MIT's Deshpande Center has learned a few things over the years. It has spun out 28 startup companies worth over $400 million in that time, all of them pushing cutting edge technologies from the fringes of academia into the mainstream market. It is where good ideas are born and where they are groomed for the world.
Its Executive Director Leon Sandler, reccomends following a few steps beginning with an expectation to fail. “Part of innovation is trying new things. If these innovation hubs are themselves innovative – which they should be – you would not expect them all to work. You would expect there to be failures. You expect along the way people would learn what works well, what doesn't work well, how they need to be restructured.
"That's the thing: Don't expect that everything will turn out really well. It will be a learning experience."
Read the other tips on creating innovation on IndustryWeek.
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