John Hoven Email & Phone Number

I am an innovation broker for problem-solving in (a) particular local contexts, through (b) fast-feedback collection-and-analysis of data and (c) a "theory of change" that evolves in response to context-specific hypothesis testing. This fast-feedback learning toolkit draws from qualitative methods (conversational interviewing and causal inference), locally-focused development and peacebuilding, and entrepreneurial research and practice (Lean Startup, social entrepreneurship, fuzzy front end of radical innovation).

Listed skills include Innovation Brokering, Information Foraging, Social Entrepreneurship, Analysis, and 10 others.

• Economist

  U.S. Dept Of Justice, Antitrust Division, Economics Analysis Group

  1975 - Nov 2014 - Washington, D.C.

  • Predict the outcome of a merger 2 to 20 years into the future, U.S. or globally, in a competitive market of suppliers and customers with disparate interests and capabilities, constrained by long-term relationships, pressured by rapidly changing consumer preferences and rival capabilities, and acting in response to varied and changing external actors and circumstances as well as purely internal factors• Causal inference with a sample size of one is typical for the business-to-business product markets that I investigate, because the Antitrust Division needs to know, "What happens here and now, in this specific market, if the proposed merger is approved, blocked, or modified by a consent decree?"• Searching for "answers to questions we are too clueless to ask" is typical in these investigations, because the most urgent priority is to discover industry-specific buyer preferences and seller capabilities that are not understood outside the industry itself.• Concurrent interviewing and analysis is routine and essential. A small team of lawyers and economists conduct industry interviews that elicit richly detailed, context-specific information, discuss after each interview what has been learned, and then decide who to interview next and what to ask.