This article starts off a bit slow]but then an interesting opinion on innovation.
,As the Gorilla project raced toward its last stage gate, it soaked up more and more resources at Corning; as a result, other projects had to be pared away. Keeping business units motivated in the face of cutbacks is one of the toughest challenges in managing innovation. Corning’s response is to maintain the backlog of development efforts as live but unstaffed and to avoid laying off researchers in favor of moving them to ongoing development programs. “If there is an absence of pull in the marketplace, a fundamental flaw in the technology, or if the investment is unaffordable, the project manager is responsible for bringing that information forward,” CTO Miller says. “He’ll do that if he feels safe that if we shut it down, his people are going someplace else within the company. Otherwise, self-preservation kicks in.
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