Inventing better outlet for inventors

Like many other inventors, Bryon Thompson was searching for a simple solution to a persistent problem. When Kyle, his 6-year old son, got home after school, the boy was spending too much time watching television and playing video games.

At first, Thompson tried a low-tech tack, buying a set of 20 metal washers from his local hardware store in Morrisville, Pa. Every week, Kyle could use the 20 washers as tokens, good for one hour of TV or video game time each.

''But the more I thought about it," Thompson says, ''I figured there had to be a product I could design that's better than me having to monitor what he was doing and taking a token every hour."

Thompson's second, more high-tech approach led him to invent a countdown timer that metes out TV or video game time. Once he had a working prototype, ''I wanted to find someone to sell the idea to," says Thompson, who has a full-time job designing trade show exhibits, and also teaches product design at Philadelphia University. So last October, Thompson showed up at an inventor's pitch session organized by Big Idea Group, a Manchester, N.H., company. In 10 minutes, he explained how the timer worked.

Big Idea Group, founded in 2000, aims to be a William Morris Agency for inventors, representing their ideas to retailers and manufacturers, and an on-call research-and-development group for companies in need of novel products. Unlike mail-order companies that advertise their patent ''assistance" on late-night TV, Big Idea Group doesn't charge its inventors any upfront fees but collects royalties if they can place the product. The collaboration between Thompson and Big Idea Group resulted in a product called Time's Up, which will make its debut on the QVC shopping channel later this year, and also in retail outlets, for about $24.95.

In the five years since Mike Collins, a former venture capitalist and toy industry entrepreneur, started Big Idea Group, the company has developed positive word-of-mouth among independent inventors -- a notoriously paranoid and suspicious bunch. (California inventor Chris Miksovsky would not tell me much about one idea he is refining with Big Idea Group: ''I will just say it adds some new functionality to the paper plate.") Collins maintains a network of 8,000 inventors who've pitched him, including 400 or so ''A List-ers" whom he sometimes taps on behalf of companies like Staples and Sunbeam for new ideas in a particular category. Big Idea Group holds about a dozen of its ''Road Shows" a year, essentially open calls for inventors; one was held last week in Chicago, and another will take place in Manchester next month.

Is this the new route inventions will travel to get to the marketplace?

Clayton Christensen certainly thinks so. The Harvard Business School innovation guru and author of ''The Innovator's Dilemma" put some of his own money into Big Idea Group to get it off the ground, and serves as an adviser. In total, Collins raised $1 million.

The company has two businesses: ''Road Shows" and ''Idea Hunts." At each Road Show, Collins and a panel of others look at prototypes presented by 30 to 50 inventors.

''Some inventors come in with 10 ideas, and others come in with one," Collins says. Thompson just brought his TV timer, for example. No money changes hands, and both parties sign a confidentiality agreement, which prevents either from disclosing what happened during the pitch.

If Big Idea Group is interested in shopping the invention around to manufacturers and retailers, the inventor can choose to sign a representation agreement, which gives the firm exclusive rights to shop an idea for 180 days. If a product finds a home, Big Idea Group splits all royalty payments with inventors down the middle.

Sometimes, companies like Staples, Gillette, and toolmaker Skil-Bosch approach Big Idea Group looking for a batch of clever ideas in a particular area. ''Corporations don't want to deal with inventors one-on-one," Collins says. ''We saw the need to be a bridge between all these inventors and clients who wanted innovation." Collins carves out a subset of his inventor's network, and sends them a description of the client's needs, sometimes holding a conference call to answer questions.

These Idea Hunts, for which clients pay $40,000 to $100,000, have landed several products in Staples, including a nifty combination lock that uses words. A group of other products geared to scrap-booking hobbyists have been sold through QVC. But a lot of companies won't allow Collins to talk about how he has helped them, since they ''don't want people to know that their products don't come from their own in-house R&D group," he says.

But that's precisely what makes the idea behind Big Idea Group so powerful. Companies are willing to augment (or possibly supplant) their in-house R&D teams if they think they can get better ideas more efficiently from outside inventors. Collins calls this ''open source innovation."

Instead of relying on a staff of 300 people -- who may be thinking narrowly about adding features to existing products, or coming up with ideas that fall clearly into a company's current business -- he says, ''tell us you're interested in reinventing the mop, and we'll have 400 individual inventors take a stab at it. You're tapping people outside the four walls of the corporation."

There are some patches of terrain, he says, that are completely ''overmined," such as board games, products for new parents, and energy conservation schemes. One idea Collins passed on recently was a system to recycle shower water and use it for watering a lawn or garden; it required too much work on the part of the user. He also sees a lot of inventions related to the toilet. ''I think people are reflective when they're on the john," Collins speculates.

Collins is already trying to expand Big Idea Group beyond toys and consumer products, which have accounted for most of its activity in the last five years. A sister company based in Burlington, Eureka Medical, scouts for medical inventions; one early product is Carpal Solutions, a disposable bandage worn overnight to provide relief for carpal tunnel syndrome. And Collins says it's not inconceivable that Big Idea Group could eventually move into other areas, like hardware and software.

But to grow that way, Big Idea Group, which is already profitable, will have to prove that it can place lots of products across lots of different industries -- and hope that at least a few become high-profile hits. Think Swiffer.

Bryon Thompson can't wait to see his Time's Up timer being sold in stores and on QVC. Especially since he long ago grew tired of doling out metal washers, and Kyle's time spent in front of the screen started to climb. And Thompson says, ''I scare his cousins and his friends when they come over. I tell them their lives are about to change."

But isn't changing lives what the best inventors are expected to do?

Scott Kirsner is a contributing editor at Fast Company. He can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com.