Summary - knowledge transfer finds it MoneyBall* moment
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The main contention of Knowledge Transfer2.0 (KT2.0) is that the much of the collective wisdom of the KT profession has yet to take account of the way that new innovation approaches combined with new information and web technologies can change the economics of knowledge transfer. In the context of reduced or more selective public funding, 'unfair advantage' can be gained by those universities that take advantage of these developments
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In this connection, the skills and resource required to create more impact and generate more revenue are openly available in the market, better connected and more flexible. These resources cannot all be employed by the KTO - and it's better is if tries not to. Most of the smart people will never work for you - or more precisely will never be employed by you. The real advantage, therefore, is to focus on how to co-ordinate this virtual team or network to best advantage of the KTO, university, and impact and innovation in general. Whoever most effectively reduces the transaction costs of this will steal the advantage.
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Much of the legacy planning, screening and selection process has been developed in an era prior to lessons learnt and opportunities offered by specialised crowds, mass collaboration and co-creation. Not only that but many stage-gate processes no longer fit this externalised and collaborative environment - where risk management and opportunity creation is better shared than eliminated. Moreover, these processes have inherent problems that have yet to be addressed. Often they bias towards false negatives. Conversely, the planning process can fall victim to what Nobel laureate in Economics, Daniel Kahneman, calls the Planning Fallacy. That is: unrealistically close to best-case scenarios due to a human tendency toward optimism, resource politics and inadequate statistical framing. As Kahneman suggests, the simplest way to counter this bias is to obtain an 'external view' not just an 'internal view'. This in turn reinforces the benefit of collaboration.
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Consequently, the combination of real exposure of 'minimally viable' products, or even ideas, to the market or the crowd for validation prior to resource commitment and rigorous measurement of performance in terms of external resource (either feedback, PoC resource, business development effort, or commitments to invest/buy), are always better than internal planning and stage-gate decision making. This naturally challenges the traditional, and also necessary, IP management processes. Those that find the correct calibration between these tensions will gain the advantage
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The final contention is that the KTO and its team need to focus primarily on optimising this restructure of KT practice, and to ensure that they provide the best possible eco-system for external and internal partners (entrepreneur-consultants, inventors, investors and others) to participate. No other party has the incentive to play this role - or to play it in a manner that meets the university's objective to maximise 'impact' and optimise its share of any value created through this process - be that from IP revenue directly, or via improved REF and HEIF performance. But at the same time KT practitioners need to balance the creation of such an eco-system with an acute business sensibility to guard again bureaucratisation and to ensure that they can handle their network of entrepreneurs - and just to keep life interesting!
* This is where the 'Moneyball' analogy is apposite. For those that have not read the story (or seen the film) of how a minor league baseball team revolutionised the way the game was played in the US, the short story is that they outperformed teams of much stronger financial standing by no longer focusing on the perfect player or the lightning strike, but instead of the overall team performance. They lowered the cost of skill acquisition and obsessed about rigorous statistical analysis of overall performance (or portfolio plus Impact) as opposed to single deals. This influenced the entire baseball industry. KT needs to find an equivalent game changer.
