Vol. 1, No. 1
April, 2000
(revised June 11, 2000)
Everyone is creative to some degree. What separates inventors from the rest of human kind is the initiative and drive to do something with that creativity. What separates successful inventors and innovators from the rest of their kind is very often humility - the willingness to pause in their rush to success long enough to learn how to master the innovation process. Few come to the task fully prepared.
Innovation (in) Review is brought to you by the WIN Innovation Center (formerly the Wal-Mart Innovation Network), a cooperative venture of the Innovation Institute, the College of Business Administration at Southwest Missouri State University, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WIN is an innovation evaluation service intended to help inventors and innovators to better understand the potential risks and rewards associated with their ideas, inventions and new products. Readers desiring more information about WIN can check out our Website at www.wini2.com. To learn more about The College of Business Administration visit www.coba.smsu.edu.
During the past several decades, the role of the independent inventor has been the subject of debate. In the mid-fifties, John Kenneth Gailbraith reflected the then current thinking when he concluded that the cost of research and development had eliminated the independent from the game of innovation. What followed in the sixties and seventies, and continues today, were a series of studies concluding with statements that this was not so as independents were still major contributors. Chester Carlson's experiments in xerography, the garage of two guys named Hewlett and Packard, Mrs. Bowerman's waffle iron (which spawned the first Nike shoe prototype), and a technological whiz kid, Bill Gates, are offered as proof to the contrary. Still, the debate goes on.
Actually, both sides are missing a key point. Both can offer sufficient examples to prove their point to their own satisfaction, but the point they seem to miss is organizations do not invent, people do. People who are ignorant of the innovation process do not make good inventors, regardless of their organizational affiliation, or lack thereof. An environment in which creativity is encouraged and supported through education and other efforts works for all. That is why IR is about producing better-educated persons. Obviously, we are positioned to serve independent inventors and innovators (terms that will be defined in a future issue of IR). However, corporate and institutional readers are welcome as well.
Most of the mistakes we make in life are the same mistakes other people have been making for years. Inventors and innovators are no exception; they fail for the same reasons others have failed over the years. Pursuit of a non-viable invention or new product concept is a leading cause of invention/innovation failure. That is the reason WIN focuses on invention evaluation; but that is not our focus here.
IR will focus on the commercial, or if you prefer, the industrial innovation process. This process starts with an idea, continues through research and development to market introduction and concludes when a product, process or service has run its course in the marketplace.
During our first year of publication, we will be paying particular attention to some of the common errors of omission and commission we have seen inventors make. We are not going to try to stimulate creativity or to plow new ground by making new discoveries. Do not expect to find any academic research or major breakthroughs. It is not that we do not appreciate research. More is needed if we are to build a theory of innovation. However, we agree with Peter Drucker (Innovation and Entrepreneurship, p. 34); we know enough to develop the practice of innovation, although our theory is still weak. Here we will focus on sound business practices and practical suggestions. It is not that we do not know how to innovate. To be sure, we have a lot to discover and learn, but this is not our primary problem. Most independent inventors fail because they do not follow the basic rules of the innovation process.
Jack Stack, a highly successful entrepreneur and author of the well-known book, The Great Game of Business, presents a very simple thesis that business is basically a game, and what one needs to do is learn the rules and play by them. The same thing can be said of the innovation process, even for those who do not intend to commercialize their own inventions. There are rules to this game as well. Those who learn these rules and play by them have a much better chance of attaining success.
The most economical way to stimulate innovation, or any other activity for that matter, is to borrow a concept from the Peace Corps, to "Feed a man a fish and he will eat today. Teach a man how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime." This is our basic strategy here. We hope to help inventors increase their level of understanding of the innovation process. Informed inventors make better decisions and avoid some of the classic mistakes. For example, the overwhelming majority of inventors taken in by invention promotion firms are inexperienced inventors at the idea stage of the innovation process. Those who have moved up the innovation process generally know better. In other words, they have learned to avoid this pitfall.
In a very real sense, breakthroughs are not as important to us as the basics. We are going to leave improving the industrial innovation process to others. Here, we are going to fall back on some of the basics, and work to get these across to inventors not familiar with the innovation process. This does not mean we are going to ignore research and study. From time to time we will report research findings in an effort to add to our understanding of the innovation process.
For the rest of this year we expect to publish one topic brief each month. We may do more if time allows. These briefs will cover a variety of topics, including the better mousetrap theory, a scorecard for rating invention promotion services, the inventor's cultural gap, inventor's common mistakes and corporate attitudes toward independent inventors, among others. Check our Table of Contents periodically for new topic briefs.
Our format will be similar to that used here. We will start out with "A Thought on the Subject" and end with "The Last Word." The author's name will appear at the end of each topic brief. Throughout each brief you will find certain words highlighted in color and underlined. These are hot links for other topic briefs. To access them, all you need to do is click on the hot link. Of course, this doesn't apply if you are reading a hard copy of this or any other brief, but these hot links will alert you to other topics briefed in the review. You will also find words/phrases underlined, but not highlighted. These are topics to be covered in future issues of IR.
We hope IR will be of interest to a wide variety of readers, including independent (and corporate/institutional) inventors, entrepreneurs (innovators), policy makers, academics, students, and others interested in innovation. While published only in English, we hope IR will be helpful to readers worldwide.
Contributions to IR are encouraged. We use a double-blind review process for evaluating submissions. Submitted articles should be eight pages or less and should utilize the IR format. Authors should keep in mind that IR is not an academic journal and that our purpose is to inform our readers, rather than recount our research methodology or engage in extensive reviews of the literature. Research findings are welcomed, but move quickly to the bottom line.
Our objective is to help produce better informed/educated inventors. As discussed earlier, we are not going to teach theory although good theory can be very useful. Instead, we will focus on practical suggestions and comments we have gleaned from experience as well as research findings and insights gained from studying the innovation process. We hope by sharing our experiences, and those of others, with inventors and innovators, they will be helpful to inventors. We are committed to the notion inventors are important to all of us. They are a significant source of innovation in the United States, and innovation is the engine that drives our economy.
IR is copyrighted for the purpose of keeping IR material out of the hands of invention promotion firms. We simply do not wish to provide them with a cloak of respectability by allowing them to distribute our materials. Permission to copy is granted to all SCORE chapters, SBDC sub-centers, and inventor organizations that are members of US-AIA. We would however, appreciate a note telling us how many copies were made so we can assess or readership. Others may contact WIN for permission to copy. Those wishing to reprint for commercial purposes should contact the copyright holder through WIN.
Copyright © 2000 by The Innovation Institute.
Permission to copy for free distribution granted to SCORE/SBDC's