Category Archives: Innovation

Filtration Challenges: Too Many Circles in my Venn Diagram

Posted on April 12, 2013 by flybrand1976

When we are working with a customer to design a new porous material, the first two criteria we often look at are (1) the efficiency (how much of the particulate are we going to capture, usually expressed as a % … Continue reading →

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3D Printing: Not Past the Hype Until 2025

Posted on January 3, 2013 by flybrand1976

Tech News Today host Tom Merritt brought up the outlook for 3D printing in their year end Forecast Show – the technology continued go get a lot of press in 2012 and Mr. Merritt’s outlook for 2013 was optimistic but … Continue reading →

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Nonwovens and Battery Anodes: Applying the Materials Science Framework

Posted on May 12, 2012 by flybrand1976

Dr. Yi Cui of Stanford and founder of battery company Amprius, recently published a paper outlining a new structure for battery anodes.  Graphite is the most commonly used anode material, durability constraints have prohibited adoption of silicon, despite the fact … Continue reading →

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Corona and the U-2; The Components of Strategic Reconnaissance

Posted on May 9, 2012 by flybrand1976

President Eisenhower had granted the U-2 team at the CIA significant leeway in making their first flights in 1956; after over-flying Moscow and St. Petersburg in their first sorties on July 4 following Kruschev’s visit to the American Embassy the … Continue reading →

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Disruption Promoters vs Actual Disruptors

Posted on May 4, 2012 by flybrand1976

A disruption promoter is a facet of an activity that is believed to be disruptive; but that is viewed ex ante.  Since the event is ex ante, it is unknowable whether or not it will actually be disruptive. A disruptor … Continue reading →

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U-2 Spy Plane and a Component Theory of Innovation

Posted on May 3, 2012 by flybrand1976

Following World War II, during the presidency of former Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower, the US faced a defense and security issue previously unknown to mankind.  The combined invention of the atomic bomb and long-range bombers, and the accelerating pace … Continue reading →

Posted in Disruption, Innovation, Invention | 1 Comment

Disruption: Planetary Resources Wins

Posted on May 3, 2012 by flybrand1976

Planetary Resources, with its roster of all-star billionaire investors and audacious business plan of mining asteroids has garnered significant press since emerging into the public’s eye.  My business crush on this company is comparable to my 2001 infatuation with Salesforce.com; … Continue reading →

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TEDx Raleigh Transcript: Making Textiles Sexy

Posted on May 27, 2011 by flybrand1976

Below is the transcript from my TEDx Raleigh deck – in putting it together I noticed some mistakes, which are noted.  I had walked through four intro slides that were a play on “Making Sexy Textiles” that was not caught … Continue reading →

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Framework for Materials Science Innovation: Promoting Musso

Posted on November 29, 2009 by flybrand1976

The original .pdf of this paper is here.  The .pdf has several images and graphs that are not present here. Introduction This article was written to summarize and promote the concepts of Dr. Christopher Musso (bio is here [http://esd.mit.edu/people/alumni.html#musso]), as … Continue reading →

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