Whilst there seems to be a lot being said now about commercialisation of inventions, there’s not a lot about how you encourage creativity and new inventions.

Rethink(ip)’s story on Proactive Invention Management by former Hewlett Packard patent portfolio manager Bill Meade has some interesting themes. I particularly liked the observation that sometimes facilitators can actually get in the way of what they’re trying to achieve: in his case, the lower his overt involvement, the more successful the group discussion and number of ideas generated. Perhaps facilitators are actually at their best when no one notices what they are doing.

He also discusses his notion of "invisibias" (or invisible assumptions) about inventors. He describes 3 assumptions that should be adopted to counter invisibias:
1. We don’t know who the most prolific inventors should be
2. We don’t know when an inventor will come up with an idea.
3. We don’t know what field an inventor will invent in.

His article reminds me of the concept of "skunk works": small groups of inventors working on secret projects and the story of how Apple got a graphing calculator.

UPDATE 30 October: Business Week has a story on innovation labs