Business Opportunities Weblog

November 30, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 4 Comments

Inventors are made, not born, and anyone has the potential to come up with new ideas, said Jack Mandelman, a retired electrical engineer, in a story in The Times-News.

He should know. Many people have never heard of the Flat Rock resident, but every time they turn on their computer or use a cell phone they are using products that contain his inventions.

With 405 U.S. patents to his credit, Mandelman, 63, said there is a framework for successful innovation that involves several things, including a passion for seeking solutions, working with others, “technical maturity” or gaining enough experience in one or more fields of expertise, a willingness to pursue outrageous ideas, keeping an open mind when an invention is challenged and simply being in the right place at the right time. Nearly all of his inventions took place during his years as engineer for IBM during the early 1990s.

“I wasn’t born an inventor, but I think you need a predisposition to it,” Mandelman said. “A person can develop the qualities needed to be an inventor. But the idea that an inventor is a loner is a myth. You need people to brainstorm with and then you can go off by yourself to think about things, visualize it.”

The desire to find answers to questions is constant for him, a trait all inventors and potential inventors share, he said.

“It’s never too late because I became an inventor late in my career at IBM after 13 years on the job and I was fortunate to be at a company that recognized what I could do and that it could be profitable for them. I was allowed to do a lot of it once I built a good reputation for it,” he said. “It’s like being paid to go have fun.”

Photo by Times-News.

In Inventors, Profiles | 4 Comments