Robert,
That is a great insight. I knew C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien were friends, but I did not know “the rest of the story”. Thanks!

That’s right Micheal – EN is kind of like “Cheers” or some kind of inventor’s pub. I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia), J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), Dorothy Sayers (Poirot), and others, who used to gather as an informal group called “The Inklings” at a pub called the “Eagle and Child” (“Bird and Baby”) in Cambridge to read their new stories to each other and enjoy the company of the like-minded – but they actually did their writing in isolation.

Often times the creative journey of distant thought cannot accommodate the pleasure of company. It is an unnavigated path and more than not, there is no path at all.
EN is like the market place of the weary traveler, where one comes to bring the spoils of their hunt and to share in their adventures. We celebrate in our stories and experiences before again striking out on our independent ways…

Ha, ha Jim – you’ve got that right.

Good observations, Robert. For the sake of its ambitous members, I hope Quirky does attain some level of success. They definitely put the b.s. back into brainstorming though.

Jim: it’s even worse than that – having participated in Quirky for 6 months or so it’s clear to me that the “community” is simply a marketing gimmick for Quirky. An “inventor” may suggest a “wish” for a product (“wouldn’t it be cool if…”) but it is Quirky’s staff that actually reduces the wish to practice (which they don’t do particularly well). Right now a top vote-getter in the current round at Quirky is a guy whose whole idea is “Take the ‘Crayola Crayon Maker’ and make it better and safer” – that’s it – he offers no specifics about how to make this existing product better but the “community” at Quirky is ecstatic at his “invention”. My conclusion is that “the crowd” is stupid (and also suborned and venal).

So back on topic – I contend that creative brainstorming does NOT happen on crowd-sourcing sites like Quirky. I find www.halfbakery.com more useful for that.

Edison Nation engages in ‘proud’ crowd-sourcing where they work in conjunction and harmony with companies seeking solutions (product ideas) from outside sources, such as from a proven and valid community of inventors. Quirky.com does ‘out loud’ crowd-sourcing where they hide behind a community of non-inventors to come up with and broadcast invented or contrived solutions to problems other companies and consumers don’t see as problems! So it’s really a matter of how the ‘crowd’ is being employed.

@Bob – I agree with you 100% about Quirky.

See my #5 creativity technique above “misapprehension”. Like you I find Quirky useful (as I do notcot and stumbleupon) to trigger creativity. Sometimes a valid PROBLEM is identified (but no real solution); sometimes the form of the solution suggests a completely unrelated idea.

@Sherri – as you know EN is more a “sole-sourcing” site – a place the “lone inventor” can go to make invention accessible AND get expert help in evaluating and hopefully developing their idea. Perhaps EN could do more in terms of marketing to differentiate themselves from the failure of these public-disclosure “mob-sourcing” sites.

I thought it was kinda strange to read that Edison Nation was classified as a crowd-sourcing site in last month’s Inventor’s Digest??? http://www.inventorsdigest.com/archives/7256

EN really isn’t a crowdsourcing site as all the other members do not know/provide any input in to our private submissions for the search sponsors. It’s no wonder some new folks come here confused and think that they are supposed to share their ideas right in the open forums????

Quirky.com is a prime example of ‘brainstorming problems in a domain’. The problem of course is it’s the ‘public’ domain!

I suppose there are a range of problems submitted that are looking for a good solution. Which of course isn’t the same as an over-priced, under-protected, over-designed partial solution.

I find brainstorming problems in a domain works better for me. If someone is already solving on it and has posted it somewhere, I just don’t find myself generating the same amount or quality of ideas. My engines seem to fire strongest when I feel like I am addressing something novel and unexpected.

Thanks, Jane, after I posted that it kinda resonates for me; I may just make that as a sign for my workshop.

And thanks Kevin for the positive nudge for Michael’s awesome thread.

Bob, when you review the ‘jumble’ of ideas posted at Quirky.com looking for a ‘tangentially related real idea’, aren’t you falling into the same trap they’ve made for themselves? If it’s not a trap, then it’s still thinking inside the same Quirky box!

Speaking of crowd-sourcing, I’ve been looking at Quirky lately and am amazed at the low average of quality of suggested products there. The vast majority of entries fall into

- “I wish there was a …” which isn’t an invention, it’s at most a ‘need’.
- Something that already exists…people just don’t do market research. 2 minutes spent with Google Patents would eliminate most of these.
- Something which even a tiny bit of engineering or legal knowledge would rule out as couldn’t or shouldn’t be done.
- The same things over and over….iPad or smart phone covers and stands, “new” outlet strips, and so on.
- Very nichy things
- My favorites – Perpetual motion machines. I can’t tell if these people are serious or kidding.

Apparently Crowd Souring (or at least Quirky) wishes to find a few diamonds among all the ‘rough’ above, and then hope that if enough hands hold it, it will somehow get polished. But looking at the end products that show up there, I’m not seeing much that I’d characterize as “I wish I thought of that.”

I am finding Quirky valuable though as a spark for my own ideas. If I can sift through all the ‘jumble’ it does make me look at things in ways I would not have previously considered. On occasion I’ve found ‘ideas’ there where my reaction has been “no no no you’ve got it all wrong” and realized that I’ve come up with a tangentially related real idea.

[ That last paragraph gets back on the track of “is it brain-storming?” ]

I love what Greg said… “If necessity is the mother of invention, then I’m thinking curiosity may be the father.”

The crowd thing is too crowded for me, but I realize some have made money that way.
Groups can work if the ground rules are clear and everyone knows they are valued and respected— even better if everyone feels a deep sense of friendship. I like the back and forth we have in Talva. The email discussions sometimes happen rapid-fire and the ideas are entered right away. Other times ideas simmer while we search and re-design, draw, search some more, write and re-write. Some of those aren’t ready to submit for weeks… and some are just let go if the group isn’t excited about them. Some are dropped immediately if our searches find items that are too close. I’ve never sensed any hard feelings when that happens. We just keep going.

While I absolutely respect ALL of your respective inventing expertise, I have a bad feeling about this “discussion” stealing a thread many have enjoyed. You know, guys?

Gizmo as you stated in MOST cases this would be true, but they still have the option of suing for that credit and portion of the pie. Which in most cases would leave the potential licensing company with a bad taste for the hassle and drop the project rather than deal with the lawsuit and infighting that it would cause and also the possible mark on the companies reputation by being associated with the lawsuit.

Roger your statement below is easy to answer. In most cases the 7th person would not be a co-inventor for picking a color unless the color had something to do with the inventions function…… It still doesnt stop them from trying to sue the other 6 people/inventors.

My issue with crowd sourcing is the lack of value people can contribute to the final product but still get credit for being part of the group. If 6 of you worked out the bugs for a new type of can opener and the 7th person of the group suggested the color of the final product did they contribute enough to have added value to he product and earn the credit to be called one of its Inventors?

Would a Telebrands,Inventors Organization or any other company holding an Inventors Day audition be considered “Public Disclosure” ???

It’s worse than that Roger,

These sites have very real legal issues when it comes to using them. Disclosure, Co-inventor, and the fact that many companies will not license a product that has been listed on one simply because they don’t want to risk their investment to some co-inventor claim down the road.

It’s slick, and cool, and even fun – but inventing is not a team sport, and sites like these can do you far more harm than good.

My issue with crowd sourcing is the lack of value people can contribute to the final product but still get credit for being part of the group. If 6 of you worked out the bugs for a new type of can opener and the 7th person of the group suggested the color of the final product did they contribute enough to have added value to he product and earn the credit to be called one of its Inventors?

Thank you, Michael and Jane. It’s exciting to work with a great company with a cool point of view. I learned as an employee I’ll have free access to their archive, which at the very least means watching any episode of “How It’s Made” with my son anytime we want.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then I’m thinking curiosity may be the father.

Lisa, I think it would be pretty wild to have a group of like-minded inventors in a think tank together. A couple of times over the years I’ve been in a design meeting where the stars aligned and everyone was in synch and the productivity and flow is like nothing else. In an hour or two a whole software product had come together. When it was over, I was exhausted and exhilerated.

Robert, yea, I’m glad I had an experience with the crowd mode, fast-tracked some learning for me. But ultimately I came to a very similar conclusion.

Great input…I love the fact that I can read and agree with every thought that all of you have brought forth.
It is a free and bold spirit that flies fearlessly amongst our unformed thoughts. Forming, shaping, discarding, reshaping and creating.
As creators we are compelled to not only create outcomes, but the environments from which they come…it is an inherent part of us and us of them. Innovation is truly a food of our daily thought.

Greg, Congratulations on your permanent position and congratulations to your employer for getting you!

I’m convinced that “crowd-sourcing” (Quirky, Genius Crowds, etc.) is a failure when it comes to true innovation. Most of these are (I suspect) cynically using crowd-sourced inventing merely as a marketing gimmick for second-rate blah products. I believe the spark of inspiration is an INDIVIDUAL thing (just look at the ways we on this thread come up with our ideas). That “spark” seems to be incidental and idiosyncratic – not the result of an ordered program directed at creativity. I’m reminded of the Beck’s Beer commercial: “Germans don’t do relaxation well (but they do beer well)” (in the background a drill-sergent-type shouts “relaxation is achieved through intense mental concentration – commence relaxation NOW!”)

Our creativity is not always rational and certainly not always popular. We inventors see the world differently and sometimes we need to be a little crazy to continue to champion those ideas AGAINST the crowd. We are on the whiskers of the bell curve and real creativity will never happen in the popular center. Kuhn demonstrated this concept decisively in his “The Structure of Scientific Revolution” and W.V.O. Quine showed how cognitively we can’t hope to break out of our received paradigms (webs of belief) unless we radically shift perspective.

The crowd is safe and sane and boring – it’s on the individual level that we take risks, dream crazy dreams, and come up with exciting new ideas in our own individual, idiosyncratic ways.

Of course sometimes our ideas are crap or they are really crazy, so we need some trusted friends (like EN) to tell us this hard truth.

Because of fundamental structural reasons (the way rewards for innovation are apportioned etc.) and essential human nature and cognition the “crowd” with its herd mentality will never be a wellspring of true innovation.

Thanks a bunch, Frank… should make you explain to my son why daddy is reading a web site all day Saturday instead of playing with him…eh… I’ll let you off the hook cause we had fun exploring Google moon for strange objects together a few weeks ago.

I went to the website behind that video, http://cognitive-edge.com/ and they have a really interesting, smart angle on organizational creativity/innovation. Some of it dovetails with areas I’ve been exploring. Definitely worth some reading.

Cheers

p.s. Jane, I just saw your post slipped in. It’s Discovery Communications, the folks who do the Discovery Channel, Science Channel, Animal Planet, etc. Been a contract worker with them since June.

Greg, I can’t help but ask where and say congrats! I hope that you will be content and have fun. Needed to ask, just to satisfy my curiosity :) I just read your post below and think that those are very impressive companies to be with…you are blessed (especially in times as these) best to you!

Here’s an interesting prospective….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlmesbbPqtU

My ideas come to me at any time of the day. I could be driving, eating, studying, or even laying down to sleep. If an idea comes up, I quickly jot it down, even if I’m in bed. I have a bad short term memory, so it has to go to paper or plugged into the Iphone right when I come up with it. I then continue to think about it and draw out a quick sketch along with some notes about what to include, change, etc. I also like to browse store aisles and think of ways to improve an existing product, plus it helps inspire me for new ideas.

Lisa – I think that’s the “inventor” mind at work. I’m almost never bored: driving, in a waiting room, whatever we can always imagine how to improve stuff (or replace stuff).

I forgot – another technique I use is to collect “solutions in search of a problem”. So I pay attention to developments in basic technologies and especially in materials science. For example I LOVE stuff like Aerogel and Nitinol wire. I can spend hours browsing inventables.com or even the aisles at Home Depot. Sometimes even antiques can provide awesome inspiration (everything old is new again and we can often be victims of our “chronological snobbery”).

I agree Robert! I look at almost everything and wonder what could I do to “Vamp” the thing. Not working outside the box – but, working along its edge so to speak.

Yes, neat thread. :)

Neat thread.

I use a couple of different techniques:

1. Sense deprivation – I lie down in a dark room and visualize a solution (sometimes this turns into a nap). It’s like mental CAD.

2. Play – I sit down and play with existing products and prototypes – manipulate and hack them until I come up with a solution

3. Lists – I use Patrick Gunkel’s creativity technique involving word lists

4. Reverse Engineering – Like Greg I come up with a science-fiction solution and then figure out how it works

5. Misapprehension – I use notcot.org and stumbleupon.com, Google Images and other visual prompts – often I find a thing that LOOKS like it does something I want (but doesn’t) and I’ve got the seed of an idea

I hear you Greg…I think of stuff all the time like that. I so wish we all could throw our ideas in a circle and talk, laugh, think tank them and see what shows up. Wouldn’t that be something? Perhaps someday. :)

(.5 mg atropine)

Great thread, thought I pop it back up. Was submitting my Irwin tools and thought about another way I go about finding a solution. I do a magical thinking. Instead of solving directly, I’ll describe the perfect magical device for a situation and then try to figure out how to make that.

For example a can opener: I want a magical device that I set on the can and push a button and it opens the can without making a mess.

Curious if anyone else sometimes starts with “a magical device that…”

Speaking of curious… come Monday I’ll be a permanent employee of a company whose mission statement is: “To Satisfy Curiosity”

Thanks Kevin, this has been fun…and thanks for your input as well!

Agreed Michael…this has been a thoroughly enjoyable thread. There have been others kinda similar in the past, but I believe your setup and particular spin on it was admirable!

Thanks Patricia, you really have a beautiful way with words…the creativity and sincerity is what makes this place so special!
Fairin, kindred spirits is well said!
Charlie, that is funny, I suppose as inventors, we have to second our own motions once in a while…thanks.
Don, working with kids is always an honorable and enlightening prospect. When children are involved, we all learn.

Really good stuff everybody… Thanks again! ;-)

Beautiful Don, I love love the power and innocence of those little minds, free to be and that which shapes their tomorrows …

Truly a magnificent group here, your skills and talents continue to amaze me .. But your generosity to share willing, without hesitation to help a friend grow just a bit more takes my breathe away …

Its like Ralph said – it starts with a problem. My wife and kids tell me about everyday problems and then I come up with solutions – pretty simple really. My mind gets bored, like Fairin, and I need to put it to work. My ideas don’t always result in marketable solutions. I taught a grade school class one time about inventing and showed them some of mind and talked about the problems they solved. The kids were then asked to think of problems in their life and come up with some “inventions” to solve the problem. One of my favorite was the kid who invented the internet to help him with his homework.

Michael, I second my own motion..nice forum!
Thank you Farin (bless you)…..sharing our gifts, is the only way to be for this world.

Michael says…. What makes us want to spend our moments in such a state of mind? How is it that we take so much pleasure in creating?
All I know is that we do…and sharing this gift makes it even greater!

It is soooooooooooo awesome for me to be here…. KINDRED SPIRIT to say the least… ALL of us… the creative nature that makes CHANGE happen… i love it…

THANK YOU EVERYONE !!! for being WHO WE ARE !!!!

xxooxxooxxoxoxoxoxo OMG a mushy moment !!! HAR !!!!!!!!!

Great story Greg. The Micronauts remind me of the Bionicles that my kids have played with for years (lego). A monthly comic book would come in the mail to advertise the next greatest thing to buy…I ended up building a 4′ × 4′ play table to house the thousands of pieces. Lego’s have been a cornerstone in my kids creative thinking skills.
Even though you burned out on the comics, perhaps they lent to your ability to see with the mind’s eye…
I think it’s cool that you and your Dad shared that…maybe he’s back into it again because it reminds him of the times that he spent with you. ;-)

Michael, nope on comics ( I have maybe fifty laying around,) I started collecting them when I was seven, pretty much spent all my allowance on them. When I was eleven, my dad and I were at a flea market and I had picked out like ten comics from a box at a table. My dad came along and offered the guy a price for the whole box of 200 or so. Within three months he had bought many thousands more and we went to flea markets and sold them.

I read the heck out of them all, but it’s like that working in a chocolate factory thing. I burnt out on them. He’s been in an out of comics ever since then, recently at 69 he just started up again through E-Bay having bought another 30k books. Worse thing: he doesn’t read them, ever, any of them.

More than any of the comics, I sometimes reflect on Micronauts which was a comic and incredibly cool construction and building kits:
http://www.micro-outpost.com/pictures/city/city...

Wow, It seems I learn something every day about the amazing and diversified talents we have here at EN!
Roger, Your writing career has obviously been an influence in not only your creative abilities, but your disciplines as well.
Greg, do you still have your comics and do you ever refer back or reflect back to them in any way?
Fairin, when you refine your ideas into EN submissions, I believe at that point you are an inventor!
Andrea, I believe thinking in pictures is almost essential to the brain storming process…nothing weird there…I don’t think…
Richard, not hiding from the facts is a really good point! If you don’t find them, they will eventually find you.
Roger, I do the pick a topic technique as well, but probably not as often as I used to, do to EN picking them now. ;-)
Jane, what can I say…I can see the Brainado at work already! The Brainado is awesome!
Ralph, totally out of the box thinking…these are where the breakthroughs come into play! I love to think that way…but can’t always find my way back. Worth every minute of it!
Julie, do you still practice your art? It is so interesting to see all these talents revealed.

Everybody here seems to share not only great talents, but an amazing sense of discipline. A discipline that is not always shared by others.
What makes us want to spend our moments in such a state of mind? How is it that we take so much pleasure in creating?
All I know is that we do…and sharing this gift makes it even greater!

Greg, I still have about 8,000 comics myself. I used that same out of the box thinking when I worked in the nuclear industry for 20 years. I was able to devise a number of inventions that saved the company labor time and reduced waste. As you can see from this article on the Super Sleever I invented, it saved them roughly 4 million a year in reduced waste. http://www.p2pays.org/ref/14/13978.htm That device is what made me start looking outside the company and doing inventing full time.

Ralph, I think you are safely ensconced on the other side from object serialization. There may be a surer path in making a can opener that requires 20% less force to use, but I too want to make break-through ideas.

Neat background Roger, hope you have that in your book’s intro. I always find it interesting trying to figure out where things come from, wish I had as handy a reason for a warped sense of humor. I dread the day my kid gets in trouble at school for repeating some morbid bit of humor I might’ve uttered. Hmm, I could blame comic book writers, since from the time I was eleven until I graduated high school we had somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 comics at my house.

For me… i dont really title myself as an inventor… just an idea type person… creative for sure…That creative part of me i feel comes to me by nature…

Some of my ideas i think have possibilities…. however… they just seem to come to me most of the time when i least expect them… it can be at any time…My mind doesn’t rest much … soooooooooooooooooooo you get the IDEA !!! :)))))

What an interesting life! You wrote, “I think this is where I get my warped sense of humor and weird look at things.”: maybe this is the secret for having so many products on the market – being able to see things differently/weirdly.

I used to make custom cartoon-like greeting cards (artwork and poems/text) all through jr. & sr. H.S. and into college: I see a new career already – a joint-effort with Roger.

Yep Jane, you are now stuck in the Yo-Yo Zone. LOL I learned the technique when I was in High School. I started out writing jokes for a local morning radio show when I was in high school. It was great getting paid for things I got in trouble for doing in school. You learned to think on a topic quickly because the DJ’s would call that day saying they wanted 10 or twenty jokes on the Mayor or some other person or event in the news and they would need them by 6am the next morning. So, you were always in crunch time. Out of the 10 or 20 they might use 5 or 6 on the air. But they were doing this Monday thru Friday for their show. I did that for 2 years and got kinda burnt out on it.
Then I started writing gags for nationally syndicated comic strips like the LockHorns and magazine Cartoonists. That led me to writing for a humor magazine called Cracked magazine as a regular for 10 years. One of the artists at Cracked told me Marvel comics was looking for Writers so I took a stab at that. I ended up writing for Marvel, D.C. Comics,Disney and a mulitude of other smaller comic companies. I have been writing off and on for comics ever since. I think this is where I get my warped sense of humor and weird look at things.
Because in all of those venues you are required to come up with something creative and on a time limit. For example if you are writing a comic book you will know the character you are writing for, but you have to come up with and write a 22 page story around that character within a weeks time so it can be sent to the Artist, Inker, colorist etc.
One of my most challenging writing assignments was for a Look and Find book called "Find the Littlest Angels As They Celebrate Christmas "
http://www.amazon.com/Littlest-Angels-Celebrate...
The book is 9 two page spreads with a minimum of 82 sight gags per spread. So that is a minimum of 738 sight gags. I was told I had 3 months to write all of the sight gags. One week into the project the Editor calls me and says the Artist for another Look and Find book was in the hospital so my books print date got moved up. I asked how long I had to get it down and was told two weeks. It was a lot of long days but I finished a day in advance of the deadline.
I think all of these prior hurdles are what prepared me for the way I approach inventing today. I have always looked at things from a different slant since I can remember and love solving problems for making things easier to use or something to do it better.

Roger, I’m starting to see things the opposite way: Instead of working from the specific goal down, I’m thinking of working from the specific goal up. Like eggies or the can opener, those are incidental to the concept of how to remove contents from inside a shell. The higher level topic would be how do you attack a shell. But there are even higher levels. How do you not even have a shell to start with, how do you redesign the shell. For example inventing a new type of can would probably be more lucrative than inventing a new type of can opener. Then you keep going up more levels such as speed, easy clean up, environmental friendliness. Maybe the top two levels are fun and function. Instead of designing a new yoyo, maybe focusing on the next fun thing that is nothing like a yoyo. I just started thinking about this so it’s a little wobbly. I hope it’s not what Chappy was trying to tell us all along because then I’d be embarrassed. Maybe there is a higher level flowchart in which one can follow to pop out any product just be choosing fun or function and not knowing what’ll come out in the end. It’s always about toilets with me.

like a song that gets stuck. thanks, Roger. thanks a lot. hahaaha
……yo yo to charge a battery somehow…… yo yo ride… probably would make you cluck….. yo yo catnip toy…… yo yo measuring tape…. omg. make it stop!! ;-)

I randomly pick a topic everyday whether I have a company interested in that area or not and use that as my focus for the day. As I am working on whatever project I have I am also thinking on the daily topic. Today’s topic is yo-yo’s. So as the day goes I will write down everything concept I think of for what you could do with a Yo-Yo. Tommorrow I will do that withthe next topic. I find it keeps my mind fresh. So, when a company calls or sends me a wish list I am ready to think on that topic and it is not such a chore starting off. I am not saying everything I think of is a winner. I am saying it makes it easier for me to process the challenge. Like the Can Opener challenge Ralf mentioned above, giving you the topic can sometimes spark your thinking in a area you had not considered before. How many of you started considering Yo-Yo’s in your head once you read it or are considering it now?

For me, ideas can come almost anywhere and at almost any time, Awake or asleep. And when I think of an idea, I start to develop it into a better one in my head. And then while doing that I also try to find out all the problems and pitfalls, and try to make sure it can be done safely also. Because safety will come up and so will possible problems. You may as well not hide from the facts, because they will eventually show up. When everything looks good, you may as well look to see how many other people have come up with the same idea. From my experience, someone else either already has, or I was not able financially afford to bring it to market and then in a few years see it on the market, after someone else also thinks of the same idea. It can be frustrating. This is where I hope that EN can help.