Sean Michael Ragan - The Total Inventors Manual (Popular Science): Transform Your Idea Into a Top-Selling Product

THE TOTAL
INVENTORS
MANUAL

Sean Michael Ragan

INTRODUCTION

This book is dedicated to my father, Lawrence Henry Ragan, who lived the dream. Born into poverty on the windy West Texas plains eight months before Pearl Harbor, he is now 75 years old, with 30 patents to his name, in fields ranging from wristwatch telecommunications to drone aircraft design. He still gets up before dawn every day, heads to the garage, and works on perfecting number 31. So far, he has founded three companies and sold two of them. The third, as of this writing, is almost 40 years old, generates annual revenues of more than US$30 million, and employs nearly 70 U.S. citizens.

Dad taught me to use tools, to scavenge parts, to fix broken things, to do it myself instead of paying someone else. He taught me to take machines apart to see how they work, and for the challenge of putting them back together. He taught me to tinker , which is a word in dire need of an overhaul. Look it up, and youll find suggestions of idle, unproductive activity of time that could be better spent. And in a narrow economic view, that definition seems sensible: A woman whose hours are worth US$100 apiece is surely a fool to spend two of them repairing an appliance she could replace for US$50, right?

That logic treats the experience (including the understanding she gains) as worthless. But we now live in a world where heroes can be assassinated by robots, tyrants toppled by cell phones, and millions made or lost by clicking a few links on a computer. In such a world, power depends as much upon understanding as it does upon wealthspecifically, understanding the technologies that make all these horrors and wonders possible. Those who believe in the democratic idealwho see themselves as citizens rather than subjects, entrepreneurs rather than employees, masters rather than slavesface a choice: Understand how these things work, or be at the mercy of those who do.

While reading, figuring, and formal schooling each has its place in achieving that understanding, none is more important than the humble art of tinkering, the process of teaching oneself with ones own hands and brain. Without this joyful, creative, hands-on experimentationwithout play , in other wordseven the best education hangs lifeless and empty, like a fine suit forgotten in a back corner of the closet. We may pull it out for a job interview or an exam, but its just a costume, part of a role we play to get along in life.

In my ten years of writing about engineers, makers, artists, inventors, and other doers of things, I have come to believe that no single practice is as crucial to our future as tinkering. Those who get good at it may invent new and useful things. A small fraction of these may, in turn, go on to start companies and generate wealth. If thats what you want, this book can help: Take it and read it, then go out and do it.

But thats not the most important thing. Not everyone can turn out to be the next Steve Jobs (or even the next Lawrence Henry Ragan), but everyone can learn to use tools, to scavenge parts, to fix whats broken, to take things apart just to see whats inside. Everyone can learn, in short, to tinker. And if this book helps get you there, it will have done its job: You will have a powerful new tool to help navigate the future, and I will have done my bit to pass on the most precious thing I have ever been given.

I love you, Dad. Keep dreaming.

Sean Michael Ragan

Like drawing, doing algebra, or speaking a second language, having original ideas is a mental skill that can be developed and, with practice, become second nature. Whether you dream of creating the next big thing in the tech space, need a concept for a pressing assignment, or are just looking to transform your mind into a fertile breeding ground for good ideas, try a few of these practical tips to shake up your sluggish muse.

Society doesnt always encourage us to be creative. At a very young age, we start learning whats expected to fit in, and our own original ideas start to seem less important. So we get out of the habit of having them. And when, as adults, were called on to produce creative work, we may be plagued by insecurity or negative self-talk: Im not an ideas person. I suppose I might try such-and-so, but thats stupid and would never work.

First, dont think that way if you can help it. Second, even if you cant silence your inner critic, remember that first ideas are often stupid and almost never work. A genius isnt so much someone who has better ideas than everybody else as someone who just has more of themand is unafraid to dig through dozens of bad ones to find a diamond in the rough. Anyone can do this, and the more you work at it, the easier it gets.

In 1991, a bright, young artist named Tom Friedman had his first solo exhibition in New York. A conceptual sculptor, Friedmans works often consist of everyday objects like pencils, soap, and aluminum pie pans arranged in striking ways. Hes created explosions out of toothpicks, cadavers out of paper, and giant spheres out of chewed gum. He made one of his early works by mounting a spinning canvas to a wall and signing his name on it over and over as it turned, spiraling toward the center as his pen gradually ran out of ink.

Today an original Friedman easily fetches US$150,000. But before his glory days, he was a grad student at the University of Chicago, where his journey to find the creative potential in everyday things started by closing himself in an empty, all-white room: Every day I would bring an object from my apartment and place it somewhere in the space. The first day I placed a metronome on the floor, and it just clicked back and forth. Or I would sit the whole day, on the floor, looking at it and thinking about it, and asking questions about my experience of it... For me, this was more like a mental space that had been cleared away.

Your own empty room is likely to be metaphoricalmaybe its meditation, exercise, hot baths, or whatever else worksbut the point is the same: Eliminate the distractions of your daily life and listen to what bubbles up in the silence. The longer you listen, the more interesting the things you will hear.

Ideas are guests in your brain. Be sure to treat them with hospitality. Moreover, theyre fickle guests who come from a mysterious place, drop in unannounced, and may not be inclined to stay that long. Who knows how many good ones have been lost over the eons because they chose to call on someone distracted by hunting, eating, sleeping, socializing, or some other more practical obligation?