Tamara Carleton

Innovation Leadership Group LLC

Why do we believe that everyone can enhance their capacity to use-the-future? First, because we all use-the-future all the time. A baby crying to be fed anticipates the consequences of its actions. Second, the future can only be imagined. No one can visit the future, but everyone can describe imaginary tomorrows. And third, like with any area of...

Designing a Futures Literacy Laboratory so that it takes participants on an action-learning/research voyage to explore imaginary futures rests on four distinct foundational theories or pillars: learning, laboratories, collective intelligence, and anticipation. Each of these frameworks for organizing our thinking about each specific topic provides a...

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most fa...

Taught since 1967, the ME310 course at Stanford University may be the longest-running course in the world. Today ME310 continues to prepare masters' students on how to solve real problems using advanced engineering design and design thinking. Across an academic year, students learn to dance with ambiguity, collaborate in teams, build to think, and...

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, uses its program visions as a way to drive quick change without upsetting the organization's broader internal balance. In particular, DARPA has embedded the concept of 'DARPA Hard' within its organizational culture, so much so that this term has established an internal standard for ideas intende...

ME310 is a radical course that has been taught at Stanford University since 1967. The year-long course is a graduate level sequence in which student teams work on complex engineering projects sponsored by industry partners. Student teams complete the design process from defining design requirements to constructing functional prototypes that are rea...

Purpose – This paper aims to identify inducement and blocking mechanisms which impact the development of the life sciences innovation system in Finland. Innovation system analysis of emerging technologies is important for the design of technology-specific innovation policy measures to promote desirable futures Design/methodology/approach – This ex...

Welcome to a guide for the strategic manager, the person who is responsible for innovation— whether this means finding the next market, describing the future customer, or developing an amazing team who can reliably take new visions to new markets. This playbook addresses two essential topics: - How to create a radical idea that becomes a new busin...

The life science sector is among the fastest growing knowledge fields characterized by a high rate of radical innovations. However, it does not have a long history as a distinct industrial sector. It is strongly regulated, and its products usually have long development cycles. Further challenges arise from the inherent uncertainty linked to biologi...

In many ways, the process of innovation is a constant social dance, where the best dancers thrive by adapting new steps with multiple partners. The systematic and continuous generation of value in any innovation system relies on collaboration between different groups, who must overcome multiple, often competing agendas and needs to work together fr...

Over the past few years, academic institutions have become aware of the importance of innovation in education, as well as its broader role in strengthening the economy. Creativity and innovative thinking are not easily taught in the classroom, but they can be developed through practice and experience. Evaluating innovation as part of product design...

Prototyping has long been a popular method in engineering and design practice. The continued use of physical prototyping is based on its strength in helping teams to make ideas tangible, iterate quickly at a low cost, and develop a shared language. Over the past seven years, our team has used prototyping in an industry-research program focused on f...

Prototyping has long been a popular method in engineering and design practice. The continued use of physical prototyping is based on its strength in helping teams to make ideas tangible, iterate quickly at a low cost, and develop a shared language. Over the past seven years, our team has used prototyping in an industry-research program focused on f...

The concept of ambiguity is often discussed within the field of Artificial Intelligence; however, its role and effect on early-stage complex problem solving is not well understood. This paper describes a theoretical framework that recognizes the relationship between ambiguity and uncertainty, as these variables change throughout the different stage...