Ever met a real Inventor?
Update:
With regret, I note the sudden death of Tom Critzer in February of 2005. His widow and family are carrying on the business which he was building. Many dogs will be much happier as a result of his efforts, outlined in this earlier article below.
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Do you ever wonder about how some people manage to come up with new ideas and turn them into commercial successes? Americans especially honor this entrepreneurial ability in the person of Benjamin Franklin, who comes to mind in the context of kites and lightning, to be followed a century later by Thomas Alva Edison, who enlightened the world with a filament of his imagination.
Well, we have just such an individual in this community as well. I first met him at the Fairfield Branch of the Lane Public Library when he attended a computer class. Tom Critzer has a border collie, Cody, who typically went neurotic at the approach of a thunderstorm. But Cody's luck is in having an owner with two master's degrees: one in psychology and the other in electrical engineering, how knows how to do scientific research.
Tom came up with "StormDefender", a cape that dissipates the static buildup that dogs feel in advance of a storm.
Now that the item has received a patent, Tom is entering the marketing phase, and has had many successes both here and abroad.
One of the things a modern inventor has to do is develop at least a moderate level of skill with computers and the Internet. Some choose to develop their own websites (Tom is currently one of those) because it gives them better control of the product, or simply because it is one more fascinating aspect of those things that stimulate the creative mind. Others choose to go with a website developer to achieve a more "commercial" look.
At some point, anyone marketing an invention via the World Wide Web has to be prepared for the onslaught of success. The U.S. population alone has reached 290 million, and there are 4.9 dogs per capita and 1 in 100 has a thunderstorm phobia... well, that's a lot of sewing.
Sat Dec-20-2003 21:37