Wellspring Blog

Every so often we ask our community to sound off on popular topics in innovation and share their best tips, tricks, and advice in hopes that their answers may inspire others in the field. We’ve gathered these insights by email, over phone calls, at events and roundtables, and catching up with... Read More

It has been 75 years since Vannevar Bush wrote in Science: the Endless Frontier that “without scientific progress, no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world.” This call-to-arms jump-started a golden age for the... Read More

Despite grand plans for disruptive innovation and headline-grabbing announcements, plenty of organizations manage to get in their own way when it comes to innovation. Many believe they have an impressive range of innovation activities, covering the gamut from incremental (H1) to adjacent (H2) to... Read More

When I speak with R&D and innovation leaders about their key metrics, two measures rise to the top: NPV (Net Present Value) and PVI (Product Vitality Index). These are the de facto standards for assessing innovation impact. Nothing else comes close. When pressed, the very same leaders express a... Read More

If you’ve read any innovation or R&D advice lately, you’ve most likely seen this common sentiment: Innovate with the customer in mind. With everyone spending more time at home these days, consumer wants and needs have shifted dramatically and continue to evolve. Personal residences have transformed... Read More

Starting with the development of a commercial polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) product in the 1980s, bioplastics have received off-and-on attention given their potential for widespread application in industry. In particular, it has long been thought that biosynthesized polymers – plastics produced... Read More

A few years ago, I was involved in a two-day boardroom session at a respected company – let’s call them Acme Corporation. They’d asked for help with their innovation strategy. Read More

Every week, we meet a few more companies that are transitioning Technology Scouting from an implicit, under-the-radar activity into a formal, dedicated innovation practice. That’s a smart move – and long overdue for many old-guard corporations. The problem is that too many companies get stuck... Read More

As concerns for personal and environmental health continue to build, a growing proportion of consumers have chosen to replace traditional cleaning products with green, eco-friendly products. Despite early skepticism that consumers would actually change their purchasing habits, this shift in... Read More

In business culture today, there is still a broad, albeit implicit, belief that innovation is innate. Whether you’re a person or a company, you either have it or you don’t. If Steve Jobs is your CEO, high-flying innovation is inevitable. Otherwise, you’re destined for mediocrity. Read More