Road warrior or road kill?

Gene Slowinski of Rutgers University presented a talk "Creating and Managing Innovation Alliances: Road Warrior or Road Kill, It's your Choice."

Early on in his talk, Gene cited the work on "open innovation" by Henry Chesbro. He suggested that many large corporations now have a "Director of Open Innovation." I, individually, am not sure how far "open innovation" has overcome the "not invented here" [NIH] syndrome, but it was interesting to hear mention of Chesbro's name.

Gene emphasized the difference between strategic goals and what he termed "project level" goals. One has to be strategic in viewpoint. It's not always easy to tell the difference, as we have seen in the discussion of Tom Carhart's book [was Stuart's attack part of the strategy of July 3 or merely a tactical diversion?]

In terms of making a pitch for an alliance, Gene emphasized contact to
1. the business unit head
2. business development manager
3. head of R&D
4. director of open innovation

with an emphasis on what the technology can do for business, rather than on what the technology is.

Gene emphasized that people do business with people they like and emphasized the qualities of

competence
reliability
openess and honesty
care.

**
In passing, the provocative title has been used in a number of contexts, including discussion of Drew Bledsoe and the description of a 2002 Alabama basketball game:

Road Warriors or road kill, it was up to the team…


Bama was starting to fall apart. When Williams made two free throws the lead was one with 5:25. Finally, almost mercifully, Mark Gottfried called timeout. An eleven point lead of less than three minutes old was evaporated in a flurry of iffy fouls and Tide turnovers.