Pitt Law's Innovation Practice Institute gets a nice shout-out in this week's Pop City.
Plus, if anyone has gone over to the IPI's website recently to find out more about the program, at long last the law school has taken down the out-of-date content and put up something that isn't sexy, but is timely and accurate..
Showing posts with label ipi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ipi. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Friday, March 04, 2011
Open Innovation and Regional Economic Development
Hypothesis: If Pittsburgh knew what Pittsburgh knew, it would be unstoppable.
The amount of research and development talent in Western Pennsylvania -- in universities, government-sponsored research enterprises, and corporate R&D facilities, not to mention small labs, garages, and studios -- is extraordinary. There are an awful lot of great people in town doing an awful lot of great, innovative work.
But too often, they don't know each other, and for want of collaboration, great innovations go undeveloped or are underdeveloped. Innovator #1 and Innovator #2 may each have a critical piece of an innovation marriage made in heaven -- but those two people may occupy different innovation spaces altogether. They may never meet, let alone discover that their ideas overlap in potentially productive ways.
Can the idea of Open Innovation help solve some of this complex coordination problem? Open Innovation is business jargon; it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Management gurus usually say that Open Innovation means a firm looking outside its walls for new ideas. I'll define it differently: structured sharing of pooled resources, sharing and collaboration that makes things possible that are bigger and better than what we'd see in a world of one-to-one dealmaking. A whole that's greater than the sum of its parts. The idea is connected both to what I wrote about in an older post here called "The Entrepreneurship Commons" and to my academic research on cultural commons. In short, can Pittsburgh prosper by embracing the idea of sharing innovation, rather than hoarding and exploiting innovation? I think that it can. The hard question is how.
There are some modest examples of related things already in place. My academic colleagues argue that tech transfer offices in universities perform some of this pooling function. In practice, all too often tech transfer offices are barriers to collaboration rather than facilitators. At CMU, Project Olympus was founded in part to get around that problem. Olympus points in the right direction: a successful collaboratory (a word that I claim no credit for) need not be tied specifically to any one university, or to any one institution. In my Entrepreneurship Commons post, I wrote about a local example of a sort of innovation fair that the Pittsburgh Tech Council set up to underwrite new ideas for the hockey arena.
I'm thinking about this these days because a colleague pointed me to something called the Innovation Access Network, a project in Boston that's housed at the Massachusetts High Technology Council. If you or your organization joins the Network, then you can post R&D problems and offer R&D solutions in a password-protected online venue. Sort of a high-end Craigs' List for innovators. Here is the FAQ.
The Innovation Access Network is an imperfect thing (aren't they all?), and it raises all kinds of questions. There is a price of admission, which is pretty steep. Why so steep? What are the default IP/NDA rules for "seekers" and "requesters"? (The language has a Harry Potter-esque feel.) What are the starting points for negotiating future deals / partnerships, and does the host (the MHTC) take a slice? How should individual, for-profit institutional, not-for-profit institutional, and government interests be handled differently? These are not the only legal issues, and the legal issues are only parts of the equation. The social structures are probably more important. What kinds of trust relationships and other supplemental institutions are needed in order to make a pooling arrangement successful? (How about another bit of business jargon: Can Open Innovation succeed in an economy dominated by a zero-sum mindset? If a positive-sum mindset is required, does the region have enough positive thinking juice to sustain an OI model?) The Innovation Access Network is hardly the only example of Open Innovation practices. Proctor & Gamble's "Connect and Develop" program is the most successful model that I have encountered. But the Innovation Access Network is the only one that I know that tries to tailor a formal sharing model to the interests of regional economic development. A regional model has challenges -- and opportunities -- that are distinctive. Boston, for example, not only has this Open Innovation initiative but has also launched a live/work innovation cluster as it redevelops part of the South Boston neighborhood. Take a look at this website for Boston's Innovation District. How should the economics of innovation be linked not only to the sociology of innovation but also to the geography of innovation?
So: How might Pittsburgh improve on this? How might Pittsburgh build its own Open Innovation institution(s)? That's a project that I and(or) the Pitt Law Innovation Practice Institute would like to help with.
The amount of research and development talent in Western Pennsylvania -- in universities, government-sponsored research enterprises, and corporate R&D facilities, not to mention small labs, garages, and studios -- is extraordinary. There are an awful lot of great people in town doing an awful lot of great, innovative work.
But too often, they don't know each other, and for want of collaboration, great innovations go undeveloped or are underdeveloped. Innovator #1 and Innovator #2 may each have a critical piece of an innovation marriage made in heaven -- but those two people may occupy different innovation spaces altogether. They may never meet, let alone discover that their ideas overlap in potentially productive ways.
Can the idea of Open Innovation help solve some of this complex coordination problem? Open Innovation is business jargon; it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Management gurus usually say that Open Innovation means a firm looking outside its walls for new ideas. I'll define it differently: structured sharing of pooled resources, sharing and collaboration that makes things possible that are bigger and better than what we'd see in a world of one-to-one dealmaking. A whole that's greater than the sum of its parts. The idea is connected both to what I wrote about in an older post here called "The Entrepreneurship Commons" and to my academic research on cultural commons. In short, can Pittsburgh prosper by embracing the idea of sharing innovation, rather than hoarding and exploiting innovation? I think that it can. The hard question is how.
There are some modest examples of related things already in place. My academic colleagues argue that tech transfer offices in universities perform some of this pooling function. In practice, all too often tech transfer offices are barriers to collaboration rather than facilitators. At CMU, Project Olympus was founded in part to get around that problem. Olympus points in the right direction: a successful collaboratory (a word that I claim no credit for) need not be tied specifically to any one university, or to any one institution. In my Entrepreneurship Commons post, I wrote about a local example of a sort of innovation fair that the Pittsburgh Tech Council set up to underwrite new ideas for the hockey arena.
I'm thinking about this these days because a colleague pointed me to something called the Innovation Access Network, a project in Boston that's housed at the Massachusetts High Technology Council. If you or your organization joins the Network, then you can post R&D problems and offer R&D solutions in a password-protected online venue. Sort of a high-end Craigs' List for innovators. Here is the FAQ.
The Innovation Access Network is an imperfect thing (aren't they all?), and it raises all kinds of questions. There is a price of admission, which is pretty steep. Why so steep? What are the default IP/NDA rules for "seekers" and "requesters"? (The language has a Harry Potter-esque feel.) What are the starting points for negotiating future deals / partnerships, and does the host (the MHTC) take a slice? How should individual, for-profit institutional, not-for-profit institutional, and government interests be handled differently? These are not the only legal issues, and the legal issues are only parts of the equation. The social structures are probably more important. What kinds of trust relationships and other supplemental institutions are needed in order to make a pooling arrangement successful? (How about another bit of business jargon: Can Open Innovation succeed in an economy dominated by a zero-sum mindset? If a positive-sum mindset is required, does the region have enough positive thinking juice to sustain an OI model?) The Innovation Access Network is hardly the only example of Open Innovation practices. Proctor & Gamble's "Connect and Develop" program is the most successful model that I have encountered. But the Innovation Access Network is the only one that I know that tries to tailor a formal sharing model to the interests of regional economic development. A regional model has challenges -- and opportunities -- that are distinctive. Boston, for example, not only has this Open Innovation initiative but has also launched a live/work innovation cluster as it redevelops part of the South Boston neighborhood. Take a look at this website for Boston's Innovation District. How should the economics of innovation be linked not only to the sociology of innovation but also to the geography of innovation?
So: How might Pittsburgh improve on this? How might Pittsburgh build its own Open Innovation institution(s)? That's a project that I and(or) the Pitt Law Innovation Practice Institute would like to help with.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Pitt's IPI Hosts a Public Lecture on IP and Virtual Worlds
In recent posts here and here, I've started to sketch out the mission of Pitt Law's new Innovation Practice Institute. It's time to turn to some details. These will come out more or less in the order that they happen or the order in which they strike me as timely and interesting, rather than in order of importance.
First up: Some public programming. The IPI is taking over sponsorship of an existing lecture series at the law school, what in recent years has been called "The Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecture" because the speakers have been big-name intellectual property law professors or "figures" (or both). That tradition may continue, but the focus of the lecture will shift a bit: we'll try to connect the speaker and the topic to something concrete in Pittsburgh's innovation space.
So, the upcoming "Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecture" will take place on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 4 pm at Pitt's law school. It's free and open to the public.
The speaker is Professor Dan Burk, Chancellor's Professor of Law at University of California - Irvine and a senior figure in IP and cyberspace law scholarship worldwide. He's the co-author of a recent book titled "The Patent Crisis and How the Courts Can Solve It" from the University of Chicago Press.
At Pitt, his talk is titled "Virtual Worlds, Virtual Property." Here's the summary: Online computer games have become an important part of the Internet society, attracting millions of players and creating virtual economies larger than those of many actual nations. Game developers are increasingly turning to copyright and other intellectual property laws to police behavior in these virtual worlds. On March 24, Prof. Burk will discuss the emerging relationship of copyright to computer games and the texts that surround them." It's a timely topic from the standpoint of Pittsburgh's software, app, and game developer communities, and it's a timely topic from the standpoint of some important recent legal developments, particularly the ruling of the Ninth Circuit in MDY v. Blizzard, having to do with the legality of botting in World of Warcraft. (You can read a long-ish summary of that case and its implications at my other blog.)
The Pitt Law lecture isn't just for lawyers. If you are a lawyer, however, we're offering 1 hour of PA CLE credit for the bargain price of $25. Register for that at www.law.pitt.edu/events. After the talk, Prof. Burk will be part of a free reception for everyone, at the law school.
See you there.
First up: Some public programming. The IPI is taking over sponsorship of an existing lecture series at the law school, what in recent years has been called "The Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecture" because the speakers have been big-name intellectual property law professors or "figures" (or both). That tradition may continue, but the focus of the lecture will shift a bit: we'll try to connect the speaker and the topic to something concrete in Pittsburgh's innovation space.
So, the upcoming "Distinguished Intellectual Property Lecture" will take place on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 4 pm at Pitt's law school. It's free and open to the public.
The speaker is Professor Dan Burk, Chancellor's Professor of Law at University of California - Irvine and a senior figure in IP and cyberspace law scholarship worldwide. He's the co-author of a recent book titled "The Patent Crisis and How the Courts Can Solve It" from the University of Chicago Press.
At Pitt, his talk is titled "Virtual Worlds, Virtual Property." Here's the summary: Online computer games have become an important part of the Internet society, attracting millions of players and creating virtual economies larger than those of many actual nations. Game developers are increasingly turning to copyright and other intellectual property laws to police behavior in these virtual worlds. On March 24, Prof. Burk will discuss the emerging relationship of copyright to computer games and the texts that surround them." It's a timely topic from the standpoint of Pittsburgh's software, app, and game developer communities, and it's a timely topic from the standpoint of some important recent legal developments, particularly the ruling of the Ninth Circuit in MDY v. Blizzard, having to do with the legality of botting in World of Warcraft. (You can read a long-ish summary of that case and its implications at my other blog.)
The Pitt Law lecture isn't just for lawyers. If you are a lawyer, however, we're offering 1 hour of PA CLE credit for the bargain price of $25. Register for that at www.law.pitt.edu/events. After the talk, Prof. Burk will be part of a free reception for everyone, at the law school.
See you there.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The IPI in the PBT
Yes, that's the Pitt Law Innovation Practice Institute being profiled in today's Pittsburgh Business Times.
The good news: I'm generally in the "any PR is good PR" camp, especially at the early stages of a new venture, so I like the visibility. Thanks to the PBT for taking an interest.
The bad news: The story is behind a paywall, so I haven't seen it or read it.
The story is here.
The good news: I'm generally in the "any PR is good PR" camp, especially at the early stages of a new venture, so I like the visibility. Thanks to the PBT for taking an interest.
The bad news: The story is behind a paywall, so I haven't seen it or read it.
The story is here.
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Innovation Practice Institute: The Vision
This is the next in a series of occasional posts about my day job and what, through that job, I hope to have in store for Pittsburgh. The first post, here, described the Innovation Practice Institute at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, where I am now the Faculty Director.
I'll continue to work from the broad to the specific. Today: What's the vision?
The vision is that the legal profession in the Pittsburgh region can do more -- a lot more -- to add value to the area's innovation-based economy, and to a much greater extent than it does today.
Right now, in popular or general business understanding, law and lawyers are -- mostly -- the "necessary evil" of innovation and entrepreneurship. Experienced and sophisticated businesspeople (innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, managers) know that's not true; a productive working relationship with lawyers who understand the needs of innovators and entrepreneurs and the dynamics of an innovation-basesd economy is critical to the success of a new company and to the vibrancy of the economy as a whole.
Why? Well-trained lawyers are perfectly situated to appreciate and help their clients navigate the interrelationships of the overlapping regulatory and business frameworks that innovators and entrepreneurs need to deal with -- intellectual property law, corporate law, securities law, tax law, immigration law, employment law, commercial law, and (increasingly) complex regulatory environments (FDA, telecomm, and so on).
In addition, in mature innovation economies, lawyers often play essential roles in "brokering" relationships among innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, real estate developers, key managers, underwriters, accountants, and so on. When I was practicing law in the Silicon Valley, the paradigmatic Stanford or Berkeley grad student who wanted to start a company would get referred to one of a number of well-known "dealmaking" corporate lawyers, who would broker introductions to the many other professionals who could help move the student's idea from concept to operating business.
In Pittsburgh today, there are relatively few lawyers who are really highly skilled at the first function (interdisciplinary business counseling for innovators and entrepreneurs), and fewer still who fill the second role (deal-brokering). That's not to say that neither of these things happen. There are lawyers in Pittsburgh who "get" entrepreneurship and innovation -- but their numbers are small, they haven't coalesced into a well-recognized community of practice, and only recently have the most skilled of them offered discounted or cheap services to the most entry-level/early stage startups. And there is a lot of deal-brokering in Pittsburgh -- performed, on the whole, by successful shops like Innovation Works and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. But the deal-brokering shops will tell you -- they've told me -- that their long-term goal is to succeed their way (mostly) out of business. A big enough and successful enough innovation environment doesn't need as much "incubating" as Pittsburgh gets today. A big and successful innovation environment can support and prosper in a market without the kinds of subsidies that help enterprises like IW and PLSG.
Achieving that kind of innovation marketplace is a long way off, and it may never happen at all. In the meantime, the IPI hopes to partner with IW and PLSG and other, similar or related organizations, to help our Pitt Law students get the kind of real-world experience during and soon after their legal education that 21st century innovation lawyers need to succeed. (What's good for the regional economy should be good for the innovation-oriented students at our law school, and vice versa.) That means innovation inside the standard, traditional law school curriculum. We also hope to help identify and convene a visible community of innovation practitioners. That means programming designed to reach out to Pittsburgh's many, related innovation communities and to help them learn about the role of law and lawyers in achieving success. And in time, we want to include and offer research on innovation and entrepreneurship, which means not only collaborating with other universities and schools in Pittsburgh who have strong, existing interests in innovation and entrepreneurship but also partnering with innovators and innovation researchers outside of Pittsburgh -- bringing them to Pittsburgh, for example -- so that the several parts of Pittsburgh today can learn what Pittsburgh knows (in other words: the IPI can be a kind of hub for information and policy development in the innovation space, which is currently pretty fragmented), and so that Pittsburgh can build on the best of what other regions know, too.
[For on the thinking that is going into the IPI, read this post about lawyers and "the entrepreneurship commons.]
I'll continue to work from the broad to the specific. Today: What's the vision?
The vision is that the legal profession in the Pittsburgh region can do more -- a lot more -- to add value to the area's innovation-based economy, and to a much greater extent than it does today.
Right now, in popular or general business understanding, law and lawyers are -- mostly -- the "necessary evil" of innovation and entrepreneurship. Experienced and sophisticated businesspeople (innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, managers) know that's not true; a productive working relationship with lawyers who understand the needs of innovators and entrepreneurs and the dynamics of an innovation-basesd economy is critical to the success of a new company and to the vibrancy of the economy as a whole.
Why? Well-trained lawyers are perfectly situated to appreciate and help their clients navigate the interrelationships of the overlapping regulatory and business frameworks that innovators and entrepreneurs need to deal with -- intellectual property law, corporate law, securities law, tax law, immigration law, employment law, commercial law, and (increasingly) complex regulatory environments (FDA, telecomm, and so on).
In addition, in mature innovation economies, lawyers often play essential roles in "brokering" relationships among innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, real estate developers, key managers, underwriters, accountants, and so on. When I was practicing law in the Silicon Valley, the paradigmatic Stanford or Berkeley grad student who wanted to start a company would get referred to one of a number of well-known "dealmaking" corporate lawyers, who would broker introductions to the many other professionals who could help move the student's idea from concept to operating business.
In Pittsburgh today, there are relatively few lawyers who are really highly skilled at the first function (interdisciplinary business counseling for innovators and entrepreneurs), and fewer still who fill the second role (deal-brokering). That's not to say that neither of these things happen. There are lawyers in Pittsburgh who "get" entrepreneurship and innovation -- but their numbers are small, they haven't coalesced into a well-recognized community of practice, and only recently have the most skilled of them offered discounted or cheap services to the most entry-level/early stage startups. And there is a lot of deal-brokering in Pittsburgh -- performed, on the whole, by successful shops like Innovation Works and the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. But the deal-brokering shops will tell you -- they've told me -- that their long-term goal is to succeed their way (mostly) out of business. A big enough and successful enough innovation environment doesn't need as much "incubating" as Pittsburgh gets today. A big and successful innovation environment can support and prosper in a market without the kinds of subsidies that help enterprises like IW and PLSG.
Achieving that kind of innovation marketplace is a long way off, and it may never happen at all. In the meantime, the IPI hopes to partner with IW and PLSG and other, similar or related organizations, to help our Pitt Law students get the kind of real-world experience during and soon after their legal education that 21st century innovation lawyers need to succeed. (What's good for the regional economy should be good for the innovation-oriented students at our law school, and vice versa.) That means innovation inside the standard, traditional law school curriculum. We also hope to help identify and convene a visible community of innovation practitioners. That means programming designed to reach out to Pittsburgh's many, related innovation communities and to help them learn about the role of law and lawyers in achieving success. And in time, we want to include and offer research on innovation and entrepreneurship, which means not only collaborating with other universities and schools in Pittsburgh who have strong, existing interests in innovation and entrepreneurship but also partnering with innovators and innovation researchers outside of Pittsburgh -- bringing them to Pittsburgh, for example -- so that the several parts of Pittsburgh today can learn what Pittsburgh knows (in other words: the IPI can be a kind of hub for information and policy development in the innovation space, which is currently pretty fragmented), and so that Pittsburgh can build on the best of what other regions know, too.
[For on the thinking that is going into the IPI, read this post about lawyers and "the entrepreneurship commons.]
Monday, October 18, 2010
Law & Entrepreneurship Position at Pitt
The following position was posted the other day at PittSource, the employment site for the University of Pittsburgh:
Title: Law and Entrepreneurship Program Director
The position ID is 0109293. The position description is this:
Title: Law and Entrepreneurship Program Director
The position ID is 0109293. The position description is this:
The University of Pittsburgh School of Law seeks an individual to direct a program in Law and Entrepreneurship at the School, currently titled "the Innovation Practice Institute." The Program, which seeks to train law students to work effectively with entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses, includes both academic and nonacademic components.The "Faculty Director" to which the description refers is me. I would be happy to answer questions about the Innovation Practice Institute, or IPI (the current website is here), and its future. Email is usually best.
Reporting to the Dean of the School, the individual will develop and manage relationships and partnerships within the Pittsburgh entrepreneurship community, the practicing bar, funders and local university communities. The Executive Director will work with a Faculty Director of the Program and with additional faculty at the School of Law and the Dean to develop the academic component of the Program, which is anticipated to include both classroom instruction elements and clinical or quasi-clinical learning elements permitting law students to work hands-on with start-up ventures under attorney or faculty supervision, as well as scholarly and other programming to connect the work of law students and faculty with communities devoted to the study of entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development in Pittsburgh and beyond. The opportunity also exists for the Executive Director, working with the Faculty Director, to develop cross-disciplinary learning opportunities with other schools within the University as well as with other local Universities.
The potential exists for the incumbent to actively teach a portion of the developed classroom, clinical or quasi-clinical learning elements of the program. As part of the non-academic component of the Program, the Executive Director will (i) plan and coordinate one or more events or public programs annually relating to Law and Entrepreneurship (ii) in coordination with development staff, determine and develop opportunities for future funding, and prepare proposals for funding to support the long-term viability of the Program; (iii) serve as the advisor to the student entrepreneurship group; (iv) serve as the liason to other entrepreneurship programs at the University of Pittsburgh and other local universities; and (v) create opportunities for students to interact with local entrepreneurs.
For this position, the School of Law seeks an individual with a J.D. and at least 2-5 years experience practicing law in the areas of technology commercialization, corporate law, corporate finance, and/or advising start-ups. The individual will demonstrate initiative, creativity, entrepreneurial thinking, administrative skills, and a vision of the roles that law and entrepreneurship programming can play in preparing law students to practice and in supporting regional economic growth. The individual must both be able to work independently with little supervision and be able to deal effectively with a wide range of persons, including entrepreneurs, attorneys, students, and faculty. This position is currently funded for a one-year period beginning on the date of hire. Deadline for applications is November 1, 2010.
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