Inventions happen when you are whacked at the side of your head by ideas which inspire you to immediately get down working in order to transform them into workable reality. Ideas can come out of the blue or by deliberate processes like brainstorming, free-association, long walks and long hot baths. These are the tried and tested methods which produce a breakthrough occasionally and now there is ‘Edgecraft’ a method which can churn out lots of effective ideas that can be readily and inexpensively implemented to substantial profits.

Edgecraft is a methodical process taught by Seth Godin, prominent speaker and best-selling author of business books, who shot to fame as an author of note with his book on permission marketing. This method enables an individual to come up with soft innovations. Anyone can do it and it is very simple to learn.

Edgecraft involves finding the ‘edge’, also called a ‘free prize’ because it is an innovation just waiting to be discovered at the very edges of an existing product or service. Edgecraft involves discovering this ‘free prize’ or ‘edge’, in an unrelated industry, which has made the original service/ product remarkable. Then relating that edge with your own consumers and figuring out ways to implement it in your own product or service.

Go as far as your consumers allow. Your product already exists you just need to discover and connect it with those soft innovations that are there at the edge and would delight consumers. You will be able to think up hundreds of such edges which you can combine or take away from your product or service. Once you have marked out the desired edge all that is needed is someone who would back it and convince others so that it is implemented.

With Edgecraft you can come out with innovations which will set people talking about and that will be the grand prize because if something gets talked about, it is a success!

This gentleman may have rarely combed his hair, but his works include more than fifty scientific papers and a number of non-scientific books. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics and is revered all across the world. In popular culture, the name “Einstein” has become another word for genius!

It may be worth your while to check his views on what it takes to master the game of innovation…

• Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.
• It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
• Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
• The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
• If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
• We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
• The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
• Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
• The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
• The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
• The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.

As large corporations spend billions of dollars for R&D, but often fail to come up with innovations that match the hype, we steer our attention towards the place from where the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergei Brin started their careers. This magical place, the Garage, where astounding technologies and great personalities were born… These personalities then moved on with their technologies to bigger, fancier buildings, but the Garage was never left empty.

The Garage continues to be populated with passionate inventors working furiously toward the next big breakthrough. Though personalities like Jobs, Gates, Sergei and Brin are rare, exciting innovations are not, as we discover year after year. People come out with ‘WOW!’ products which are frequently very simple and relatively inexpensive, but are nevertheless very useful and potentially great…

A few days ago, I read a piece in Popular Mechanics about the annual Maker Faire bonanza, which is one such event that attracts fantastic ‘Garage Inventions’, some of which are superior to their well-known predecessors and unlike them are very wallet friendly. This year Maker Faire had its share of exhilarating stuff like algae-gargline biofuel pumps and fire-breathing robots, along with inventions which had the potential of kicking out well-established offerings of huge corporations. A few examples…

There was Tony De Rose’s Open source multi-touch table, which is a laptop-powered version of Microsoft’s much-hyped Surface but costs way less at $500, that includes $100 towards the cost of the maple used in the table. Next was Chris Benton’s Hand-built UAV Sharpshooters which consisted of a bunch of cameras and remote-control circuitry rigged to drug-store frame kites. The contraption keeps taking pictures on its own till the battery or the memory is exhausted… and the best part is it costs a lot less than renting a helicopter to take those snaps. Then there was Doug Lonner’s Solar-Powered Stirling Engine (a closed-cycle piston heat engine). It’s a breakthrough gadget powered by the sun, to which one should add that it can handle torque up to 70 rpms without using the valves that are required for Sterling power.

These are just a few of the amazing new products on display, a number of which offer customers a better and cheaper alternative. We are now witnessing a rapid rise of the small inventors. The Internet boom is helping them like never before. The Internet has opened up the field by making information freely available. Inventors now have access to a number of tools and resources. They can communicate with their peers, share information, access databases and in turn, reach out to the world with their ideas, something they could only dream of doing before. As the Internet levels the field, it’s big time for the small inventors!

Steve Greenberg, aka Innovation Insider, recently talked to CW Channel 11 in New York City about the best eco-friendly products and services. Here are the inventions & services that made the cut!

Oh, what a time it was. Frolicking through meadows of grass, playing hide and seek with the neighbors kids, and showing off your latest and greatest toys to friends. No, I’m not talking about childhood, I’m talking about the 2008 International Toy Fair in New York last week! (minus the meadows and hide and seek games unfortunately).

We took a trip up to see what was on the minds of 1300 of the greatest toy inventors and companies in the world. Needless to say, it was an rejuvenating experience. From remote control miniature construction equipment, to funky shaped frisbees, yes, the Toy Fair had it all.

The show covered the two floors of the Jacob Javits Convention Center, on the west side of Manhattan. To keep the show professional, they screen every attendee and prohibit children (adults with child-like minds are allowed though). Parts of the show were categorized, such as board games, or plush toys, or art and design toys. Although many of the booths were for Toy Inventors, there was a small corner section dedicated to early-stage inventors. In this section, booths were smaller, and cheaper, which allowed inventors, that otherwise couldn’t afford to exhibit, the chance to present.

Even our very own Lisa Lloyd was there exhibiting her latest product, TC Pets. To really get a sense of what happened, check out this video or see our photo gallery: