Automotive pioneer Henry Ford is famously credited with saying “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. Of course, we all know that Ford didn’t deliver faster horses – he innovated an automobile that middle class Americans could afford. In some ways, he helped define the American middle class […]

In my career, I work with inventor-entrepreneurs on a daily basis. Some are experienced business people, some are new to the concept of building a business, and some really have no clue what building a business entails. But, one thing they have in common is that they are passionate about their ideas and inventions –

No, I’m not saying that artists make bad inventors, or that inventors shouldn’t have an artistic side to them. But, there is a very important distinction between developing something for yourself, and developing something for a broader group of users. In many ways, that distinction parallels the differences between ‘art’ and ‘design’. In a fundamental