The Innovation Problem, no one else cares.

Written on May 29, 2008 – 10:03 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France

The value of an idea is often claimed to be worthless, those dismissing their value then claim execution is everything… On the contrary ideas are everything! They are mankind’s personal version of evolution and I’d say that was pretty important.

Execution is way down in the hierarchal list of elements that make a venture successful (IMO). If I was to make a quick list of crucial elements required for success, it would be something like this:

Idea
Luck
Technical understand / ability
Hard work
Investment capital
Marketing magic

But intellectual property theft is rife within innovative industries. If people actually knew the full extent of the problem they would be astonished. Naive and eccentric inventors who come up with a ‘really good’ idea (often their first is the best) are generally completely ignorant to the potential traps that await them which threaten to exploit their genus while giving absolutely nothing in return.

The law is totally inadequate in protecting independent innovators from plagiarism. There are many well known techniques employed by the unscrupulous to circumvent the law. In general the law only works successfully for corporations with clout (who do protect their own ideas) and of course who are well versed in using it to avoid comeback when they ‘borrow’ others genius.

Good ideas just by their nature are viral, therefore it is somewhat natural that others will also try to emulate them. But when someone else taps them without recompense, clearly that is wrong, but all too often it is reality.

I could give you countless examples of ideas that have been plagiarized, it is unfortunately / fortunately rampant. I say fortunately because of course not everyone suffers. The market benefits, consumers benefit and the brands who copy benefit. The only one who is hurt is the genius, no one else cares!

But as a society we should care. Collectively we all benefit more from creative geniuses than we can imagine. Imagine no television, no computers etc. It is to our advantage within society to not only offer protection to innovators (which is currently totally inadequate) but to actively seek them out, encourage them by way of rewards, and further to evangelize them as the stars that they truly are.

What is needed is not empty promises of protection by the state, but as consumers / plagiarizers we should pay a tax (not to a government) but into a kitty that is paid out as awards and directly used to support the innovators and artists who enrich our world with their passion, enthusiasm and creative genius.

I hope you like that post!

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ideas, innovation, intellectual property theft, plagiarism

About the author: Steven is a web applications developer, living in south of France, originally from London. His current project is Myplaylist.biz. In the nineties, he was a designer / director of a highly successful design, manufacturing and distribution company (Intimidation).

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10 comments/trackbacks to “The Innovation Problem, no one else cares.”

Jun 2, 2008: techfounder » Free your mind and success will follow
[...] Having said this, a good idea will only take you so far (= not much). The single most important asset for a start-up is the team. A strong team can take a mediocre idea into the stratosphere, while a mediocre team will fail with a great idea. It’s that simple - a strong team will win on execution, which is by far the most important factor for start-up success (not all agree on this of course). [...]

By Ken on May 29, 2008

This is the most vague and useless article I’ve read in a while.

“If people actually knew the full extent of the problem they would be astonished”, ok how about you astonish me by describing it?
“I could give you countless examples of ideas that have been plagiarized, it is unfortunately / fortunately rampant” Yea you could.

Put a little bit of effort into research and give us some details and examples.

[Reply]
By Steven Carrol on May 29, 2008

I will offer one obvious technological example to start.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3113002.stm

“Loyalty drops

Although Dyson is still the leading vacuum cleaner brand in the UK, it is beginning to lose out to cheaper machines that have copied its bagless technology.

James Dyson with one of his vacuum cleaners
Dyson has beaten the giants to become the top UK brand
Pick up an Argos catalogue, and you will find an upright Dyson DC04 for £177, while a Morphy Richards 73310 Ultralite Cyclone Bagless Cleaner sells for a mere £68.

Retailers such as Currys and Comet, which control 40% of the electricals market, have been driving down prices across the board.

The dilemma Dyson faces is dropping its own prices or reinforcing the power and quality of its brand.

Unfortunately, the loyalty of Dyson’s customers has also dropped off.

The company’s market share by volume has decreased from a third to a quarter over the last five years, according to GfK figures. ”

Of course as I said I could give you countless more ‘just ask’, In fact I could give you thousands if I had the time to waste stating the obvious.

Just the make the point clear though, Dyson was fanatical about patents and protection of his inventions. He also had more money than most to fight infringer’s because of his early success. That however did not help him, he was forced to out source manufacture and could not stop the flood of cheaper copies being sold in shops side by side his own.

The market is fickle and profits are powerful incentives, cheaper products made in China offer greater margins for retailers than homemade products. The man in the street could care less about the history of who made it first they are simply concerned with a bargain and will 9/10 times opt for the version that is half / quarter the original brand.

[Reply]
By Abe Murray on May 29, 2008

If ideas are the most important bit, then why isn’t there a marketplace for ideas? Has anyone ever purchased a standalone idea for huge amounts of money? No.

People purchase patents, certainly - but those are ideas with teeth, and a lot of money behind them. Consider these legal hedges.

People purchase / invest in startups - but as any VC will tell you, they invest more in the people than in the idea. In fact, most VC investments wind up building something different from the original idea.

Again, if what you say is true, then a good idea should be all you need. But it clearly isn’t. The “tech, hard work, investment, marketing” stages you list are basically “execution”. Luck is hard to argue against.

An idea is necessary but insufficient; hence it is value-less in the absence of execution.

[Reply]
By Steven Carrol on May 29, 2008

@abe

“People purchase patents, certainly - but those are ideas with teeth, and a lot of money behind them. Consider these legal hedges.”

Actually filling costs for a patent in one country are like 50 UKP, it is not expensive to file a patent. But there is a huge industry in writing solid patents. The point being though, because an idea has a patent does not mean it has traction. It does not even mean it will work.

The main point or your comment however misses the point of my article. I am not saying that execution is valueless, like VC always say about ideas, but there are millions of people who have the ability to execute well, just like there are millions who can copy. But the origional idea that in the example I gave ‘Dyson’ was totally unique and in all likely hood would never have seen the light of day if it was not for Dyson’s tenacity. For the record he actually offered deals to Hoover and many other manufactures to develop his designs and only after 10 years of being given the run around did he actually set up his own factory and was hovered up my the market who loved his story and idea.

[Reply]
By Abe Murray on May 29, 2008

I understand your perspective - but what about the fact that many of the most important ideas in our world were independently generated around the world at the same time? DNA, lightbulb, steam engine, etc.

One might argue that an idea will appear when the time is right, and that there are many people capable of generating said idea given the right conditions.

I disagree that certain ideas are unique to a given individual and would never be generated without their brainpower - if Dyson hadn’t come up with his idea, someone else may have (or a better idea, given that his wasn’t already there / successful in the market).

And finally - if ideas are that unique and important, I have quite a few that I believe are fantastic, and I am willing to sell :-). Would you buy an idea?

[Reply]
By Steven Carrol on May 29, 2008

@abe

There is something interesting about the evolution of some ideas who’s time have come and a few people have them around the same time.

However, this is clearly not a universal phenomenon. This happens for solutions that arise to solve a problem that had recently emerged, and the very few innovative creatures among us then have that aha moment.

In the example that I mentioned, the barrier to entry was so high that it took an extraordinary effort by Dyson to bring it to life. I do not believe that the cyclone vacuum cleaner concept was had simaltainiously by many others at the same time who then later went on to make similar.

The specific case of the Dyson invention was made possible by this characters unique history. One of his previous challenges was while working for a company (I forget the details) on a cyclone device (it was a completely different problem) this unique experience in his past enabled Dyson to be in a unique position to see a potential solution to a problem.

Then this coupled with an extraordinary effort (15 year long quest) resulted in the birth of the new cyclone vacuum cleaner. The copycats who now make rip-offs in China were not motivated into gear by the tenacity and genius that Dyson demonstrated, but rather as a result of greed and jealousy as they saw that his idea was a commercial success and that they were already manufactures who could make the same only cheaper given they did not have to spend years proving the concept with prototypes and could borrow from his breakthroughs.

To home this point down I will add to this debate another example where an invention / discovery was had by one man, who had to also go to extraordinary lengths to make his breakthrough see the light of day. His name was Barry Marshall, in 1982 in discovered that a bacterium he named H.Pylori was responsible for stomach ulcers and many other gastro disorders which had no cure, was thought by the mainstream to be caused by stress and was killing 5 million people per annum. After being ridiculed by his peers, by mainstream medical journals, by the entire world, in 1993 he did a daredevil stunt and swallowed a wapping dose of the bacterium into his own body. He did this before the worlds media who watched his crazy experiment unfold. After 3 weeks he was suffering with the expected effects, which some might argue could have been caused by stress because his wife was so pissed at his irresponsible actions she left him (temporally), he then went on to take the cure that he had devised. After 1 month he was cured and the worlds media (not the major scientific journals) disseminated the results to the world at large. He proved without doubt that his theorem was correct and he changed the cause of history. In 2006 he was rightly awarded the noble price for his contribution to mankind.

The reason they went to the lengths that they did, was because the ideas belonged to them, ownership of the ideas compelled them to go on their quests. They would not have done so if it was someone else’s idea, they are extraordinary people.

lastly I am not claiming that execution is valueless like VCs try to claim about ideas. Only that execution is way down the list of priorities when it comes to giving birth to a new concept such as an innovation.

[Reply]
By Steven Carrol on May 31, 2008

Here is a current conversation about how to circumvent another’s patent. This is the reality on the ground.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=204484

[Reply]
By Steven Carrol on Jun 8, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06.....ref=slogin

Interesting article which is shows the typical response towards (and struggle of) an innovator. That VC’s constantly spout propaganda ‘that it’s good to share your ideas’ with them, has absolutely no merit nor substance. It is in VCs interests to get the best ideas and then install their own mediocre teams to execute them…

[Reply]
By Steven Carrol on Jun 8, 2008

nytimes.com/2008/06/08/technology/08stream.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Interesting article which is shows the typical response towards (and struggle of) an innovator. That VC’s constantly spout propaganda ‘that it’s good to share your ideas’ with them, has absolutely no merit nor substance. It is in VCs interests to get the best ideas and then install their own mediocre teams to execute them…

[Reply]

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