CKIC Inventor BlogFinding the Low-Hanging FruitJuly 30th, 2010   When you need to take the baby-steps to take the giant ones Inventors, by their very nature, are big dreamers. When the rest of the world wants to know why, inventors ask why not? It is both part of the essence of who we are and part of the secret sauce of how we’re able to do what we do. A problem arises, however, when we need to change hats from the inventor in us to the very different persona of the entrepreneur. Believe it or not, these are 2 very different kinds of people. The inventor is the creative big-dreamer: running out 10 steps ahead of what everyone else is doing or thinking, out where the angels fear to tread. The entrepreneur, on the other hand, needs at times to be more process oriented; carefully drawing from the wisdom of his or her own experience, plus standing on the shoulders of the wisdom of others; making the right decisions to move the invention forward to the ultimate goal: turning it into a product that sells and brings in cash flow. This typically requires a totally different mindset from the one that successfully got you to your great idea or prototype. As I mentioned, inventors naturally think big. When you try and translate that into selling your invention or product, however, it will require you to think more strategically. You have to ask yourself, “if I can’t get into the Walmarts of the world, where can I get in?” This is where the law of the low-hanging fruit comes in. I have both seen and experienced this for myself in a number of inventions and products. When you think big business, think risk-adverse and slow-moving. They are a lot less likely to trust an unproven product than one that already has a track record. Sure, you can (and should) do test marketing, but there is something about the perception of actually selling it in the market already that makes distributors sit up and listen like no other. Nobody wants to dance with the wallflowers. But when they see your invention out there cutting the rug with their smaller and more nimble competitors, it makes them want to dance. With you. So where do you find this low-hanging fruit? Look for the smaller guys, ones that are specializing in the niches that best describe where your invention belongs. These are the ones that are fighting hard for the attention of their customers by being different than the big-box stores. By differentiating themselves from the sea of big-box products, they cater to specialty groups of customers and many times can command a higher price than the cut-rate mass retailers, providing the additional benefit of ultimately helping your bottom line. And here’s where you can actually draw some from that creative side of yours and really make it pay off in the business side. Think of creative ways to promote and sell your invention, ways that are untraditional or even ways that may have not even been tried before. Let me stress here that you want to test these methods on the small and especially on the cheap, to make sure that they will work before you spend too much time, energy or money, and to make sure that it won’t give you adverse effects on a grand scale. While you want to kiss a lot of frogs with this method, you’ll want the ones that will blow up in your face (and there will be some) to be small explosions. I can’t tell you what these new creative ways are, though, because you haven’t thought of them yet. But the exciting part of this is that you can. The personas of the inventor and entrepreneur can be and are many times balanced in the same person. But as we have said so many times here at the CKIC, even if you are an inventor and don’t want to be “the entrepreneur”, it is vitally important that you become intimately familiar with the business side of inventing so that you can partner and effectively communicate with those who have the skill to do the necessary parts of the successful inventing process that you do not. So aim for the stars, of course; you never know if you might actually grab one. But in the meantime don’t forget to also grab some of that low-hanging fruit that is currently within your reach. It may be just exactly what you need to keep you from going hungry on your way to the stars. Double BaggingJune 28th, 2010  The importance of having a back-up plan for each step of your process I was sitting in a McDonalds the other day, sipping some coffee and watching the goings on. You can learn a lot from sitting in a McDonalds, or a lot of other places for that matter, just by observing the doings and events of the customers, employees and managers. This particular morning, I was watching an employee remove the sizable garbage bag from one of the many trash receptacles you’ll see scattered throughout a restaurant. Just as I was starting to think about all of the half-drunk beverages and other things that you know could potentially leak from such a bag, making a real nasty mess in a public place where people are eating, I noticed that not only did the bag not leak, but it held up rather well in spite of the sizable amount of fast-food trash inside. However, what happened next is what really caught my attention: when the “waste management technician” (you know they have to have some kind of name like that made up somewhere) put the new bag back into the waste container, she put a layer of two bags in, not just the one. Now before you start thinking that I must have just way too much time hands, or what could this ever have to do with inventing, I really am going somewhere with this. And by the way, if you are an inventor, you probably already know that it almost always invariably seems to be that the most mundane and routine moments of life are where and when, if you’re paying attention, you are struck by those real flashes of inspiration. My flash on that particular morning was this: in any phase of the inventor’s process, it’s always good, and most times of paramount importance, to double bag. What I mean by that is to always have a back up plan, a plan-B, a “what do I do if what I really think will turn out just fine without a snag actually does blow-up/not work/somehow fail miserably”, type of strategy already mapped out. Of course, you may think that there isn’t anything that can go wrong. You may think you’ve got everything covered. This is usually the time you really need to be thinking the most about what you’ll do if actual things out there that you may not have thought of actually happen. Everyone can’t think of everything, and I hate to break it to you, but you and I are no exceptions. Things can jump up out of left field that you never would have expected. Those sure and no-brainer tests can fail. Suppliers can go belly-up or decide they don’t want to sell you that critical component you need for your invention. Customers that you thought would be lining up for your invention as if it were a new version of the iPhone are suddenly nonexistent. The one aspect of your invention that you almost tossed aside as the stupidest thing that nobody would ever want suddenly becomes as hot as the next iPhone in your customers eyes, and you’re not prepared for it. These things have and do happen all the time. I have personally seen inventions that I thought no one could do without go over like a lead balloon, and others that I thought would never see the light of day take off like a rocket. And for times like these, as disruptive as they may be, you have to develop the agility to plan for what you didn’t plan for. Business plans are important and very needful for a great number of reasons. You have to know how to get where you want to go. You can’t have a plan that goes something like: A. Do this. B. Do this. C. A miracle happens. D. I reach my goal! You have to have a battle plan. But to quote a famous military general, “no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy”. So you need contingency plans. This isn’t the fun part of the invention process, either. It’s the boring, non-romantic part, a lot like, well, taking out the garbage. So whether you’re carrying out a huge bag containing a slurry of half-eaten fast-food and half-full drink containers, or going through the steps from your own flash of genius to a product that makes money, don’t forget to double bag. It may mean the difference between a great plan and a smelly disaster. Free Training for Marketing Your InventionMay 29th, 2010 There are some great resources out there - hiding in plain sight We hear from a lot of small independent inventors that have a lot in common. Many of the problems that you face, even ones that you may feel are unique to you, are shockingly similar to other inventors out there. For instance, a lot of inventors are stuck at the one of the real big hurtles of the inventing process, marketing. This is such a large and challenging part of the inventor’s process that we dedicate a whole night to talking about it at least once a year. And there are a lot of really good inventors out there that just haven’t yet acquired the skill of selling their invention to their market, be it direct, through distribution or with licensing. In typical sales and marketing training, a new person without experience in a specific company or industry will pair with a successful and seasoned rep, dogging him or her and watching what they do, how they do it and why. This watching and learning gives the inexperienced person valuable information they can use once they are on their own, avoiding the pitfalls they would no doubt fall into had they not gained that “experience through osmosis” by watching and learning from those that do. But training costs money, and good training costs good money. Which leads me to another common problem among small independent inventors: a short supply of funds. So, what does an inventor do to acquire a valuable, yet needed skill (like marketing) and keep it under a budget that is less than ample? If there is one resource that an inventor has over others in an industry or market, it is their creativity. It was this cleverness, genius and imagination that made you an inventor in the first place. Yet so many inventors take this talent for brilliance and set it aside once they move past the idea stage of their invention. And unfortunately, it is this ingenuity that is just as desperately needed in what can be the much harder steps of the invention process. A great example of this, I believe, is in finding creative ways to learn the marketing expertise in your particular industry or market. Let’s say, for instance, that you have an invention that is in the fitness industry. If I had such an invention, and wanted to learn the best skills about how to market my invention to whomever, I would find those who are doing it – those marketers out there that are very successful in marketing exercise or fitness equipment. Let’s take this one step further and pull another example out of the air: QVC. In 2009, QVC shipped more than 145 million units and handled more than 115 million phone calls worldwide. Their consolidated sales increased 11% to $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2010. So we can definitely conclude that they are good at selling stuff, including exercise equipment. And they have top-notch talent practicing their trade on TV and the web 24/7. Now, if I told you that some of the best marketers in the world for products in your industry were giving free lessons on TV and the web about how to sell those products, would you be interested in attending this class? Well, they are, but they just don’t call it that. If I were wanting to learn the best way to market my product, I would be recording and watching these “training videos” over and over, immersing myself in learning the key words that they used, how they presented the product, and how they engaged the customer. Not parroting what they did, but rather accessing, attaining and emulating the skills of how they do it; reviewing and dissecting not just the what but the how, until I made that knowledge, wisdom and those skills my own. Now this is just one example of how this could be done. You may think of even more creative ways of gaining free skills specific to your invention process needs. After all, you ARE an inventor! Don’t discount the power of your own creativity in the more mundane steps of the invention or entrepreneurial process. When Failure IS an OptionApril 26th, 2010 Why failure is a good thing to the process of inventing How could failure ever be a good thing? The current book I am reading is called "Reinventing the Wheel" by Steve Kemper, and is the story of Dean Kamen and his invention now known as the Segway. In the early part of the story, Steve outlines the culture of working for Dean's product development company, DEKA. At DEKA, mere brains just didn't cut it; Dean wanted people that thought it would be fun to jump off a cliff and design an ingenious new parachute on the way down, not literally, but with their ideas and projects. Did they crash sometimes? Sure, but Dean didn't hold anything against them if they learned something on the way down. He wanted people with the nerve to jump. This took the edge off of failure and fostered an atmosphere of heading out into a wide-open territory where anything was possible and you weren't limited by what people normally thought was feasible. Thomas Edison once said that no experiments were useless. "You've gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince", Kamen is also noted as saying, and even condensed this phrase into a gerund - frog kissing. I believe there are some good things we can take from both Edison's and Kamen's remarks on this culture of not being afraid to fail. First let me tell you what I'm not talking about. I'm not saying that you should foolishly run off in a wild direction with all your money and bet it all on a whimsical direction with an unknown chance of success or failure. You should buffer your decisions with the wisdom and common sense of counting the cost of the steps you must take and areas you must explore in order to accomplish your invention or innovation goals. What I am saying is that we should not be so paralyzed with fear as to the point where you are afraid to try anything new, innovative or out-of-the-box. Fear can be very destructive to the creative process. This is clearly illustrated in a lot of large companies where fear of short-sighted management hierarchies can limit creative talent. The irony in this illustration is that these same large companies are constantly frustrated with their resultant inability to be creative or innovative, and typically can't figure out why this is. Many of these companies end up turning to smaller, nimble companies and even individual inventors that aren't afraid of the failure, who can provide what the larger companies have lost. Individual inventors and entrepreneurs can also face the danger of having their creativity paralyzed by the fear of failure. Maybe you got burnt going in the wrong direction for too long. Maybe you miscalculated the cost of trying a new direction. Or maybe you made a bad decision that you now regret. Whatever the reason, you can get back on the horse. Keep in mind that you have reaped something potentially valuable - the knowledge, expertise and wisdom you gained from the failure. Also remember that if you are in very good company; some of the best inventions and inventors you know have a long trail of failures preceding their success. Having lived on both sides of the fence of product development and marketing, I have noticed something common to both worlds with regards to the success of either developing or marketing a new product or innovation. Imagine that you are in a long hallway with doors lining up and down both walls. Some or even most of these doors are locked. Others open, but lead to nowhere. However, you know that least one of these doors will either take you to where you want to go, or to somewhere you needed to go that you didn't know you needed. How do you find out which one is the right door for you? You have to try all the doorknobs. You may even have to walk through several doorways to find out if it is the right one or not. If it's not the right door, you'll have walk back out and start over, trying more doorknobs. This can be frustrating and usually requires a lot of patience. But for those willing to persevere, the results can be highly rewarding. Are You An "Island Inventor"?March 31st, 2010 “No man is an island”, is especially true for the independent inventor English writer John Donne penned the now famous quote “no man is an island entire of itself” in 1624. Basically, it means that human beings necessarily depend on one another, or that you can’t manage everything all by yourself. While this may be true in many areas of life, it certainly rings no truer than with the independent inventor. The idea that people are not isolated from one another - that we have a need to be interconnected, can be an important truth for the success of an inventor. Many times it can make the difference between success and total failure. The independent inventor so many times works in isolation. After all, most of us came up with our idea all by ourselves, so it’s a natural thing to think that we can work all by ourselves, without the help of support of anyone else that we could bring in on our project. Why? Part of it may be fear, founded or unfounded, of someone stealing your idea. Sometimes you may even feel that if you bring someone else in, you’ll be giving away part of what began as your own idea, an idea that may still feel, to you, like a part of yourself. Some of it may be that you feel like no one could ever understand what you are trying to accomplish but you. Others still may just like to work alone. Whatever the case may be, most successful inventors know that networking, partnering, connecting with and learning from other people is paramount. Below are some ways that an inventor needs to be connected to people: You need people with different skill sets that can help and/or partner with you. Everybody is typically really good at one or more things, but we all have our limitations. What you are really good at, your core competencies, are contrasted by what you may not have a natural talent for, don’t like or don’t have the time, energy initiative to learn. These – let’s call them gaps - in your toolbox of core competencies are what you have to identify, face and deal with when you are climbing the ladder of the invention process. And if you’re missing some rungs in that ladder, it may keep you from making it to the top. But there is good news: there are actual, real human beings out there who are really good at the things that you’re not! And a lot of times, these people are not really good and need help with something that you are really good at. You need people who you can learn from. We always seem to focus on the negative side of the wisdom that says, “if someone hangs around bad habits, they have a good chance of picking up those bad habits”. But we totally miss the positive aspect of that same advice. It’s pretty straightforward: if you want to become knowledgeable about a certain subject or skill set, you need to spend time with those who know that subject or have that skill. If you want to be successful, hang around people who are successful. There is great quote relating to this that I heard years ago that goes something like this: “Every person knows at least one thing that I do not. I must therefore search and find out what those things are. Hence, every man (person) is my teacher.” You also need people that can learn from you. Good knowledge and the wisdom that comes from it should not only be obtained by connecting with those that have it, but also by “paying it forward”. Passing on such things has an amazing multiplier effect not only for the recipient but also the provider as well. You need people that you can network with. Someone once said that the difference between a live wire and a dead is connections. Sometimes in working through your invention process, you are at “A” but need to find “E”. You meet people who you think might be “E”, but are “B”. But, B leads you to C who leads you to D who leads you to your much desired “E”. And along with way you find that B, C and D may have been just as important for you as well. Such is the way of networking. Sure, it’s random and sometimes you hit dead ends, but if you don’t try and go down any streets, you’re absolutely sure to never get anywhere. There is another, even more dangerous pitfall that an isolated inventor can fall into. Living in a vacuum devoid of good information, people and resources, where you feel like it’s just you and your invention against the world, is where we see many victims fall prey to invention scams companies. These companies are very skilled at using fear, greed and your lack of knowing what to do next to take your hard earned cash and provide you with papers, documents and so-called services that are basically worth nothing. It is so unfortunate that we still see so many good and talented independent inventors come to see us here at the CKIC, only after they have been taken for what many times winds up being upwards of as much as $10,000. These companies are sneaky advertisers, can have a very professional look, and appeal to an inventor with ploys like telling them their invention is great (whether it is or not), telling inventors that they’ll take care of everything, and all that you have to do is just keep sending them more money. This is what I call management by abdication, where you blindly send money and just expect them to make everything work out OK. What typically happens in the end is that the inventor will keep sending money until their resources are exhausted, usually winding up with some printed something that may look good if framed and put on a wall, but is essentially worthless in the real world of inventing and business. This is another form of being an “island inventor”, and it turns out that you are stranded on the island with a scam artist! Learning, connecting and working with other inventors is what independent inventor organizations like the CKIC is all about. Here we try and teach you the truths that successful inventors know and use. You can connect with a variety of professional inventors, entrepreneurs and others with skill sets that compliment your own. And you never know where a chance meeting with the right person will take you. The 7 Words Inventors Need to Hear & Have to Answer:February 17th, 2010   "Can You Show Me How It Works?" OK, so you’ve been seized by a grand idea and have worked it out in your head into what you are sure will be the next great invention. You can’t stop thinking about it, either; you’ve drawn it out first on a napkin at the restaurant, then on some scrap paper when you got home, then onto some notebook paper, then hopefully detailed into a bound notebook (the kind you can’t tear the pages out from), witnessed, signed and dated, as good inventors need to do. And hopefully, each time you’ve re-drawn and subsequently made more notes into your notebook, you’ve made changes in the form of improvements, adding to your invention’s value, uniqueness and probability for success. Unfortunately, this is where many inventors get the idea in their head that they are all done. They’ll think, “wow, now all I have to do is take these notes to someone, and they’ll give me a million dollars!”. Sure, it could happen, but you could also win the lottery, inherit money from a long lost relative or find a suitcase full of money on the street. And I’m sorry to break the news to you, but if you’re only selling an idea on a napkin, most times your chances are about the same, at this point. The story is told of the inventor who could not get a meeting with a buyer, so he flew on his own expense overseas to the company and sat in the lobby all day with his prototype. He showed everyone who walked into the office how it worked and gave demonstration after demonstration to anyone waiting in the company’s lobby. Finally, the buyer came out of his office and told the inventor, “you have 30 seconds”. The inventor simply turned on the prototype and the buyer was hooked. The moral to this story is that you not only have to be persistent and aggressive, but you need to be able to show how your invention works. Most of the time the phrase, “imagine, if you will…” just doesn’t cut it. I do have to say that what the guy did in the story was gutsy. Was there a risk of the buyer seeing the prototype and saying, “thanks but no thanks” or worse yet, “get out of my lobby”? Sure, but you can bet the risk of hearing that was a whole lot higher if he only had a drawing, or worse yet, just tried to tell him about it. As we say many times here at the CKIC, the further along you are with your invention in the process of taking it from an idea to actual product selling in the market, the greater your chances of selling it to someone to license or distribute. So it makes a lot of sense if you can correctly answer the question that you will most certainly be asked from a potential buyer or licensee: “Can you show me how it works?” So if you are at the “I’ve got it all written down right here” phase, and are doing all the other things we teach here at the CKIC such as finding out if it’s original, if there is a big enough market for it, etc., then it’s time to look at building a prototype. There are many ways to go about making a prototype. You can build one own your own, and if you’re good at that sort of thing, or feel you could be, go for it. It’s probably the least risky as far as cost is concerned (if you can keep your material costs low), and if it doesn’t work out, you can always look at other options, such as having one made for you. And in the invention process, you always have to anticipate a plan B, and sometimes a C, D, E or even F. But that is how most of us progress forward. When Thomas Edison was perfecting the light bulb, it is told that his prototypes failed more than 1,000 times. When asked about it, he is to have said, “ I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways that will not work”. A single prototype isn’t always an end-all unto itself, either. Remember how you made changes and improvements every time you re-drew or wrote it all down on paper? That can and many times will most certainly happen in your prototype process. You may even think that it is just perfect, until you get other people (and I don’t mean family, friends or neighbors) to critique it. Your market may even want you to change something that you don’t like, or that you would personally hate as a change to your invention. But remember, if you are the only one buying your invention, that’s just fine, leave it like it is, just the way you like it best. But if you want everyone else to buy it and they want it different than what you want, then you have to make the change that will make it sellable to other people. So what’s the value of a prototype? From a legal standpoint, a prototype or “working model” is usually strong evidence to demonstrate an actual “reduction to practice”, a legal term meaning the embodiment of the concept of your invention, which can help you when you get to the patenting phase. From a marketing standpoint, the simple act of making a prototype could transform your invention’s potential. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand pictures. Are You A "Finish Line" Inventor?January 28th, 2010 What is Holding You Back? As a lot of serial inventors/entrepreneurs do, I am always juggling two or more projects at a time. One of these projects, an invention that has so far shown great promise, is in beta testing. Beta testing is where you are giving your “baby” to other people to try. Of course, these people aren’t going to love your baby like you do. Nobody is going to love her like you do; it is your baby, your idea that you gave birth to and now, at least in your mind, she is a beautiful toddler that can do no wrong. And if you’re a seasoned inventor and this isn’t your first barbeque, you know that. You keep telling yourself that you know that, but you still can’t help but feel the twinge of “I hope they don’t treat her badly or tell me she’s ugly” somewhere deep in your heart of hearts. So you go forward, making sure that everything is just perfect before you hand her over for some strangers to kick the tires. And kick they do. In this my current incarnation of this scenario, the beta testers have come back with multiple suggestions, comments that usually start out like: “You know, it’s nice but it would really be a lot easier to work with if it had this”, or “I would buy one if it did that”. And again, if you’ve been to this dance before, you know what happens next. You go back to the workshop and work on the improvements. That is where this particular invention is at right now, and that’s bad for me, because this is where I know I can easily get stuck. An inventor can get “stuck” in so many different places in the invention process, for the simple reason that there are so many different types of things an inventor has to do to be successful. Without the guidance, support, education and wisdom to know how to tackle each of these steps, many an inventor can suddenly feel like they are in way over their head, get stuck and many times, just stay stuck. One can imagine that all over the country you could find countless notebooks, patent filings, prototypes, and even small manufacturing run inventories that have ended up just sitting somewhere, gathering dust, because an inventor hit a stumbling block, didn’t know what to do about it or what to do next, and then just stopped, frozen in their timeline from idea to market. If you are an inventor and feel like your invention is frozen in time, don’t despair. First off, remember that it’s human nature to stay where we feel the most comfortable. Maybe you are an idea person, and you love to come up with ideas. Perhaps you even have some sketched out on paper. Maybe you’re good at documentation, and have notes, drawings and files galore of your ideas. Maybe you are a “tinkerer” inventor, and you love to create and build. And you have a garage or basement of both finished and unfinished prototypes to prove it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with those things, as long as doing those things is what you want as your end result. If you want your invention to make money, however, you have to move to the next step, and the one after that, and so on, until you reach the finish line. It’s only natural to get stuck and feel intimidated by not knowing what to do next. We feel good in our own comfort zone where we know what we know and don’t have to worry about what we don’t know. When we’re confronted by the fear of the unknown, say, not knowing what to do after we’ve made a prototype, many times we just shut down. Here lies the crossroads of success and failure. Here is where it is so easy to become disenchanted with our original idea, and start on a new one. After all, there are usually so many new projects to choose from in the fertile, creative minds of inventors. And starting a new project will make us still feel like we’re moving forward, but still staying in our comfort zone, not having to push the limits, face any unknown or potentially hard terrain, or learn anything new. This is also where we can end up with a mountain of great invention projects, all unfinished, never seeing their true potential. How do we break free from this cycle? This is where information becomes power. It’s not easy, but you can learn what you need to do next. It’s not quick either, as the saying goes, we don’t use microwaves here; we use crock-pots. True successful inventing is a process, one you have to learn, apply to your situation and work on with the passion and intensity that you see in and learn from other successful inventors. You could also be at a point where you feel like you’ve made a mistake and think it’s “game over”. This may not necessarily be true. Sure, there are many times when you find out that you should walk away (the earlier you find this out the cheaper and better), but maybe you’ve just fell down and haven’t gotten back up yet. Maybe you’ve gotten out there and found out that inventing is not always as glamorous, easy and fun as you thought it ought to be. As any successful inventor will tell you, it’s not always rainbows and sunshine. It can many times be hard work. But you can never learn a new skill or accomplish anything without it. Maybe you feel like you have hit a dead-end, a roadblock where you are stopped by some element such as cost, skill or time. This is where successful inventors use their secret weapon: their ingenuity. By using the very talent that so many inventors posses in abundance, you may be able to find another route around the roadblock, one that puts you back on the road and sometimes, even ahead of the pack. Sometimes inventors feel they need to do it all themselves, and don’t want to let anyone else in. When these inventors hit a hurtle that they cannot clear by themselves, they get stuck and feel they can’t reach out for help. For most of us, at some point of the process we will need help in some area. This is where networking with others can be so crucial. Whatever may be holding you back from making the finish line, just remember that others who have run this race have made it, and so can you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Invent Like a MarineDecember 24th, 2009 Improvise, Adapt and Overcome As I’m writing this during the holidays, I am 3-fold reminded of what I found written on a fire department t-shirt a few weeks ago. I was later reminded that the quote “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome” is actually an unofficial mantra of the Marine Corps, based on the fact that the Corps was used to receiving Army hand-me-downs and traditionally the troops were poorly equipped. In spite of this perceived disadvantage, the Marine Corps has been successful mostly because of the creativity of it’s people and their success-based attitude. I believe this amazing capacity for creative thinking stems from a Marine’s utter drive and dedication towards accomplishing the mission, even when faced with what appear to be impossible odds. I mentioned that this reminder was 3-fold. After seeing this on the t-shirt, I remembered that the motto was made famous by Clint Eastwood in the movie “Heartbreak Ridge” (though it’s been around since well before the movie). Now that it’s the holidays, the thoughts of many of us are directed toward those serving our country in the all the branches of the armed forces around the globe, some in remote and hostile areas far away from their families. This convergence of reminders has got me to thinking about how we as inventors can take a cue from these military innovators, those that have a lot more on the line as they are thinking literally on their feet. Like the marines, inventors and entrepreneurs have a mission, a battle plan that hits the ground on an ever-changing landscape. For instance, this year we have watched a major change in the economic landscape. And as I have said before in other blogs and in meetings over the last year, this is not the time to go hide and stick our heads in the sand. Many have been forced to do more with less, while some of us have had limited resources to work with from the get-go. Marines, likewise, have historically had to do without. They are the smallest branch of the service and get an even smaller share of the DOD budget. But this has forced them to actually achieve more with less. It is so strongly infused into their being that they just expect to get short changed and still come out on top. They just develop an attitude of never letting a little adversity get in their way. Perhaps one or more fronts of your invention landscape has changed. Perhaps it’s your market: the people who would buy your invention now would not or wouldn’t buy for the same reasons they would last year. Perhaps it’s your resources and you have to find another way to get your prototype developed. Or perhaps you now have to find a new and different way to protect your IP (Intellectual Property). This is the part where you need to improvise. It may not be as pretty a route as you originally imagined, but sometimes it doesn’t matter how you got there, just that you did. When things look impossible, the marines get more creative. This is also a mantra we hear a lot here at the CKIC. Inventors are the innovators, and we are the people everyone looks to for creativity. While we nearly have this creativity in our blood, we sometimes get so focused on being creative on the front inventing end, we fail to realize that we can “adapt” this creativity to other areas of the inventing process. When faced with a shortage of materials, information or even time, what do you do? Do you give up? Just sit there and let everything come to a standstill? Or do you try to get more information and attempt to come up with a viable solution? Maybe the most important part of this mantra is to Overcome. This is part that describes our actions when we surmount an unexpected obstacle. The marines call this “accomplishing the mission”. This is that tenacity I see in inventors, many who have diminished resources, who become successful; and this is what I see missing in the inventors who have more resources that end up being unsuccessful. If there was one secret ingredient to successful inventing, this may be it. So when faced with a changing situation or one that seems nearly too big to tackle, just remember that you have a weapon at your disposal that many do not: your creativity. Here’s hoping you have a Merry Christmas and an innovative, prosperous 2010!------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Audacious InventorNovember 23rd, 2009 Why You Can’t Invent Something Unless It Will Work “I can’t change the laws of physics, Captain.” – Scotty to Captain Kirk, Star Trek. Unfortunately, we as inventors can't either. Every once and awhile, we here at the CKIC hear from inventors that have come up with something that is what you could call “over the top”. Something that, if it could be done, would be bigger than big. But herein lies the question that many who bring the next great world-changing, earth-shattering whatever to the table at the Inventors Workshop have yet to answer: Can you make it work? Or better yet: Have you made one and can you prove that it works? They say the proof is in the pudding, and in the world of inventing for not just fun but money, you’d better know how to cook. Or at least know the recipe and have someone ready who can and will cook it. In other words, if you are claiming you have an invention that will re-write the textbooks, you’d better have a working model that you can demonstrate. In legal terms, this is called reducing your invention to practice. In layman’s terms, this is called showing them you can do it. One thing you will hear repeated at the Inventors Workshop, where members can come and discuss their invention in a closed, protected format, is that if you say that you have invented a time machine, you need to bring it in and prove it. And while we’ve not gotten anyone who’ve come in to claim that distinction, some inventors have come in with what one would call “audacious” ideas. Not that there’s anything wrong with aiming high with your ideas and subsequent inventions. But you do have to have the ability to prove it. Now I’m not saying that every inventor needs to have a working model to bring in to the Inventors Workshop. In fact, we encourage inventors at every stage of his or her invention to come and share, ask questions and receive valuable input. This means it could be as advanced as a prototype, or as simple as a drawing or just an idea. What I am saying is that if you claim you can levitate, time-travel, or transmit matter over the telephone, you are going to need something more than just claiming you can do it. Enter physicist Ronald Mallett. A professor at the University of Connecticut, this brave innovator says he is developing a way to create the world’s first time machine (for subatomic particles). The proposed technology is based on a ring laser’s properties within the context of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. So Mallett’s plan is to use a laser to create a kink in the fabric of space and form a time loop. Mallett’s experiment would require a “ring laser” – a device reflected through a series of mirrors until it eventually hits itself. The space inside the ring laser would be dragged around, much like coffee being stirred by a spoon. According to Mallett, what would then occur is the formation of a “time loop: that would enable the sending of information to an earlier point in time. While we’ve only heard about Professor Mallett through the media, and while many people may have serious objections with his theories, you have to admit that he has certainly aimed high. But you have to note that he is on the right track as far as one point he makes: “the only way we’ll ever know is to conduct the experiment”, he says. Audacious? Yes, but my hat’s off to him anyway. While this may be the wildest idea I’ve ever heard from a university professor, he is going in the right direction in knowing that while you can theorize, you have to prove it, especially if you want someone to take you seriously. So remember, while you may not be able to break the laws of physics, sometimes, if you’re very, very clever, you may just find a way to bend them. Just be ready to prove it. So How’s Your Security System?November 1st, 2009 The Kind of “Obstacles” You May Need We’ve had a lot of really great programs at our annual Inventors Conference over the last 5 years, so I’m probably a little biased when I say that this year’s program was one of the best ever. But it sure felt like it was! If you missed our big annual event this month, you missed a lot: We learned about the great resources available right here in Lexington KY: Research on products, markets, etc. at the Central Public Library, business assistance from the KY Small Business Development Center, and of course all the things we do here at the CKIC! Sandwiched between this great information and the plethora of inventors, inventions, and service providers in the exhibits afterwards, we heard from a special keynote speaker: Louis Foreman. Louis is the publisher of Inventors Digest, executive producer of the Emmy award-winning PBS show Everyday Edisons, and author of the new book, “The Independent Inventor’s Handbook”. Louis gave a great presentation on the subject of inventing and inventors. Among the many great points that he made during his presentation, one of the subjects that he touched on during his time talking with us that really stuck with me was when he mentioned the value of patent protection. To paraphrase, he said that while patenting isn’t a foolproof way to protect your product from being copied, and that while even some inventions and their subsequent products are not good candidates for a patenting strategy, in many cases one should “put as many obstacles in the way of competitors that makes economic sense” to protect yourself in the market. I really liked the word “obstacles” that he used. I would liken this line of thinking to another analogy, one where you would picture your invention as a valuable piece of property that you are keeping in your home. You already know there are people out there that would like nothing more than to break into your house, find those valuables, and take them from you. This is why we lock our doors at night. The more you want to protect your valuables, the more you work and/or spend on keeping your home secure. The person who props a chair up under the doorknob of his home is going to have a different level of protection than the person who springs for the high-tech security system. But in any case, it stands to reason that the more deterrents you can put in someone’s way to get to your valuables, the less likely they’ll take the time, patience and energy to overcome those obstacles and get to your stuff. You may feel OK with just a good solid deadbolt on your outside doors that you install yourself. Or you may be the kind of person that does not feel safe unless you have a professional come in and install deadbolts along with several chain latches everywhere. Everyone is different with respect to the amount of work they’re willing to do themselves, what they’re willing to pay for and their safety comfort zone verses the level of risk they’re willing to take. Typically, an inventor will weigh factors such as cost, risk, and the resources they posses that range from skill, education, experience, and money to find their own personal sweet spot and make the wisest decision possible. And by the way, if all you have is an idea right now, it may not be as valuable as you think it is in its current form. This value, whether perceived or otherwise, is when you are making and selling your invention. This is when the market has sat up, taken notice and is responding. Unfortunately, so has the competition. This is where the true market value of your invention has increased and you have the greater potential of people wanting to copy your invention. So learn all you can, weigh all of your particular options and make the wisest choice you can with respect to your own intellectual property’s “security system”. The Pain of SerendipityOctober 6th, 2009 Finding the Best Opportunities Can Sometimes Be Painful While nitrous oxide was discovered in 1772, for decades the gas was considered as no more than a party toy. People knew that inhaling a little of it would make you laugh (hence the name “laughing gas”), and that inhaling a little more of it would knock you unconscious. But it had not occurred to anyone that a gas with such properties might be useful in, say, surgical operations. Enter dentist Horace Wells (no relation to H.G.). In 1844, 72 years after it’s discovery, Horace witnessed a mishap at one of those “nitrous” parties that gave him an idea. High on the gas, a friend of Wells fell and suffered a deep gash in his leg, but didn’t feel a thing. In fact, he didn’t know he’d been seriously injured until someone pointed out the blood pooling at his feet. Do I Cut the Red Wire or the Blue Wire?August 28th, 2009 Deciding Which Way to Go in the Invention Process You’ve probably watched this scene a thousand times on TV and at the Movies. They’ve found the bad guy’s “device”, the clock is ticking, and now all they have to do is disarm it. They open some panel, and there they are: the red and the blue wires. Of course, they also just so happen to conveniently have a pair of wire cutters, but now the tension rises as they are posed with the question everyone in the audience already knows. “Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?” One of these wires, if cut, will spell disaster. The other will save the day. But how to know which is the right one? In Hollywood, the scenario usually always plays out the same way. The hero will have several tense moments, followed by almost cutting the wrong wire and then at the last second, just before all is lost, cuts the right wire. This is usually followed by a happy, emotional scene and the rolling of the credits. So much for Hollywood. In the world of inventing, we are often faced with a “do I cut the red wire or the blue wire” dilemma. Do I have my invention/product manufactured and sell them myself or license it to someone? Do I sell direct to the end-user or through distributors? How sophisticated should I make my prototype? How much should I spend on patent protection? How much of the work should I do myself and how much should I hire to have done? The questions go on and on. And that countdown clock is ticking, too. The one that makes you worry that someone is going to scoop you and you’ll wake up some morning and see the product you thought of on TV (this is happened to many of us). Another one, ticking very loudly for many of us, is the countdown between the time we file a provisional patent and the 12 month deadline to file our non-provisional. While all this can seem almost as dramatic as the Hollywood scene described above, it’s a good bit different, especially when it’s real life, it’s you and it’s your money and time. We see a lot of these questions and a lot people faced with these same dilemmas at here at the CKIC. And unlike the red wire or the blue wire, the answers may depend on a number of different factors such as your industry, your situation and your invention itself. The best place to try and wrestle with these questions, I think, is our Inventors Workshop. The benefit of the Workshop (one of them, anyway) is that you don’t just talk with one person and get one person’s opinion, but you get a broad variety of information, viewpoints and expertise from a wide cross-section of people, professions and experience. There is another “red or blue wire” question that is also posed to many inventors, especially to those of us that are considered prolific inventors. And that is what project to work on next. Many seasoned inventors have ideas come to them all the time, to the point many of us have more ideas than we know we’ll ever have time to work on. So we have to pick and choose, which makes for another hard decision. Personally, I like to try and keep my ear to the ground, and find out what’s going on out there. For instance, in this current economic downturn, some inventions that were good opportunities may not be so much now, as others that were not good opportunities before could now be hot commodities. At any rate, when trying to find what the right thing to do is, I like to go back to an old proverb: “In a multitude of counselors there is safety”. Get the information you need to comfortably make a decision, and before the clock ticks down to zero, cut the right wire!"Invent, Baby, Invent!"
August 1st, 2009 Yes, we are in a down economic climate right now, and if you follow the news-lemmings of the world, you will most likely go hide in your cave and try to “ride it out”, waiting for someone else to do something to change the economic climate and make everything all better. As inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs, I think this is where we could make a really stupid mistake. Thomas Friedman made a statement a few months ago saying that instead of chanting “drill, baby, drill”, we should be saying “invent, baby, invent”. I should also mention that in the context of his statement, Friedman also maintained that he did believe we should drill here and drill now, trying to take his statement out of the political partisan rhetoric realm (I would hope) and rather emphasize an issue that is above divisive politics, and an absolute imperative of United States right now: inventing and innovation. To further paraphrase Friedman, (if you’ve not read his book, “The World is Flat”, I highly recommend it) history is full of examples where recessions have been a time when new companies, innovations and inventions are born. These inventions become successful by distinctly separating themselves from their competition. When times are tight, people look for new, less expensive ways to do old things. This necessity breeds invention. We won’t stimulate ourselves into prosperity; we have to invent our way there. There has of late been way too much talk of minting dollars and way too little about minting the next Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jerry Yang and Bill Joy. Jeff Immelt, the chief of General Electric, said in a speech a few weeks ago that this moment is “an opportunity to turn financial adversity into national advantage, to launch innovations of lasting value to our country.” I am validated and more than a little heartened to hear people like Friedman and Immelt echo both what we have been thinking here in our little corner of the inventing world all this year, and to the point where we have made it our theme for this year’s Inventors Conference. The theme for our annual Inventors Conference this year, in case you’ve not heard yet, is “A Climate of Opportunity”, and aptly named, I think, for inventors in this year of 2009. This year, both at our Inventors Conference and overall, opportunities don’t just exist, they abound. So if you are an inventor, this is not a time for you to hang your head down thinking now that times are bad, your opportunity has passed you by. This IS your opportunity. Don’t miss it! Bernie Madoff Has Nothing On These GuysJuly 1st, 2009
When we think of these kinds of scams, we tend to think of Wall Street and investors with large portfolios. But scams that can take you for your hard-earned money can be a little closer to home. Actually, they can be a lot closer to home. Let me give you the example that was the inspiration for this blog: A couple of meetings ago, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with an inventor that was visiting us for the first time. In the course of our conversation, this young man shared his story of contacting one of those “invention promotion firms” that advertise on late night TV and radio. Not to get into any details, his story was so typical of so many inventors we’ve seen here at the CKIC, tragically all too late: they took several thousand dollars from him and basically did little to nothing for it. According to the USPTO, invention promotion scams cost inventors $200 million annually, conning about 25,000 inventors in the process. “The problem is”, according to Richard Maulsby, director of public affairs for the USPTO, “is companies that prey on inventors and would-be entrepreneurs, collecting thousands of dollars from them up-front for all sorts of inflated -- sometimes impossible -- promises. Typically, inventors spend between $10,000 and $20,000 on such services, only to wind up with disappointing results.” Unfortunately, for inventors, “Bernie” is still out there. He’s on TV, radio and the internet, trying to get you to call or email in for your “free information”. He’s emailing you, trying to look like one of us, trying to win your trust and get you to send him your money. He’ll tell you anything and everything you want to hear about your invention – how it’s great, how they’ve got buyers lined up ready to buy your invention, and how the only thing holding the deal up is for you to just send another $200, $500 or $1,000. Now with that said, on the other hand don’t let paranoia take over and start thinking everyone is out to cheat you over your invention. There are a lot of good, no, great resources out there that can really help inventors. Ones that can realistically tell you the truth (good, bad and ugly) about your invention’s chances and the real work (yes, you need to work to make it happen) it will take. You just have to keep your eyes open and know what to look out for. As we’ve said so many times before, don’t manage by abdication. You have to take control, not leaving someone else to do everything. So many invention scam companies tout themselves as a company where you can just let them do it all for you. Of course, a great way to find reliable resources is to educate yourself and network with other good inventors at places like right here at the CKIC. If you know what you really need to do, and are hanging around successful inventors and watching what they are doing, you’ll be able to spot Bernie a lot better, sometimes from a long way off. May 28th, 2009 Dead ReckoningFinding where you are, where you want to be, and how to get there. A good friend of mine, and CKIC alumnus Rob Voorhees (inventor of the SureStay and the 10 Dimensions of Wealth) tells in his money-management seminars that in order to be successful, you need to “know where you are, where you want to be, and how you’re going to get there”. Not too long after hearing that proverbial gold nugget, I stumbled across a somewhat obscure term called “Dead Reckoning”. The term dates back from the 17th century, as seafaring navigators estimated their positions of their ships based solely on speed, direction of travel and time elapsed since their last known position. I am told it is still used some today by both sailors and aviators. As inventors, many times we need to do a little “dead reckoning” in our invention process. This brings me to the first part of Rob’s quote, to “know where you are”. Where are you in the process of bringing your idea to a marketable invention? The best way to start is to look at the steps like the ones we outlined this month and see what step you are on. Then find our what your next step needs to be. Now comes the hard part: to begin working on where you need to be, that next step. Now let’s say that you find that you aren’t skilled or just don’t like the work involved in the next step. You may want to research, quote and pay a reputable someone (with good references) to do the work of that next step for you. Personally, I hate painting. I would rather have someone hit me with the broad side of a shovel as have to paint. And I’m not really very good at it. Whenever I did have the misfortune to try and paint myself, I would usually get more paint on every other object (including myself) than whatever it was I was suppose to paint. So when I need painting done, I call a professional painter. But here’s the important point to this: when I call the painter, I’d better know who I want, what I want, how I want it done and what a fair price would be, that is if I don’t want to risk ending up paying way too much for a shoddy job that in the end I’ll greatly regret. This could not be stressed as of any less importance for the process of inventing. The painter is also going to ask me questions: What rooms do I want painted? What color? Flat or high gloss? Latex or enamel? Roller or brush? So learn all you can learn about what your next step needs to be and do your homework. Learn it and know well enough so you can confidently talk to people about it. Then you can do the “how you’re going to get there” part with a much reduced risk of failure, getting ripped off or both. Our seafaring friends of the 17th century also knew that they were embarking on a long journey, not just a short trip. Likewise, inventing is not a get-rich-quick proposition: we don’t use microwave ovens here, we use crock-pots. The steps that an inventor needs to take to be truly successful are not quick and many times not easy, but the results can be very rewarding on a number of levels. Avoiding the Inventor’s “Powerball” TrapMay 1st, 2009
It is said that the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot is about 1 in 195 million. Yet millions of people continue to pay more and more money chasing one dream, living on nothing more than hope that they will be that one in 195 million. Even though you may know of someone who did actually win in the lottery, my personal philosophy remains that while it’s not impossible to win, it’s really, really close! Whatever your opinion on the lottery, I believe that there are some parallels and an important lesson we can learn, one that can keep us from the trap of what I call the “Powerball” mentality when it comes to inventing. So you’ve done it; you’ve invented the next great whatever. This is your baby, an idea that you gave birth to that is actually taking a form and shape! What an exciting adventure you are on! And because of all this, you are pouring your heart and soul into it. Mind you, these things are not bad within themselves. In fact they are very good things, and most times part of the necessary elements that can lead to success. But there is a pitfall to watch out for. While you need dedication, passion and drive among many other things that are necessary to bring your idea to fruition (many of which we’ll be talking about in our May meeting), don’t fall victim to the idea that this is the one and only ticket you will ever have to fame and fortune. And by the way, if you’re looking for a get-rich-quick route for inventing, you’re in the wrong place. We don’t sell microwave ovens here; we sell crock-pots. Successful inventors are in it for the long haul. And while you have to keep that thought in the back of your mind that while you are on this journey, there may be some turns in the road. Your current vision for your invention may not be what it actually turns out to need to be in the real world. Or (perish the thought!) you may even end up finding that your original idea was merely a step to something much bigger and better. Your current idea or invention may lead you to something completely different that may lead you to something else that may lead you to another thing that may lead you to the best invention you never knew you’d think of. Most successful inventors have had more than one idea. If you’re a seasoned inventor, you know what I mean. One idea seems to beget another, until after a while they start reproducing like rabbits! I’ve got a file I call my “idea bin” that keeps getting thicker and thicker with ideas for projects and inventions, many of which I know I will never be able to get to in my lifetime. The good part of this, though, is I always have a lot of ideas to choose from when it’s time to look at a new project. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t want to be moving from one idea to the next every other week. I’m not saying that. You need to be focused on what you’re doing in order to succeed. What I am saying is that you have to be open to new opportunities as they present themselves to you. There is a balance that has to be maintained between focus and openness: On the one hand you don’t want to “invention-hop”, as it will never give you enough focus to spend the needed energy to bring life to any one idea. On the other, however, you don’t want to wind up like those people in the lottery line, either, hanging on to that one idea even when logic dictates that it may be time to look to a more promising project. Regardless of whether your first idea is a smashing success or just doesn’t work out at all, it doesn’t mean that you should stop there. The more times you work through the invention process, the more you learn and the sharper your skills become. Unlike the lottery, the more you play at this game, the better you get as more of the risk is spread out. In inventing, one idea doesn’t have to be your only chance for success. What Speed Is Your Invention Traveling At?March 31st, 2009 As you may have noticed, we have had a lot of new and exciting things happening just lately at the CKIC. Last month, we were selected for a beta test program that offered free training and submission in the new USA National Innovation Marketplace from Planet Eureka. This coming Saturday (April 4th) a new business accelerator, Awesome, Inc., is holding a “Startup Saturday – Inventions in a Day” where our inventors are invited to an event where engineers, idea people, and tinkerers of all types will try to go from idea to prototype in a day, learning and networking in the process. Then at our following monthly Open Meeting on Tuesday, April 7th, Ron Reardon, President of the United Inventors Association is traveling to Lexington to speak to us.
How Do I Know If I Have a Good Idea?February 24th, 2009 There are a couple of quotations; one of which is mentioned all too frequently by inventors, and another that is mentioned far too few times. The overused and often misinterpreted one goes: “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your doorstep!” The one that is not used enough but bears repeating, is by Thomas Edison: “Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. I think Edison had it right. And if you’re trying to find out if your invention is truly a good idea, it involves just that – perspiration! I’m talking about the kind of perspiration that involves hours of study, learning, research, phone calls, and long roads that lead to dead ends, making you start all over again down another uncertain road. It basically involves long, boring hard work. The kind of work that involves patience and discipline, as it can be not much fun much of the time. Of course there are good parts: the rewards can be exciting, and sometimes the invention process road can be sort of an adventure. But it’s those boring parts that usually trip us up along the way and get us stuck. Think of it this way – the idea is, well, just an idea. The record of it is a blueprint, but the building is not built until all the other work and construction is completed. So learn what you need to know and then do what you need to do. You can start the learning, connecting and idea feedback from our meetings and workshops, respectively. Impartial research and feedback are so important when you are trying to find out if your idea will fly in the real world. And there are a lot of resources out there. If you’ve not been to a CKIC Inventors Workshop, it’s also a great way to get honest feedback on your idea and what directions you can go with it. Many people think of their idea as their baby. Even when we try not to do it, we sometimes just can’t help it. And nobody likes to be told that their baby is ugly. But if we truly want to get honest opinions about the validity of our ideas, we need to go where we know they will tell us if our baby is ugly. This is so important for the value of our time and money, as we don’t want to miss the right road of a good idea by continuing down the wrong one. This Is Our Shining MomentJanuary 27th, 2009I have an old book I keep around that was written sometime in the early 80’s, I think. The title goes something like, “The Coming Great Depression of the 1989”. In spite of whatever the book actually talks about, I’ve been keeping this book with the panic-stricken title around as a reminder of something I think is now becoming fairly current.
It’s Alive! Building the “Frankentype”January 3rd, 2009 So there you were, in your garage, tinkering with this and that and then, eureka! You may have even had a vision from the old Frankenstein movie where the doctor exclaims, “It’s alive! It’s alive!”. So many of us have been there. Are You Inoculated Against the New "Bird Flu"?November 28th, 2008 It’s been a little while since my last blog, but I think I have a good excuse. For those of you who didn’t hear, I was at a meeting in Pittsburgh in late September, which for me is the start of a very busy time of year with a lot of important annual meetings, including our Inventors Conference, which was then just around the corner. So there I was, getting ready to leave my hotel room and go help set up for an exhibit booth, when something just “popped” in my back, causing severe pain and losing the use of my foot. By the time I got home from the conference, realizing that there was something seriously wrong, I went to the doctor and the next thing I knew I was being wheeled into an operating room (the last time for me was getting my tonsils out at 6) for spinal surgery. Foregone was all my meetings, plans and schedule for the next several months, and of course not making the Inventors Conference that I had worked on and was so looking forward to. From what I’ve been told, I missed the best conference we’ve turned out yet. Can You Believe It?August 26th, 2008 The Inventors Conference is Now Only 6 Weeks Away!
You can always start to feel it around this time of year. While summer is still upon us, our eye catches just a few glimpses here and there that hints of a change of seasons: a few fallen leaves where there was none before, school buses rolling down the road as school starts, and every so often a break from the “dog days” heat that seems to have just the slightest touch of cool in the air. It’s these hints for me to know that what I term as my “hectic time of year” is not far around the corner, and in many ways already gearing up. For me this is a time of trade shows, meetings, and of course our annual Inventors Conference, which we have actually been planning and working on since the spring. Juggling and the Business of InventingJuly 29th, 2008 For some time now, I have been in the search for the perfect (for me) activity/exercise: something that’s quick, fun, lightweight and travels well. After a search of several different activities, including going as far as asking for advice from one of our members who is a retired recreational therapist, I finally settled on something that so far seems to stick: juggling. This is certainly something that is not for everybody and probably even something that sounds kind of odd to most people, but hey, we inventors do seem to run upstream with most everything. So far I’m just getting the hang of the beginners level of juggling scarves (plus it’s more aerobic than balls), but while I am still learning, and might not ever be good enough to be seen juggling in public, in the process of learning this new pastime I found myself drawing some comparisons to this time-honored art and the worlds of inventing and business. Here are some comparisons I observed: Are You Thinking Like a Tapper or a Listener?June 25th, 2008 (Is the Message of Your Invention Really Getting Across to Others?) Football, Orange Groves and the Business of InventingApril 28th, 2008  My Dad used to tell me this story of when he played football at a high school in a small eastern Kentucky town in the 1950's. But first some background: My Dad had become something of a football legend in his hometown. Once returning for a reunion decades later, one elderly gentleman told him that the most exciting football he had ever watched, professional, college and otherwise, was when he watched my Dad on the field in high school. My Dad had made Kentucky All-Star, and had earned nicknames such as "greased lightning". But such was not always so. When he first made the team, he spent most of his first season on the bench. The coach, as well as many other observers, thought he was just didn't have the natural build and bulk to be competitive on the field. "Those other boys will break your legs", was the kind of jaunts he would hear. However, during the summer months, he would implement a plan that would change things dramatically. You see my Grandfather owned orange groves down in Florida, and would take the family down there each summer, tending to the groves. During those summers in a 1950's Florida, you would have found my Dad in those orange groves, and it would have been a peculiar sight. What he would do is run directly at an orange tree, then just before making contact he would cut and change direction, moving to the left or the right of the tree. He practiced this over and over and over again, until he was able to develop the skill of actually accelerating on the cut. In telling me this story, he said that he got to the point where he could feel the edges of the leaves on the trees brushing the sides of his arms on the cut. The next fall arrived, and with it the start of football season. The day finally arrived that my Dad was put onto the field and subsequently intercepted a pass, taking the ball and heading toward the goal posts. What happened next became football history for that high school. He would run directly at the opposing team players, boys of mammoth stature and frame compared to my Dad, all meaning to mow him down in short order. To their utter shock and surprise he would come right at them, then would cut away, accelerating on the cut. Just as in the orange groves, he could feel the edges of their fingers brushing his arms as they reached out for him. He did this again and again, rushing his way to the goal and making a winning touchdown. He did not possess the size and strength of those he was going toe-to-toe with. So what was it gave him the ability to win over those literally crushing odds? First, he was creative. Spending those summers in Florida, he could have just worried about the next season, or become despondent and just quit. He could have tried to play by the same "rules" as everyone else, done all the same things as his opponents (and teammates), tried to compete as is and would have most likely failed. Instead he got to thinking about what he had or could do that they did not. What he came up with was something no one else was doing, something that he could do, and something that would even the playing field. The other thing he did was practice. He was not born with this talent. If he had only thought about doing it, he would have failed. If he had only practiced when he felt like it, or not had practiced enough, he would have also failed. But he did practice, again and again and then again. He practiced until he could feel the edges of the leaves just barely brushing the edges of his upper arms knowing, and correctly so, that the same would be true with the enormous linebackers coming at him out on the field. As inventors, I think we can learn a lesson from this story of a young high school football player all those years ago. As independent inventors, we sometimes face crushing odds in the marketplace. Competitors, like those mammoth linebackers, are coming at us, and they are a lot bigger than we are. We don’t have their resources. We don’t have a lot of things that they have. But we can get creative. We can think as creatively (and many times even more so) than those big guys. And once we figure out how to even that playing field and give ourselves that needed edge over the competition, we need to practice. Even if we are to farm this work out to another, we need to be so intimately familiar with it that we can communicate, implement and work with others in a way that fosters a successful venture, not to “manage by abdication”, which generally leads to certain failure. If there is a skill we’re lacking in any of the steps necessary to become a successful inventor, we need to find out what that is, how to do it and then practice it over and over and over and over again. And then we need to practice some more. This practice can be empowering. Once you become savvy or skilled at a new core competency, you own it. You also no longer fear it. Uncertainty, fear and confusion are rendered null and void. Those big boys coming at you can’t break your legs if they reach out and can only brush your upper arms with the edges of their fingers. And you can’t fear them if you know that. So get creative and practice! And practice until you can feel the edges of those leaves brushing the sides of your arms. My Dad once told me that he could take all that he gained by playing football, add a dollar and it would buy him a cup of coffee. I beg to differ. |
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