One of the observations I have made, from my work with corporates, startups, and entrepreneurs, is how much employees like to be part of an ideation workshop and write down their ideas on post-it notes or flip-charts. They end up creating even bigger and better ideas when they know there is a good chance it will be considered for a patent application.
Once the raw ideas are captured the work begins. There is something inspirational in watching employees become inventors and refine their ideas during the patent drafting process. The passion, details, features, possibilities, everything begins to evolve as the inventors unravel their thoughts and share details that give shape and vibrancy to a new invention.
Don't underestimate how many great ideas are in the heads of your employees just waiting for an opportunity to be discovered and shared.
For an entrepreneur (and we are all entrepreneurs at heart), I believe ideation is truly therapeutic. Where just before there seemed no path forward, suddenly there are new products, business models, and a renewed energy that drives business development. For a company, it is one of the best opportunity areas to create a competitive advantage and build employee engagement.
I'd like to offer three ways to energize your innovation program, harvest new ideas to solve business needs, increase your competitive advantage, and drive employee engagement.
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- Idea Capture Workshops | A great way to stoke the innovation fire and engage your company in a new conversation about innovation is to conduct an idea harvesting workshop. A well-facilitated workshop can start with a business need and collaboratively journey with a group of employees to explore and evolve solutions that meet the need.
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- Patent Programs | While workshops are great at generating ideas, there needs to be a clear pathway to convert the ideas into value for the company. Too often workshops are held, ideas generated, and then nothing else really happens. While a company can't develop every harvested idea, a bootstrap patenting program can inexpensively refine the raw ideas into patentably ownable concepts that help the company create a long term competitive advantage.
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- Inventor Recognition | A Human Resource colleague once told me, recognition is the best way to build employee engagement. I believe it. Everyone has ideas and wants to be heard, they just need a comfortable forum, an opportunity to share, and a little recognition for the effort. Workshops are a great forum for sharing and a bootstrap patent program can capture the value created from the workshop. Now make sure your innovation program recognizes the employees that become inventors.
Ways we can help you:
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- Drafting, filing, and prosecuting patent applications
- Embedding with innovation teams to harvest, refine, and protect ideas
- Identifying patentable ideas within startup technologies
- Landscaping markets to identify new opportunities
- Developing patent strategies for products and startup
- Managing the patent creation process from concept to product launch
- Searching ideas for prior art patents
- Reviewing prior art patents with product development teams
- Building IP for VC/PE portfolio companies
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Learn more at www.Gr8BigIdeas.com
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