Innovation is the buzzword everywhere in the media, in daily conversations and at work it is repeated so often that it has lost its ability to excite. In business circles some people refrain from using it as it has become a cliché and words such as genesis are favoured! However, it does not matter what you may call it, the essence of the thing remains very much the same, namely from whatever there is, the process of innovation or genesis creates something new, fascinating, and most importantly it disrupts the status quo. [Read more…]

Last week I participated in a mini workshop on building high performance teams, ran by “realizing ambition” (http://www.realisingambition.com) in Cambridge. It was a fun morning leading to some valuable insights.

We were divided into four teams with different numbers of team members, given a couple of tennis balls, an office bin and four rules of the game. We played four rounds. You are right in guessing that the first lesson learned was that one has to be a rule breaker and better start breaking them rather sooner than later. However, the whole thing was subtler than that. Observing the team dynamics and how we evolved was a delight. [Read more…]

In 2013 corporate VC yielded 3 times the number of patents per dollar invested than in-house R&D. This is not a single and exceptional observation, but rather the one that caught my attention and prompted me to look into what is being said about the performance of corporate venture funds. [Read more…]

3D printing, or in its industrial terminology, Additive Layered Manufacturing (ALM) is changing the manufacturing industry and rules of engineering design. The technology drivers are rapid and easy design and manufacture, enabling manufacture of complex structures, increasing use in medical applications and consumer driven demand. However, there are still considerable challenges to creating the factory of the future lined with ALM machines. Printing speeds of machines for industrial scale production are still low, design and set up of a factory using ALM tools requires development and consideration for best outcome, and most importantly the validation of materials/powders used in production. This is work in progress that requires considerable development effort. Finally creating a sustainable supply chain for the materials used in ALM is another challenge that needs to be overcome. [Read more…]