Inside Real Innovation

This breakthrough book gives a ground-floor view of the innovation process, showing how fundamental innovators really work. Then, it connects that knowledge to the bigger picture, explaining why the "innovation system" in the United States is failing to work as it once did, and what all parties can do to build a better system for the future.Inside Real Innovation is written by distinguished practicing innovators. They debunk the concept of innovation as a linear process, from research to development to product in the market. They present a simple model for understanding it as a highly iterative process, in which you cycle repeatedly through many factors in the areas of Technology, Market and Implementation -- until the right pieces come together. Co-author Gene Fitzgerald tells the story of his own major innovation, tracing it along the winding path into products we use every day. The authors then proceed to tell the larger story of how the vaunted American "pipeline" for carrying this process has been pulled apart.The book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in a strong innovation system: investors, innovators and people in corporations, universities and government. Inside Real Innovation has become the course-book for a White House-recognised MIT course entitled 3.086x Innovation and Commercialization.

This break-through innovation book gives a ground-floor view of the innovation process. It is written by practitioners of innovation, whose expertise scales from universities to start-ups to corporations and governments, allowing the authors to avoid the usual high-level-only descriptions of generic innovation. Organized in three parts, the first part develops the detailed iterative innovation process and debunks the widely held concept of linear innovation (research->development->product) as the actual innovation process. With the reader armed with the true innovation process, the second part analyzes, using the lens of iterative innovation, a real fundamental innovation advance which transpired over a 20-year period. In the last part of the book, the authors use this new interpretation of how innovation evolves to accurately portray modern US innovation history, and define the underlying crisis in our innovation pipeline. This part finishes with practical guides for all innovation stakeholders: individual innovators, investors, universities, corporations, and governments. The book is sufficiently self-contained and can be read by anyone interested in any aspect or impact of innovation.