Why Innovation is Stuck in Slow Motion

Creating economic growth from the third industrial revolution

Business innovation has a problem. A recent working paper by Robert Gorden titled “Is US Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds” suggests that “innovation does not have the same potential to create growth in the future as in the past.”

On Thursday, October 10th, FOX25 Morning News broadcast live from the Bentley campus from 6:00 a.m – 10:00 a.m. This event is part of a new, 6-week “College Tour” series the station is launching this fall. Every Thursday through November 7th, FOX25 will broadcast live from a different New England College campus.

On Friday, October 11, the Bloomberg radio team will broadcast the show "The Hays Advantage" live from the Bentley Trading Room from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and we encourage faculty, staff and students to drop by and observe.

Dean Dan Everett informed the community today that Diane Moul, a senior lecturer in the English and Media Studies Department, passed away on Friday, October 4, after a long battle with cancer.

Hi again. As I mentioned in a previous post, the Bentley MBA is focused around four key themes of business: innovation, value, environment and leadership. In the first 12 weeks of the BMBA, we have focused on the innovation theme. We have considered the concepts of creative thinking in small and large organizations, explored the psychology of the innovator’s mind, learned how to elevate an innovation to a business case and, after launching an innovation to start a business, how to sustain the innovation process. Yes, we covered all of this in 12 weeks.

When the Bentley Microfinance Group (BMG) was launched in 2008, artisan Frank Burns was the group’s second microloan recipient. Five years later, a lot has changed for both sides. Burns is selling handmade pieces in the woodworking studio. The $800 loan he took allowed him to purchase materials to produce more pieces. The 40-member student-run organization has made a total of five microloans, and recently published one of the first student-edited, student-run, microfinance journal.

Playground construction became a lesson on service, as Bentley students traded laptops and books for wrenches and shovels on September 17 to join community partners to build a play space at Prospect Hill Terrace low-income housing development in Waltham, Mass.

Sometimes when you are in a new environment and everything around you seems to be happening for the first time, you still feel certain familiarities and closeness in people around you. The start of the Bentley MBA  with a bunch of people who are so diverse in geographies — 15 countries represented, speaking 21 different languages — and yet so close in the way they think and feel about themselves and about their future.

In order to expand its focus to areas of public health and sustainability, the Center for Integration of Science and Industry at Bentley University has appointed two post-doctoral fellows, Andrea Ballabeni, PhD and Michael J. Walsh, PhD.

In the most recent U.S. News & World Report rankings of America’s Best Colleges 2014, Bentley University is ranked #4 among “Best Regional Universities - North.” Bentley is also ranked #47 among the Top 50 “Best Business Programs” in the country.