2011

Mills Scofield

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The Art of the Dumb Question

Mills Scofield

When I was a child, my parents always answered a question with an answer that led to another question. So early on, I learned to just keep asking questions. It drove my teachers nuts (don’t get me started on education!) and drives my husband nuts (like that’s the only reason!). Just to bug my husband further, I’ve taught our kids to do the same thing!

Education 179
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Paradox of Innovation & Intellectual Property

Mills Scofield

Yesterday was the 3rd Open Innovation Summit at BW's Center for Innovation & Growth: Practical Challenges of Global Open Innovation featuring P&G. Too much happened for one post so I'm going to do one on each panelist's story and discussion, starting with Kelly McDow, Associate General Counsel for P&G's Connect+Develop. Kelly started out as a chemist, giving her a unique non-traditional-lawyer perspective of invention and innovation. [.].

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Invention without Commercialization = Extinction, not Innovation

Mills Scofield

My job at Bell Labs was to invent and create. We dreamed up all sorts of wonderful solutions to problems that did and didn't exist. But how did we learn about these problems? Some we just thought up. Some came from AT&T corporate product management & marketing. But few came from seeing customers firsthand, so we ended up using ourselves as ‘examples’ – not good.

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Status Quophiles and Quophobes

Mills Scofield

Ever know anyone who will explicitly say he/she doesn't think innovation is important? No! So listen carefully for the magic word - "but". Some of you know how much I love to challenge the status quo so here's my theory: Status Quophiles see the glass as half empty and want to make sure it doesn't become totally empty. Status Quophobes are Innovators - they see the half empty glass as half full, waiting to be filled up!

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Mentoring Paradox

Mills Scofield

I believe mentoring is a gift for the mentee and the mentor. Throughout my career, I’ve been blessed with incredible mentors who, perhaps unknowingly, taught me how to mentor. It’s something I take seriously and joyfully. It is a paradox - an incredibly selfless thing that is also very selfish. Recently, my mentoring has increased. In addition to mentoring Brown seniors and startups, I’m mentoring Oberlin College students applying for a fellowship to start their business after

Mentor 123
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Thanksgiving of Trust

Mills Scofield

Tomorrow is a day of thanksgiving and blessing for me. It is the 4 th Open Innovation Summit at BW’s Center for Innovation & Growth (CIG). My friend, Saul Kaplan from the Business Innovation Factory , is the keynote speaker and two other friends are on the panel. For the past 3 Summits, friends-clients-colleagues have taken a flyer (literally), trusting me, to come share stories, sacrificing a few days at the office.

Kaplan 121
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Innovation: The Age of the Heretic

Mills Scofield

For some reason, I've always been fascinated with the word "heretic" Perhaps it's the Devil's Advocate in me (oh! What a pun!). Perhaps its because I love being ‘heretical.' Perhaps its because being heretical is key to innovating. And this word has been around for millennia! We usually associate heretic with religion, namely, the Roman Catholic Church: Inquisition, burning people at the stak [.