The Future of Tech Transfer: Navigating Chaotic Innovation with Nick Webb

Innovation isn’t just evolving—it’s accelerating, fragmenting, and reshaping everything in its path. In this episode, we dive into what that means for the world of technology transfer, where traditional systems are being pushed to adapt or risk falling behind. If you’ve ever wondered how Tech Transfer Offices can keep up with the chaos of rapid innovation, this conversation will give you both clarity and direction.

Our guest is Nick Webb, a bestselling author, futurist, and innovation strategist who has worked with some of the world’s top brands and holds more than 40 patents. He’s written influential books like The Innovation Mandate and What Customers Crave and leads consulting work that helps organizations future-proof their approach to innovation. In this episode, he brings that expertise to the challenges and opportunities facing universities and research institutions today.

Nick talks about how TTOs can streamline operations, embrace smart automation, and build internal communication strategies that actually work. He shares how commercialization can be both profitable and socially impactful, how to better engage inventors in the process, and why building strong industry partnerships is no longer optional. It’s a fast-paced, eye-opening discussion for anyone working at the intersection of research and real-world impact.

In This Episode:

[01:44] His book, Chaotic Change was a look back at his 44 years in the innovation space. Things we're slow and small. When the internet came out everything was connected and digitized. Things became fast and big.

[02:37] TTOs need to develop best practices and technologies to handle the amount and volume of a super complicated landscape.

[03:02] With the AI shift and the next wave of chaos we'll see rapid adoption of new best practices, technologies, and systems.

[03:41] One of the biggest inefficiencies is bureaucracy.

[04:24] The importance of communicating to leaders and selling value as TTOs. The technology to accelerate is also important.

[05:09] Commercialization is the ultimate force of impact. 

[06:06] Nick runs an AI lab and talks about the impact of AI Tech Transfer. We also need to keep our real intelligence in the process.

[08:30] Nick talks about protecting IP for commercial success. Great strategic partners are a big help.

[09:53] This would be a good time to reevaluate policies to see if it's a document that will increase technology licensing.

[10:49] The importance of internal communication strategies for TTO offices.

[11:34] Innovation Superstar Bootcamp has a master's and a startup program. It's about making the complexity of innovation management fun and understandable.

[14:02] Striking the right balance between licensing startups and open Innovation models.

[15:43] Collaborations and making the best partnerships work.

[18:02] Practical steps to optimize operations without sacrificing impact. It starts with having a strategic plan.

[19:26] Getting researchers interested in the commercialization process and thinking beyond their labs.

[20:52] Lessons from Innovation Mandate that can be applied to TTOs to modernize their operations.

[21:43] Taking a triage approach towards everything.

[22:35] Don't waste time on technologies that don't stand a chance. Fast track methodologies. Sell your value proposition to get permission to move.

[24:05] Monetizing non-traditional IP assets.

[25:48] Trends to pay attention to. The experience e