Inspiration for Innovation


Book Description

Inspires you how to develop an innovative mindset, start innovation in practice, ideate new ideas, create a culture for innovation and how to implement innovation projects.




Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship


Book Description

The second edition of this exhaustive work (ECIIE) comprehensively covers the broad spectrum of topics relating to the process of creativity and innovation, from a wide variety of perspectives (e.g., economics, management, psychology, anthropology, policy, technology, education, the arts) and modes (individual, organization, industry, nation, region). This edition includes some 400 topical entries, definitions of key terms and concepts and review essays, from a global array of more than 250 researchers, business executives, policymakers, and artists, illuminating the many facets of creativity and innovation and highlighting their relationships to such universal concepts as knowledge management, economic opportunity, and sustainability. Entries feature description of key concepts and definition of terms, full-color illustrations, case examples, future directions for research and application, synonyms and cross-references and bibliographic references.




Invention and Innovation


Book Description

From the New York Times-bestselling author, a new volume on the history of human ingenuity—and its attendant breakthroughs and busts. The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm. Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation. He then looks at three different types of inventions. Inventions that failed to dominate as promised: Airships Nuclear fission Supersonic flight Inventions that turned disastrous: Leaded gasoline DDT Chlorofluorocarbons Inventions we have long been promised (and that would be highly beneficial): Travel in vacuum (hyperloop) Nitrogen-fixing cereals Nuclear fusion Finally, he offers a “wish list” of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century. Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity—and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.




Technology Transfer: From Invention to Innovation


Book Description

Technology transfer has expanded rapidly over the past 20 years in Western Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. It has been estimated that some 50% of new products and processes will originate outside the primary developer; academic and other research institutions are obvious sources of much of this new technology. In the NATO Co-operating countries, however, technology transfer is in its infancy; it is crucial for wealth creation and improvement in the quality of life that this mechanism is developed. The papers selected for inclusion in this book discuss issues related to the development of technology transfer in NATO Co-operating countries. The book identifies crucial research issues for science and technology policy researchers and, as a conclusion, offers some policy recommendations. The authors are drawn from NATO and Co-operating partner countries, from other parts of the world, and from international organisations. The focus of the book is on the institutional framework of knowledge and technology transfer; intellectual property rights as sources of information and tools for co-operation; international, national and regional aspects of knowledge and technology dissemination and diffusion; and networking. Audience: Academic institutions, research institutes, intellectual property practitioners, science and technology policy makers, technology transfer managers, high-tech industries.




Invention and innovation: an introduction


Book Description

This 55-hour free course was intended for anyone with an interest in design and invention and how both might contribute to a more sustainable future.




Invention and Innovation


Book Description

From the New York Times-bestselling author, a new volume on the history of human ingenuity—and its attendant breakthroughs and busts. Included in BILL GATES's 2023 Holiday Reading List Included in Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023 Included in The Next Big Idea Club’s February 2023 Must-Read Books "Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception. Even when I disagree with him, I learn a lot from him...he always strengthens my thinking." —Bill Gates, Gates Notes The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm. Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation, and looks not only at inventions that failed to dominate as promised (such as the airship, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight), but also at those that turned disastrous (leaded gasoline, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons). And finally, most importantly, he offers a “wish list” of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century. Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity—and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.




Social Networks in the History of Innovation and Invention


Book Description

This book integrates history of science and technology with modern social network theory. Using examples from the history of machines, as well as case studies from wireless, radio and chaos theory, the author challenges the genius model of invention. Network analysis concepts are presented to demonstrate the societal nature of invention in areas such as steam power, internal combustion engines, early aviation, air conditioning and more. Using modern measures of network theory, the author demonstrates that the social networks of invention from the 19th and early 20th centuries have similar characteristics to modern 21st C networks such as the World Wide Web. The book provides evidence that exponential growth in technical innovation is linked to the growth of historical innovation networks.




The Future of Work


Book Description

Throughout the history of business employees had to adapt to managers and managers had to adapt to organizations. In the future this is reversed with managers and organizations adapting to employees. This means that in order to succeed and thrive organizations must rethink and challenge everything they know about work. The demographics of employees are changing and so are employee expectations, values, attitudes, and styles of working. Conventional management models must be replaced with leadership approaches adapted to the future employee. Organizations must also rethink their traditional structure, how they empower employees, and what they need to do to remain competitive in a rapidly changing world. This is a book about how employees of the future will work, how managers will lead, and what organizations of the future will look like. The Future of Work will help you: Stay ahead of the competition Create better leaders Tap into the freelancer economy Attract and retain top talent Rethink management Structure effective teams Embrace flexible work environments Adapt to the changing workforce Build the organization of the future And more The book features uncommon examples and easy to understand concepts which will challenge and inspire you to work differently.




The Invention of Creativity


Book Description

Contemporary society has seen an unprecedented rise in both the demand and the desire to be creative, to bring something new into the world. Once the reserve of artistic subcultures, creativity has now become a universal model for culture and an imperative in many parts of society. In this new book, cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz investigates how the ideal of creativity has grown into a major social force, from the art of the avant-garde and postmodernism to the ‘creative industries’ and the innovation economy, the psychology of creativity and self-growth, the media representation of creative stars, and the urban design of ‘creative cities’. Where creativity is often assumed to be a force for good, Reckwitz looks critically at how this imperative has developed from the 1970s to the present day. Though we may well perceive creativity as the realization of some natural and innate potential within us, it has rather to be understood within the structures of a very specific culture of the new in late modern society. The Invention of Creativity is a bold and refreshing counter to conventional wisdom that shows how our age is defined by radical and restrictive processes of social aestheticization. It will be of great interest to those working in a variety of disciplines, from cultural and social theory to art history and aesthetics.




Beyond Bakelite


Book Description

The changing relationships between science and industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, illustrated by the career of the “father of plastics.” The Belgian-born American chemist, inventor, and entrepreneur Leo Baekeland (1863–1944) is best known for his invention of the first synthetic plastic—his near-namesake Bakelite—which had applications ranging from electrical insulators to Art Deco jewelry. Toward the end of his career, Baekeland was called the “father of plastics”—given credit for the establishment of a sector to which many other researchers, inventors, and firms inside and outside the United States had also made significant contributions. In Beyond Bakelite, Joris Mercelis examines Baekeland's career, using it as a lens through which to view the changing relationships between science and industry on both sides of the Atlantic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He gives special attention to the intellectual property strategies and scientific entrepreneurship of the period, making clear their relevance to contemporary concerns. Mercelis describes the growth of what he terms the “science-industry nexus” and the developing interdependence of science and industry. After examining Baekeland's emergence as a pragmatic innovator and leader in scientific circles, Mercelis analyzes Baekeland's international and domestic IP strategies and his efforts to reform the US patent system; his dual roles as scientist and industrialist; the importance of theoretical knowledge to the science-industry nexus; and the American Bakelite companies' research and development practices, technically oriented sales approach, and remuneration schemes. Mercelis argues that the expansion and transformation of the science-industry nexus shaped the careers and legacies of Baekeland and many of his contemporaries.