Open Writing

Much research that goes on is only on the fringes of what is really needed now. It may be essential and creative for the future, or, on the other hand, trivia, only carried out because the grants and the facilities are there to do it. But it won't cut waste.

Great ideas for inventions that are needed are often thought up by people who do not have the resources to develop them themselves.

Often the same invention has many originators. My design for an electronic 'pocket typewriter' was dismissed by an electronics company in the early 1980s because although the technology had already been invented, it was believed that people could not handle so many small buttons. Now we have electronic note-books and mobile phones everywhere, with small buttons.

Cars with modules were long being suggested as a social invention so that one person going down the street to buy a pizza did not drive tonnes of metal plus engine that was more suitable for traversing the Great Sandy Desert with a tribe on board. Now there is research trying to develop just that. But we still are nowhere near the single-person flying apparatus that has been dreamed of since Daedalus. Strap it on and off you fly.

So many inventions that are needed, yet there is poor support of research and innovators who could supply these needs. We could use our multicultural resources better.

Anyone travelling to Asia can see a life-force there, similar to Victorian England, bubbling with innovation and development. How can the West continue that zest? Many factors could be identified and tackled - including trends in schooling, the way business management is taught, discouragement of saving, disaffection of the workforce, and possible repercussions when problems are aired. There is a long list of already-invented products that are needed and that are not being produced, or if produced, cannot reach their markets. Business magazines could have a regular feature on Solving Business Problems, that goes into these issues that are beyond the immediate agenda before company boards, but on which further business may depend.

More inventions are needed to help inventors and innovators, such as:

• Standing lists of inventions that are needed, to exercise creative minds.

• Status rewards for inventors, to encourage others, especially the young.

• Co-operative progress unhampered by commercial confidentiality and Intellectual Property .

• No more knee-jerk rejection, ridicule and indifference to new ideas and innovators.

Even a zany idea can have the germ of something great. Most of Edison's inventions and ideas were not successful - it was just that he had so many ideas that the successful ones numbered hundreds, and he was alert to pick up ideas that others had started.

Think up some more inventions that are needed.

The Seed-Speeder for instant carrots without slugs or weeds, for instance.

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Do visit Web-page : http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/socinvent.htm