Well, the proverbial cat has been spilled and the beans are out of the bag. Wait, scratch that and reverse it. My baby InventionLand was mentioned in the Post-Gazette today. Take a look here. There is also a video. I don’t want to say too much about it, but you can read the article.

On a different note, earlier this week I gave a speech to a group of students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School. I talked about open innovation, invention, failure and what desire means to me. Thinking about the discussion led me down a few interesting paths and I thought I’d share some of it with you. Today I wanted to post about failure and its importance in inventing and next week I want to talk about desire and using it as fuel to get to where you want to be.

They say “failure is the mother of success” and it’s true. I know; I started my business from a failure. I dropped all my savings, my time and my heart into an invention that totally failed. I wanted to create a toothbrush sanitizing device. After spending money and time on something I wasn’t even sure was going to be a success, a major corporation put a similar product on the shelves right under my nose. It was a failure.

But it was a failure that nursed a success. You get up where you fall, right? You don’t go back to square one. You take what you’ve learned and apply it again. Well, I fell with an invention that was a day late for the market. But I got up with a process; something I developed in making my failure. It was a better way to create, to invent. I would iron out the rough edges in time, but it would eventually be called Inventegration.

I took this and started a business in 1989 out of my grandfather’s basement. In time, I’d gather some cash, some smart people to work with me and eventually grew that Oakmont business into an 110,000 square foot production facility with nearly 300 Inventionmen. I say Inventionmen, because that’s what these men and women are. I don’t like to use the term employee, because I feel a negative connotation with that word.

You know, I look at failures in this way: I see a failure as a mirror. For me, in inventing, this is especially important. You’ve taken an idea and built it into a well constructed, finger print free reflection of yourself. Then it fails. It smashes into hundreds of shards of mirror. To some it’s a mess; a disappointment. To me, I see hundreds of new ideas staring back at me. I just choose a new path and go on from there.

You know who is a famous failure? Thomas Edison. Edison experimented with more than 6,000 materials before he found the right one to use as a filament. When asked about it, he said, “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Imagine failing 10,000 times. Where did he get that energy; where did he get that desire? Because it takes a strong desire to persevere in the face of failure, let alone repeated failure.

Next week, I’ll keep this going and tell you about desire.

Years ago people would ask me how we develop our products and I would explain the entire process from A to Z. Why not? It was my baby and I was excited about it. Today, however, I define our invention process with six simple words: making your invention easier to license.

It often seems that many people are confused about how to develop their ideas into an invention. Understanding the confusion - I mean it was all new to me at one point - I willingly contribute free-of-charge what I have learned over the past 17 years. Here it goes:

First off, always use your common sense. Next, if you are going to try and sell your invention off to a company under a license agreement and try to collect the royalties, it’s your responsibility to make it as easy as possible for the execs at the company you want to sell it to. Gather information on the following:

1. Research what company has a product line and/or business model that your invention would be compatible with. Ask yourself what product categories they work in? What price points do they target? What’s their “look” on the shelf, including size and brand?

2. Design your invention to fit their company so it integrates easily.

3. Build your invention so that executives can see that your invention is compatible and fits easily within their business.

4. Create full color packaging with photographs showing the invention in use, so the executives can get the picture.

Remember, you’ve been a consumer of products your whole life. You have skills and desire to help you carry on your quest. Rely on your common sense and keep it simple.

For people like me, when my family goes to the store my wife does the shopping. I do product analysis. Whether it’s the department store, the grocery store or a hardware store I always feel like I’m in product research mode. It’s a great way to inspire yourself to innovate or reinvent products already on the market or invent a product that you can’t find in a store. Store shelves are always a free and hardy source of brain food.

Let’s say I’m interested in making door hinges and I find hinges in the stores, selling for 49 cents. I’ll look at that and ask myself how the manufacturer engineered and got this product to the market at that price point while still making a profit. Then I’ll buy the hinge and attempt to reverse engineer it. I’ll see what the benefits and flaws of it are. You’ll never know how this information will apply to you in future inventions. You might look at something like this hinge and two years later you’ll be on a completely unrelated project and say to yourself, “perhaps I can apply that to this.”

I think stores are the best schooling. Most people don’t understand injection molding, stamping, manufacturer tooling and so on. In time, as you become familiar with this, you’ll pull a product off the shelf and know how it’s made. It’ll make you a much better designer.

As well, it’s great to see patterns in corporate packaging. What is popular in packaging, whether its graphics or the engineering. Are companies using less packaging to reduce waste? How are they doing it? Why is it important? Again, once you’re able to answer these questions, you’ll be a better designer and inventor. I could spend all day in the store just doing research.