Dan Plankenhorn

Product Innovation Specialist

Broad business and technical background that cuts across industries, disciplines, business models and products types. This diversity together with a strategic view enables me to envision the nexus of emerging technologies with evolving market opportunities.

I am a hands-on builder, maker, prototyper, and innovation process leader, experienced at responding to specific business challenges. I tend to arrive at unique proprietary solutions by making new meaningful connections between seemingly disparate phenomena (i.e., bridging across from various fields of technology to novel application areas). These skills at technology scouting, vetting, and brokering make me effective at the very front end of the innovation process (FEIP).

Throughout my career I have been continuously engaged in some aspect of research, development, and commercialization of new products/process. I have a both an academic and professional background in NPD methodologies and practices.

I am passionate about learning and using new knowledge to innovate. I stay current with advancements in multiple scientific and technological realms. These “solutions looking for problems” have the potential to be leveraged outside of their respective fields to enable the creation of novel proprietary product solutions that satisfy client/customer needs in new valuable ways.

Specialties:

Design Thinking

Vision & Leadership at the Front-End of Innovation

Exploratory Research & Opportunity Finding

Technology Assessment, Due Diligence

Prototyping

Testing & Validation

Collaborative Ventures

Intellectual Property Strategy

Technology Brokering