A budding entrepreneur needs to convey a new-product concept to investors to attract capital. An R&D executive wants to convince his boss to fund a promising development project. A sales manager must sell his reps on the unique value contributed to prospective customers by a new product line. An academic department head wants to float an idea for a new curriculum addition with her dean. All these scenarios - and many more like them - require effectively communicating a concept to make something good happen -- to stir innovation.

     The ability to sell your concept is the genesis of essentially any successful business initiative. In essence, you need to share your vision with others in compelling fashion to advance your cause. This is an incredibly important principle. I have written about it in the context of stimulating innovation, not as a general process improvement but as a means to move your innovative idea forward within a company or out in the marketplace. I call this principle ConceptVision.

     ConceptVision is a vehicle for communicating ... a unified message connecting an innovation to a business opportunity ... to multiple internal and external audiences ... touting the benefits of your innovation ... for the purpose of gaining traction for your commercialization program.

     I recommend your review of my thoughts on this subject. Would you like expert help in sharing your vision? Please contact me for assistance in effectively communicating your vision for your most important business initiative.

     A recent paper by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute revealed their discovery of a natural hormone that stimulates the transformation of white fat to brown fat, in essence triggering the effects of exercise. This raises the possibility of augmenting or replacing exercise and its effects on metabolism. The delivery of this hormone in the form of a drug - not a trivial matter - could someday dramatically enhance the treatment of conditions as diverse as obesity, diabetes, and muscle wasting. The discovery could "open up a completely new approach to understanding the links between exercise, body weight and diabetes". An overview of the published study has been published in Technology Review.

     The discovered hormone, named irisin, is already raising all manner of societal issues. For example, why exercise if you could just take a pill? However, let's not get carried away. Many, perhaps most, of these dramatic discoveries don't result in real clinical benefit. But you couch potatoes can hope for the best!

     Once upon a time the answer was easy to determine. Then technology gave us "combination products" and new "drug delivery methods". The question is far from trivial when regulation enters the equation, since the approval pathways for drugs and devices have historically been vastly different. The FDA itself is struggling with the distinction, having issued an intended clarification of the matter last year; the "clarification" proved not to be very clarifying according to medical device industry representatives. And those folks are understandably worried about a likely further drift toward a drug-like definition and its associated more onerous and more expensive regulatory requirements.  See an overview of the issue here.