Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship

Syllabus

Courses

• Strategic Innovation: Building and Sustaining Innovative Organizations

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  4 weeks long, 20 hours worth of material

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  Innovation strategy is about creating unique value for consumers by delivering a great product that satisfies their needs.
  
  At the core of a successful innovation strategy is a great product concept. Product is an all-encompassing term that includes physical goods, intangible services, and even ideas. There are three pillars to a successful product strategy: a clear understanding of (a) the target customers (WHO), (b) the specific elements of the product offering (WHAT) that satisfies consumer needs and dovetails with company capabilities, and (c) the tactical plans to reach end consumers (HOW). The value proposition has to be embedded in a coherent business model in order to create and capture value. But well-laid innovation plans can go awry without a consideration of the business ecosystem that includes competitors and collaborators, including suppliers, distributors, and retailers, or the contextual environment in which the company operates. In an interdependent world, fostering an integrated ecosystem is critically important for companies interested in maximizing the odds of innovation success.
  
  You will be able to:
  
  - Understand key ideas about innovation and product strategy
  - Strategize for value capture in a business model
  - Critically examine the roles of various players in a business ecosystem
  
  This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

• Strategic Innovation: Managing Innovation Initiatives

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  4 weeks long, 20 hours worth of material

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  You may have noticed that what is new often behaves differently than what has become accepted over time whether it is in a market, technology, or with people and firms. This course helps you develop a perspective on managing innovation. That is, you will build your capability to lead and design your organization in effectively implementing innovation initiatives and achieving their strategic intent.
  
  To do this, you will learn a set of frameworks, tools, and concepts that can help you address several important challenges in managing innovation. The first challenge is in regards to how to successfully implement innovation efforts within established firms and alongside established businesses. You then investigate the particulars of managing innovation when disruptive technologies are involved. Other topics include leadership of new product development teams, planning and evaluation of innovation initiatives, and management of innovation across organizational boundaries, as happens with alliances or virtual firms.
  
  You will be able to:
  
  - Analyze innovations and their impact on organizations
  - Articulate a research-informed perspective on innovation
  - Utilize frameworks, tools, and concepts to address challenges that arise in innovation
  
  This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

• Creativity Toolkit I: Changing Perspectives

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  4 weeks long, 30 hours worth of material

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  Thinking and doing the same things faster and better is not enough for innovation; we need creativity. Fortunately, creativity is a skill you can learn. This course will examine when, why, and how you can be creative so you can go through the creative process more efficiently and effectively. It teaches concrete steps to enable you to change your perspective to see new possibilities and solutions. It clarifies what to expect from the creative process and provides support for how you can sustain your progress. It also provides guidance on leading a supportive culture for creativity. The result is an ability to increase your own creativity and that of your teams and organizations so as to recognize and develop new opportunities.
  
  You will be able to:
  
  - Identify and generate opportunities to be creative and launch the innovation process
  - Intentionally and confidently enter and proceed through the creative process
  - Foster and sustain the creativity of others
  
  This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

• Creativity Toolkit II: Creative Collaboration

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  4 weeks long, 21 hours worth of material

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  Creativity requires us to collaborate with others, and this course helps you be a better creative collaborator. We need to be able to pitch our creative ideas so that others are excited rather than baffled or dismissive by them. We need to be able to evaluate the ideas of others so we identify rather than miss creative solutions. We need to be able to work with our teams such that creativity thrives rather than is suppressed. This course addresses each of these needs, identifying challenges and providing guidance for effective performance. The end result is guidance on how to foster effective creative collaboration.
  
  You will be able to:
  
  -Design pitches for innovative ideas to build excitement and clarity
  -Evaluate the pitches of others to identify great new ideas
  -Lead groups to foster effective collaboration for innovation
  
  This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

• Entrepreneurship I: Laying the Foundation

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  4 weeks long, 17 hours worth of material

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  This course will explore the earlier stages of the entrepreneurial venture process across four modules. The modules will examine the nature of growth and error in entrepreneurial settings and how to manage resources in those settings. In addition, the modules will explore the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunities, the formulation of ideas in relation to those opportunities, and how those opportunities and ideas influence entrepreneurial phenomena. Finally, the course will focus on how business concepts underlie compelling entrepreneurial missions that provide guidance to the evolution of a venture’s business model and future strategic planning.
  
  You will be able to:
  
  - Develop a foundational understanding of the entrepreneurial process
  - Consider the relationship between growth and error
  - Understand how particular opportunities influence entrepreneurial phenomena
  
  This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

• Entrepreneurship II: Preparing for Launch

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  4 weeks long, 16 hours worth of material

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  This course builds on previous concepts and outlines strategies and tactics for forming, financing, and launching a new venture. Topics to be addressed will include building the new venture’s initial management team, identifying and reaching out to early customers, developing financial plans, raising startup and initial growth financing, and preparing for and managing rapid growth.
  You will be able to:
  - Develop an understanding of what is required in a new venture
  - Create a plan to identify and approach your first customers
  - Build financial projections for the new venture
  - Understand how to raise equity capital for the new venture
  - Monitor the health and scalability of a new venture
  
  This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

• Innovation: From Creativity to Entrepreneurship Capstone

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  6 weeks long, 6 hours worth of material

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  The capstone for the specialization will provide a learning experience that integrates across all the courses within it. It will involve analysis of a situation concerning a new enterprise – a venture of one’s own or within a larger organization – to develop the current business model and compare against alternative business models so as to identify potential opportunities and challenges.