Innovation for Entrepreneurs: From Idea to Marketplace
Details
About the Course
We establish a framework for examining the innovation process, and quickly transition into exploring how to successfully bring innovations to market. Key questions answered within the course include:
- What are the key indicators of innovation opportunities?
- What steps are critical for entrepreneurs to bring innovations to the marketplace?
- What innovation strategies are valuable for new ventures to establish and maintain a competitive advantage?
Recommended Background
This introductory course is designed for those interested in learning how innovation works. It does not require a background in business.
Outline
Week One: The Innovation Landscape
- Defining Innovation for Business Strategy
- Creative Destruction as Innovation’s Outcome
- Innovation’s Value Proposition for Entrepreneurs
- New Models of Innovation for Entrepreneurs
- How the Life Span of an Innovation Follows Product Life Cycles
- How Innovations Diffuse into the Commercial Marketplace
- Drucker's Seven Sources of Innovation Opportunity
- How Technology “S” Curves Reveal Innovation Opportunity
- Understanding How Innovations Disrupt the Marketplace
- How Lead Users Foster Innovation
- Where Innovation is Hiding in the Value Chain
- How to Recognize a Winning Innovation Idea
- Ways Technology Can Be a Source of Innovation
- Three Framed Views of the Innovation Process
- How Individual Steps Form the Overall Innovation Process
- An Innovation Process Applied: New Product Development
- How Creative Roles Contribute to Innovation
- How Implementer Roles Contribute to Innovation
- How Strategic Alliances Enable Open Innovation
- How a Blue Ocean Strategy Leads to New Market Niches
- How to Cross the Adoption Chasm and Get an Innovation to Market
- How Benchmarking Can Be an Innovation Strategy
- How Technology Influences an Innovation Strategy
- How Lead User Research Becomes an Innovation Strategy
- How to Compose the Elements of an Innovation Portfolio
- How Technology Transfer Fits into an Innovation Portfolio
- Developing Products and Services to Fit the Market
- Keys to Developing Winning Business Models
- Beginning the Business Model Canvas
- Completing the Business Model Canvas
Speaker/s
Lecturer in Technology Entrepreneurship
Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute
University of Maryland, College Park
Dr. Mierzwa has more than 20 years of teaching experience at University of Maryland and other universities, where he has taught courses in strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship. This includes teaching with the Minor in Technology Entrepreneurship, and Master of Technology Entrepreneurship, and the Gemstone Program in the Honors College. His teaching philosophy centers on building student competency through course design and teaching exercises, and his research interests include innovation processes, opportunity recognition, design thinking and conceptual tools for learning objects.
Dr. Mierzwa founded The Fountainhead Group, a team of specialists who conduct innovation audits, and is the founder of Creative Agreements, a professional services firm that uses a mediation approach to form working agreements among business owners during venture start-ups. He serves on advisory boards of several Maryland businesses. At the Academy of Management, he chairs a committee on non-traditional academics and is active on the Teaching Theme Committee. He is also a board member of the Executive DBA Council, an institution of member schools fostering development of practitioner-scholar doctoral programs worldwide.
Dr. Mierzwa earned a Doctor of Public Administration in strategic management from the University of Southern California and a masters in urban design from Harvard University.
