The romantic idea of the genius inventor never sat right with me. Now that idea has been torn down once and for all.

A very interesting article in the New Yorker featured Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures laboratory. When Myhrvold left Microsoft way back when, he gave himself the small task of inventing the invention. He invented an invention factory. Here's the idea. He brings together really smart people from various fields and asks them to brainstorm. Myhrvold apparently hoped that his invention company might file a hundred patents a year. They've averaged about 500 patents a year. And that's not to mention their backlog of three thousand ideas. They just licensed off a cluster of patents for 80 million dollars.

What I love about Intellectual Ventures laboratory is that it proves the point that the nature of invention is more about connecting the dots, than a unique person yelling "Eureka" about a precious idea. Inventions are the product of a specific intellectual climate of a specific time and place. Sure, these people are really smart, but 500 patents a year?

"Good ideas are out there for anyone with the wit and the will to find them, which is how a group of people can sit down to dinner, put their minds to it, and end up with eight single-spaced pages of ideas."

Then again, Myhrvold didn't really invent this idea either. The fact that most inventions are actually discovered by multiple people in different locations (this idea was first "invented" in 1922 by William Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas) already proved this. Who invented the telephone? We all think of Alexander Graham Bell, even though Elisha Gray actually filed for a patent on the very same day. Evolution? It wasn't just Darwin who thought of that either. Ever heard of Alfred Russel Wallace? The list goes on.

Somehow, the idea of the incredible genius fulfills some sort of romantic fantasy that we love to love.

But the idea of that inventions are more a matter of sitting down to connect the dots should be liberating. Inventions aren't just for geniuses anymore. And the web has made this even easier. There are websites devoted to the idea of user-centered innovation where you can submit ideas, vote on them and even invest money in them. More on this in my previous post.

Or, instead of gossiping at your next dinner party over who is sleeping with whom, you can get your smart friends together and invent. Who knows what strides we can make!