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conductor research organization. A medical company seeking
a biosample collection system found a solution at NASA.
These nonobvious connections are not made simply by post-
ing problems and solutions on an electronic bulletin board.
Rather, clients work carefully with these intermediary compa-
nies to develop a concise statement of the technical need in a
way that is general enough to protect the client’s proprietary
information but specific enough to allow potential solution
providers to suggest answers. These intermediaries also help
clients and solution providers navigate the business issues
involved in negotiating and closing deals.
In their 2007 book The Global Brain, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute professor Satish Nambisan and Kellogg School of
Management professor Mohanbir Sawhney named a new kind
of intermediary, an innovation capitalist, who applies venture
capital concepts to early-stage intellectual property. For
instance, Intellectual Ventures LLC invests in clusters of
patents relevant to particular commercialization domains. It
seeks out the “diamonds in the rough” among the thousands
of patents in the world and then assembles a portfolio that can
be sold to companies interested in commercializing them. This
consolidation creates value for its clients both by identifying
high-quality patents and by covering the relevant territory,
which can accelerate innovation and commercialization.
In the same book, Nambisan and Sawhney defined four
models of innovation based on external networks, distin-
guished by whether network leadership is centralized or dif-
fused and whether the space for innovation is defined or
emergent. Crossing these two dimensions yields four basic
models:

• Orchestra (centralized leadership, defined innovation
space). A diverse set of partners collaborates around a