SustainableWork

I was honored to be asked to lead a panel discussion about innovation and invention at the next meeting of the Green County WI Entrepreneurs and Inventors Club.

This is an especially vibrant E&I Club. The panelists work from a wide variety of interesting and creative parts of the economy.

The meeting is Monday July 7, 2008 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. The location is the Monroe Clinic in their New Glarus Room. 515 22nd Av. Monroe, WI

Come early and have a Limburger sandwich at Baumgartners on the Monroe square. Monroe is one of my favorite WI cities and you just can't beat the environment and the economic potential of this great location.

If you have an interest in learning more, please send me an eMail

Labels: entrepreneurship, innovation, intellectual property, new product development, The slow start up movement

Intellectual property can be a very productive way to build value into your enterprise. Even the smallest of start ups and emerging enterprises can take advantage of trademarks and patents.

This has nothing to do with those idiotic rip-off advertisements for help getting a patent. Do NOT do that. Repeat. Do NOT do that. Rather, I'm talking about using your own time and effort to use publicly available resources to build and grow the assets of your enterprise while helping protect its future.

As your organization grows in complexity, you will need to lawyer up. However as a start up or an emerging enterprise, you can create your own intellectual property. I've done it, and I have trouble programming my cell phone.

What's my secret? Some inside track on invention and innovation? Nope. My secret is Nolo Press. I really wish Nolo wasn't so secret, so this post is my little pitch for what they do. Nolo publishes books about applying for trademarks and patents that are clear and easily accessible. The content is presented simply and in logical order. Many small but critical action steps, including timetables, are fully covered with brevity, accuracy and grace.

While writing our first patent using the Nolo book, everyone told me that I might have a shot at the patent language, but that I should never attempt to do the patent drawings myself. No matter what, most insisted, I needed to hire out the drawings to a professional.

Of course, I checked the Nolo book on patent drawings out of the library. It was so good I bought a copy. Then I did the drawings, based only on what was in the Nolo book.

I buttoned up the entire package and mailed it to the US Patent and Trademark Office, following the excellent directions provided by David Pressman, author of the Nolo book Patent It Yourself. I put the Nolo books on the shelf and went back to work. About 18 months later (the PTO is faster now) I got the news. All our claims had been accepted on the first application (not typical) and all of the drawings had been accepted with no changes required.

Since then, as the organization has grown, we've lawyered up this end of our biz. Our wonderful patent attorney Jaen guided us through some really interesting issues and helped us receive five more patents. The idea is to do what's appropriate at each stage of your project.

You don’t need patents. You probably do need trademarks. You absolutely need to be familiar with the subject. I believe it’s very important for start ups and emerging enterprises to have a working understanding of the legal rights and obligations attached to the work they create.

The point of this post is that, in the emerging stages of your enterprise, you can get a lot of intellectual property basics in place by yourself, inexpensively and accurately with Nolo's help.

I've never met anyone from Nolo, but they strike me as a damn helpful bunch. You owe it to yourself to look into their work.


Nolo Press. Patent, Copyright and Trademark: An Intellectual Property Desk Reference

Nolo Press. Patent It Yourself 11th Edition

Nolo Press. Trademark: Legal Care for Your Business & Product Name

Nolo Press home page

Labels: innovation, intellectual property

Anyone who tells you it's easy to start and run your own enterprise is lying. If they say anything about fast money, run.

The reality is not like that. Start ups are hard. Birthing a new organization takes harder work and longer hours than you'd imagine. Sustainable cash flow is slow to build. The ability to capture and bank the profit can be even tougher.

For you and I, that's good. For the people who won't make the effort, that's bad.

My purpose in writing and talking about start ups and emerging enterprises is to give up my little piece of the story. Starting and growing sustainable enterprises has never been easier, but the tools and the rules need careful attention.

I've found small, smart, fast organizations to be a wonderful way to keep a bit of my heart and soul intact while making a living.

Sustainable work doesn't mean easy work. It means smart work. It means staying ahead of as many opportunities and problems as you can.

Thomas Edison earned almost 1,100 patents. He said that to invent you needed a good imagination and a pile of junk. I am genetically coded to this school of thought (anyone remember Kohler’s in Lombard, IL back in the day?)

However, what I think Edison really brought to the table was his determination and work ethic. He just kept showing up. He just kept making the campground better. Most of his patents were not original work. They were generally improvements in pre-existing stuff. Thomas Edison just kept making everything around himself better, easier to manufacture and easier to use.

Where did that get him and us? Thomas Edison was the co founder of a little outfit called General Electric, now among the most powerful and - if the PR is accurate - emergingly progressive organizations the world has ever seen.

Edison looked everywhere for opportunity and he found it almost every place he looked.

When asked about this subject, Edison is quoted as saying, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work".

So it goes with your own sustainable work, friend. It's dressed in overalls. It's work, trouble and effort.

However, with planning and good execution, you can change how that work fits into your life and what it contributes to you personally.

A job is something you’ve got to do.

Your own sustainable work is something you get to do.

Run toward the opportunity, not away from it, and remember to wear your overalls.

Labels: entrepreneurship, innovation, intellectual property, startups