CTOs Digging in the Dumpster

Imagine your CTO in his best suit rummaging around in the dumpster behind the facility. He is looking for new product ideas among the rubbish of the past. At Big Pharma they have a number of "failed" drugs on the shelf - million dollar investments that did nto payoff as hoped. So they are sending their scientists into these piles of IP rubbish with new biotech tools. Their mission is to figure out whether any of those drugs are good for something else -- something profitable.

What a great idea. Every company has products and IP that they are not turning into profits. When new technology comes along you can use it to try to create yet more products, or you can use it to reevaluate your old products. The latter is much cheaper. Time to go dumpster diving.

Fortune: Technology in the Trash Bin