On Policy and Innovation; the Grandmother of Invention
Sometimes innovation requires constraints.
Thursday, May 9, 2013 12:00 PM
Shifts Happen: Turbines and Transistors
Some innovative work in wind turbines is interesting for both its potential and for the response it evoked.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Planning for Innovation
Innovation is hard, but sometimes we make it harder than it needs to be. It’s a lesson we could all use, but especially big companies betting millions on sustaining innovations.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Other People's Problems
Something in our nature enables us to ignore problems until it looks like we can solve them.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Innovation and Choice
Innovation is about making the possible desirable and the desirable possible. But which direction innovation takes depends in large part on how we express those desires.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Seven Predictions for Sustaining Innovations in the New Year
Depending on your perspective, last year’s cup was either half-full of advances, or half empty. What does 2013 hold in store for sustaining innovations? Here are my predictions…
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
‘Tis the Season
Black Friday and cyber Monday have kicked off a manic month of holiday shopping, with its seasonal flood of commercials, catalogs, pop-ups and newspaper inserts. But there's a particular desperation this year.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Innovation, Information Assymetry, and GMO Lemons
Proposition 37, the Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Initiative, is on the November ballot here in California and the outcome will shape the path of innovation in food and agriculture for decades to come.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Electric Vehicles, Electric Lights and iPhones
When new technologies compete, what tips the scale toward one or the other?
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The Hargadon Files: Who Built What?
The catch phrase of the Republican National Convention, “We Built It,” was a staged response to a strategically clipped quote from a speech by President Obama.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Between Vanity and Commodity
Between vanity and commodity lies opportunities for innovations in solar power, if we can only get there.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Not All That Disrupts is Good, and Not All That is Good Disrupts
Are our best efforts to bring the electric vehicle to market having the right effect? It’s important to remember that not all disruptive innovation is good, and not all good innovation is disruptive.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
At the Table or on the Menu: The Politics of Innovation
Political. Self-interested. Calculating. Aggressive. Machiavellian. Few people use these words to describe innovation. Fewer still take pride in these traits.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
GE's New Durathon Battery and the Challenge of Faster, Better, Cheaper
General Electric has just introduced its new Durathon molten salt battery.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Accounting for Impact
You can learn a lot about a company by the innovations it pursues. For most us, sustainability means reducing our environmental impacts one CFL, organic lettuce, or hybrid car at a time.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
The Many Faces of the Sustainability Literature
Does the world need another book on sustainability?
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Hargadon Files
Exploring the meeting of innovation and sustainability.
We are fast approaching 8 billion people all hoping to live as we do, something the finite resources of the planet-energy, food, water, arable land-cannot accommodate. Throughout history, innovation has played a leading role in averting environmental and social collapse. But also in inviting it. Despite our best intentions, the many misconceptions about innovation in policy and in practice often get in our way.
These reports will look at the hidden stories behind innovations big and small, going backstage to reveal what works, what doesn't, and why, in the pursuit of sustaining innovations.
Andrew Hargadon is the Charles J. Soderquist Chair in Entrepreneurship and Professor of Technology Management at the Graduate School of Management at University of California, Davis. Hargadon's research focuses on the effective management of innovation, particularly sustainable innovation, and he is author of numerous articles, essays, and the book How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate (Harvard Business School Press).