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Companies and organizations use various innovation governance structures, processes and metrics to make decisions about allocation of resources to the development of an innovative idea. Although many metrics measuring the process of innovation and the performance of the enterprise have been developed, a fundamentally solid and complete metric speaking to the quality and viability of the innovative idea itself is lacking. The business, applied innovation, creativity, unmet user needs and problem-solving (BACUP) model of innovation quality is proposed as such a metric based on viewing innovation from the five different viewpoints mentioned in its definition. BACUP is shown to facilitate discussion and analysis in innovation theory and is proposed as a tool allowing any innovation governance structure to achieve innovation assurance by mitigating risk and uncertainty and maximizing an innovation’s chance for success.

The BACUP framework was inspired by researching definitions of innovation and coming upon a survey in which different definitions were obtained from several different roles in companies and organizations. To use BACUP as a metric, the author and research assistants made qualitative judgments about innovations. Several judgments were obtained independently and consensus was plotted on the BACUP graphs.

BACUP can be used to illustrate and discuss major concepts in innovation theory. BACUP can be used to compare the relative viability of different innovative ideas. BACUP can be used to detect vulnerabilities in innovative ideas and provide information to innovation management and governance so that corrective measures can be taken. BACUP can be extended by other researchers and practitioners.

In its current form, BACUP is not a quantitative tool; however, the authors envision other researchers applying existing quantitative tools and incorporating them into the BACUP framework.

BACUP is an innovative idea quality metric employable in any existing innovation management/governance structure or methodology. BACUP also gives practitioners a way to engineer innovative ideas into successful innovations.

BACUP can lead to predictable and repeatable improved innovation outcomes, resulting in superior solutions to problems in all domains.

The BACUP framework is a novel, multi-dimensional view of innovation. Application of BACUP as a metric yields a new type of capability for innovation governance called innovation assurance.

Would it be nice to have Yoshiro Nakamatsu, the world record holder for the most number of patents, consult with you on your next project? Would it be wonderful to bring Thomas Edison in anytime you needed some innovative insight for a day? What if you could consult with Nikola Tesla when faced with your next critical problem? How much better could you solve problems if you could bring the collective innovative force of the entire human race to bear on your next project? This is the promise of I-TRIZ. I-TRIZ is the modern extension, and ongoing development of TRIZ begun some 65 years ago. ITRIZ represents the distillation of human innovative thought down to a set of principles, tools, and methodologies that can be taught to anyone making it possible for anyone to innovate on demand. TRIZ, I-TRIZ, and new educational initiatives are described as well as potential long-term implications of everyone having the ability to innovate on demand.

Iterative software methodologies allow development teams to be agile in their response to changing requirements. However, the software development team is usually at the mercy of requirements changes, rather than being part of the project engineering staff defining the changes to the solution architecture. Therefore, projects tend to implement inferior solutions. Integrating a project-level innovation technique called Inventive Problem Solving into agile software development methodologies such as the spiral model, the Rational Unified Process, and Scrum, allows the development team to affect the overall solution architecture utilizing their expertise in information technology to the maximum benefit. As a result, more creative, innovative, and efficient solutions to the problem are conceived and implemented.

In KCC’s International Café program, students from all cultures meet in a casual café setting (including coffee, tea, and world music) to share their talents in a moderately structured Service Learning program. Language exchange is one of the most popular features of the International Café, with students of all languages (e.g. English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Filipino, French, Spanish, Hawaiian) able to find native speakers for honing their conversation and writing skills. Cultural exchange occurs in both formal and informal modes through student cultural presentations and on and off campus service activities. Students from many types of courses enroll in the café (language classes, anthropology, linguistics, history, etc.), enriching their classroom experience with hands‐on intercultural experiences.

Approaches to state provision of childcare have typically focused on the relative weight of state or market provision. In this article we follow a new institutional approach to the relationship between states and markets to examine the au pair industry, emphasising the role of states in the creation of markets for childcare. Research on the market provision of childcare has focused on the ambiguity in defining caring as work, which has led to the low value of care work. In this article we propose that those ambiguities also exist at the state level and impact the creation of the market for foreign childcare. Examining the development of au pair policies in the US, UK, and Australia, we find three strategies that involve defining au pairs not as employees, but rather as foreign visitors, exchange students, or family members. These strategies allow for by passing restrictions on immigration, increasing the supply of care providers, and circumventing compliance with labour regulations, thereby reducing the cost to families.

Entrepreneurship; tourism and hospitality.

Junior or senior-level business students as well as graduate-level (MBA and/or EMBA) classes in entrepreneurship, small business management, strategic management, international business or international economics.

Cuban tour guides working for the communist Castro Government dream of working for themselves or leaving for the USA. Their story is contrasted by a visit to Cuba as told by a US business professor.

To compare entrepreneurship under capitalism that is slowly relaxing their communistic rules, to learn more about the island of Cuba and its potential for tourism and new venture creation, to understand the legal, social, political, historical and cultural barriers to entrepreneurship, to hypothesize or brainstorm potential new ventures for Cuba.

Teaching notes; photos also available upon request from the author.