PARC Innovations Update (2008 #1)

This is the archive entry for our e-mail newsletter, PARC Innovations Update. [subscribe]

• Spotlight: ETHNOGRAPHY as a foundation for innovation
• In the Marketplace: Rich, interactive experiences for mobile users
• On the Road: What’s the next great deal for VCs?; and, Services that enable innovation success
• Environment/ Careers: Help invent a sustainable future
• PARC In the News: emerging tech; mobile phone as tour guide; a tour of PARC; more

Links are not provided for older items in the archive.

Spotlight: ETHNOGRAPHY as a foundation for innovation

To stay ahead in today’s rapidly evolving, saturated marketplace, companies must engage in strategic innovation. Ethnography – which is based on the systematic observation and analysis of people within their natural environments – catalyzes corporate innovation efforts. It helps companies better identify and address market opportunities, anticipate emerging trends, deliver superior products to customers, and create new businesses while minimizing risk.

In the Marketplace: Rich, interactive experiences for mobile users

PARC has developed a new kind of mobile experience with Dai Nippon Printing, Ltd., a leading electronics company based in Japan. The handheld mobile system predicts and recommends leisure activities – not just according to location, but also by learning user preferences and inferring current activities.

On the Road: What’s the next great deal for VCs?; and, Services that enable innovation success

PARC Director & President Mark Bernstein is participating in a “What’s Next?” panel discussion at the Dow Jones VentureOne Summit (February 26, San Francisco, California). Since VCs have thrust themselves into the venture worlds of China, India, Web 2.0, and cleantech looking for the next great deal, this panel will ponder what is next on the horizon. Other panelists include Prith Banerjee, SVP of Research & Director of HP Labs; Vincent Pluvinage, General Manager of Strategic Alliance and Private Equity Partnerships, Intellectual Ventures; and Geoffrey Moore, Venture Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures.

The business practice of open innovation has matured, while the concept itself has expanded. Progressive companies have recognized the advantage of looking outside for technologies and for complementary business expertise to help them create or enter new markets. PARC Director of Business Development Jennifer Ernst recently shared lessons for ensuring the success of expertise-based engagements – particularly in developing new market opportunities – at CoDev 2008 (International Congress on Co-Development, Scottsdale, Arizona).

Environment/ Careers: Help invent a sustainable future

PARC is inviting highly qualified, graduate-level students to apply to our recently launched Sustainability Fellowship – and transform their ideas for a sustainable world into reality. This fellowship, like PARC’s comprehensive cleantech innovation program, is designed to apply technology toward positive environmental and social change. PARC reduces its own carbon footprint where possible, and then offsets the remainder, by funding this unique program.

PARC In the News

Emerging Technology…Keep Changing the Game — Silicon Valley Business Journal
From PARC, the mobile phone as tour guide — CNET News.com
A Tour of PARC — Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World blog
SolFocus boosts second-round funding to $63.6M — Semiconductor Today
Low-Temperature Flexible Sensors Use Inkjet Patterning — Photonics
Ethnographic research by Japanese firms draws attention — Nikkei Business Pubs
DARPA kicks off green laser project — Optics.org
Trust Me — Wikipedia Weekly interview [podcast]
Smart Phone Suggests Things to Do — Technology Review
A-Si approach beats temperature challenge — Laser Focus World
New PARC software turns cell phone into personal assistant — Computerworld
Does online-game design hook users? — FOXBusiness
Erasable paper can be re-used, reduces waste — Palo Alto Online