Beyond Brainstorming: The Farnsworth Invention

December 04, 2007

The Farnsworth Invention

Kes and I are HUGE Aaron Sorkin fans. If you aren't familiar with Sorkin, he's a playwright, producer, and screenwriter probably most well known for the NBC series The West Wing. He has a new show on Broadway called The Farnsworth Invention.

Just as the name implies, it's a story of invention. It's the familiar story of a savvy businessman who gets all the glory for some unknown engineer's idea.

Just a few weeks back I posted An idea is only an idea until... which talks about the same underlying theme. Sometimes the original inventor is robbed of due credit, and other times without the right application, market, marketing, the idea is simply just an idea. It will be interesting to research the history before seeing the play and then see which angle Sorkin takes on the story.

Needless to say, our tickets have been purchased. This age old story at the hands of Sorkin has to be a winner.

Posted at 10:35 AM in Ideas | Permalink

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Comments

Hi Sue,

First, excellent post, and excellent blog. Congrats for picking TypePad as well (we develop more than a dozen web sites per year, and TypePad rocks).

Looking forward to the play... and I certainly hope Sorkin's version makes it into a TV show or movie worthy of his talent. That's a success waiting to happen.

Finally: on Inventors and Inventing: I own one patent (licensed to the company who bought mine) and have worked with inventors and entrepreneurs since 1986.

Inventors need not be paranoid regarding their inventions. In fact, that's the greatest challenge we've run into: Paranoid Inventors.

They hold their idea (calling it an "invention" is sometimes ridiculous... you should see some of these things) so close to their chests, that even evaluating it for market opportunity is impossible.

I've been saving my notes for an extended blog post on this, and will make it shortly on our site. In the mean time, let's connect on these issues. You've got some great insights, and I think we share some common thoughts that ought to be expanded upon.

Thanks, Sue.
Mark Alan Effinger
http://www.ThoughtOffice.com

Posted by: Mark Alan Effinger | December 04, 2007 at 04:38 PM

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