American Ingenuity

A French president of a biotech company in Boston once told me that America's competitive edge is  creativity.  From his perspective, other countries are less comfortable with the messy, expensive process involved in bringing new ideas to market.  A friend of mine who is a design engineer said that was certainly his experience in dealing with Chinese manufacturers.  My limited experience with setting compensation for jobs in France, Germany and Asia gives me some appreciation for how different educational systems and work contracts affect employees.

So I was concerned to read that our national patent process is under-resourced.  I've since misplaced the source article, but as most new job creation is credited to small businesses, seems like we should encourage good old American ingenuity. 

 I had the honor of hearing Bill Gore speak shortly before his death, about how he set up the Gortex company to encourage workers to contribute everything in their power.  He called his organization a "lattice" framework.  People were carefully selected, then told to go find someone who would let them in on a project.  At the time, I was creating self-managed teams and he spoke to me personally for about 15 minutes, showing great enthusiasm for how organizational structure can unleash vs. inhibit employees.  As for patents, hopefully there was less of a backlog when he was creating Gortex materials for running shoes, space suits and surgical heart patches.

USA Today featured Frank Yang in an article about his fancy trash cans (08/09/10).  This political science major took a design class on a whim (actually the credit goes to the woman he later married) and then went to work for his father's shelving business.  The Container Store loved his concept for a high-quality garbage can in 2000: Simplehuman goods was born.  Frank has since modified and expanded his line to offer less costly cans and related products.  He is most proud of the floor devoted to research in his Southern California headquarters.  "Torn-apart gizmos, coffeemakers and prototypes are strewn on desks and in bins and shelves.  The room is decorated with frames of the patents Simplehuman has." Yang says its all about focus, and function always comes before form.  As for competitors offering cheap knockoffs, "My products will always be a step above," he says.  Sounds like a great place to work, yes?