It’s not always easy to be positive because there’s always a critic around the corner; it may be a parent, a teacher, a spouse or a friend. And when we trust them with our deepest thoughts and ideas we expose so much of ourselves to criticism, and some creative people may never recover. This blog is for all of you out there who keep the faith and keep strong in the face of opposition when it confronts you or confronts your idea. Remember, those closest to you are one type of critic, and the other is the competition to your idea. They will use their political influence to criticize your idea in hopes that they will stop you or tire you out. By the way, if this is happening to you let me be the first to congratulate you. Your idea is becoming so successful that it threatens their position in the world. So, smile at their attempt to criticize and let it give you inner strength and more desire in your heart to succeed.

One of my mentors always said, “I never want to sail the open seas with a captain who has only had calm seas.” Experience in difficult and challenging situations is of more value than most people realize. The experienced creative people, like Edison, Ford and Disney, knew when they were becoming successful. Their ideas were forcing change and that’s never easy for those entrenched in the way things are currently done. The battles between Edison and Westinghouse, the zipper and Velcro, and more, are well documented. So know your history because it will guide you, and always believe in yourself and what you’re creating; it truly is the inventor’s secret ingredient.  

For example, someone who loves to make clay pots and is always creating them knows that over time their skills get better. Practice makes perfect, in other words. The act of inventing something also requires constant work at creating all the different facets of the invention in order to make it into a new product.

First, there’s the creation of the idea, and the more brainstorming you do, the better you get at it. Then, there’s the creation of concept models, and the more you do of that, the better you get at it. There’s the creation of best manufacturing methods to make the product, and the more you do, the better you get at it. The more you create engineering, photography and graphics for packaging, and packages to store shelf quality the better you get at those. But that’s not all – the more you negotiate with corporations and work at forming good relationships with companies, the better you get at those, as well.

If you take all those things and wrap them up into one big bundle, the better you get at inventing new products. The ABC’s of inventing is to be creating all the time in any of those areas. The skill sets required to become proficient in all of them are truly hard to find. It’s kind of like the famous artists of the world whose paintings hang in museums. After a lifetime of working on the ABCs, every work of art they’ve created is in demand.

Now that we have created more products that are in the stores than anyone else, we have broken new ground and made history; but we never take our eyes off the ABC’s. Each product we design – whether for ourselves, corporations or the individuals who hire us – gets treated like a work of art by skilled artisans with intense dedication who are always focusing on those ABC’s, project after project.

It’s so telling to sit down and listen to someone who has all these years of wisdom and watch people gather around just to hear her speak. Our ancestors really had it right when they put the oldest people into positions of leadership and teaching of the younger folks. The challenge is to find someone who’s older who has truly lived a compelling life.

For some reason I have always been drawn to people like this. It seems young people just want to get on with things, but don’t really understand all the ins and outs of how the human race operates; as a result they make more mistakes then necessary. Why is it most young people or people who are doing things for the first time don’t seek wisdom from those who are older or more experienced? Common sense says, if you can find a guide who’s been there before or had a life experience that can help you in some way before you start out on your new adventure, you should seek their counsel.

I enjoy being around older people; they’re not trying to prove something to the world, money is of no real importance, influence is of no real importance – they simply want to share with you, if you’re willing to listen … and their wisdom is wonderful.

Similarly, we don’t have all the answers, but we do have the experience. For over 20 years, inventing is all we’ve done; and when people are willing to listen and trust us, we do everything we can and use all of our experience to help.

“Innovation” and “new” keep companies fresh with something to sell that consumers can’t get anywhere else. It’s no wonder that we’re licensing so many new products nowadays.

Several friends of mine own large companies who have been juggling the impact of the Internet on the products they sell. One such company sells paintball guns. They’re the highest quality guns in the world, and yet sales have been declining because so many people are trading their paintball guns instead of buying new ones.

In an effort to have something to market, they’ve come out with their own line of less expensive paintball guns with variations on the same technology that is in more expensive guns – it has led to an expansion of their company’s business in the lower priced market.

The key is to come up with something new and better, so consumers demand it. And while there will always be a trader’s market for people who don’t mind buying used and dealing with the problems that come with used items, by focusing on innovation and new products, you protect your company’s vitality in the marketplace.

We’ve been hard at work for over a year developing a new curriculum to help high school students understand how things are made in this world. After running it by about 45 teachers, principals and superintendents during an in-service in Inventionland, we know we’re on the right track. The curriculum was well received, and getting their help and input to make additional improvements is invaluable.

It turns out that the process of developing a product is really very similar to developing curriculum. First, you do your pre-development work, identify the needs of the marketplace, brainstorm out a solution, then work through a series of concept models until you eventually get the direction that seems best. Then you put forth a great deal of effort to build the finished product, or curriculum in this case, which then gets reviewed and tested prior to product launch.

In today’s curriculum environment, teachers are finding it more and more difficult to capture the imaginations of young people. Our project-based curriculum will enable students to be actively involved in the process of developing new inventions.

By having students go through the sequence of successful products on store shelves, they can see how the development process works and can get an overall picture in their mind that functions as a “how to” map, which builds a belief system in young people. Once you see how a process can be applied to an idea you see it isn’t magic – it isn’t unorthodox guesswork; it is a process you can apply to any invention to get it developed.
 
Currently we’re working with state and local (and soon, federal) representatives on making sure the next generation grasps one of the most basic roots of our economy for the last 200 years – how inventors build the economic model of the U.S. I hope that we’re able to do our part, so that we can continue to lead the world toward the innovation frontier.

Well, it’s happened again – Just when I was getting over the shock of replacing all the helmets in Wal-Mart, another grand-slam homer gets smacked out of the ball park!

We did development work for the same company in the automotive seat cushion area. As a result, the company landed 12 more products in Wal-Mart and, once again, knocked its competitor off the retail giant’s shelves.

It just seems too good to be true – not only will we be collecting royalties on all the helmets Wal-Mart sells, now we will be collecting on all the seat cushions they sell, too. It’s a royalty bonanza!

Besides that, it’s just wonderful to go to stores and see our big, blue “D” on the products and packages that we have created. So, the next time you’re shopping, turn over some packages and look for the big, blue “D” – you’re sure to find it!

At Davison, we are seeing more new product acquisitions and licensing right now than we have in over a year. That’s because many corporations are seeking to be more innovative so they have more to offer than their competitors during the economic downturn.

For anyone who’s ever gone to retail buyer meetings, you already know the first thing buyers ask is, “What’s new?” We’re thrilled that is the foremost question because our corporate clients are ready with answers. They are perceived as companies of innovation when they license new products from us.

The word “stimulus” is thrown around again and again from a government perspective, but it also has significance from a retail perspective. In other words, retailers want to provide consumers with some stimulus, such as the opportunity to see and purchase cutting-edge new products when walking down the aisles of their stores.

When we start seeing orders for 90,000 Party Travelers and thousands of Meatball Bakers (ideas of individual clients that we converted into licensed products) right out of the gate, that is a major stimulus going on!

Retailers and marketers are looking for innovative new products that will help them capture market share. In other words, “out with the old and in with the new.” Everyone seems to be up for change right now, and that’s a breath of fresh air when you’re in the new product business.

Hey folks, I wrote a blog a while ago about the one question all inventors should ask to tell whether or not they should trust a company or a person to work on their idea. The basis of the question is that there is only one way to really separate everyone. I stated that if you can go to the stores and buy the inventions they’ve developed, they’re for real.

Unfortunately, I have to revisit this issue because some groups with bad intentions have read my blog and realized that I was making it simple for people to identify whether a company or a person knows what they were doing prior to hiring them.

I was shocked when I discovered that one particular company had just launched its own “Internet store.” Let me make this clear, folks; when I talked about the importance of “being in the stores,” I was referring to products in retail stores, not just some gizmos for sale on a company’s website

What concerns me the most is that a company is making it look like they did all the development work on the gizmos they’re selling in their “store,” when, in fact, they didn’t do any of the development work. I started looking at some of the products on their website and recognized them as those of inventors who approached us to help them with their fully developed products. Some of these people spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on manufacturing, packaging and tooling to make products that just don’t sell because they were developed incorrectly from the beginning.  

These companies are purposely trying to confuse people by saying their products are in a retail store when, in reality, they are not. If you can’t walk into a store and buy the invention or link to a real store where they are selling the invention, then they simply don’t have the necessary experience to develop products.

So, don’t be tricked; they’re just trying to look like they’re in the stores by creating their own “store.” And if you actually see something you would like to buy there, good luck trying to check out!

If you don’t know what an appearance model is, don’t feel embarrassed, I once wondered, too. Appearance models are nothing more than an artist’s drawing made into a 3D hunk of plastic. There is nothing working inside.

In the world I live in, reality plays a vital role in everything we create. I can tell you that it is also of great importance when you meet with retail store buyers and major corporations – you are dealing in the real world; they will not do your work for you.

For the record, these invention promotion companies that make appearance models do not employ mechanical, software and electrical engineers to truly design your prototypes for you. Their mission is to cause confusion and then perform a “bait and switch.” In other words, their website will say, “Need a prototype?” Then later, in small print, it will be switched to “appearance model.”

At best, they will have an artist work on it who knows nothing about mass production, raw material selection or molds. You end up with a piece of plastic in your hand that is far away from a real working prototype.

I remember when I was younger in the business and a successful CEO said to me, “George, I’ll make this simple for you — The more you do, the more you get.”

So, it should be your objective to get as close to reality, as in a real working prototype, as you can for the corporations you’re going to try to do business with. And be aware of invention promotion companies that are stuck in the Stone Age – if you know what I mean.

It is a simple fact that there isn’t any one single person in the world who can go from an idea to a finished product on the store shelves without the help of others along the way. This fear inventors have of revealing their idea is anchored in stories out of Hollywood that show inventors getting their ideas stolen. In fact, that is a very rare occurrence.

We must get over the fear of someone stealing our ideas as quickly as possible. It is vital to assemble a competent team of people who can help you; a team that can show you other customers they have helped. For example, at Davison we’re in the business of helping people with ideas, and we wouldn’t be in the business very long if we took someone’s idea. Our clients can back that up. Several of those who have trusted us with their ideas have talked with us on film so we can provide a modern comfort zone for today’s idea people.

The good thing about video testimonials of clients whose products we’ve gotten on the store shelves is that they speak from real experience. These are customers who’ve worked with us over periods of time to accomplish their vision, and they want to give back to people like themselves. Months or years after they started their journey, they are grateful enough to give us their permission and tell their story so that others won’t be as nervous as they were on day one.

I dream of the day when people come in contact with our brand and immediately know that we can be trusted with the most confidential of ideas. Until then, here is a link to the testimonials of a few of our clients: http://www.davison.com/s_experience/testimonials.html.