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Category Archives: Social Science
Partial Patterns
We are attracted to patterns. A pattern appeals to our sense of order and gives us the impressing that things are following a law, can be predicted, everything in a system. It’s all nice. Innovation, however, may suggestion a change … Continue reading
Posted in Bozonet, Metrics, Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
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Four Ways of Innovation
Innovation isn’t a simple topic. As Benoît Godin has shown, for much of its existence “innovation” was a negative thing. You didn’t want to be called an innovator, and that’s what you called folks who were loons and threats. In … Continue reading
Posted in Metrics, Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
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The Value of Bewilderment
Bewilderment, in its ancient and literal sense of being cast away in a trackless wild, was the lot of the explorer…. Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver. Consider discovery from the point of view of research and exploration. Columbus and Shackleton–these were explorers, … Continue reading
Posted in Social Science, Technology Transfer
Tagged bewilderment, discovery, Neal Stephenson
1 Comment
It's all so very natural
Finding reasons for ownership of inventions is especially important for organizations. Organizations do not have impulses. Organizations are not passionate. Organizations are fictional persons, golems, creatures of legal incorporation. They may own, act, and carry liability, but they don’t think … Continue reading
Posted in Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
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Innovation Interfaces
If we are going to talk innovation, then we also have to talk status quo. Innovation points to change, and so we may ask, “change from what?” We can call this what the “status quo”. The status quo is the … Continue reading
Posted in Social Science, Technology Transfer
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How the Grudging Farmer Really Feels About the Hens
Here is an entirely typical start to a university IP policy. I have picked it almost at random. I don’t have any particular agenda with the school involved. This sort of reading can be done with most any university’s IP … Continue reading
Posted in IP, Policy, Social Science, Technology Transfer
2 Comments
Modern Zombie Narratives
I have been thinking more about innovation as I’ve written the two essays on the history of warfarin. In those essays, I consider the nature of the narratives that report, or carry, the history of warfarin. As I work on … Continue reading
Posted in Social Science
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On the warfarin path
We frame our expectations and our insights by the stories we tell. This is true as well of the stories of innovation. How does something new come into the world and reshape things? We have two primary narratives–bane and boon–one, … Continue reading
Posted in IP, Social Science, Technology Transfer
Tagged innovation, Link, narrative, WARF, warfarin
5 Comments
The Moment In-Between
Here’s a neat essay by Chris Newfield that looks at the elements of innovation that underlie the development of Google from a snatch in a dream to becoming a global information and advertising silverback. One of the things that has … Continue reading
Posted in IP, Social Science, Technology Transfer
Tagged in-between, later reason, rush the trough
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Two Yesses
The idea of innovation is complicated. Benoît Godin has shown in a series of articles that innovation until the last hundred years or so has been a derogatory term. No one wanted to be called an innovator. Then in science, … Continue reading
Posted in Social Science, Technology Transfer
Tagged delight, Godin, innovation, technology transfer, yes
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