Area of specific focus for this email:  Allergy, cough and cold

This targeted email is addressed to those specific SBIR-involved firms - a total of 313 SBIR awardees - having technical capability relevant to the areas of Allergy, cough and cold.  This is ONE of the several areas of collaboration interest indicated by Novartis and that will be addressed in considerble detail at a specially convened, by-invitation/by-selection event to be held September 21-22. 2011 at a location close by the Novartis OTC facilities in Parsippany NJ.

Objective:  getting to mutually valuable working relationships.

Full listing of areas of all the technology collaboration interest areas are listed below.  Detail on each Topic Area and on all aspects of this project on the event site.  

http://www.inknowvation.com/novartis-inknowvation-at-work

In the role of Tech Seeker:
Novartis OTC has been for some time one of large number of major and mid-sized corporations with which we work on an ongoing basis in their role of Tech Seeker.  Working from their defined needs they have provided to us and engaging our powerful proprietary databases, our primary business has become that of enabling their ready and expedited access to SBIR-involved firms working in space relevant to their areas of technical and business interest.   

Seriously to hone the effectiveness of their effective access into the talent pool of SBIR awardee, a growing number of those firms – Novartis OTC being the most recent – are opting to sponsor a specially designed, highly interactive event focused entirely to their particular collaboration interests.  Called inknowvation@work®, this event is organized around our enabling them structured access to those specific small firms with


Site Registration required:
To protect your data and that of Novartis, full access to, and usage of, the site by those in receipt of an email like this one requires Site Registration

http://www.inknowvation.com/novartis-inknowvation-at-work/registration

What can you do on the site?
Once you are Site Registered, your interest in a possible (and relevant) working relationship is assumed.  That condition also assumes that you

All these data – detail on the site - will be part of that used by Novartis personnel to determine if there would be mutual value in your being in Parsippany on September 21-22.

With the define objective of any inknowvation@work® session being actual working relationships, no-one wants to waste your time by your being event-involved unless there is significant common-ground interest.

All that pre-event information exchange can be handled on site in your private and secured Work Space on the Event site.  Based on those data Novartis personnel will decide to which approximately 30 SBIR Awardees they will extend invitation to participate in this no-cost event.

Event Location: importance
By careful design, all inknowvation@work® events – which feature a single large corporation in the role of Tech Seeker - are held close by a primary facility of the featured firm.  A major benefit of that event siting always means that, because they can do other business during that trip, Event Participation usually engages a range of Senior Corporate Management and others affiliated to the Tech Seeker who would not normally get to meet with several quality SBIR firms and to get a sense for how they would usefully engage that wealth of talent on a systematic basis to mutual benefit .  

Not only do you get to meet these persons on their own turf, as it were, and often to spend serious time with them but that support and subsequent buy-in to the approach of enabling SBIR collaboration(s) have several times already proved valuable downstream at both the individual deal and overall level.  
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Not your area of expertise?
By careful mining of our sophisticated SBIR-STTR relational databases, the effort is to ensure that only small firms with capabilities relevant to this particular area are in receipt of this email.  

That said,


We apologize therefore if you are not the one whose expertise addresses the subject area of this email.

If however, we got it right, and you – the company or the person - has expertise potentially relevant to the designated task to hand – and/or to other listed areas of interest -  let us actively encourage you to go to the event site to find out what this is all about.

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Needs-driven approach = high rate of deal-flow

That said, almost by design, not all of these are major deals.  In fact - based on considerable experience of which deals work out and which often stumble - we actively encouraged a first-time working relationship in particular to be lower-risk and staged.  Both parties need time to build the trust and respect factors that underpin most viable, ongoing and longer-term relationships – which is often what we, you and they are looking for.  

At a minimum, ASSETs involved small firms report creating useful points of contact with the large firms which proved valuable subsequently.

Why such a high rate of return?
It’s about meeting a real need
:
In strong contrast to most showcase-type events in which SBIR awardees participate, all components of the ASSETs® approach begin from the technical needs and business interest of the larger firm – whom we designate the Tech Seeker.  These needs MUST be real.  Tire kicking and window shopping is explicitly not allowed.  

>From that set of requirments, what we do is always


When has close proximity to senior decision-makers and extensive opportunity to talk in
different contexts and at length defined an SBIR event in which you (were required to) participate?

Getting to a deal:
Initiated by long-time SBIR advocate Ann Eskesen to support achievement of in-use condition of developed technologies of SBIR involved firms, the premise is always that if small firms involved and making presentation

  1. not only are provided useful insight pre-event into the areas of technology collaboration interest of the particular large firms to whom they are talking
  2. but also that they have been pre-selected to meet senior management of that corporation and to make that presentation because what they bring to the table is directly relevant to those areas
  3. that there is useful and ample opportunity pre-, during and post-event for structured and relevant information exchange and interaction
  4. AND that those participating from the large firm in their role as Tech Seeker have decision-making authority


that the odds that common ground will be found and deals made are likely to be quite good.  We anticipate that, given the level of interest at appropriate levels in Novartis, this event will be no exception
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Novartis OTC Areas of Collaboration focus for
September 21-22, 2011 inknowvation@work® event
to be held in Parsippany,  NJ:

Therapeutic space

Broad impact areas of focus


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Ann Eskesen
Innovation Development Institute
45 Beach Bluff Avenue Suite 300
Swampscott,   MA 01907-1542
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Voice:  (781) 595-2920
Email:  ann.eskesen@inknowvation.com
Web:    http://www.inknowvation.com