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Celebrating Our 100th Tech of the Week
At yet2.com, we´re celebrating the 100th Tech of the Week. Almost two years ago, we started this feature to highlight and promote particular technologies and to give visitors a sample of what yet2.com offers. In the meantime, Tech of the Week has become a favorite of our syndication partners and a major feature on our home page. To date, the technologies that have appeared in TOW have received 145 introductions -- an appreciable fraction of all introductions received by all technologies on the site. Obviously, it´s a popular feature.
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| The Tech of the Week appears on the yet2.com home page. |
How Tech of the Week Broke Ground
Tech of the Week is an article-style explanation of a licensable technology meant for more casual reading and for syndication. Its associated TechPak (the actual technology listing) supplies the details you may need to come to a decision about asking for an introduction; TOW is a livelier exposition.
Some of the more adventurous TOWs have used animations, streaming audio, and streaming video to make their points and to educate potential licensees about the features of their technologies. Education and information about the technology -- written for a widely diverse audience -- is an important function of the article. After all, the technologies highlighted in the Tech of the Week are not a finished products -- they are technologies in some stage of pre-product development.
Several web sites currently pick up the Tech of the Week in syndication, and you can find it on such sites as NASA Tech Briefs, where TOW is featured in addition to its appearance on yet2.com. Not all TOWs may appear on every site. This is up to the discretion of the various sites.
Five Great Techs from the Past Two Years
After 100 Techs of the Week, some patterns are bound to emerge. We´d like to point out five TOWs that have been highly effective in drawing readers to their technologies and in producing introductions for their member organizations.
Advanced Motion Technologies/Q3000 Everyone has seen hydraulic actuators on machinery from heavy equipment to robots in the movies. Q3000 developed an electromechanical actuator that can replace hydraulics in even heavy equipment applications and harsh environments -- and still keep the precision needed by the robots. Q3000 has been one of the most-accessed technologies on yet2.com because of its wide applicability. Q3000 was among the first successful deals generated by yet2.com. See Q3000 here.
Asahi Glass Corporation Plastics are all around us, and sometimes they burn. Asahi Glass created an inorganic flame retardant that can be mixed with plastics to hold down flames and smoke -- often toxic smoke, in the case of plastics. Asahi Glass´s Tech of the Week is a top producer of introductions for the company. It combines animated GIF, video, and several illustrations of a plastic sample charring and flaming to make its point. See Asahi Glass's flame retardant here.
General Electric The intellectual property (IP) asset management system posted by GE struck a chord with members of yet2.com. Most members, after all, are managing intellectual property. While not a platform technology in the way that a flame retardant or electromechanical actuator might be, the asset management system -- which runs on common computer hardware and software -- is a web-based application that tracks licenses by product line, license, territory, and agreement type. See GE's IP management system here.
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Procter & Gamble P&G is a forward-thinking organization committed to licensing much of its technology, even going so far as to license technology to a competing organization. Demonstrating that technology originally developed for consumer products can find industrial applications in such fields as paints and inks, P&G´s non-aqueous thickening agent actually suspends heavy solids to prevent separation, yet its water-solubility makes it easy to wash away without residue. Find out more about this novel thickening agent here.
Shell This petroleum giant offered its technology for producing tiny silica spheres useful in desiccants, as catalysts, and in chemical, petroleum, and process applications. Uniformity is extremely important in these applications, and Shell´s technology solves the problem of controlling uniformity to a high degree. Learn about this process here.
What Makes a Technology a Good TOW Candidate?
As shown by these five great techs, the simple answer is broadly applicable technology. With a large number of both registered users and interested syndication readers from different sources and around the world, obviously broad appeal would make for the best results.
How can we define that broad appeal? Two ways:
- Technologies that meet identifiable needs of a large number of industries. A good example is GE´s IP asset management system. Any organization needing to manage IP assets could use a system like this. Another good example is Q3000. It offers another engineering solution to the need for actuators across several industries, and is specific to none.
- Technologies that are farther back in the process that runs from conception to productization. The farther back a technology is, the more end products it may be able to find its way into. An example of this is P&G´s non-aqueous thickening agent, applicable to inks, paints, and other kinds of suspensions. Or perhaps Asahi Glass´s flame retardant, which can become part of the plastic feedstock before that feedstock ever becomes an identifiable product.
A major factor affecting the licensability of a technology is its novelty. You can think of novelty as uniqueness, but it´s more than just that -- it´s the newness of the technology. For example, as a technology ages, other methods may be developed to do the same or similar thing -- thereby decreasing the value of the technology being presented. A newer technology is the better candidate for Tech of the Week, because its value is greater to both the offering company and the licensing company.
Other factors are dependent on the organization supplying the technology: The availability of samples, the ability to transfer technical know-how as part of the technology (and not just supply a patent license), and the likelihood that a company can supply a set of interrelated technologies.
We all acknowledge that licensing and acquiring technologies takes more than a quick reading of an article on a web site. But awareness of available technologies needs to start somewhere. We´re happy that so many world-renowned organizations think as we do, that Tech of the Week and yet2.com is a great place to start.
Tour the Tech of the Week Archives.
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