A three legged stool is how our guest speaker at the recent Seconds vs Semesters event referenced the relationship between the business community and its surrounding colleges and universities. A college campus brings only one of the three elements needed for commercialization success, according to Mr. Jerry McGuire, Associate Vice-Chancellor of Economic Development at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The other two elements are found outside the campus. Enter the business community.
New ideas, fresh technology and research are in rich supply across the academic community, particularly when you consider the entire student, staff and faculty population. What those ideas need in order to move up the food chain are management and funding. Ideas provide the framework for a potential new business or product. The business community can insert the right team and the necessary funding to navigate the path from the back of a napkin to the shop floor or retail shelf.
McGuire argues that once the university has developed the idea and demonstrated a market, “there is this valley of death in which the other two elements don’t exist at the university and is out there in the community…in all university scenerios having an organization or method to connect with funding (whether grants, banks, or angel investment) and management is very critical to any idea that needs to move foward in the commercial sense.”
A recent New York Times article confirms McGuires notion that universities need to engage with the business community and investors. According to the article, the highly touted Sand Hill venture firm, Andreessen Horowitz (the guys who founded Netscape) sends their staff to college campuses to identify promising engineers for portfolio companies. This is further confirmation that a productive economic development balance relies on the trio of ideas, management, and funding or, said another way, business, academia, and investors.
Watch a brief video interview with Jerry McGuire.
