How can experienced innovators stay up-to-date with new technologies?

?? Consider the nuances of following industry leaders to enhance your professional growth and understanding of new technologies. ?? Varied Expertise Engage with experts in different niches for diverse insights. Wide expertise ensures a comprehensive grasp of trends and innovations. ?? Global Insights Track leaders from diverse regions for global tech evolution. Key for understanding international trends and advances. ?? Interactive Learning Two-way engagement with thought leaders enriches learning. Share insights, foster idea exchange. ?? To stay current in your field and boost your professional knowledge, follow industry leaders, diversify your expertise, adopt a global perspective, and engage in discussions.

Explore, Engage, Excel! ???? I'd follow industry leaders and trendsetters to stay abreast of emerging technologies. Attending events and webinars provides insights and networking opportunities. Experimenting and prototyping new ideas encourages hands-on learning. Dedicating time to reading the latest articles and books and watching informative videos ensures a broad understanding of new developments. Continuous learning and skill updating, as discussed in "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton M. Christensen, are crucial for staying at the forefront of innovation in engineering.

The crucial aspect is to follow leaders within the right information sphere. The world is replete with experts who write more than they read. Take, for instance, the current coverage of AI topics. For some thought leaders, the dramas within entities and their management boards are more captivating than the genuine development of AI-based services. To stay updated on technologies, one should concentrate on IT and pay less attention to gossip and corporate dramas.

Become an early adopter of new ideas. Experienced innovators know that ideas can originate from anywhere, so they pay attention to new ideas by being early adopter. Experiencing it for yourself provides you the understanding of the nuances much more than reading or hearing about products, service or experiences.

In my experience, following industry leaders is like tuning into a live broadcast of the tech world's future. It's not just about their achievements, but their vision that guides us. Remember, every tweet, blog, or podcast from them isn't just news, it's a lesson in innovation!

One thing I’ve found helpful is attending webinars and tech events. It's like going to a tech theme park and each event is a ride into the future! Beyond learning, these events are networking goldmines, connecting you with fellow enthusiasts who share your passion for technology.

Experienced innovators stay sharp by attending targeted tech events, engaging actively, and experimenting hands-on. Podcasts, newsletters, and mentorship fuel the fire, while a growth mindset ensures continuous learning. This potent mix keeps them ahead of the curve, ready to leverage new technologies for their next big venture.

Industry seminars are still one of the best ways to stay up to date on big trends. They lack a bit of deepness but offer a unique opportunity to get a broad view in a compact timeframe

In a world where technology changes every day, I recommend you to participate in specialized webinars, if possible, where you can ask questions and not just for presentation. As for events, it is recommended that you look for a couple of events a year in your specialty, that will be very useful to meet new experts and follow them to read and listen to their comments and also to use the technology in real time with them.

I am in favour of on-site events rather than webinars. While presentation contents can be exactly the same, the discussion opportunities are totally different. All in all it helps to benchmark yourself. Where are you? Where are others? Do we have to catch up? A simple but useful question I always ask everyone I talk to on events is: What is your biggest catch from this event? The answers are surprising and very useful.

Experimenting and prototyping with new tech has always been my secret tech dojo. It's where I practice new moves and learn from each fall. It’s not just about playing with new tools, but embracing a mindset of continuous learning and innovation.

Curiosity is the fuel, experimentation the engine: Experienced innovators stay ahead by tinkering with the latest tech tools. Online sandboxes and prototyping platforms become their playgrounds, where code morphs into possibilities and hands-on exploration yields invaluable insights. Building personal projects, even silly ones, becomes a learning adventure, each click and keystroke revealing the tech's potential. It's not just about staying informed, it's about getting dirty, playing, and pushing the boundaries – because sometimes, the best way to understand the future is to build it, one messy prototype at a time.

Quick prototyping is key to any innovation process. There is no better way to learn than to experiment while spending a limited amount of time and resources until the value is confirmed

Experimenting and prototyping are my secret sauce for tech evolution. I blend curiosity with practicality, leveraging online platforms and tools to explore and understand new tech swiftly. By creating purpose-driven projects, I immerse myself, gaining invaluable insights and the confidence needed to embrace and harness emerging technologies effectively.

New low-code tools like Bubble.io make it very easy for non-specialists with an interest in technology to experiment with new approaches - including AI

This is where I think a lot of people get it wrong. I find people tend to read from thought leaders and business moguls more than software developers. Software developers lead the way in which new technologies flow. It was software developers that got bored with Web2 technologies, venured into expansive complex algorithms and software structures that established the beginnings of Web3. This is where we should be looking for new innovations. Read and watch the technologists, who build the technology and are the bedrock of innovation.

As essential it is to read and stay abreast of new technological innovations, the sheer volume and pace of advancements in today’s time make this a challenging endeavour. In my experience, I’ve found just by depending on notifications from apps about latest developments is not enough. Adding intentional dedicated hours to my weekly calendar to explore and research on these have proven to be more impactful. Participation is the key- engaging in forums, asking questions offer a deeper understanding than merely perusing the content. Open Source platforms are particularly valuable in this regard. They are not just repositories for the latest prototypes and ideas; they provide a window into the practicality and respective future applicability.

Using available knowledge can significantly speed up the process of learning and understanding new technologies. But sometimes, reinventing the wheel makes sense. Personal experiments - even solving problems already addressed by someone else - are the best method of education.

I disagree with portions of this chapter. Many mentioned sources include information from years ago. Once a result of an innovation finds it's way in a book the book editing took 6-12 month, the research was finished with some distance to start writing the book. The research started 1, 2 or more years earlier. The idea of the innovation until it finds it's way in a book can be 5 years. You need to be the one knowing about the research or the one participating in the research to get early contact with the "new". Research associations are a perfect platform to see those innovations much earlier.

Sharing your experiences on new ideas with wider network and seeking feedback or just initiating conversations helps clarify open questions.

To stay current with evolving technologies, experience innovators should engage in continuous learning through online courses and certifications, attend tech conferences and webinars, follow industry news, participate in professional networks, and actively experiment and prototype with new technologies. Collaborating with research institutions and dedicating resources to R&D are also crucial for staying ahead in the field.

Be curious, reflect and observe the patterns. If you are able to, follow the “buzzing” of the Startup Bees ?? as they often highlight emerging tech trends, use cases and market response that helps provide a perspective and litmus tests - “is this hypothesis relevant enough to generate return?”. Then with this compass - explore and research thought leadership, tinker, imagine and test perspective views with other knowledgeable people; both conservative and disruptive thinkers. Hope that helps.

Networking with cohorts of people who are likely to be of opposing viewpoints provides insights that normally would not appear from 1st degree connections.

Follow the patent trail … Innovative businesses often file patent applications and these applications are often published before products hit the market, giving insights and inspiration.

Experienced innovators stay updated on new technologies through continuous education, networking with peers and experts, active involvement in industry associations, reading industry publications and blogs, experimenting with new tools, fostering collaborations and partnerships with startups and research institutions, mentoring or teaching to stay current with newcomers' perspectives, and participating in open innovation platforms. These strategies enable them to adapt to technological shifts and effectively leverage emerging technologies in their innovation pursuits.

Subscribe to Table-of-content alerts for a variety of research journals in related subjects which provide abstracts free of cost as soon as they are published online. And, keep yourself abreast of developments happening in your field and related fields and keep innovating through attempts to correlate seemingly unrelated new findings. An example from recent news. There used to be light-weighting techniques applied for space use by scarving out portions of solid in a regular lattice like fashion. Current developments in casting and bracing for orthopaedics use a lattice structure in a similar fashion, here again to reduce the weight of the cast. May be there are other applications for light-weighting in seemingly unrelated contexts!