The ability to innovate plays a pivotal role in the growth and success of many areas of business. In this course, we tackle the challenge of bringing to market elegant and efficient solutions to strong customer needs. This challenge is relevant whether you work for a startup or a large company, whether you sell products or services, and whether your customers are individual consumers or companies. Throughout the course, we will provide methodologies, strategies, and tools (such as design thinking and iterative prototyping) structured around the basic steps of the innovation process:

1. Opportunity/Problem Identification
2. Idea Generation
3. Design
4. Prototyping and Testing
5. Launch

This class focuses on customer-centric innovation. The tools we cover come from the world of corporate innovation but can be applicable to entrepreneurs. After all, at the end of the day, you will be dealing with customers regardless of your company’s size.

Melanie Brucks

Assistant Professor of Business

Melanie Brucks is interested in creativity and innovation. Her research focuses on the processes involved in generating and selecting innovative ideas and on the cognitive and behavioral consequences of technological innovations. Her findings help marketers better design ideation activities to maximize productivity and fuel innovation.

Before joining Columbia, Melanie Brucks received a PhD in Marketing from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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