{"id":63,"date":"2016-02-29T16:15:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T00:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nathanbak.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2026-01-02T20:02:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:02:38","slug":"master-inventors-and-goggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/?p=63","title":{"rendered":"Master Inventors and Goggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Goggles\"Shortly after joining IBM, I sent an inquiry to an IBMer.\u00a0 I received a timely response from her and noticed in the e-mail signature was the title “Master Inventor<\/a>“.\u00a0 This was the first time I had heard the term and it evoked images of a job where one wears a lab coat and perchance even goggles.\u00a0 I thanked the sender for the information and mentioned that I thought Master Inventor was a cool title.\u00a0 She then gave a brief response\u00a0 explaining the Master Inventor title and how she got there and how I could get started on the patenting path.\u00a0 I do not remember who it was, but I am grateful that she took the time to provide a nice, personal response.\u00a0 That is what started me down the road of turning ideas into inventions in a formal way.<\/p>\n

About eight years later, I was honored to be named an IBM Master Inventor.\u00a0 While I didn’t receive a monogrammed lab coat or goggles (sob), I did receive a nicely framed certificate that now hangs above my disheveled desk.\u00a0 Less obvious than the cool title is the learning and experience I gained.\u00a0 One of the things I learned is that ideas are cheap; I mean that in different ways.<\/p>\n

Ideas are cheap.\u00a0 You’ve got to work to make them valuable.\u00a0 I’ve “lost” some good ideas because I didn’t take effort to write them up, define things more clearly, and actually do something with the idea.<\/p>\n

Ideas are cheap.\u00a0 Anyone can have them.\u00a0 It doesn’t cost years of study or practice to have an idea.\u00a0 It doesn’t take expertise.\u00a0 Often I’ve heard terrific ideas from people with no knowledge of the technical area and having just heard about a problem to be solved.\u00a0 It’s important to listen to the ideas of other people.<\/p>\n

Ideas are cheap.\u00a0 In brainstorming some say there aren’t any bad ideas, but there are.\u00a0 The funniest of my bad ideas come when I’m half asleep and somehow I convince myself that I’ve come up with something brilliant.\u00a0 Fortunately, I’ve learned not to get too attached to bad ideas–I can throw them away because they are cheap.<\/p>\n

Ideas are cheap.\u00a0 It’s OK to share ideas with others–it’s better than hoarding them.\u00a0 This is especially true for ideas that aren’t accompanied by any action–perhaps someone else will see your good idea through.\u00a0 In my case, my employer has first dibs on my relevant ideas (and I am compensated for them).\u00a0 But ideas that are unrelated to or unwanted by IBM I am free to share.\u00a0 So perhaps a future posting will describe the invention I built so that I could dance my password.<\/p>\n

Ideas are cheap.\u00a0 So try to have a lot of ideas.\u00a0 I played paintball once and learned the concept of “accuracy by volume”.\u00a0 If you cover the arena with paint you’re likely to also get your opponents.\u00a0 If you have a lot of ideas, some of them are bound to be good.<\/p>\n

Ideas are cheap, but I’ve gained a lot working with them.\u00a0 So now when I submit my tax return (as I recently did), under occupation I specify Master Inventor.\u00a0 Perhaps someone in the IRS is imagining that I wear goggles . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shortly after joining IBM, I sent an inquiry to an IBMer.\u00a0 I received a timely response from her and noticed in the e-mail signature was the title “Master Inventor“.\u00a0 This was the first time I had heard the term and it evoked images of a job where one wears a lab coat and perchance even … Continue reading “Master Inventors and Goggles”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanbak.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}