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INVENTORSHIP

INVENTORSHIPThe Art of Innovation

L E O N A R D M . G R E E N E

JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.New York • Chichester • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto

Copyright © 2001 by the Institute for SocioEconomic Studies. All rights reserved.

Illustrations copyright © 2001 by Fintan P. O’Hare. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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This book is dedicated to Hugo Gernsback, aninventor and science fiction writer, and a lifelong inspiration to me. His compelling (and, as time hasproven, uncannily accurate) visions of the futuresparked the imagination and spurred the ambitionsof a very young Leonard Greene.

If Elmer Sperry showed aircraft pilots the way home, it wasLeonard Greene who ensured our safe arrival.

SENATOR JOHN GLENN

Necessity is not the mother of invention; Imagination is.LEONARD M. GREENE

ix

CONTENTS

Foreword by Walter Cronkite xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction Inventorship: The Art of Innovation xvii

1 The Nature of Inventorship 1Be Ready to Discover 2

Defining Inventorship 4

Extend the Boundaries of Learning 6

Seeing What’s in Front of You 9

Asking “Why Not?” as a Form of Inventorship 19

Adapting a Solution as a Form of Inventorship 20

Getting Started! 23

2 The Age of Innovation 25Encouraging Innovation 27

Valuing Mistakes 28

Honoring Play 29

Leaving Room for the Imagination 29

Understanding Misbehavior 32

Teaching Innovation by Example 35

Transferring Childhood Lessons to Adult Innovation 38

Accessing Random Memory to Think Inventively 42

Relearning Innovation 44

3 The Rule of Inventorship 47Using Inventive Thinking to Solve the Unsolvable 48

Breaking the Sound Barrier 49

Going with the Flow 54

x Contents

Expanding Dimensional Thinking to Tap into Inventorship 57

Thinking Innovatively to Overcome Barriers 62

Opening Communications 62

Transcending Limitations 63

Learning That “Wrong” May Be “Right” 71

4 Defining the Problem 73Recognizing a Problem Where None Seems to Exist 74

Taking a Different Tack 76

Taking a Two-Step Approach to Problem Solving 80

Solving New Problems by Adapting Old Solutions 81

Measuring Distance 81

Teaching Balance 82

Taking the Path Less Traveled 84

Speeding Up the Aging Process 90

Ignoring the Aging Process 90

Identifying the Problem Behind the Problem 93

Being Ahead of Your Time 96

Applying the Right Solution to the Problem 98

5 The Source of Inventive Solutions 101Simplifying the Complex 102

Changing Point of View 107

Speaking a Common Language 107

“Seeing” What They’re Saying 109

Bending the View 113

Lowering the Tech 119

Preventing Accidents 119

Pinning Down the Important Things 121

Digging Deep for Ideas 122

Paying Attention 124

Reconsidering the Obvious 126

Making Book on It 127

Contents xi

Piecing Together the Solution 131

Adding Something More 133

Solving Simply, Simply Solving 136

6 Mind over Machine 137Leveling the Playing Field 138

Cutting a Deal 138

Counting Cards 141

Staying in Charge 145

Minding the Mental Store 146

7 Inventorship and the Entrepreneurial Spirit 147Discounting Money 148

Making Something Out of Nothing 150

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons 152

Minding Waste 152

Minding Annoyance 155

Sticking to It 156

Thinking Small to Succeed Big 158

Keeping an Eye on the Prize 162

8 Innovation in Public Policy 163Finding a Common Denominator 164

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due 167

Caring for All 169

Making New Combinations 172

Taking an Interest 174

9 Commitment: The Key to Successful Inventorship 177Practice Makes Inventorship 179

Thinking Beyond a Solution 181

Confronting Issues Head-on 183

Making Fantasy Reality 185

xii Contents

10 The Inventive Life 187Inventing a Life 188

Sharing Sight 188

Sharing Color 195

Spreading Sight 201

Thinking on Your Feet 201

Having Fun with Inventorship 206

Impressing Dates 207

Passing Inventorship On 214

Communicating Inventively 215

Traveling Inventively 215

Assembling Pipe Dreams 220

Making the Inventorship Choice 221

Index 223

xiii

FOREWORD

Here is a most fascinating volume written by one of perhapsa handful of people qualified to do so. Leonard Greeneis not only a skillful writer, but he is a prime example of theinnovator/inventor—a calling that Leonard has compressedinnovatively into a new term: Inventorship.

From this lively and personal account, we learn that we canall practice inventorship to great advantage—measured eitherin gold or pleasure, or perhaps both! Leonard’s patented inven-tions now run well over a hundred and still counting—withseveral new ones in 2000 alone. There is scarcely a flying ma-chine built today that does not include his devices to enhancesafety. And surely thousands of lives have been saved throughtheir use. Gold and pleasure, indeed!

Leonard suggests that we are all capable of inventorship. Itbegins simply enough, he says, if we use our imaginations. In-ventions, he makes us realize, need not all be the product ofgreat scientific or technological breakthroughs. He doesn’t sayit in so many words, but his innovative idea is that just the actof, say, contemplating an envelope with the goal of eliminat-ing the necessity to lick same, is the first step toward successfulinventorship.

His book is full of fascinating examples that illustratethis premise. So well does it accomplish its purpose of awak-ening in all of us our capacity for inventorship, that it sent meback through a cascade of memories of innovative thinkingthat served my colleagues and me well in the profession ofjournalism.

xiv Foreword

An example: As the Russian troops and those of the west-ern Allies met in central Europe at the close of World War II,we war correspondents were anxious to get into the areas oc-cupied by the Russian troops. The Russian guards, however,were demanding to see credentials authorizing our entry, andthe Russian high command wasn’t issuing any such passes.

Then one day, one of our number, Jimmy Cannon, cameback to our Third Army press camp after two days away, andannounced triumphantly that he had been in the Russian sec-tor. He had shown the guards his Texaco credit card with theoil company’s big red star on its back. The guards couldn’t readEnglish, but that Soviet symbol was enough, and pass himthrough they did.

That, as Leonard Greene has named it, is inventorship.

Walter Cronkite

xv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Iwould like to thank the many individuals who contributed tomaking this book possible:Fintan O’Hare, who managed to visualize all of my ideasand translate them into his unique illustrations.

At the Institute for SocioEconomic Studies: Thomas M.Cassidy for his expertise on elder care and health care is-sues, Helen Gibbs for her keen questions and polished edit-ing, Bonnie Le Var for her detailed memory and manyreminders, Allan Ostergren for his perceptions and atten-tion to the big picture.

At Safe Flight Instrument Corporation: Mary Blancato forher tireless daily management of my busy schedule, andPeter Fleiss for his businesslike attention to specifics.

My agent, Teresa Hartnett; my book project consultant,Donald O. Graul Jr.; and my editor, Michael J. Hamilton,also deserve special thanks.

This book is in many ways a product of my innovative andinventive life and I would like to thank my wife Joyce and myentire family for helping me to enjoy every minute of it.

L.M.G.

xvii

INTRODUCTIONINVENTORSHIP: THE ART

OF INNOVATION

Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledgeis limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

From early childhood, all of us have an innate potential to beinventive. And that is the reason you should read this book:to learn to use what you already know to improve your life,and to encourage your children to have richer, fuller, more in-teresting lives. My purpose is to demonstrate to you, in theform of anecdotes, the process of what I call inventorship. I be-lieve that by reading this book you will recognize the inventorin you, in your children, in all of us. Inventorship is not unique.If I can practice it, so can you.

You will not find information here about how to registeryour ideas for patents, or how to make a million dollars by dis-covering the next innovative technology. My goal is to help youunderstand that once you recognize, then develop, your innateinventorship capability, you will be able to use it to find newand better ways to solve everyday problems and to achieve

xviii Introduction

your professional and personal goals. Inventorship is not exoticor unfathomable; in fact, it can be defined simply as learning todevelop the process of finding another way. To be more spe-cific, I should say “the process of finding an other way,” becausethe goal is not just to do something over again, but to find analternative approach to a problem. Let me give you the first ofthe many examples I use throughout the book to clarify thisimportant point.

Late in the twentieth century, the National Aeronautics andSpace Administration (NASA) sent a probe to Mars thatcrashed into the Red Planet and was destroyed. A brief investi-gation turned up the reason. One group of engineers was usingthe metric system (centimeters/grams) of measure and a secondgroup, working on another part of the project, was using the im-perial (feet/pounds) system, but neither group told the other. If“an other” method had been used—if one group purposely usedmetric and the other did the same calculations using imperial,and the results were compared to see if they agreed—the mis-sion would have been successful. Very often, inventorship sim-ply requires looking for and finding another way.

Some may argue with my premise in this book; they mayclaim that inventors are made, not born. To make my case, Isuggest all we need do is watch the actions of our children. Canthere be any doubt we are all born with a marvelous capacityto be inventive? I can trace many of my best ideas back to myown childhood experiences. The result of following my inven-tive nature is that I now hold more than 100 patents, not onlyin aeronautics, my primary field of study, but also in such di-verse areas as skiing, sailing, and chess. And I’m proud to say Iam one of the 135 members of the National Inventors Hall ofFame. I tell you that not to impress you, but to assure you thatI have the credentials for writing a book on inventorship. Iwant you to be able to trust that what I say is true. I am not

Introduction xix

somehow special or different from you; I was just fortunateenough to follow the wanderings of my inventive mind. I’d liketo help you do the same.

My career, and the careers of many of my colleagues, pro-vide abundant evidence that we can all improve our lives andthose of our fellow human beings in a host of different areas—and have a lot of fun while we’re at it—if we just look aroundus with curiosity and imagination, and then find another way.

INVENTORSHIP

1

1The Nature of Inventorship

Chance favors the prepared mind.—LOUIS PASTEUR (1822–1895)

Ask people about invention, innovation, or creativity, andtheir answers will reveal several misconceptions:• The process is mysterious.

• Only a very few gifted people have the talent to be in-ventors.

• Great discoveries are often the result of luck or accident.

• Inventors must have scientific training.

• To be inventive, you have to work in a “special environ-ment,” such as a research laboratory.

2 The Nature of Inventorship

In truth, most people are born with a wonderful capability toinvent. But before I explain how you can tap into and fully de-velop this capacity, and then apply it to such efforts as startinga business or raising your children, let’s discuss what inventor-ship is all about.

To begin with, let’s rid ourselves of the common notionthat an invention necessarily leads to that magical-soundingdocument called a patent. There’s a big difference between in-ventions and patents. You can be inventive and never take outa patent.That distinction is exciting because it widens the viewof the inventorship process to include being innovative. I be-lieve that innovative thoughts come to mind once you have de-veloped the skill of innovation, and an innovative mindnaturally tends to be inventive.

To the prepared mind, innovation and imagination arespontaneous acts. An imaginative thought can occur in a frac-tion of a second. Such a thought may occur as a picture. It’spresent in your mind, waiting for the split second of yourawakening to see it. Awakening to it, often as if from a day-dream, will be your insight. Typically, such a thought, or pic-ture, emerges complete. The time element is only the time ittakes for you to express the view (or thought) in whateverform you choose. To be prepared to capture your imagination,you need only learn the process of inventorship.

Be Ready to Discover

An apple falls on Sir Isaac Newton’s head, and—voilà!—he dis-covers gravity.That’s an example of the folklore of invention. Itsuggests that scientific discoveries are often the result of hap-penstance or accident, and if it weren’t for random events,

Be Ready to Discover 3

many of the advances we enjoy today simply wouldn’t exist.Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, a falling apple inspired Newton to make his revelatorydiscovery, but inspiration is not synonymous with accident.When the apple fell, Newton was ready to recognize themeaning behind it. His mind had been trained to see impor-tant relationships in seemingly ordinary occurrences. (SeeFigure 1.1.) Apples—and doubtless many other things—had

Figure 1.1 When the apple fell on Sir Isaac Newton’s head, his mind wasready to make the connections necessary to formulate his theory of gravity.