Innovation and Invention in Science & Technology Lecture Series

Everything I Know About Innovation I Learned from Buggy

Matthew Wagner, CIT ’87, Monday, March 1, 2010

7:00pm, Adamson Wing, 136A Baker Hall

Innovation is often portrayed as a rather mysterious activity that requires a certain magical spark to be successful. Although there may be some truth in this perspective, innovation is also a process that can be thoughtfully analyzed and described. In turn, a pragmatic conceptual understanding of innovation can be used to design organizations in a manner that strongly supports successful innovation.

Dr. Wagner will present a general conceptual model of innovation, an Activity Theory based model of organizations, and discuss the organizational elements critical to innovation. The most important of these elements are the multidimensional nature of the task, the creativity of the people involved, and an organization that is designed to promote both collaboration and focus.

Dr. Wagner will illustrate his analysis through examples taken primarily from his experiences at Carnegie Mellon as a founder and chair of Spirit Buggy. For the uninitiated, Buggy is a highly competitive human and gravity powered race unique to CMU and an activity dear to the hearts of many in the CMU community.

Matt graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy. He then went on to receive a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. For the next 17 years, he worked in R&D for Praxair, a leading industrial gas company. At Praxair, Matt had several roles all focused on innovation: researcher, manager, organizational and work process development, and breakthrough innovation.

Currently, Matt is focused on business innovation as the CFO of RYN USA, LLC, a startup footwear company, and as a consultant for Niagara International Capital, a boutique investment bank located in Buffalo, NY.

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