Owen Graduate School of Management professor David Owens will give a talk, “Creative People Must Be Stopped: Six Ways We Kill Innovation,” at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29, at the Central Library Community Room. The lecture is open to the Vanderbilt community.
Owens, professor of the practice of management and director of the Executive Development Institute at Vanderbilt, will demonstrate how individuals and organizations sabotage their own best intentions to encourage “outside the box” thinking. The antidote to this self-defeating behavior, he says, is to identify which of the six major types of constraints are hindering innovation. Once innovators and other leaders understand exactly which constraints are working against them, they can overcome them, creating conditions that foster innovation instead of stopping it in its tracks.
Specializing in innovation and new product development, Owens is known as a dynamic speaker and is the recipient of numerous teaching awards. He provides consulting services for a wide range of clients around the world, and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, London Guardian and San Jose Mercury News, as well as on NPR’s Marketplace.
He has consulted for NASA, The Smithsonian, Nissan LEAF, Gibson Music, the American Conservatory Theater, Alcatel, Tetra Pak, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Cisco, LEGO, The Henry Ford Museum and many other organizations. He has done product design work for well-known firms including Daimler Benz, Apple Computer, Dell Computer, Coleman Camping, Corning World Kitchen, Steelcase and IDEO Product Development. He also has served as CEO of Griffin Technology, a global company that specializes in iPod, iPhone and iPad accessories. In his current work, Owens focuses on concrete strategies for creating positive change in all types of organizations.
A book signing and reception will follow the lecture.