If ideas are the seeds of innovation, idea management is the formalization of the processes involved in gathering, sharing, analyzing and executing the ideas generated within an organization and its collaborative networks.

Corporations often look at products in a company like 3M, and their R&D process, and think, oh, look how successful that process is in bringing forth innovation; we should copy what they do. But the process is usually a total mismatch.

R&D folks need the freedom to play, to innovate, to grow the next big product. This cannot and will never happen if an R&D engineer is spending eight hours a day, five days a week, filling out forms and reports instead of developing products.

Research ensures companies are making strides towards achieving breakthrough innovations in the long run. Without this kind of "R" attitude there would be no light bulb.

Congress is responding to the companies who can afford to lobby and not bothering to seek the opinions of entrepreneurial inventors -- for whom the patent system was created over 200 years ago by a single sentence in the Constitution.

When I was young, the purpose of public policy was to raise our standard of living. Not so much, anymore. Now, public policy is designed to make busin...

Manufacturers with revenues under $50 million should pay close attention to the Small Business Jobs Act, particularly the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax barrier regarding business tax credits.

Recent less bad unemployment and GDP numbers have brought on an unreasoned optimism about the economy.

Will we step boldly into the new economic reality with a plan for creating jobs? Or will we look to unsustainable government protections that will force the US to take a backseat in the new era?