While the work of TTOs and research managers can seem transactional as you’re filing patents, negotiating licenses, securing funding, and handling a variety of agreements, at the heart of technology transfer is customer service. And your most important customers are right in your own backyard: Your faculty inventors.
The relationship between the TTO and the faculty inventor is paramount to any project’s success. But sometimes egos get in the way, goals are misaligned, or communication breaks down, putting your critical faculty relationships at risk along with the prospects for successful commercialization. It’s in these times when a customer service mentality is most important to smooth the rough edges, address problems, and lower the temperature for everyone’s benefit — the TTO, the researcher, and the university. These situations can be tough to maneuver, but when handled with care can actually serve to strengthen faculty relationships, rather than damage them.
That’s why we’ve partnered with UNeMed’s Joe Runge, JD, for this inspiring and highly practical one-hour program: Improving Faculty Inventor Relations: Keeping the Peace and Resolving Conflict, scheduled for November 30th. Join Mr. Runge, a long-time tech transfer leader, as he discusses how to tailor a customer service approach to technology transfer, how to work with all the various faculty personalities, the TTO’s role when inventors make “messes,” and dealing with a host of other difficult situations – and resolving them with relationships intact.
For complete details or to register, click here.
Also coming soon:
- Staffing Your TTO: Managing turnover, “quiet quitting,” remote work and other HR challenges — Wednesday, December 14, 2022
