BusinessWeek reports how IBM is reinventing the way it innovates by teaming up with other companies to create innovation networks.
I started my career with IBM and have recently had some good discussions with folks from the company about the topic of innovation.
From the BW article:
"At one time the tech giant was a true believer in go-it-alone R&D. The feeling was that if a technology wasn't invented by IBMers, it wasn't as good. Now the computer pioneer realizes that no matter how big an organization is, more smart people are going to work outside its walls than inside. So it courts R&D partners aggressively."
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, Chairman Emeritus, IBM Academy of Technology and Visiting Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT, has an excellent blog on innovation. Wladawsky-Berger recently wrote:
"...the toughest problems, - requiring the kinds of breakthroughs you get from the very best technologist and scientists... [are] out there in the real world, - in the marketplace. So, if that is where the problems that inspire breakthroughs are, then that is where the research people should personally go to learn about them and hopefully come up with elegant, innovative solutions to the problems."
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