We often pursue inventing as much for the challenge as we do for the promise of fame and glory. How many times has somebody told you that one of your ideas was impossible?
What if you could learn from other inventors who have faced the same challenges in the past - before you make the same mistakes they did? The inventors at Edison Nation believe they can help. They also believe you will want to stick around and help them the next time they need advice.
Edison Nation is a free Web 2.0 community dedicated entirely to inventors. It is brought to you by the same people who created PBS' invention series, Everyday Edisons. According to Louis Foreman, executive producer for Everyday Edisons, it was designed out of necessity.
"We hold casting calls around the country and see thousands of great ideas in every city. The hardest part of my job is to narrow down all of those great ideas into a dozen that will ultimately make it onto the series," says Foreman. "We created Edison Nation to help nurture all of those ideas that didn't make it by giving back to the invention community and creating a platform where inventors can help each other succeed."
America will continue to embrace innovation as our manufacturing jobs continue to move overseas. Many innovators see this more as an opportunity for America than a loss. Would you rather create 5,000 replicas of the exact same part every day or create the next part? According to Matt Spangard, director of Edison Nation, the Web platform brings innovation to the masses.
"The most innovative ideas in the world's leading consumer product companies often don't come from the inside," says Spangard. "They come from everyday people who envision a better - or entirely new - way of doing things."
A WEB 2.0 WHAT?
You can't go too far these days without hearing about Web 2.0 communities. But what exactly are they and what can they do for you?
"A Web 2.0 community is simply a Web site that makes it really easy for a particular group of people - in our case, inventors - to communicate and share ideas with each other," says Spangard. "Of course, we've also added a lot of other features that we think will greatly benefit inventors such as the world's easiest blogging system. You don't need a degree in rocket science to use it - unless you want to blog about rocket science."
In the case of Edison Nation, you can create a profile and decide what information can be viewed by the public and what information can be viewed by your friends. This concept helps you grow your network of resources without getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of help available to you. Your customizable profile gives you the ability to share useful information with your friends such as your contact details, links to any patents you may hold, photos and videos of your inventions and experiments and your system ID. In addition, you can use your system ID to email or send instant messages to your friends without making your email address public.
The micro blog feature allows you to begin publishing a blog that can be read and subscribed to by anybody in the world in seconds. Lead Edison Nation developer Jon Harper says ease of use is critical to a successful Web 2.0 community.
"You can create a blog and begin publishing it in five seconds," he says. "Just about everything at Edison Nation takes less than 10 seconds to completely understand and use - including setting up your free account - regardless of your level of computer experience."
SHARE YOUR NEEDS AND SKILLS
One of the most powerful features of Edison Nation is the ability to match people with particular needs with those who have the skills to help.
Let's say you're a graphic artist by trade and you're working on a new invention. You decide that you really need a prototype in order to pitch your idea to investors. In a few seconds, you can use Edison Nation to post your need to the entire Edison Nation network of inventors. A prototyper who is in a similar situation, but needs help with his logo and brand identity, can reach out to you and you guys can help each other the old-fashioned way - by trading services.
You're not required to barter, either. For instance, a graphic artist can search the entire needs database at Edison Nation and reach out to everybody who seeks help with graphic design. You can negotiate terms on your own with no commission on either end.
You don't have to wait for them to come to you when you need help. Every Edison Nation member has the ability to add their top three skills to their profile. If they opt to make their skills available to the entire network, you can search those skills at any time and reach out to them for help when you need it.
Of course, if you have plenty of work at the moment and are focused on getting your project done, you can toggle your skills to private and you will be removed from the skills database until you have more time.
According to Harper, the site was designed with multiple levels of privacy in mind. "Before building Edison Nation, we visited inventor network groups and spoke with independent inventors about what was important to them. The ability to decide on an itemby-item basis of what can be viewed by the public and what can only be viewed by friends was always on the top of the list. Just about every feature in the system has a really easy mechanism for marking it as public or private," says Harper.
One of the main benefits of any Web 2.0 community is that it can support rapid growth. Members refer their friends and colleagues to the community who, in turn, refer their friends and colleagues, and so on - and it can all happen at unprecedented speeds. As the community grows, the resources available to members automatically increase and the collective brainpower of the entire network expands.
Edison Nation offers a great amount of free support and services to inventors that - if its creators are right - will rapidly increase as more inventors join and participate in the community.
