Both business and academic communities have embraced the concept of a one-page canvas as a way to conceptualize new ventures, create innovative designs, and teach entrepreneurial thinking. The popularity of the canvas approach has been sparked by Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas (BMC) [1]. Introduced in 2010, the BMC has been widely adopted in entrepreneurship classrooms, […]
Beyond Problem Solving to Value Creation: Teaching Innovation and Entrepreneurship in an Academic Environment
As an engineering educator at Rose-Hulman where our main focus is on undergraduate education, one of our priorities is to prepare our graduates to be immediate contributors in the workplace upon graduation and to be prepared for success over their careers as technical professionals. The placement rate for Rose-Hulman approaches 100 percent each year with […]
Business Process Improvements Are Valuable Innovations
Over the course of my professional life I have had the opportunity to serve on a number of advisory boards for both non-profit and for-profit organizations. I value my time and only agree to serve on advisory boards where the leaders are individuals that I genuinely respect and who I believe are more than capable […]
Taking Innovation Initiatives a Step Further
Today’s post touches on one of the more popular startup education approaches, Lean LaunchPad, which has proven effective in a wide range of contexts across the country (i.e., universities, large and small business development settings, the NSF I-Corps program), and for good reason. Lean LaunchPad presents a systematic process for customer discovery and product-market fit. […]
People are Innovative, Organizations are Not
New ventures are completely focused on innovation by developing new products and solutions that create value for a growing customer base. As the successful venture grows, its priority often shifts to excellence in execution with a focus on sales, margins and growth. It becomes very good at doing what it has always done and not […]