities from building communities of practice, identifying regional innovation centers, and understanding community structures to achieve economic growth through innovation. In addition, it is an objective of this paper to highlight the role of Modeling and Simulation (M&S) in the advancement of industries pertinent to specific regional economies.
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Using IP to Visualize and Characterize an Organizations Capacity for Innovation

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Innovation is a social phenomenon. New knowledge is generated and propagates at the speed of trust in connected and motivated networks of creative people. Based on work done with the US Navy this talk explains how intellectual property can be used to visualize and characterize an organization’s capacity for innovation, and further, by making the invisible innovation networks visible, how these insights can guide Leadership in designing and implementing actions to increase innovation.
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Is Your Organization In a Rut?

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Organizations often find themselves becoming increasingly trapped by stale forms of thinking and doing business. They get into a rut! By the time they recognize the rut they are in, they may lack the ability to extract themselves from it. We propose a method for performing such an extraction by using concepts from a branch of cell biology called “epigenetics,” which studies the manner in which living cells are differentiated and stabilized by inner network processes and, in effect, also get into ruts. For the cell, stabilized ruts are necessary for development, but for the organization, they can lead to stagnation.
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Why Leaders Need to Do More Than Walk the Walk

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Aphorisms endure because they capture sage advice in memorable phrases. Our question is what do some of the more enduring aphorisms and memorable quotes teach us about leadership?

Aphorisms are built upon analogies that concisely capture complex ideas. The power of analogies lies in their ability to explain something less familiar in terms of something more familiar[1]. For example, the analogies expressed in the aphorisms “talk is cheap”, “practice what you preach”, and “actions speak louder than words[2]”, enable us to map the known concept of monetary or moral value to speech and position the relative value of speech and behavior in human relationships[3]. These same relationships are embodied in the popular aphorism about leadership which states that it is not enough for leaders to “talk the talk” they must also “walk the walk”. Yes, leaders inspire people through their oratory skills[4], but it is their actions that build trust and inspire followers to action[5].
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The State of Modeling & Simulation: An Inventor and Innovation Analysis

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The following results of a first-order network/genetic analysis of Michigan, Texas, Alabama and Florida, in an attempt to visualize the role played by M&S in those states. These states are known to represent regions where there is a growing interest in and use of the techniques of M&S. It is hoped that these two forms of state-by-state analysis can help determine the degree to which M&S has progressed beyond the point of an enabling technology to become an emergent industry.
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What’s In Your Innovation Backbone?

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Authors: Dr. Morton Tavel, Mike Jensen, Gary Markovits, Devin Markovits & Blake Markovits

Facebook and Twitter are popular and successful examples of social media. Successes made possible by their underlying network structure. Networks enable connections and interactions that only a generation ago were impossible. Today, network insights are being used to understand complex systems such as disease epidemics, the electric grid and consumer adoption behaviors.

Why use networks to study innovation? No doubt innovation has a high degree of social content. Many innovations are created by the social interaction of groups and similarly, innovations are adopted by consumers in a socially based manner. So, it is reasonable that a network model should provide powerful insights.
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COTS to the Rescue

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In a previous article [Defense AT&L, September-October2005], we explored a method of leveraging the U.S. patent database to bridge the small worlds of technology and accelerate research and development (R&D). Sometimes, however, the need is so urgent that one must find commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions and press them into service as rapidly as possible.

Finding mature solutions to today’s problems is reactionary, however, and only half the answer. With the pace and complexity of modern warfare, we also need to put in place the knowledge tools and networks that will create an “innovation grid” to keep us one step ahead of tomorrow’s urgent needs.
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Bridging Small Worlds to Accelerate Innovation

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The President’s Council on Competitiveness defines innovation as the ability of an organization to deliver a continuous stream of relevant products and services to its customers; and according to the National Innovation Initiative, innovation is the “single most important factor in determining America’s success through the 21st century. ”But our nation and the defense industry are facing an innovation gap. Driven by the complexity, uncertainty, and pace of world events, the demand for innovations is outstripping our ability to provide them. To close the gap and meet demand, we must innovate smarter not harder.
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