Ideation: The Birth and Death of Ideas

Have you ever had a great idea? Did you do anything with it? Don’t worry you are not alone. Most of us have had great ideas but few of us ever do anything about them. This book will tell you what to do, how to find out if anyone has thought of it before, how to protect, develop, fund, and market it regardless of whether it’s business, creative, or scientific in nature, and regardless of whether you are working in a large corporation or at home.

Great ideas are the foundations of great businesses, but the bureaucratic nature of big business generally stifles the sort of individual creativity that leads to great business ideas. Ideation looks at the importance of innovation as a key driver of business success and posits new ways to encourage and nurture it in today’s business environment.

Using case studies and firsthand interviews with innovators past and present, Ideation explores how individuals and companies develop creative ideas and bring them to full fruition. It provides practical, comprehensive advice for managing our big ideas so that we gain the most benefit from them in our personal lives, our companies, and our society in general.

For business leaders and entrepreneurs, Ideation explores the life cycle of ideas and explains every step of the ideation process. It provides unparalleled guidance on the vital subject of legal protections for ideas including copyright, trademarks, and patents and also covers the valuation of intellectual property as well as techniques for effectively marketing ideas to investors and licensees.

With new strategies for building organizations that encourage the kind of creative thinking on which economies thrive, Ideation offers practical guidance on changing slow–moving business behemoths into fleet–footed innovators. Authors Douglas Graham and Thomas Bachmann present a blueprint for the effective management of ideas within the corporate structure, but also share their vision of a true marketplace of ideas in which ideas, capital, and markets are brought together in a global marketplace. This will give ideas a much better chance on their perilous journey from conception to realization. They make the argument that this will be the single most important thing we can do for our global economy and quality of life.

In concert with the Ideation Web site (ideation registry.com) which provides practical tools for developing and protecting ideas and also offers access to potential licensees this vital, comprehensive resource helps individuals and organizations develop good ideas into wealth–producing intellectual property assets. It explores the process of creation from the various perspectives of psychology, finance, economics, and law, offering a comprehensive picture of how ideas are born and best exploited in modern business. Ideas are the basis on which we build our wealth as individuals, organizations, and a society; this book shows us how to nurture those ideas and reap big rewards.

“It is important that we address the management of innovation, and I hope that this book will make an initial contribution to this critical area.”
Carl Icahn
Financier, innovator, and philanthropist

“This book starts this discussion of how we can better help innovation become realized and discusses the profound impact this could have on our economy and our society.”
Sir David Cooksey
Chairman of the Committee of Non–Executive Directors of the Bank of England

“The more we can make a fertile ground for new ideas and innovations the better. The ideas in this book go a long way in showing you how to do this!”
Lee Iacocca
Former Chairman of Chrysler

“Being engaged for almost a decade in making managers and investors aware of the challenges and potential of intangible investments and the consequent innovation, I welcome a book that brings this message to a broader audience.”
Baruch Lev
Founder and Director, The Intangibles Research Project, New York University

“Too many artists (and businessmen) fail to value their intellectual rights and all lack an efficient means of benefiting from them.”
Ron Altbach
Concert pianist, investment banker, and former member of the Beach Boys

“A challenge is that to commercialize innovation you have to move quickly and be in a continual process of self–obsolescence. You have to keep reinventing your own products.”
Craig Fields
Former Chairman, Defense Science Board and Director, Defense Advanced Research Council (during invention of Internet)

“Each production is an idea that grows and gathers other ideas until the final event. The management of this creative process is the challenge.”
Don Mischer
Event creator and winner of thirteen Emmys

“If we can commercialize just a portion of the defense and intelligence research as suggested, then it is a huge benefit for the taxpayer and society.”
Honorable Ty W. McCoy
Former Acting Secretary of the Air Force and Chairman, Space Transportation Association