I have a great idea, It's gonna make millions! (Part 3)

OK so you got your Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) signed by you and whomever you should meet up with to discuss your idea and work out how it's going to get on the supermarket shelves, but wait a minute... who's help do you need?

Many people approach a friend, an engineer, or perhaps their bank manager or a patent attorney or local Business Link perhaps, but are these the right people to talk to? When should you begin to have a dialogue with them? What materials will you need to help discussions move along? Who should you speak to first? Who next?

Different people you will come into contact with at various stages of the product development will require different information which is relevant to their role and you would do well to hold off speaking to those on the financial side of things until you've spoken to those on the intellectual property and technical aspects first.

As a general rule of thumb your first port of call could be an Intellectual Property (IP) Lawyer with an outline of your ideas as a sketch or even a written document containing a description of what your idea does, what problems it solves, references to other similar competing products (a.k.a. Prior Art), how your idea works.

This of course is not limited to physical product you can hold in your hand like a food mixer or something, in fact it could be anything such as a new chemical formula for a new type of polymer, or it could be a method of manufacture, it could even be a new medicine or software architecture. However, whatever your idea is we shall stick with the idea of this theoretical product being some sort of consumer product like a hair dryer or toaster.

So what should a IP lawyer do for you? Well for about £200.00 per hour I'd want them round my house tending to the garden and putting out the trash, but that's never going to happen. The least you could expect is some honest answers about your idea. Usually a good and experienced IP lawyer will have seen many ideas come and go and will have a reasonable hunch if your idea is worth pursuing or not.

In any case an IP lawyer can file for a patent, conduct a search on other idea to check if you idea is just duplicating something or may indeed infringe someone else’s patent. This latter point is particularly important because if your great idea does indeed infringe someone else’s idea and the sue, you could be in for a very hefty bill

Your IP lawyer should then be able to point you to a good industrial designer, in fact many IP lawyers refer to industrial designers to have your sketches professionally drawn up to file along with other documents and sent to the patent office.

You could of course bypass the IP lawyer and go straight to an Industrial designer to begin the detailed design and development of your idea to prototype and file your patent later or perhaps not even file a patent at all.

Well more on the role of an Industrial Designer in Part 4 of this series but for now let’s delve a little further into the minefield that is Intellectual Property.

First of all let me get my little disclaimer out of the way... if what I tell you here goes horribly wrong then it’s your own fault for being a cheapskate and listening to an old hack like me and not seeking out the advice of a professionally qualified and accredited IP Lawyer, so I wash my hands of you..nerrrrr :-P

OK that’s that out of the way... now where were we? Oh yes IP

Let’s suppose for a moment you have spent a few thousand pounds of your lifesavings with an IP lawyer drafting up such things as descriptions, abstracts, mosaics and claims, you get your patent applied for certificate in the post and you proceed with the next step.

The next thing your IP lawyer (or yourself if you decided to go it alone) should do is ask for a search of prior art. Actually I normally advise to have this done first as finding out your idea has already been patented can prevent you wasting money on an application that won't be granted and if that doesn't put you off, it at least gives you some direction NOT to go in if you still want to develop your idea. This information should be presented to your industrial designer for their reference.

After the search your patent, if accepted on the grounds no other patent of the same idea has been granted, will be published after approximately 18 month from your initial filing date. Publishing your idea means that your idea is now in the public domain for anyone to read and COPY

After your patent application has been published its time to spend some more of your hard earned wonga on a "substantive examination" which basically is a panel of technical types looking at your idea and deciding if its "novel, inventive and not otherwise known to one skilled in the art". If you think that a convoluted way of saying "is it a new idea" then read a few abstracts... them IP lawyers sure do earn their money.

Continuing with the IP lawyers for a moment, let’s just consider if they really are worth the £200.00 per hour or up to £600.00 per hour plus for worldwide applications that they will charge you. After all there’s nothing stopping you filing your own... and that would only set you back a couple of hundred.

As I mentioned above, take some time to read some of the many hundreds of thousands of patents files with the UK Intellectual Property Office and you will read obscure terms like "substantially coaxial to" and "normal to the face of". All a bit weird and esoteric if you ask me and I happen to read lots of them.

Not only will an IP lawyer draft your application in a language that the Intellectual Property Office likes, they will also write your application to be as robust as possible and as commercially attractive as possible.

So what does it mean to have a robust and commercially attractive patent? Well if your patent says something like :-

" it's a box with a lid for putting shoes in"

then practically anyone could come along and say:-

"it’s a container occupying a three dimensional space having in internal volume accessible via an opening to one or more surfaces to facilitate the filling of aforementioned internal volume with a variety of objects. The opening is closed via singular or multiple surfaces dimensioned to substantially reduce said opening to proportions that disallow the extraction of said objects without first being moved or removed form said opening"

In the first example you invented a shoe box, in the second example you invented all boxes... which idea do you think is robust and commercially attractive? Which idea is worth more? Which idea is most likely to go unchallenged by some skilful rewording of some future patent application? Like I said those IP lawyers may well be expensive, but if your idea is really that good, then it could be money well spent. Oh, one more thing, You are very unlikely to get any form of investment for an idea that hasn’t been patented.

In the UK there is the "Smart Award" accessed via Business Link, but you'll need a very strong case to get the grant and to get the grant you must not have done ANY R&D work before applying and you'll need a substantial amount of your own money and a strong business plan for exploitation of the concept normally requiring the high possibility of the creation of jobs.

Well now for some horror stories, the sort that makes would be inventors shiver with terror. These are necessary tales of woe in order to point out some of the many traps they lie in the dark undergrowth of Intellectual Property Law. Some are well know, some are not. Are you sitting comfortably? The we shall begin.

Once upon a time there was a young inventor whom we shall call Mr X to protect their identity and he had a wonderful idea. Mr X said to himself "if this isn't going to make me millions then my name isn't James Dyson" OK Mr X may not have actually used those very words but I’m using a good deal of artistic licence here so give me a break OK... sheesh!

Well as is well know Mr Dyson invented the 'dual cyclone' bag less vacuum cleaner and almost got his idea ripped off by one of the biggest manufactures of 'Hoovers'. But Mr Dyson sued the 'Hoover' manufacture and won, but before winning his case Mr Dyson was also in debt to his lawyers to the tune of some £18,000,000... Bet he's glad he won then!

Another tale I tell is of a friend of a friend of a friend who invented a new type of hearing aid. Many thousands of pound into his development he employed the services of an Intellectual property lawyer...who duly ripped off the idea and tried selling it to someone else!

My final tale and one I was personally closely involved in as an industrial Designer. A plumber had invented a new type of fitting that allowed assembly of high pressure fluid systems without traditional solders or compression or crimp fitting and could therefore be easily repeatably dismantled and re assembled. The patent as mentioned earlier was robust and had applications ranging from domestic plumbing fittings to automotive and aerospace fluid systems. As you can probably guess it was worth quite a bit.

The plumber, unable to fund manufacturing himself approached some venture capitalists who seeing the potential funded further development and subsequently floated a new company on the stock market and headed up by one of the UK's most celebrated chairman’s and a team of heavyweight business men CEO's directors engineers and such like, to raise further capital to buy out one of Europe’s largest plumbing fitting manufacturers and a hydraulics specialist.

I was approached to develop a power tool to make the required groove and chamfer on the end of tubes after a number of vendors had failed to achieve the correct geometry as required by the fitting being under high pressure in hydraulic systems.

Having patented the required tube manipulation technology on one of my earlier projects, a prototype was built for the company which worked well within the specified limits and in fact allowed the company engineers to further improve the performance of the fittings making them even more attractive to their automotive and aerospace customers.

After some time I was curious that I had no further enquiry about further development of the power tool which was necessary for the company to fully exploit their IP. I did wonder in fact if my robust patent had in fact fallen foul of some clever engineering by this giant of a company.

I telephoned... no such number. I Googled, and to my amazement... the company had gone broke!

It transpired that the inventor of the fitting had taken the PLC to court disputing who actually owned the IP as the inventor thought he sold a licence and the PLC thought they owned the rights in full.

Instead of finding some common ground with the inventor and reach a deal the PLC decided that they would stick to their principles and counter sue. As the lawsuit dragged on the PLC share price went down and down and down. Sales for fittings declined as customers waited the outcome of the court case, the inventor had notched up a bill with his lawyers of some £34,000,000.

End result? The inventor lost and was bankrupt with a £34M debt, and the PLC you might ask? went on to rip roaring success having claimed victory and exploited the IP... NO they went into receivership despite winning as share price fell catastrophically low and a captain of industry fell on his sword. Corporate ego can be just as damaging as a personal one.

Whilst it may win investors and bank managers over to have a patent for your idea, believing as they often do that a patent will bestow a magical protective shield around the business, lest ye not forget it’s one thing to have a patent… it’s an entirely different proposition defending it.

And that brings me back to an earlier point I made regarding what an IP lawyer can do for you. Remember that search? Well make sure you or your lawyer does their homework or you may find yourself on the receiving end of a law suit for infringement of someone else’s IP.

In the next instalment we will visit the industrial designer and look what expertise they can offer to an inventor in the quest for the materials needed to win that all important investment from the 'Dragons"

Calling from a taxi

Have you ever been in the back of a taxi cab and needed to make an important call only to find you have left your mobile phone at home or your battery is flat?

Well if you happen to be in London or Birmingham city centre and you're lucky enough to hail one of the 100 O2 branded black cabs kitted out with an O2 Taxi-phone in addition to charging units compatible with most O2 phones.

Taximedia was commissioned by O2 to develop the advertising using their 'supersides' product which sees the cab beautifully painted with company branding.

Taximedia approached KeyMT one of Europe's biggest and most respected muti-media specialist to develop the hardware required to support the PR campaign.

In turn KeyMT came to Buff to design and develop the integration of the Motorola car phone electronics into the taxi interior.

With a lead time of one week and a budget of just £100 per taxi, Buff really had their work cut out and pulled out all the stops in order to meet the very tight deadline.

Buff sent a section of the cab interior trim to Arrk France to be scanned, generating point cloud data as a reference surface allowing the phone fascia to fit snugly against the trim. Whilst the Motorola electronics where reverse engineered by Buff.

A new fascia, and new keypad silicone membrane where designed to reflect the O2 logo and the back light illumination LED's where changed from green to blue to match in with O2 branding.

The 3D CAD files where sent to Arrk's UK rapid prototype facility to test out the fit and function of the proposal before silicone tooling was produced to vacuum cast the 100 fascias.

Delivered on time and on budget Buff are proud to have been associated with KeyMT and the O2 'Cab Phone'

Pay What you Want or Get What You Pay For?

An interesting debate has been sparked over on Twitter about the merits or demerits perhaps of PWYW by C Sven Johnson of reBang and nithinkd (is he the coolest looking guy on that Enfield or what?) A debate which I will be following with a great deal of interest.
What is PWYW? You may well ask. Well sadly its one of those acronyms like WYSIWYG or FYI for Pay What You Want.

So what is PWYW? Well it’s basically telling your clients that your fee is whatever they are willing to pay. Now you may be thinking that the heck are you talking about man... that's plain crazy, but think about it for a moment...

PWYW has been used successfully for quite some time now in the realm of software downloads. One company reports that whilst most take the software for free, about 10% pay the recommended price; there is a small group of 4% who pay what they believe the software is worth to them for the utility it provides. The end result is that the company earns more than if they had priced their software to be in line with their competitors.

Another example of where the customer can Pay What you Want is eBay. A very different business model, but shows clearly a way of finding the price equilibrium for demand versus supply.

But your in the industrial design sector right... how could you possibly let the client determine the price… you would get 'ripped off' for sure. What if your going rate is let’s say, £30.00 per hour, but your client is willing to pay £50.00. On a small two week project, that could be an extra £2,000.00 helping keep the re-po man away from the front door.

On the other hand, let’s say your £30.00 rate has gone unfulfilled for a couple of lean months... a real possibility in these slower economic times. What would you say to 'some crazy inventor' who can only afford to spend a £1,000 on getting some design work done so he can make his pitch to potential investors? Do you turn him away and slug it out on the doorstep with the re-po man over your 50" Sony flat panel? Or do you say, "hey maybe if I give this guy a brake, I can pay for the TV and he can present to his investors... maybe he'll even comeback with some more cash and I can make that car payment too"

Well both of the above situations have happened to me... even the re-po man bit, though I didn't have to slug it out with him as actually he was quite a nice guy and bought me a little more time with my creditors which allowed me to pay off what I owed without any serious implications.
In the first case, my client discussed terms and conditions with me, he offered more than the tendered amount in exchange for 'on demand' service as he required a fast turnaround working in the automotive sector for such clients as GM, Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls-Royce et.al

In the second instance, my client (James Williams of Keebunga) was an 'inventor' with a great idea, but no idea about the cost of developing a product. At that time I had a lull after a storm of work. Liking James's ideas and his general demeanour, I decided that I could help him perhaps get his idea a little further along and help me keep the cash flow looking healthy. The premise on which I offered my services as I did at one third of my rate (my rate isn't £30.00 per hour in case your wondering... you'll have to commission me to find that out), was that should I have full rate work, it would take precedence.

Over the course of the last year, my first 'premium rate' client has continued to use my services on a number of projects, whilst James and I re-negotiated various deals to suit his changing needs. On one occasion I did the work 'for free' to be billed at some undetermined date (OK, not actually free then). When Keebunga needed to move more quickly in order to meet criteria for a government grant and investors we agreed a higher more normal rate.

The end result is that Keebunga managed to get a product developed at an affordable price. James Williams says "Had it not been for Buff offering their services at a price that matched my budget, Keebunga would never have come to fruition". With product about to come to market, an investment plan in place and future product releases planned, Buff has already been selected for to design and develop these new projects.

So you see, it's not only the banks and mortgage lenders that can get creative with money. Only is your aim is to stash the cash or help a fledgling company come to life? I suppose there may well be some truth in the old saying 'As you sow, so shall you reap'

"You know what really grinds my gears?" (Part 3)

You know what really grinds my gears? Bad product design, that's what!

Yeah, I know I said that already but it's still hanging around like a bad smell.

Sadly though this is the second product from the same manufacture to have been a let down.

In this case the product was a baby feeding bottle sterilizer from a well know manufacture who is part of a global player in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer electronics markets.

The problem encountered was the way in which the sterilizer unit held the bottles... not just any old bottles, but bottles from the same manufacture (looks like I'm a gluten for punishment).

The unit was 'design' to hold a number of bottles in an inverted orientation, so the sterilizer could do its black magic sterilizing thingy at its best. To facilitate the positioning of the bottles and aid their inverted orientation, there where six rings a little smaller than the bottle neck opening. The problem was, that these rings had been positioned such that all six bottles wouldn't stand up as they where too close to each other so they either fell over or you could only sterilize three bottles at a time... bit wasteful of the resources and bad for that there greeny type carbon wotsits 'n' environment stuff.

Naturally we took the sterilizer unit back to the shop. I mentioned to the staff... blank expressions ensued. No real surprise to be honest. I returned home and sent an email to the company, outlining the problem, to which I received a rather indifferent and curt reply... oh well.
What amazes me though is that not only did this design error get past design review, got past prototype and got past tooling... it actually ended up in the shops! I think it an insult that a company thinks it can palm off a poorly designed products onto its customers.

But fear ye not... this story has a happy ending.

Yesterday I saw a new improved sterilizer from this manufacture... the problem has been corrected. So whilst I no longer need a baby feeding bottle steriliser as our little fella has out grown the need, I'm happy that at lease this design flaw is sorted out.

Can Spaceclaim claim the future of CAD?

Spaceclaim have released the above video on YouTube which I came across via Solidsmack on Twitter.

Quite frankly I'm staggered! I suppose we all expect that this would happen sooner or later, but really, I was expecting later rather than the sooner.

For those who might have seen Ironman, the connections to Robert Downey Jr manipulating CAD files in holographic free space are obvious and certainly the technology, whilst in its' infancy is already available. It's only a matter of time before such things become a practical reality.

I do however have a few reservation about this showcase. Spaceclaim have made some claims in the past that haven't quite held up to scrutiny according to some reports by the media.

My second reservation is, that for more than a decade I have been attending demonstrations, exhibitions and trade shows, where various vendors have demonstrated the capabilities of their software, I have found that the scripted and rehearsed presentations have shown the software in the best possible light. However, when put to the test of working on-the-fly, often I have found the software to be much less polished and on occasion a downright flop.

Lets hope that this won't be the case for Spaceclaim as it could well be the making of them. Though expect the likes of Autodesk, and Siemens to be hot on their tails, I know Dassault already are.

What Women Want

Do you remember the 2000 box office hit film What Women Want ?


Mel Gibson play an Advertising Executive, who by freakish accident is able to hear the thoughts of women and uses his new found talent for unscrupulous means and to further his career in the advertising agency world.

Now you're probably thinking 'this supposed to be a blog about design? Not some sort of film review'


Well in the film Mel has to design an ad campaign for a shoe manufacture... see, it is about design, oh ye of little faith.


Mel's accident happens in the bathroom when he's electrocuted whilst holding a hair dryer and trying on some women's' products in order to help him understand his target market. The morning after he is able to hear what women are thinking.


Now over the years I have heard many a fellow complain 'what do women want?' Some claim that even women themselves don't know what they want. Now before rushing to comment that I'm some sort of neanderthal misogynist, please read on, because believe me or not, I'm going somewhere with this.


Empathy... said to be one of the key personality traits of a designer. If a man was truly empathic towards a woman's needs, wouldn't he know, What Women Want?


I've bee told that "sometimes" I'm in touch with my feminine side. Whether or not that is true, I do make an effort to try and 'walk a mile in someone else's shoes' be that a woman, a teenager a child , whoever.


The thing is with empathy you can't really be truly empathic until you are able to draw parallels with others feelings about a situation with your own feelings towards situations in which you have found yourself in the past that are at least similar enough for you to understand their emotional frame of mind.


My partner Anj and I met via the Internet. We got together because we have such deep empathy for each other. This is because whilst living more than 300 miles apart, we have led similar lives and have remarkably similar motivations and thinking. Sometimes its almost ethereal and scary how we just know what the other is thinking... we even think the same things at the same time... even when we are apart (which is rare). Once we even had the very same dream on the very same night... how cool is that?


Now, although I can be empathic, I must confess that I am not naturally an empathic person. I have to think about my feelings and those of other in an analytical way. I am after all of the INTJ Jung, Briggs, Myers personality type.


In 2005 I took part in a worldwide study (run by the BBC in the UK) to determine differences in the ways in which men an women think. This was shown on BBC1 in July 2005 and can be found on Youtube in 6 parts.


The study for me was an emotional journey of self discover. I learned that my awareness that I lack natural empathy does not prevent me form learning to emulate it, but for sure I learned many years earlier when I worked in marketing that you certainly can't fake it.


The BBC, concerned about my reaction to the 'nappy test' part of the study (2m 40s in on this video), they very kindly paid for some counseling with a psychologist, to help me better understand my reaction. I had held my father to blame for my feelings of underachievement but through the conversations with the psychologist I leaned a hidden truth about myself. My relentless push for Utopian perfection in all that I do, was producing some negative emotional reactions to any for of critique and in particular from my father whom I hold in high esteem for his own achievements.. I felt in fact somewhat in my fathers shadow. When I later discussed this with my father I learned from him that he made his critical observations as he felt I had more to give.. he even declared that he felt he was living in MY shadow. I was shocked I can tell you. Of course now when I see someone who is something of a perfectionist, I can empathise with their emotional turmoil of never being able to reach their goal. I can tell of my experiences and hopefully help such a person to come to terms wit the fact as a perfectionist, you will never be satisfied, but to take encouragement that everyday, you take a step further to the impossible dream.



The rising trend for 'Design Thinking' is an attempt mostly by the business community and by some design companies to cash in on the personality traits of designers, attempting to emulate such values as empathy. I do believe that these 'design thinkers' could emulate such a personality but I do have one or two reservations.

Some of those who are expressing interest in 'design thinking' seem to have missed the point somewhat and give the impression that they are not attempting to use 'design thinking' for the purpose of creatively solving problems that effect the quality of life for the users of product and service, but are trying to manipulate 'design thinking' to make more profit.

True 'design thinkers' are not so self serving in my opinion. Of course there are those who are designers and whose apparent primary aim is to make as much money as possible, using design as a means to an end, just as there are those who are not designers, whose primary course of action is to bring benefit to mankind, with profit as a by-product of their transactional processes.

Coming full circle, I wonder what an average 'design thinker' would make of some observations I've made about what women want. Could it be....

• Flowers?
• A pretty designer dress?
• Expensive perfume?
• Jimmy Choo shoes?

before considering those, ask yourself these questions: -

• When a woman is hassled for erm.... 'intimacy' with her partner, Why does she often dress dowdily and eat lots of chocolate and sulk rather a lot?
• Why does a woman, whose homestead is fraught with aggression, indifference, patronising speech etc. Why does she feel the need to dress up, buy flowers, wear perfume and jewelry when she is with her friends?

Conversely

• Why is it, when that same woman feels special because she is loved for whom she is. Is appreciated for the human being she wants to be. Is encouraged with affection to do the things she has her heart set upon. Why is it such a woman feels no need to prune and beautify herself to excess when with those very same friends?

What Do Woman want?

Perhaps if you need to ask the question, then it may already be too late

I would like to give special thanks to Becky Blackwell, Raymond Pirouz and an extra special thankyou to my Anj x for helping me put together my thoughts for this blog post

I have a great idea, It's gonna make millions! (Part 2)

There you are sat in the green room, waiting to enter the 'Dragon's Den' all dressed up in your Sunday best with sketches in hand and a cardboard and sellotape model, all brightly coloured in with Emily's felt tip pens, tucked neatly inside your brief case... you'll blow them away with your invention... they won't be able to resist the urge to invest.


Ten minutes later you emerge from the den, sweating, stammering, model in tatters and your dreams shattered. How could it come to this you wonder? Why didn't they get it? Why didn't they take me seriously? What on earth is wrong with a one point twenty one gigawatt, automatic potato peeling machine? So just how can a crazy inventor be taken seriously by the suits?

First of you will need a good foundation, something that will say to the designer, patent attorney, bank manager et.al. "Hey, I know what I'm doing". Businesses have begun to borrow from designers more recently, with the current business buzz word being 'Design Thinking' The suits belive that crazy inventors with all of their whacky problem solving solutions, may just yield them their next 'break through idea', so why not take something back? Why not borrow from their 'Business Thinking'?

The cornerstone of your foundation you're going to need is a 'Confidentiality Agreement' or 'Non Disclosure Agreement' (NDA). This will set the tone of any future conversations, it says "I am being professional, and I'm knowledgeable about business practices" it opens conversations up in a business language the suited professionals understand... and more importantly, a language they appreciate. Besides which a NDA will also offer some protection to your intellectual property (IP) and signals you're not about to let yourself get ripped off, something I know many inventors fear.

With co signed NDA in hand, you can then begin to open up some dialogue, but if your brief case still contains that napkin sketch and cardboard model, all your NDA effort is going to go to waste. Sure, in the past a 'back of the envelope sketch' was often good enough, but today investors and manufactures have much higher expectations. Anything less than a functioning prototype is falling very short. That's not to say you must have a working prototype, but trust me, you will find it very difficult to gain the trust of anyone but the bravest visionary with anything less.

Of course a working prototype is going to cost a fair amount. Recently at Buff we commissioned a prototype for Keebunga for what is quite a simple product. The first stage cost was £180 for stereolithography rapid prototypes in unfinished state. By the time the final prototypes where commissioned, some £8,000 had been spent and that's not counting the actual design costs.

On top of your NDA and rather expensive working prototype, you're going to need a business plan of some sort. Even if you're trying to sell a licence to manufacture rather than venture forth into the minefield of manufacturing the product yourself, investors, grant officials, bank managers et.al. will not take you seriously unless you have a very good idea of what the market potential is, who your demographic are, what the capital expenditure and unit costs are going to be and what sales channels you propose. And you'd better be prepared to back up you findings and assumptions with some hard evidence of valid research.

One final thing before I leave you to ponder. You will need a realistic idea of how much your idea is worth. I have seen some licenses sell with a royalty payout of 1% or 2% of retail value... and believe me, that's not a bad return.

If any of you have watched 'Dragons Den' on BBC TV, then you'll no doubt be aware that the dragon business investors often ask for a much higher percentage of the business shares than the inventor usually offers. Why is this? Well lets take a look at a fictitious example of the automatic potato peeler that the wonderful Heath Robinson designed in the picture above. If you have such a drawing its really worth little more than the paper and a token gesture towards your time and intellect... £2,000 would be a good result. A working machine is worth not only the value of the sketch, but also the value of the sum of parts, your time spent developing and tweaking the idea and some recognition that any prospective manufacture/investor is now faced with a much lower risk, as they now know the idea works ... in principle. If you can actually fund the production tooling and run a few thousand off and sell them, then the investors also know the market has been tested. It is this adding value and lowering risk that investors and manufacturers are really interested in.

As a sketch, an idea will need lots of money spent on developing it. One recent example was £300,000 investment to take a concept to a manufactureable product, and that wasn't even a complex product, so with those sorts of development costs in mind, a manufacture is hardly going to offer you the £10,000,000 you believe your idea is worth. Of course if you have manged to get your idea developed to a working prototype stage, the risk to the manufacture and investment they'll need to put in to take the product to market is lower, thus you can command a little more, but it still isn't going to be remotely close to the sorts of figures most people believe their idea is worth, and in my experience nothing... and I mean nothing pisses off an investor more than a prospect over valuing to ridiculous proportions. If you want to be taken seriously, then you need to get serious with yourself first.

In my next blog entry on this subject I'll venture into a little more detail about how to put together a proposal and where you can go to for help. In the mean time download an NDA from the Buff website and get it signed...btw, it's free to download ;-) http://www.buffindustrialdesign.co.uk/NDA.pdf

A special thanks to Raymond Pirouz, who helpd shape some of my thoughs for this post through his tweets on twitter

"You know what really grinds my gears?" (Part 2)

I'll tell you what really grinds my gears... Good customer service, that's what! Yeah, that's right, you heard me. No I haven't lost the plot, well maybe I have. OK I'll explain.

Good customer service... Every one's doing right? Those companies that offered poor customer service have gone out of business, only the good ones are left. Agree? I'll wager you don't!

Let’s face it, my utilities company sucks. Not just a little bit, no, I mean they suck big time. They do everything right of course, or so they would have us believe, their customer service is award winning apparently.

Take my phone company for example; I was having a sandwich and coffee in my local deli recently reading the local paper when I came across an article about the phone company that they were going to offer small businesses advice on developing good customer service. They in fact where going to team up with a well respected and high profile businessman come TV star. Well, I nearly fell of my chair laughing... Ohhhh the irony, if only the journalist knew what adventures I had had with the phone company, they may never have bothered to run the story.

I'm sure if I told you my story of phone company adventure, it would be familiar to many of you (are there many of you actually reading this?) No doubt you would simply click the 'Next Blog’ button and move on. Big corporations you see, whilst having huge resource to develop key performance metrics and run Kaizen events to improve customer service, what they lack is humanity. It's not just the big companies though.

My partner Anj (a photographer) recently went to the local market to pick up some material for a backdrop. The stall holder gave exemplary customer service, they gave good advice, they were polite, they had very competitive prices, yet Anj swears she won't use them again, Why? Once again they lacked humanity. Really, if the stall holder cracked a smile, I'm convinced their face would have disintegrated.

So what the heck has this got to do with design? Well recently there has been lots of talk about 'Design Thinking'. Some schmuck decided that designers have something of value to add after all and companies are desperate to jump on the 'Design Thinking' band wagon.

I don't think there is any need for me to waffle on about design thinking, there are plenty of blogs and tweets to read out there, but what I will say is that as usual businesses want a chart to measure it with... well good luck to you I say... you'll need it. How do you measure empathy, compassion, understanding, love... how do you measure love?

What's really going to be the competitive differentiator is love for your customers! No I'm not suggesting you should start dating them. The sort of love I mean is simply caring. You can't fake it, you can't develop a standard operating procedure for it and you certainly can't measure it, but it is very real, and makes a REAL difference to the customer experience.

Take my partner Anj for example. As a portrait photographer she needs to give exemplary customer service, yet the other day she went on a shoot and forgot her soft box. Her competitive advantage over her high street competitors comes from offering a personal service, no pressure sales pitch and affordable prices. However, you can copy her actions, but you can't copy her motives. You see Anj really believes... no really FEELS that her clients deserve good photography, affordable prices. To her those capture precious moments are importantly, because as a mother herself, she really understands the humanity in her work.

In my own business, I have made close friend with my clients, some have even helped me move house (thanks James, thanks John). I think I've achieved that not through good customer service, hey, I rarely answer the phone after three rings and I'm normally surrounded by some level of chaos, but I do believe in my clients with passion, and I care about THEM, the people, not the money or if their product is going to win me an award... I love them!

I have a great idea, It's gonna make millions!

That is what many people proclaim when engaged in conversation with engineers, industrial designers and businessmen.

Sadly though, many of these enthusiastic people get a rather short shrift from those engineers, designers and entrepreneurs, often being labeled "another mad inventor".









In fact, recently, I had been talking to a government department advisor who suggested that engaging such people in conversation was a 'waste of time' and 'these crazy ideas never lead anywhere'.


Why such a stoic and acerbic rebuff from so many industry professionals ? Well I have observed that there is certainly some evidence of envy towards the inventor, but it is mostly the Dr Emmet Brown stereotype that people think of when engaged by such inventive mavericks.


In industry, innovation is being touted as the next big thing, so why does industry have special dispensation from these caustic labels? Well perhaps there exists some snobbery, but the main reason I can discern is that many inventors suffer from living up to the stereotype a little to closely. Let me explain, most inventors exhibit the following traits: -

• Incredible enthusiasm for their idea


• Zealous belief their idea is the next big thing


• Often over value their ideas nett worth


• Limited understanding of manufacturing


• Limited understanding of development costs

Juxtaposed to this stereotype are the industry professional who are supposed to their antithesis having a good and realistic understanding of these things, however the truth is that industry is a little closer to Dr Brown than they would care to admit. So what really separates these groups?

Industry is often cautious about their ideas, they have experienced the epic cost of development and disappointment of market failure. They have better grasp of the profit margins achievable and thus more accurately guess the nett worth rather than taking a wild stab in the dark as many 'mad inventors' seem to do, but one thing is certain, industry often don't know all the answers, but they do know where to turn to for expert advice and are respected by those consultants and it is these that are the key differentiators between 'the mad inventor' and the 'industry professional'.

So the key ingredient for you crazy inventor types out there is often partnering up with people in the know such as engineers, intellectual property lawyers, marketing consultants. But how can I get these people to take me seriously you may ask? Who can I turn to?

Well I'll save that for another blog entry as dinner is waiting to be eaten (mmmm... pork sausage sandwiches), besides which I feel a rant coming on... something that 'really grinds my gears'.

Renault like the Wind

Well as promised I bring you bloggings from the world Series by Renault.

Of interest to some may be the Renault Design stand located in the paddock. This featured a finnished 1/4 scale model of the Renault Megane coupe concepts allong with a foam and clay models.

Also on show was a full scale show car the Renault Wind, a two seat convertable.

A bit disapointing really considering the scale of the World Series to have only one concept car and one scale model and a few renderings. At a time when design is the second fastest growing industry and innovation being touted as the saviour of all things reccesion, I think Renault have missed an oportunity here.

With the automotive industry in a slump its hardly inspiring to witness such a feeble effort.

Renault: can do better, should do better, must do better. B minus, F for effort.

If you can be botherd, you can read more about the Renault Wind at Gizmag

World Series by Renault

My son an I are off to Silverstone this weekend to watch the World Series by Renault.

My love of motorsport has always played a part in my life as a designer. The technology, materials, quality of workmanship, optimisation of every parameter and not forgetting the Human Machine Interface has always fascinated me.

We are taking my sons digital camera and will take a few snaps of the event.

When I return perhaps I'll post about what product I find and maybe analyse a few to see what we can learn from this hi-speed hi-tech world. Hopefully I'll be able to find out what the motorsport industry is doing to lower its carbon footprint too