As the innovation keynote speaker last week for the Utah Farm Bureau Leadership Conference I realized the agriculture industry is in the midst of quite a bit of disruption. But it hasn’t always been that way. For almost a thousand years, innovation in agriculture never changed. Farmers from Julius…
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The inspiration for innovation can come from many places. One of the best places to look is in nature. Nature has been solving its own problems for millions of years and has had plenty of time to work out the bugs and become sustainable.
Biomimicry is a science that gets…
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Fads tend to get a bad rap because their popularity may not have anything to do with the value of the item or the craze. Good examples are Hula Hoops, Pet Rocks, Lava Lamps, the Slinky and Beanie Babies. Pet Rocks and Beanie Babies don’t solve problems. They are…
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I’ve worked in many male dominated industries, from being an innovation keynote speaker to being an inventor to being a manufacturer. Quite often I’m the only woman in the room, but I’ve never felt left out of the conversation. Most men I’ve worked with welcome a fresh…
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Where would we be without inventors? Practically everything we touch in the course of a day is thanks to an inventor who saw an opportunity most people overlooked. Inventors are problem solvers who are never satisfied with the status quo and believe there is always a better way. That…
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Trade secrets are information that your business would want to keep secret from competitors, and whose value comes from the fact that it isn’t widely known. Examples might include customer lists, or unique ways (that only your business knows about) of delivering services that enable you to outperform the…
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As an inventor and patent holder, some of my strongest intellectual property has been my trademarks and copyrights. According to the US Patent and Trademark Office:
A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others….
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As a patent and trade dress owner, my favorite competitive advantage is intellectual property. There’s no better way to keep your competition at bay than with intellectual property that literally keeps them off the market, at least for a set period of time. It allows a business the…
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I just got back from Charlotte, North Carolina where I was the innovation keynote speaker for the NC Festival and Event Association’s Showfest 2019. The conference was packed and it was great to see such a fun and receptive crowd. These were people who took copious notes and brought…
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Years ago I was invited to a private screening of “Waiting for Superman” where teachers in the audience were free to express their true feelings. This was before I started speaking on innovation in education. What I learned from the teachers in the audience is still a problem now…
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