Where's the Beef

BeefCAMPus 2007 has been really great so far

We launched the first BeefCAMPus in Mallorca in April 2007. 15 participants solved 9 real cases. Great stuff. You can read some of the testimonials at our new BeefCAMPus website . From Jacob Bar's and my perspective the most interesting challenge is the balance between SOLVING THE CASES and LEARNING methodology. Using real cases in real-time exercises is extremely complex both for us as trainers and certainly for the trainees. But using pre-studdied cases takes some of the authenticity out of the workshop.

In Cyprus (at the TII Summer School) we got the opportunity to work two days with 23 participants from 15 countries and started out by giving priority to methodology: guess what the trainees wanted?? Real case! So we worked with a case of mushroom culture and disinfectant technology. Really interesting. Jacob has tuned his fabulous search engine and it is now a power tool in the hands of the trained driver !!

The second Mallorca event takes place in late October 2007 and here we have reduced the number of cases and participants to be able to use real cases but also have time to work with methodology. We have universities from 3 countries and two startup companies, one of which is a gazelle with an exceptional growth over the latest 5 years.

We have agreed to deliver 3 more workshops in 2007: one in Canarias where we will be focusing on 7 startup companies; one in Portugal (with a mixed group of university tech transfer officers and startup companies) and finally one in Mallorca in December. 2008 promises to be even more interesting.

Stay tuned/come back and find out what we learnt.

Biotechnology explained

More often than not, the Tech Transfer officer meets a biotechnology invention. It can be difficult for us non-scientists to really understand all the science involved.

The National Health Center (US) has created an interesting Graphics Gallery and a wider overview of issues in biotechnology and human health related issues.

Very useful to quickly get up-to-date on terms such as Retrovirus or details of Microscopy.

Where's the Beef CAMPus?

Well, in Mallorca, of course!
This weblog covers most of the topics of my "Where's the Beef" course - mainly a one-day course. More than 200 professionals have participated in one of these courses over the last 18 months. Here's the announcement of a new version: a week-long training camp:Click here to read more

Commercialisation CAMPus Workshops: 5 days of practical work in Mallorca in March and April 2006

“Where's the Beef” – the course and methodology on Evaluation of Commercial Potential in Inventions and Innovation projects - has been offered to many groups over the latest five-six years. The format is a one-day course covering cases, background theory and methodology, but little time for real exercises and discussion.

Based on feedback, I have developed the concept of Beef CAMPus, a whole week concerned with building your own clear-cut action plans about how to commercialise a portfolio of concrete cases. How to build the business case of your own Technology Opportunities, and, as usual, a lot of learning.

Beef CAMPus will be offered on the island of Mallorca, which, apart from its natural beauty and friendliness, is easy and cheap to reach from almost anywhere in Europe. Together with local partners we offer the best training facilities.

The course is developed and managed together with Jacob Bar, the creator of the JBEngine.

NEW: Since Spring 2007 we have re-designed the format - have a look at our new BeefCAMPus website

(1) Beef Practice

On this blog I have two types of entries. In Roman numerals (I,II etc) I discuss certain concepts and methods (Good Practices),w hich the TT practitioner should be familiar with. The straight numerals (1,2 ...) concern practical examples and cases and have exercises related to them.

Enough of concepts, methods and tricks. How do we apply all of this? Let’s take some examples:
I normally start with the “Technology” and then zoom in on Market, Company and Persons – and do so in an iterative fashion. The result is a file or dossier on the case, residing in your mind, on your computer hard disk and in your web browsers bookmarks.

The first thing to do is to find out: What is it? We may think we know what a truck trailer is, or can imagine what a method for remediation of sewage water is. But do you know what a “chiral compound for heteroaromatic bis-amides” is? Or can a plant extract be useful to fight cancer? How about nanotubes? Do you what legionella is? Whatever the challenge, I always check definitions:

• use JBEngine’s “What is it” Finder or its “Keyword Finder”
• use Kartoo, other “mindmap” search engines
• Use Google: images (and now video), News etc.

In the process you will save a few documents, bookmark a few web sites, make a few notes.

In the early check, you also need to ask What does it do (function of the invention)? And what do alternatives do? Now, we are getting to “prior art”. These questions relate to the next question: why should someone/we change from existing practice to using the invention? So we are trying to establish the Good part. I use

• JBEngine’s “Technology” Interface and use many of the submenus. You will soon learn to create complex search strings, building upon JBEngine’s already quite complex starters. Don’t insist on understanding all immediately. Don’t spend more than one hour at the most. You’ll come back to the question later.
• Check patent databases. Here I use their Advanced Search facilities. The keywords you use, you get from the What is it? notes, but you will want to improve your keyword list as you iterate. You may even want to go back and check your What is it? list. Use the tricks to mine the databases, paste your search results into Excel or Word; then sort and find out who the assignees are. There are three typical possibilities: either the inventors themselves, their institutions/universities or a company. I check the latest 50 or 100 whichever covers the latest 4-5 years best.
• Think Value Innovation Chart. Try to think of “parameters of comparison”. This information is normally buried in the inventor’s presentation, in terms of claims of superior functionality. Then try to think of how much better the invention may be or should be. Draw a preliminary chart.
• If the information is not in the inventor’s presentation, either ask him/her to go home and do it and/or interview them immediately. But don’t rely totally on their answer. Most inventors have lost overview, have fallen in love with their subject matter. Stopped looking for the competition years ago. What does that imply? Quite often that you should be patient, don’t tell the inventor that you know the above, but then slowly try to get to the core (“peel the onion”) of the matter. I play stupid: “I don’t understand. Please explain this to me in a different manner”. Please make a drawing with me, I say. I have an example of a Value Chart and ask them to help build the case for their invention.
• Earlier, I explained that there two alternatives. Either the invention does the same function in the same way as  prior art, but more efficiently or in some other advantageous (and ask, for whom?) way- this is the functional substitution part. Or the invention solves the same problem as prior art, but in a substantially different way – this is substantial substitution. Classify the invention in these categories.