Inventors: Be Persistent!

Don't give up. In one famous incident an associate found Thomas Edison at his lab bench surrounded by a sea of storage battery test cells. 9,000 experiments had been carried out with no promising developments. His associate offered condolence: "Isn't it a shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done, you haven't been able to get any results?" "Results!" Edison replied, "Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work!" For a major invention like the light bulb, this is what's involved. Even minor inventions seem to take more time than imagined to get to the prototype stage. When you sell your company for millions, you can laugh about all those endless experiments and false directions.

IBM, AI and MegaMinds

The June 20 NY Times had an interesting story about IBM's new supercomputer, Watson, a venture in artificial intelligence (AI) that wins in the popular TV game show Jeopardy. The project is headed by David Ferrucci and works by matching key words and cross-checking over time and space. While not in all respects as intelligent as a deeply educated and experienced human, progress is being made towards the Singularity. For more on this see chapters 5 and 6 of my new book MegaMinds: How to Create and Invent in the Age of Google.

Focus on the Practical When Seeking to Invent

When you're inventing, focus on the practical, useful, needed and beautiful. Very often inventions and other creations start out answering to a major need or a broads interest. Then the project morphs into a personal passion with little or no market value. Whether you're a garage tinkerer or Thomas Edison, ultimately your commercial success depends on developing something which economically fills a real need and which looks attractive to potential buyers. As you develop prototypes, theories or compositions, show them to people in the market for overall attractiveness feedback.

The Education of Inventors and Entrepreneurs

I have encountered many entrepreneurial technicians and engineers who hit a brick wall because they didn’t know the physics or chemistry involved in their inventions. It is very difficult to catch up in deep technical areas later in life. They should have studied more science and math in schools and universities. The areas of significant technical invention today usually are much more complex than in Edison’s day, so prospects are much dimmer for the essentially self-taught entrepreneurs.

Equally a stumbling block is the lack of communication abilities on the part of these entrepreneurial hopefuls. They can’t seem to explain in understandable language what they are thinking or proposing. They can’t read published information that is required to support their project. They can’t write down their findings and notes for their associates and followers.

Our schools apparently have the reference resources students need in terms of both technical education and communication skills, but this knowledge often doesn’t seem to be getting through to the students. Three things need to be done:

1 – Get children interested in creative accomplishment at an early age and keep them focused on this throughout their lifetimes. This requires teachers who love what they are doing. Teachers who are on fire. Teachers who love science and really want their students to absorb it.

2 – Make sure that the fundamental knowledge needed has been presented and learned. If teachers do not know their course material, replace them with ones who do.

3 – See that the students who are interested in innovation, invention and entrepreneurship don’t drop out of school prematurely, foregoing the additional technical education and communications skills that they will need.

We will need many graduates who are hooked by the challenge of the unknown. They will be captivated by the wonder of unknown and the goal of making a unique contribution to its understanding.

This motivational process starts at the top—with the President of the United States—and carries through political and business leaders, parents, clergy, educators and many others. When Russia launched the first orbiting satellite, there was frenzy in the United States not to fall behind in the technological race. We put our man on the moon first, and this goal has faded out. Now the world is faced with larger and sometimes irreversible problems of environment, climate, food, water and energy, and a new sense of mission must be developed.

Curiosity is Key to creativity

To be creative, you must unleash your curiosity, quest for knowledge, and propensity for noticing things. No lesser minds than Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein were noted for being passionately curious, using their imagination as their prime lens to see ahead and their creativity to solve problems. Einstein wrote: "The important thing is not to stop questioning." You should also notice all kinds of things, however unrelated to your quest they may seem. When Will Carter noticed the apparently odd behavior of water droplets in fog, he had stumbled into the basics of the novel technology of the Carrier Corporation, world leader in air conditioning.

Bring in Experts

A common mistake is to be overly protective about your novel idea. At the earliest possible time you should have your design or composition reviewed by a knowledgeable person you trust. Usually you do not have to disclose important details to protect from copying, and very often a reviewer can give you surprisingly good guidance on design or composition improvement.

Focusing Your Mind for Greater Creativity

To make new theories, new inventions, and other great creations, we have to do better than adjusting existing theories and designs. We must move out of our conscious world and focus our mind in a new place occupied only by the new creation.

When an inventor comes up with a truly novel idea or insight, he or she has been exploring relationships, patterns, and associations until a productive interplay of ideas, images, and data of all kinds is found. That encouragement signals the brain that the chase is on. The mind is to be projected to a special little world encompassed by this project.

Einstein placed himself in speeding trains, moving clocks and elevators in space. This was more than metaphorical thinking; it was a mind transforming itself to another place. Einstein's strength came from his imagination and creativity.

My father, Peter Kilham, invented a phenomenally successful bird feeder that is the very familiar plastic tube with metal perches. He started by imaging himself to be a bird on a perch. Then he envisioned a geometry that would be most accommodating to the bird. Only after the bird was satisfied did he select the materials and manufacturing processes to make an attractive and economical product.