Preamble

Our society has become extremely complex. Exponential growth in technology has compressed the traditional boundaries of space and time. As a result, new problems that arise (e.g., terrorism, ecological damage, etc.) can be of such magnitude as to be completely un-addressable by conventional means. In fact, as time cycles become more compressed and the magnitude of emergent problems becomes greater and more threatening, it will likely be necessary to develop means of anticipating and resolving problems before they arise.

As in any period of upheaval, there also arise small pockets of highly gifted thinkers, inventors and innovators that are able to grasp the changing state of the environment in unique ways. In response, they formulate radically different approaches to solving complex problems that are seemingly intractable.

We call the development of such radically different approaches deep innovation. Because deep innovation involves the use of approaches that are highly contrary to conventional wisdom, they tend to be ignored, or are even deliberately prevented from being adopted as commercial/social/intellectual success.

The purpose of this survey is to identify and assist a process directed towards removing obstacles to “deep” innovation. The survey’s themselves can be treated as a memetic expression of deep feeling about the blockage that seems to be in place in the area of the knowledge technologies.

If your company or organization has developed one or more deep innovations, we would like to hear your story. How long have you been pursuing the innovation? How much success have you had in obtaining funding? How smooth or difficult was the funding process?

Your inputs to this survey will be used to provide evidence to government policy and decision makers of the state of deep innovation adoption in the U.S., and to propose solutions to help enhance and streamline the development/procurement cycle.

You are free to respond to this survey anonymously. All identifying information will be removed prior to publication.

If you choose to include your company name and contact information, this will be kept confidential, and will be used only for the survey authors to contact you for clarification or follow-up. In some cases, we are communicating with specific government official and will be able to supply you with mailing instructions given your wish to share your story directly with these individuals.

The results of the survey, with no identifying information, will be posted to www.bcngroup.org.

You may download the MS Word formatted version of this survey at:

http://www.ontologystream.com/area2/review/survey.doc

so as to make more room for responses, or print and use this HTML.

Survey Instrument

1. Date _______________________________________

2. Name of your company or organization (OPTIONAL): ____________________________

3. Contact information (OPTIONAL):

Name: ____________________

Address: ___________________________________________

City: _____________________ State: _____ Zip: ________

Phone: ___________________

E-mail: ___________________

Website: ____________________

4. Briefly describe, in a sentence or two, your deep innovation (DO NOT INCLUDE ANY INFORMATION THAT IS PROPRIETARY OR CONFIDENTIAL). If you have more than one innovation, please list each separately in the space below:

4. For each deep innovation listed above, briefly describe, in one or two sentences, the primary benefits that would be realized if the innovation were to be fully developed and deployed:

5. For each deep innovation listed, please indicate your best estimate of the amount of funding, and the amount of time needed to take the innovation from its present state to completion:

6. For each deep innovation, please indicate the number of proposals you have submitted for funding its development, either in full or in part. Please include all types of funding, including angel and venture capital investments, loans, government and non-profit contracts and grants. How many of the proposals were funded, either in full or in part?

7. Please indicate the number of years that each innovation has been in development, beginning with the conceptual phase:

8. Overall, what are your feelings regarding the process by which deep innovation is funded in the U.S.? Do you believe the innovation process is generally supported or inhibited? To what degree?

9. What improvements do you recommend to the process by which deep innovation in the U.S. is funded?

10. Please pass along any comments, insights, complaints, success stories or horror stories regarding your experiences in attempting to develop a deep innovation, that you would like to anonymously bring to the attention of U.S. government policy and decision makers: