This is a new age where you won’t build businesses on information assymetry no matter what it is – an idea or technology, but a business model. Only such is viable and sustainable.

I am not the one that said that ideas do not belong to us – but many respectful authors. Have you ever read a book of one or you are to busy leaving comments like this? Tom Peters. Seth Godin. Nordstrom.

Ideas should be shared. If you don’t have the conditions to execute, set it free.

Read Eric Von Hippel, who wrote about his long time ago: http://web.mit....l/www/democ.htm

Times are changing and all of us are becoming innovation cotnributors while some will lead the innovative tribes.

Ideas not patentable (biz. Methods) needs good execution.

Patentable ideas themselves have valuations even without execution. Pull tab soda can may be 1 example.

But people must realize that there are those who have great ideas and then there are those who execute great ideas and rarely do you have one single person doing both in parallel.

Consider this a free idea to any developer who wants it.

We’re lucky to have John Alpert then.

Ideas can be patented and securitized if the premise of the individual is NOT to move beyond the idea into execution.

That said, it is unrealistic for anyone out there to be rewarded for an idea following the execution as the risk is undertaken by the individuals executing the deal, and not the one who articulated an idea.

It sucks, but those who take risk (i.e. execute the idea) should get the reward eventually.

Regards,
Darren

My old man once said, if you do good good will follow you , the chump that exploited her will understand this in time.

Hoekstra should feel bad if the idea was the only thing that gave her her food. If the idea is the only source of income, then by all means make money on it in every legally possible way.

If not, and if you have a brain that generates ideas routinely, first ensure that you get a good paying job that keeps your mind stress-free and one where you feel satisfied, fulfilled, happy and financially secure. Given that platform, you can just churn out really awesome ideas for the whole world in your free time, and feel good about it.

The problem is in the stark contrast of attitudes. Most people are crazy over their own genius of having thought up something that is actually already discovered and implemented by someone else. Yet, getting the idea is a great thing – you did think it up yourself, after all.
If others think up the same idea themselves, most call it uncool, some even believe those ideas to be stupid. There’s this whole _my_ idea thing that is the problem.

For any idea to become a famous or successful product requires a lot of things to fall in place at the right time and often in the right situation both. That is not easy to accomplish. The world does not obey your horoscope.
And hence although your ideas might actually be fundamentally awesome, they wont eventually make it to people’s lives.

If you have those brains, you can surely get a good job without exploitation and with satisfaction. The free time after the job and chores is when you use your genius to help others who may be in a position to see your idea change the lives of people.
If you are an inventor by any measure, you should ask of yourself to find more problems and think out unconventional solutions to those problems. That should be a good intellectual exercise.

It’s great when you get the credit for the idea. It only hurts when you cry yourself hoarse for months, nobody listens to you, then a year or two later, someone picks up the same thing and “succeeds spectacularly”.
That hurts. (Ask me ;-D )

The good thing to take from such an episode is that your ideas are really powerful. So in your little sphere of influence, apply the same brains to transform your the quality of your work.

And, if your ideas are good for needy people, keep posting them everywhere reasonable