Here’s a great lecture by Eugene Fitzgerald, instructor for the upcoming MITx MOOC 3.086x Innovation and Commercialization, given at Purdue University in 2010 and hosted by our friends at nanoHUB.org.  Here’s the abstract:

Through our own experience in fundamental innovation over the last 20+ years and through our innovation experience with corporations in the Kauffman Innovation Interface, we have developed a micro-scale innovation picture that captures the processes experienced by innovators.

We use the real-life case of strained silicon integrated circuits to highlight aspects of what we refer to as iterative innovation. The details of the innovation process are incompatible with commonly held ‘linear model’ views of research to development to manufacturing.

In view of the iterative innovation process, the roles of universities, corporations, and governments are defined more clearly from a historical perspective and we form a contemporary picture of the current inefficient innovation system which is leading to slower growth. This lecture is meant to be broad in nature, creating a common language of innovation that will be useful to the scientist or engineer as well as to those involved with business and finance.