Southwest Educational Development Laboratory
Volume 5, Number 3, 2000
To Market or Not to Market?: A Word from the Director
Grantees Implement Marketing Concepts
by Joseph P. Lane, Project Director, and Douglas J. Usiak, Director of Dissemination, RERC on Technology Transfer, The University at Buffalo.
This is a publication of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer, which is funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research of the Department of Education under grant number H133E980024. The opinions contained in this publication are those of the grantee and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Education.
The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology Transfer (T2RERC) defined its mission statement as: "Advance methods, technologies and products, through collaboration with all stakeholders, to improve assistive technology devices and services." Our mission statement includes collaboration with "stakeholders," because we recognized that any transfer requires a series of transactions, each between two parties, as a technology is transformed into a new and novel product.
Our working model of technology transfer defines five stakeholder groups involved in this transformation process, as shown in Table 1 (Lane, 1999).
| Stakeholder Group Name | Example Members of Stakeholder Group |
|---|---|
Technology Producers |
Researchers in academic, federal or corporate laboratories, and independent inventors. |
Technology Consumers |
Entrepreneurs, Intellectual property brokers, government agencies, corporate manufacturers. |
Product Producers |
Corporate manufacturers, distributors, value-added retailers. |
Product Consumers |
End-users, family members, professional service providers. |
Resource Providers |
Government agencies, private insurance companies, technology transfer intermediaries. |
Lane, J.P. (1999). Understanding technology transfer. Assistive Technology. 11, 5-19.
To ensure our dissemination program results in the effective communication and utilization of our information, we designed a dissemination framework targeting each and every stakeholder group.
Our dissemination activities applied the five categories of characteristics for effective dissemination, authored by the National Center for the Dissemination of Disability Research (Table 2) (Westbrook & Boethel, 1996).
| Category | Characteristic |
|---|---|
User |
User's readiness to change; format and level of information needed, level of contextual information needed, perceived relevance to own needs; dissemination media preferred; information sources trusted. |
Source |
Perceived competence; credibility of experience; credibility of motive; sensitivity to user concerns; relationship to other sources trusted by user. |
Content |
Credibility of research and development methodology; credibility of outcomes; comprehensiveness of outcomes; utility and relevance for users; capacity to be described in terms understandable to users; cost effectiveness; research design and procedures. |
Context |
Relationship between outcomes and existing knowledge or products; current issues in the field; competing knowledge or products; general economic climate. |
Medium |
Physical capacity to reach intended users; timelines of access; accessibility and ease of use and user friendliness; flexibility, reliability, credibility, cost effectiveness; clarity and attractiveness of the information "package." |
Westbrook & Boethel (1996). General characteristics of effective dissemination and utilization [Online]. Available: http://www.ncddr.org/du/products/characteristics.html
We also used eight categories of dissemination products, identified by the NCDDR among grantee products reported to NARIC, to ensure our plan addressed all categories (see Table 3) (NCDDR, 1998).
| Category | Description of Products |
|---|---|
Journals |
Articles or special issues. |
Mediated Materials |
Videotape, audiotape, database, on-line pages and CD-ROM. |
Reports |
Annual or final. |
General Awareness |
Abstracts, brochures or newsletters. |
Publications |
Books, chapters, papers, conference proceedings or technical reports. |
Training Materials |
Curricula, handbooks, guidelines modules, workbooks. |
Devices |
Inventions, prototypes, commercial products. |
Unclassified |
Radio interviews, presentations, surveys, discussion groups. |
National Center for Dissemination of Disability Research (1998). The Research Exchange. Vol. 3, No. 1. [Online]. Available: http://www.ncddr.org/products/researchexchange/v03n01/
Effective communication requires that all materials be developed with the needs of the recipient stakeholder groups in mind, and that such materials reflect any diversity within each of the stakeholder groups. Our experience indicated that all five stakeholder groups have significant internal diversity. Therefore, we knew we had to tailor our dissemination materials to communicate effectively.
The dissemination plan for each stakeholder group considered the most appropriate format and venue to effectively reach the intended audience. Our dissemination materials are designed to address the "how to utilize" perspectives of the target audience, and be delivered in formats most familiar to each stakeholder group. We expect to achieve high utilization by the audiences, because the dissemination material focuses on the methods, processes and outcomes of technology transfer. They also convey to audiences the tools for facilitating and improving technology transfer, to ensure that the transfer results in products with improved functional benefits for the end-users.
We derived our dissemination plan for each stakeholder group, based on our involvement with them over a prior five year period. Conducting research on targeted markets can provide a similar level of understanding about an audience of interest.
The stakeholder group Technology Producers includes lay inventors tinkering in garages, skilled scientists and technologists pursuing spin-off projects, researchers in rehabilitation engineering centers, and clinicians testing modifications to existing products. Although their backgrounds and expertise vary, most Technology Producers apply structured procedures during the development process. Our dissemination materials use plain English supplemented by footnotes, appendices and references to more comprehensive topic treatments. The utilization outcome is Technology Producers with more information and awareness about the entire technology transfer process, the points of contact to effectively evaluate their assistive device ideas, and the resources available to identify Technology Consumers and Product Producers.
Technology Consumer stakeholders are another diverse group. Entities that acquire and protect technologies developed internally and externally include private sector manufacturers, federal laboratories, and government agencies. Technology agents and patent attorneys also acquire and protect technology but with the expectation of adding value and then re-selling the technology to a company or government agency. The manufacturers that are Technology Consumers range from small machine shops in leased space, to multi-national corporations with far-flung factories and sophisticated supply channels. Regardless of size or scope, Technology Consumers speak the languages of engineering, industrial design and business management. Our materials for Technology Consumers reflect the issues most relevant to their work. The utilization outcome is having them apply our information about optional actions, to the trade-offs they face when making decisions.
The Product Producer stakeholder group is almost exclusively private, for-profit corporations. Some not-for-profit corporations produce products but typically in very small numbers or in customized forms. Product Producers include companies with internal manufacturing capabilities, and some distributors or value-added retailers who contract for domestic or overseas manufacturing. Our corporate partner AZtech Inc. distributes its own newsletter to over five hundred Product Producers in the assistive technology industry. Product Producers are concerned with product lines, inventories, cost of goods sold, price points, shipping weights, packaging dimensions—basically any topic related to their core business. Our dissemination materials for Product Producers in the assistive technology market address mark-ups, profit margins, point of sale issues and customer support. In many cases the Product Producers are closely linked to the Technology Consumers, so we disseminate through the same trade/industry channels to reach the majority of the Product Producers. The utilization outcome is increased awareness about the market opportunities and competitive advantage available through technology transfer, and about the external resources and intermediaries available to the private sector.
Product Consumer stakeholders encompass end users with disabilities, family members, professional care providers and physicians who prescribe devices. Our dissemination materials primarily focus on the functional value of the products described, particularly in comparison to other products available. The materials describe the Product Consumer's role in the technology transfer process, particularly in how to effectively communicate unmet needs through the demand pull process. The utilization outcome is better informed Product Consumers actively participating in defining new or improved product features and functions.Utilization starts with accessibility. Our dissemination materials are prepared in accessible formats to reach the Product Consumers. These formats include print, ASCII text file, Braille, audiotape, videotape with open captions, and accessible World Wide Web format. The materials stress the role of Product Consumers in the technology transfer process, and the resulting product's value to their daily life.
The fifth stakeholder group, Resource Providers, are government agencies, insurance companies, or technology transfer intermediaries providing resources and expertise. The Tech Transfer RERC is considered a resource provider. They are primarily interested in issues of public policy, cost vs. benefit, quality of life improvement, and outcome measures for the constituents they serve. Dissemination materials will address the social, economic and political realities in which they conduct their business on behalf of individuals, corporate clients, states and the nation.
Technology transfer intermediaries include university technology transfer offices, federal laboratory Offices of Research and Technology Applications (ORTA's), the Department of Veteran's Affairs Technology Transfer Section. NIDRR's Tech Transfer RERC will also be an intermediary. Dissemination materials for these intermediaries include notifications of technologies available for transfer, new product introductions following successful transfer, and contact information for reaching other intermediary entities.
Dissemination vehicles include all those mentioned for the other stakeholders because Resource Providers scan various horizons for opportunities as part of their daily business. We also disseminate on-going information to the Resource Providers annually through targeting mailings of the project's two newsletters which include our annual report. Less formal dissemination venues include telephone, email and World Wide Web postings on an on-going basis. The utilization outcome is increased awareness of funding, technology and product opportunities, to enable these partner intermediaries to facilitate and improve technology transfer.
Our dissemination plan is closely linked to our evaluation program since both activities involve all of these stakeholder groups. By knowing what is useful, interesting or redundant, we tailor our content and format to best communicate with each stakeholder group. We rely on the favored literature base and preferred communication channels of each stakeholder group, so that we communicate with them from a common ground. We emphasize various aspects of technology transfer, depending on the expected involvement of each group. For example, Product Producers and consumers are involved in needs analysis and product design, while Technology Producers and consumers are focused on emerging technologies and the methods of research and development.
Technology transfer is an outgrowth of work in many disciplines and fields. Some of our time is spent finding and assimilating the literature from sources outside the field of rehabilitation engineering, such as work conducted in federal laboratories, university programs in other disciplines or in the corporate sector. Our on-going work continues to develop new knowledge through the integration of literature from such sectors and disciplines. It is important to ensure that the content is preserved in the translation from one context and vernacular to another. Successful translation is critical to conducting dissemination with an expectation for effective utilization.
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