Introduction

I have a little idea which I would like to discuss with the Steemit community.  You may think it is a terrible idea and may never work - please let me know though.  

This idea has been brewing around in my mind for quite some time but ironically (for reasons you will see) I never did anything with it.

As always there will be an image of cute animals (in this cases a kitten and a puppy) at the end as a reward for reading.  

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The Problem - I have great ideas but I can't take them further

I don't know about you but I have a lot of ideas for solving problems in everyday life that don't seem to have been solved by anyone else. So what do I do with these ideas?  

Nothing.  Absolutely zero.

I don't have the business knowledge, money, time or other resources needed to do anything with these ideas.  

Have you ever had these same kind of ideas?  Do you have these little strokes of genius that sadly nobody will ever hear about?

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You are not alone (note no Michael Jacksons were harmed in this process)

Prior to the DAO disaster I was heavily involved in that community and one of the big issues that the DAO had was lots of great ideas with no idea of what to do with them or how to take them any further.  

This was a problem because at the very least the DAO needed fully formed proposals, if not businesses to then give funding to.  

It struck me that this is a problem that most of us experience.  

We are great at coming up with the ideas but there is nothing further we can do with them.

So it seems Michael Jackson wrote the song specifically about this (he probably didn't but I just wanted to say that).

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The cost of taking an idea from the thought stage to finished product

This post at entrepeneur.com higlights the high cost, time and commitment required for a regular person to take a new idea from their head to an actual finished product which they can sell.  

Most people never even get that far. Here are some of the main steps:

• first search yourself using Google or online government searches
• pay for professional patent search/patent lawyers
• make a prototype
• approach a manufacturer/company to partner with or make it, store, market and sell it yourself (a herculean task).

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Million Dollar Genius requires Million Dollar Input!

If you have also watched the cable tv show called "Million Dollar Genius" then you will have seen that most sucessful inventions cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring to market.  

Even the minority of people who eventually succeed in doing this can end up near bankrupt and in serious financial hardship before they even see a single penny in return - that doesn't even take account of the personal stress on them and their families.

It is no wonder then that most people don't even bother writing their ideas down let alone taking them any further.  

It seems like an insurmountable hurdle so it seems pointless to do anything with the idea.

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Well whats the problem with that? Lost potential = Lost progress

The problem is that we have a wasted resource.  There are billions of brains all around the planet potentially coming up with solutions to all sorts of problems that aren't commercially available to anyone else.  

Plus they are using effort to solve problems that may already have been solved by someone else.  

That is not just wasted effort but unnecessary replication of effort.

Think of how much is being lost as a result of that.  If even a fraction of these ideas have true value to other people then imagine the impact these ideas could have if something were done with them.  

How much progress have we lost because a killer idea has been invented but never disseminated?  

Think also of the financial cost of NOT having these ideas advance any further.

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I invented the wheel but I just sat on it

Just imagine what would have happened if the inventor of the wheel had just sat on his idea and not taken it any further.  Undoubtedly someone else would have come up with it but how much would civilisation have been put back by this loss?

How far behind would human progress be?  A great idea that is not used is potentially a loss to all mankind.

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I can't do anything with this but maybe somebody else can?

Technology allows us to collect and disseminate ideas very easily.  Why not use that ability to collect these ideas, save them and share them with others?  I might not be able to make something with my idea but maybe somebody else can and maybe if they make some money with it maybe they will at least give me some credit for the idea - if not some kind of royalty.

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How can Steemit help? The Ideas Factory

Since Steemit is specifically designed to store text information, it is ideally placed to act as a store for these ideas.  

Further due to being a blockchain it provides a replicated, dated and virtually immutable place to store this information.  

My idea is to store such ideas on the Steemit blockchain using the tag #ideasfactory - I think it fits the concept well.

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Proof of Idea (POI)

The blockchain may not give you a patent but it does give definitive proof of

• the idea itself, it's description
• who came up with the idea, even if it is only a username
• the time you came up with it
• any further discussion or refinements of the idea

This could also be useful in establishing prior art in cases of patent trolling - if previous blockchain proof exists of the idea then it can be shown as proof.

Further it allows vetting and curation of ideas using the wisdom of the "crowd".  Bad ideas or those that are unfeasible should be easily filtered out.

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Open Ideas

There is nothing wrong with profiting from an idea but what if you had a more altruistic goal for your invention in mind?  

If you previously had a great idea which you wanted to share openly with the world it would be very hard to prove it was your idea and you would probably need to fight off others who might try to patent it.  

Though it has been done in the past (e.g. the Salk Polio vaccine), it is not easy to do and there have not previously been the tools such as the blockchain available that could offer definitive proof of your invention/idea.

Further there may be ideas that are not commercially viable but could be very useful to other people.  The Steemit blockchain could allow these to be shared at minimal cost.

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Crowd Funding via Steemit

Another extension of this service could also be using money raised through votes for taking the idea further (in cases where people would like to do this). 

For example the money could be used to pay for a professional patent search or an early prototype.  

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IP Companies could Partner with Steemit

Further there are IP companies that look for new ideas and work on helping new inventors to bring them to market.  

Perhaps at some stage one of these companies could partner up with Steemit and offer a Steem/SD based service for taking ideas to the next level? 

Perhaps at some stage Steemit could even take on this task as a company themselves if the idea succeeds. 

This would also create another form of utility for Steem/SD as a currency.

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What about patents?

These are just first potential steps.  I'm not an expert on IP and we would need some further input from a qualified person on how blockchain ideas could be turned into ACTUAL patents.  

Perhaps someone in the community with the requisite knowledge can comment on this.

That said here is no technical reason why IP could not be stored on the blockchain and also no reason beyond cost why such ideas could not be synched up in some way with the real world.  

Currently expense and the antiquated nature of how the IP system works would prohibit this but just as blockchains are reducing barriers and costs in other areas of life this could be another area to look into.

I suspect is a matter of WHEN rather than IF.  Somebody will start doing it at some point.  Then everyone else will just take it for granted.

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Conclusion

This is just an embryonic idea right now.  I would like input from the community on what you think of it.  I would also appreciate the Steemit team's take on it.  

As always please let me know what you think in the comments and if it is silly idea or has some fatal flaws please allow me to apologise in advance - perhaps you can help me refine it.  

Thank you for reading.

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Your Reward for Reading to the End

For a change I thought a puppy and a kitten might be in order.

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If you like my work and aren't already, please follow me and check out my blog (I mainly discuss photography but I do other topics like this too) -  @thecryptofiend 

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I have also created a new channel in the chat dedicated to photography of people/portraits called "Photography-portraits-people".  Please check it out and post your photos there.

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Image Credits: Images are stock photos from my Istockphoto account and/Thinkstock Photo account.  Further information can be supplied on request.  

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Some of my Previous Posts and Tutorials:

• The Missing FAQ - A Beginners Guide To Using Steemit
• Medical Jargon Buster
• A Collected Photography Post - My Own Work (13 photographs with discussion and new edits)
• Why I hardly use Facebook anymore and prefer to spend my time and money on Steemit
• Mavericks in Science: - Progress Can Mean Standing Up to Dogma (Part 1: Marshall and Warren)
• Why Banning Drugs Doesn't Work (with illustrations by @klye)
• From Believer to Atheist (My personal journey and my problems with organised religion)
• What Happened to Individual Agency/Autonomy? TCM, Chemotherapy and Vaccination.
• The Health Benefits of Coffee
• The War on Open Science: Scientific Journals and the Research Racket