Stephen Hoover - PARC blog

What We’ve Learned at PARC About the Business of Innovation

14 March 2013 | Stephen Hoover

The business of open innovation is something PARC has been continually refining since we incorporated in 2002. Mastering the process of innovation is about far more than developing new technology; it requires a deep understanding of human behavior and context, and the ability to invent new business models to take the resulting products and services to market. We’ve found common themes. Three of them illustrate how we’ve been innovating at PARC over the past decade.

Why Making Things Still Matters

14 November 2012 | Stephen Hoover

Innovation and the desire for innovation are nationally and globally pervasive. But by any measure of geographic or economic density, most of us still see Silicon Valley as the leader and lodestar of innovation.

It’s interesting to take a moment and reflect on the very name Silicon Valley. It is, after all, named after a chemical element and a technology for making things. At its roots, Silicon Valley was about making transistors, integrated circuits and chips, and, of course, the application of these for computing and software.

Today much of Silicon Valley is focused on the evolution of software and computing innovations, which take the form of Social, Mobile, Big Data, Cloud, and App economies. These are in fact tremendous innovation opportunities that can and will deliver great value—and we need it, all of it. This trend is pretty much true across U.S. regional technology centers. However, all of this ...

How the U.S. Can Reinvent Manufacturing

10 September 2012 | Stephen Hoover

‘Manufacturing 2.0’ is a radical shift already underway, and many key elements are taking shape. As technologies and business models evolve, we have an opportunity in the US to create and own the future of manufacturing. That means the opportunity for a resurgence of US manufacturing, creating big changes in the economy and revitalizing US cities across the country.

To realize this vision, businesses must start exploring new manufacturing technologies and business models, and US government needs to begin developing coordinated policies to support R&D, public education, and further investment in this new approach to manufacturing.

There is great enthusiasm about exciting new developments in manufacturing including 3D printing, robotics, and printed electronics. These are important technologies, but we believe they are elements of a larger, end-to-end change in manufacturing, representing a radical shift from traditional approaches.

A whole new ecosystem is arising, which will include social design, social funding, ...

Defining (and practicing) ‘open’ innovation

9 July 2012 | Stephen Hoover

'Open innovation' has moved from business phrase and concept to business practice and reality. But what does it mean, really?? Simply put: open innovation means drawing on resources and/or working with people outside one’s organization to fill in gaps and accomplish your goals… whatever they are. Because one of the biggest mistakes you can make in today’s innovation landscape is assuming that all the best people in the world work for you. They don’t. So open innovation is a way to leverage others’ expertise, assets, and resources for your needs, whether you’re buying or selling (or both). There are many ways to do this – think of a spectrum, ranging from unfettered to orchestrated, all of them loosely categorized as open innovation. But for PARC it’s not as simple as "open" + "innovation" -- it’s about more than the sum of these parts.

How To Get From A Great Idea To Actual Innovation

4 April 2012 | Stephen Hoover

[contributed to Fast Company] "There's a tendency for all of us to glorify the ideation process when in fact it's the reduction to practice that's perhaps more important," says Stephen Hoover, CEO of PARC, a Xerox company.

Digitized Decision Making and the Hidden Second Economy

9 November 2011 | Stephen Hoover

[contributed post to Forbes Techonomy] "There’s something big happening right now. I’m not referring to any of the popular technology memes per se – big data, social, cloud, mobile, augmented reality, context, post-PC devices, consumerization, 3-D printing, etc. I’m referring to something behind, and beyond, all of these technologies: the digitization of decision making. This increasing trend is creating a 'second economy' underneath and alongside the physical economy we know so well, and on a revolutionary scale… What will be the role of R&D and innovation organizations in this new global innovation landscape?