Last year I was approached by a local consulting group to create an Innovation Practice for them. Because I have so many inventions and created so many things of value they, and I, wrongly thought that we could build a practice of it.What a crock of, well, you know.I tried to apply myself to it for a couple of months, followed all the popular stuff, got into it, and found that it could only be a scam which could go nowhere.Sure it could make the consultants and me some money, but there is no honor in fooling stupid people.So I bailed out.
It became increasingly clear to me that the term innovation is about hindsight.I have done many 'innovative' things, but at the time I didn't think about innovation.Later, when there was a bandwagon going down the street, others, who I see in hindsight didn't have a [Censored] clue, celebrated the 'innovation,' patted me on the back, and tried to run around and get in front of the parade.I always felt humiliated inside and did my usual orthogonal turn and headed off somewhere else leaving it all to them.
To innovate is to introduce something new.To create something new is to invent, which is really to find or discover, to devise by thinking.And in that process what you think about is not an innovation; it is a solution.It is a solution that is good - the best solution.It comes from a love of work and taking risks, a drive to do it well, to see a need and understand it, and to being very, very, attentive to the details.It is the goodness of the result that gets people's attention.It is the satisfaction of their needs and wants that creates real value.It is their discovery that there is more than they thought in the world.It is making something that is great.
So when you listen to someone talk about innovation consider that you are really listing to someone with 'has been' thoughts trying to sound hip and on top of it.
Just do it right, do it well, think it out, and take the step forward.If your idea changes the way people do or perceive things and they pat you on the back for being innovative, it is time to run for you are in the presence of the 21st Century's version of the unwashed masses and their hunger to touch creativity will eat you alive.
What does all this mean to the entrepreneur?Simple, don't think about innovating; just come up with a great answer to someone's needs and sell it to them.Keep it that simple and the rest will be history. Leave the talking about innovation to the non-creative, you don't have time to be with them, you are on the way to your next great thought!
Copyright 2008 Barry W Thornton all rights reserved
Boy, this ones going to get me in trouble - but here we go.
IP ain't worth crap.
I just finished a bunch of work-arounds, that is I looked at several different patents and for each figured a way to do the same thing that didn't violate the original patent's claims. In a couple of them I came up with novel and unique ways to do the same thing that weren't covered so I created new IP. In effect I rendered the original patents useless. So with guys like me around what good are patents, especially to the entrepreneur?
In fact they have tremendous value, but not as patents. The most powerful patent is a Provisional Patent. Provisionals are vague and indeterminate; no one gets to see them (unless you are so foolish as to show them to someone, in which case you deserve what you get) so no one knows what you are doing. You have a year to turn them into a real patent so you can say patent pending immediately on your product or process and even I can't do a work-around because you have not been granted any claims for me to work with. After you file no one really knows what claims the USPTO will give you, and your original claims may be modified, so it is still a minefield.
Patents take years to be granted, you can hassle with office actions for 4 or 5 years if you want (look up submarine patents (nothing to do with underwater boats)). If you are an entrepreneur in a hot field the real value, by the time you get the claims granted the technology or process will probably have been obsoleted by the market and not used in your product anyway.
IP does impress investors, gives them lots of security. IP impresses corporate folks because they live in fear anyway. IP impresses acquisition folks, IP is a great vanity device, for you personally and the company in general. IP's value is intellectual and emotional security more than technological reality. It gives you an asset out of nothing in the early stages of your business. It is a rallying point for everyone who doesn't understand its reality.
This truth should give you confidence. It's like the Emperor's Clothes, knowing truth you can then use it to your advantage and not be taken in by others.
Oh yeah, watch out for all those patent professionals and consultants, their views are self motivated, use them to your drive your goals but don't be taken in. You and your patent attorney must scheme to use everyone else's beliefs to your end. It's the idea of the IP that's what makes it so valuable. Like most things, it's the illusion as it appears in everyone else's mind that is the real power.
copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved
On July 21 I addressed the Ideation Subgroup of Bootstrap Austin, a fine group of beginning Entrepreneurs. They, and I, follow Bijoy Goswami's Bootstrapping ideas about the flow from worker bee to business Entrepreneur, in this case you start with and idea, create a Demo, and then proceed with raising some money to get on with business.
As usual I found my self 1) running overtime about 45 minutes with the help of lots of questions from the listeners, and 2) yelling a lot, no one has ever tagged me as Mr. Congeniality. Many are appalled at my choices of adverbs and adjectives when talking about such things as VCs, bit-time CEOs, and corporate careers; but I get laughs and a few lights blink on (you can see it in their eyes) so it is not in done vain.
My son pointed out to me that my primary message is always the same; Francis Bacon was wrong, knowledge is not power, it is a mental holding pattern. Knowledge plus action is power, and in the end we do pretty much everything today for power. The difference between being an entremanure and an entrepreneur is action.
So again the theme is get off your ass and do something, customers will give the final idea so you can start with almost anything close. Only your personal insecurity retards the progress (it's called the "BOX", the one you are always trying to think out of). Just take it to the customer as soon as possible, they will straighten you out.
As short story before I close this testimony. I went to a presentation review for entrepreneurs a couple of months ago. I was a mentor along with a couple of other guys and we listened to a presentation by a couple of folks with an idea that they had poured $70k and a year into for software. They were looking for half a million and wanted us to comment on the presentation. They launched off on the idea, the pitch was all laid up on PowerPoint (which is only slightly better than morphine for numbing your mind). Five minutes into it I stopped it and asked - The Question..."What did the customers say?" The CEO told me that they had not presented this to any customers yet, only friends, family, and experts (someone who used to be call "Pert").
Well, I alienated everyone in the room with my usual question (delivered in my drill Sergeant's voice) . . . "What the F*** are you doing? Without customer feedback this is all a work of fiction! You made this all up, there is no reality in this presentation, only you dreams."
How can I comment on fiction in a real world? The other two mentors went on to talk about the cute slide show and how to make it cuter, they were corporate guys used to living in a cartoon. I got up and left. I don’t live in a fictional world (I may be delusional at times but not that day). They were too polite to deal with the truth, what a waste of everyone's time.
The truthache you have to have is the customer's reaction – will he give you a check for your idea when you can get it to work and what does "work" mean???
Nothing else counts!
Barry W Thornton is technologist, who organizes, manages and explains knowledge. Copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved
There is an old story that goes: sit down and don't rock the boat, I'm trying to drill a hole in the bottom. Trying to scuttle the boat, or business, may not be intentional, but the action or conduct that does thatmay be all that people can figure out to do. This is part of the problem of the Entrepreneur inside a company has to face.Businesses die today because, in the now common business vernacular, the DNA is wrong (we know it really is the MEMEs (1) that are wrong but the folks with bad Memes think of it as DNA, how foolish, everyone knows you can't change DNA, Memes on the other hand are fluid and can morph with degree of ease).
The internal entrepreneur's problem is changing the way the business thinks and acts.Like different DNA in a body, he (or she) is attacked as a fatal threat by the rest of the business unless he is shielded or camouflaged.
Protection or shielding does not work that well because it permits all the 'antibodies' to focus on a clear target.An example would be a CEO deciding that he needs to change the course of the business to grow, so he puts a spotlight on the group trying to change the way people think.Targeting, simple targeting.That spotlight makes it clear to all just who has to be wiped out to maintain the status quo.It is the guy rocking the boat that everyone can hate.
Camouflage on the other hand is surreptitious and a bit sneaky, doesn't attract a lot of attention and in the internal entrepreneur's case, lets him win converts, even gets the sympathy vote by the very people who will eventually be changed.By not putting the change mechanism in people's faces you offer a way to adapt that is not confrontational.
Traditionally new ways were developed in a skunk works, a place that was simply not visible where the Standard Operating Procedures could be tossed out and newness could happen.Problem is that skunkworking doesn't allow the newness to infect and drive the oldness to change,It leaves the oldness in isolation.You may get a neat new product but you don't necessarily get a new way of doing things.
The point is that the internal entrepreneur's job is really to adapt the organization to treat the customer in new ways.To do that his act must be visible and infectious to all but not threatening.Quite a trick, takes special guts, and in the end a love for both the business and customers. Because in today's marketplace this has to be a continuous process.Too bad GM can't figure this out.
Question is, can your company figure it out?
(1) DNA are the units of biological knowledge that set the pattern for the entity containing them, Memes are units of cultural knowledge the set the pattern for the way the entity thinks
Barry W Thornton is technologist, who organizes, manages and explains knowledge. Copyright Barry W Thornton 2008 all rights reserved
