Technology brokering

The idea of technology brokering is to span multiple, otherwise disconnected industries, to see how existing technologies could be used to create breakthrough innovations in other markets. Technology brokering requires companies to be strong in two areas. As Andrew Hargadon, technology brokering’s founder, summarized: "Firstly, the company must have the ability to bridge distant communities, usually when a company can move easily across a range of different markets they have a better view of how technologies can be used in new ways. Secondly, technology brokering involves creating new markets and industries from innovative combinations of existing technology. These two strengths are difficult to have simultaneously because the strong ties the companies have with customers and supplies in one industry prevent the company from moving easily into other markets and experimenting with new ideas." Yet, when a company is able to combine these two strengths it can result in being the first to experience technological advances.

Technology brokering can teach firms how to effectively shift the focus of traditional R&D teams from trying to invent completely new products to combining previous innovations. New ideas for observation based research pull R&D scientists out of the lab and place them into direct consumer observation to allow them to diagnose problems with products and identify the needs of the customer more accurately. The technology brokering process intertwines with the idea of empathic design, which is basically understanding products from a customers’ point of view and then designing them to fit needs and issues. The advantage of empathic design, especially when combined with technology brokering firms, is that it leads to innovative products that suit the particular problems of the customer. Another perk of empathic design is including marketing and manufacturing people in the product design to get diverse opinions of product success and practicality.

The first examples of technology brokering can be found as early as 1876 with Thomas Edison in his Menlo Park laboratory. In six years, this lab procured over 400 patents. Menlo Park laboratory was such a successful ‘invention factory’ because Thomas Edison had a firm belief in recombinant innovation. There were no inventions from Menlo Park that were truly invented from nothing – each one had some basis that was pulled from another field of technology. Edison and his team worked in many different fields in conjunction with many different companies, in addition to working on individual experiments. All of these projects enabled the team to use their knowledge of various fields to be innovative in creating new solutions for different organizations. Because knowledge of technology across differing fields was disconnected, Edison was able to exploit this and create new solutions from areas of past projects.

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