The Persuasive Wizard

Most technologists work for a company that has business goals as well as technology goals.  These two should should be in lock synchronization.  When a company is first started, they are.  However, over time, the business direction and the technology direction can vector apart, become misaligned, even orthogonal.  When that happens, there are obvious telltale clues: shrinking backlog, declining sales, increasing maintenance costs, complaining customers, cancelled contracts, uncertain direction in business growth, yet accompanied by an escalating demand for research and development dollars.  All are evident signs that the technology goals and the business goals are divergent.

Excellent research is still being done, of course.  But, is it the right research?  “Huh,” all my technologists say, “If we are getting new ideas, creating new products, and within our budget, doesn’t that define technology success?”  No.  Just because you design and make a product does not mean your company can or should sell it.  How big is the market?  Have you considered manufacturing costs?  Maintenance?  Profit Margin?  Competition?  Does it fit your business model?

I was having lunch with my good friend, John McDonald, who reminded me of a project we worked awhile back.  A company exhibited all the symptoms above and our job was to identify the root causes.

When we stood back and looked at the problems, everyone from the president on down identified a different cause and a likewise different solution.  The problems were diverse, complex, and convolved and the solutions were all over the map.

The first thing we did was set up Current Reality Trees.  Reality Trees premise that seemingly divergent problems arise from only a few Root Causes.  So, we interviewed all the organizations to find out their problems.  (In decision theory, these problems are called Undesirable Effects (UDEs)).  For each UDE, we asked the organization to identify what caused that UDE.  Now, if this were the end of the game it would be called a survey.  The real power of Decision Trees lies in the next few steps.  You query, well what caused the cause?  Why do you have this problem?  Then you ask the question again and dig deeper.  Usually, this must be done to about five why-levels before you really get to the root cause of any one problem.

It goes like this.  You ask Sales, “Why are sales down?”  They reply, “Our product is no longer competitive?”  You ask, “Why? (Why number one) ”  They say, “Because Engineering doesn’t provide us competitive bells and whistles for our product”

Then you ask Engineering, “Why don’t you provide competitive bells and whistles to Sales?”  They say, “Because we don’t have any specifications or knowledge of what our customers are wanting.”  This is the second why and we are digging deeper.

Then, you ask Marketing, “Why haven’t you given Engineering some new product specifications so they can build competitive bells and whistles?”  They say, “Because we don’t have budget for that.  Our budget is drained with just trying to market our current product.  Hasn’t anyone told you that sales are way down and we have a warehouse full of unsold product?”  Now, we’re at why number three.

So, then you go to Finance and ask why there is no budget in Marketing to do a competitive analysis.  They say, “There never has been a budget in Marketing for competitive analyses.  We expect Engineering to keep up with what the competition is doing.”  The fourth why.

Then, back to Engineering and you say, “Why aren’t you keeping up with the competition and leap-frogging them with new bells and whistles?”  This is the fifth why from which you now realize there are many UDE’s (lack of Sales, increased Marketing budget, increased inventory costs, and so on) that are linking to one root cause.

Engineering says this time, “Because all our time is being spent on this new product idea we have. ”  “Who has?” you ask.  “We have,” they reply.  We have this idea for a product that will revolutionize our company and solve our Sales problem.”  “Who authorized this?” you ask.  They reply, “What do you mean who authorized it?  We’re within our budget and actually ahead of schedule.  It’s our job to leap-frog the competition and this new product will do it, we think, once we get it complete.”

So, you asked why five times and now you found the root cause of several UDEs: Engineering is not providing bells and whistles and don’t plan to; they are working a totally different product and think building that new product is more important than improving the current product that Sales is selling, and Marketing is marketing, and Finance is financing.  Why? Is this the right direction for the company?  Well, who knows?  That requires a visit to the decision makers to inform them you have found the root cause and to tell them they need to make a decision.  The decision makers can decide what they want to change and how to change it, but you have told them where to focus.  Root Cause identified.

In practice, multiple UDE’s arise from a single root problem, but you have to dig deep to get to the root.  As you see, there is an enormous amount of work in interviewing all these groups, asking the right questions, asking the right persons, and in making connections between the different explanations and the ultimate root cause.  You must be tactful, yet gutsy, and often overbearing.  Two of these come natural to a technologist.

Nevertheless, there are usually only a few root problems and these can be identified in a structured, logical process.  The company direction can change and you can become The Persuasive Wizard.

Among technologists, it is commonly imagined that once the USPTO issues a patent then the rights and claims within that patent are ironclad.  The argument is thus: did not the government experts examine the claims?  Did not the experts at the USPTO make their decision to grant the patent?  Will not the government defend its position?  The answers are yes, yes, and not exactly.  In practice, the courts ultimately determine the validity of a patent and its claims.  This latter point is worthy of dilation.

The problem starts with what things are considered patentable.  Contrary to even a few decades ago, most patents today are not for palpable inventions like latches, hooks, tools, or mousetraps.  Today, the claims often lay upon algorithms, software, processes, methods, and mechanisms, all impalpable and convolved.  I have great admiration for the professionals at the USPTO who wade through mountains of documentation and arguments to come to a resolution.  Nevertheless, the complexity and abstractness of some of these claims confounds even the greatest of experts.  And, experts do often disagree with each other, as every technology wizard knows.  In the past, when most inventions were evidenced by a prototype you could hold in your hands (so to speak), the USPTO relied upon its own patent database to weigh against new and unique claims.  Now, however, with these intangible inventions, such as those for a process, the USPTO must rely upon other databases.  Hence, the USPTO makes its best determination based upon the claims and validation of the filing, but by its very nature, the claims are for untrodden avenues of technology.  Also, the rate of change in some areas of technology is exponential.  Can one keep the validation databases current?  Secondly, there is a trend to open source information, implementation, and engineering.  What then, constitutes prior art and ownership?  In the final analysis, if the claims are contested, the court will adjudicate.

Thus, a patent is a document of considerable value, a deep stake in the ground, but it is not an anchor against all winds.

In practice, when dealing with algorithms, software, processes, and mechanisms, I have found the greatest obstacle to be what is referred to as “prior art.”  In other words, is this invention really unique or would anyone with a reasonable knowledge of the art have come to the same conclusion?  And, did they already come to that conclusion in some documented form?  This is a difficult question to answer.  For instance, I know of a company that owns a patent whose claims include the use of the digital imaging for examining and displaying the inside of a house, such as one for sale.

Now, anyone who has ever even thought about buying a house knows you can go on line and view almost any house on the market by seeing a so-called image “walk-through.”  This is not a video of the interior of the house but a digital compilation of distinct views – exactly the things covered in this patent.  “Are you kidding me?” you ask.  “You mean someone has a patent for that?  They must be making a fortune on the patent!”  Yes, there is a patent exactly for that, infringed upon every second by hundreds of companies, but not a single dollar has ever been made from it.  The problem is this: is the patent defensible in court?  Clearly, it was issued by the USPTO but is the invention really unique or will the court determine that anyone with a knowledge of digital imaging, i.e., prior art, would have recognized that as an obvious application and did so recognize it?  Is that recognition verifiably documented somewhere?  This particular patent to which I refer has never been taken to court so one would conclude that the attorneys who own it likely feel it is not winnable.  Hence, the patent was issued but the claims are probably not defensible.  Be very careful of this when you seek to patent methods and processes.  It is thorny ground that has grown because of the types of patents now issued.

Consider that Jack Kilby worked for TI in 1958 and invented (perhaps co-invented with Robert Noyce) the integrated circuit, for which he received no less than a Nobel Prize in 2000.  I worked in semiconductor processing a number of years after Kilby and always wondered at the awe given to his invention which to me seemed almost prior art.  If you knew how to lay a silicon substrate for one transistor, which was common at the time, and if you could put two transistors in the same package, which was common at the time, would it not be obvious to anyone skilled in the art that you could put several on the same silicon (or germanium) substrate?  Perhaps so, but the clear argument is that Kilby was the first to do it and the USPTO could verify this.  It was a tangible invention. and they could validate from their own patent databases that this invention and its claims had not been patented prior.  Keep in mind that in 1952, Geoffrey W. A. Dummer had presented the concept of an integrated circuit at a U.S. electronic components symposium.  Envisioning the concept does not fulfill the requirements of an invention.

Such is not the case for intangible inventions.  If you are considering filing a patent whose claims rest upon processes, algorithms, or similar, this issue of prior art needs to be weighted heavily.  You might spend many hours and thousands of dollars, receive a patent, and only then have the court decide against it because of this issue of prior art.  And, as patent coverage becomes broader, claims shallower, inventions less tangible, and society more litigious, the need to circumspectly evaluate prior art will be critical.

A common fear among independent inventors is that someone will steal their idea.  So, the inventor files for a patent as quickly as possible.  Does this protect the idea?  Yes, and no.  First of all, consider that your application will be published by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) 18 months after the filing date of your application as per Title 35 United States Code.  See this location for details.  After publication, any person can request and will receive a copy of the application file.  Since the patent is already on file, the inquirer cannot steal the idea, per se, but you should be absolutely certain that your patent claims are broad enough that the inquirer cannot make simple changes and circumvent your patent.  This is one of the main assets that a patent attorney brings to the process.  A good patent lawyer can be invaluable in ensuring peripheral claims are covered in your application.  This can add a huge expense, though, to the individual inventor.  You have to balance your means against value.  Obviously, if you have invented something like a solar module with 85% efficiency, you need to borrow the money, seek investors, or otherwise take no shortcuts to protection.

So, let’s suppose you are awarded a patent and the legal “fences”  (claims) are broad enough and high enough to prevent infringement upon your patent.  Utility and Plant patents are protected for a period of 20 years from the date of the patent application.  Design patents are protected for 14 years from the date of patent award.  Today, we will not go into the differences in these patents since we want to focus on the business issue.  So, by the time the patent is actually issued (usually 2 – 3 years after the application) your idea will be protected for a period of nominally 14 – 18 years.

This may seem like a long time but if the invention is complicated to manufacture or if the market is slow to mature, the patent termination date can be upon you before you get into full gear.  At that point, you are no longer protected.  (Example: generic drugs produced after the initial patent expires.)  Thus, determining when you file for the patent is a business question of considerable gravity.  You clearly want the life of the patent to last until you have captured or saturated the market.  Thus, you may take the risk of delaying to file for the patent, but it is a risk.

You may also want to consider whether your invention can be called a Trade Secret.  Often these are formulas, Coca-cola and Colonel Sanders’s recipe being the ones most often cited as examples.  In this case, the secret is kept in the sealed mayonnaise jar inside grandfather’s coffin.  Of which, more later.

The next set of blogs will deal with how to maximize your profits with intellectual property, particularly patents.  Suppose you have an idea for an invention, maybe you have built a prototype.  This invention is hot.  When it goes to market, you will be richer than Bill Gates and Paul Allen combined.  Move over, Fort Knox.  You need to protect your invention.  Should you patent it?

First, let’s discuss what a patent does.  Patents are issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  The basic steps are given here.  But keep in mind the purpose of a patent.  A patent does not give you the right to exclusively manufacture and produce the product.  It gives you the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sell or importing the invention.  If you find someone else using your idea for profit, you have at least three options.  You can send them a formal letter and ask them to stop.  You can sell them a license to use your patent.  You can sue them in court to stop manufacturing and selling your invention.  In any of these three, you may or may not get retributive value since the patent, itself, only gives you the right to exclude them from making, using, or selling your invention.  If all this sounds unfair and expensive, it can be and often is.

The problem with the first scenario is that you must first discover someone is violating your patent.  A man approached me the other day with an idea for a crawfish (aka crawdad or mud bug) trap.  He said no one else had this invention.  (I could only imagine.)  He said he was expecting to make thousands (not millions) of dollars.  (A $1M market at an attractive 30% profit, is only $300K total.)  He was meeting that week with a firm that would “help him file a patent.”  I explained that, never mind the patent, how would he know if someone else was violating his patent?  In other words, if the total business was less than a million dollars, someone else could steal the idea and flood the market before he even got started.    Or, they could sell them in Mississippi while he was working Louisiana.  If they were violating his patent, he could make them stop but what if they had saturated the market already?  This man was struggling to find the money to even file for the patent.  How could he ever afford to take someone to court?

Thus, we have consideration number one.  It will cost $2K – $20K to file for a patent and 2-3 years before it is awarded – if it is awarded.  (See Fees to get the details of the costs.  The cheapest you can go is a little under $2K, but it is difficult, in practice, to complete everything at that cost.)  So, if we are taking about a market of less than a million dollars total, I would still recommend filing for the patent.  (Go cheap, cheap, cheap).  Then, find someone to make the product, stamp it Patent Pending, and capture what market there is with affordability and availability.  Hence, your business plan is not dependent upon the award of the patent because you will probably saturate the market before the patent is ever awarded.  Keep in mind though, that there are serious penalties for fraud so your patent must be on file with the USPO before you can mark the invention Patent Pending.

Some of our readers may have have other ideas to offer to the question, “What do you do if the total sales are less than a million dollars?”

Next time, we add another thought to keep you awake while you write your patent application.

“The best way to persuade people is with your ears – by listening to them.”  So said Dean Rusk, former Secretary of State, Rhodes scholar, and holder of a Berkeley law degree.  Rusk was once a decision maker of considerable gravity and he has something forceful to teach technologists.

In my book, The Persuasive Wizard, I point out a special problem of technologists.  They hear differentially.  After a meeting, you can ask a technologist how the meeting went and she will have a strong opinion as to the outcome of the meeting and as to the decision makers’ reaction to the technology she presented.  However, if you ask her, “What did the decision makers actually say?” she is often clueless and if she does remember almost always incorrect.

Why?  Three common suspects:  the technologist triggers off certain words or references rather than listening to what actually is said.  Or, the technologist has preconceived opinions jamming all his circuits.  Or, the technologist has a point he wants to make and squelches the receive mode so he can send at full current.  There are other possibilities but that covers the three-sigma ones.

If you want to persuade decision makers, you must start by stopping.  Stop talking.  Listen.  While the decision maker is speaking, do not begin thinking of a response.  Stop thinking.  Listen.  Do not form a response in your mind, or on your face, or in your tongue until the decision maker is finished.  Listen.  When the decision maker is finished, and not until then, stop and think.  Next, speak.  In that order.

You will find a ten-fold increase in your ability to persuade once you start using your ears.

Garrison Keillor points out that on March 23, 1775 Patrick Henry delivered his famous line, “Give me liberty or give me death.”  Keillor goes on to state some interesting facts.

Henry’s speeches were wonderful and charismatic and everyone was entranced by them but afterward, no one could remember what he had said.  Thomas Jefferson said of Henry, “His eloquence was peculiar, if indeed it should be called eloquence; for it was impressive and sublime, beyond what can be imagined.  Although it was difficult when he had spoken to tell what he had said, yet, while he was speaking, it always seemed directly to the point.  I asked myself when he ceased: ‘What the devil has he said?’  I could never answer the inquiry.”

Doesn’t this sound a lot like technologists?  When they are presenting technology they sound so erudite, but when they sit down you wonder, “What the devil did that person say?”  Hence, I emphasize in my book that you must memorialize your key points just like Patrick Henry did.  You must fashion original phrases that stick in the mind of the reviewers.  It is wonderful if those phrases can also be pithy but the most important thing is that afterwards they are forcefully called to mind by the decision makers.

Success is not awing your audience.  Success is getting your recommendations approved and enacted and you can do that only if the decision makers know what you said so they can take action.

In my book, The Persuasive Wizard: How Technical Experts Sell Their Ideas To Non-technical Decision Makers, I discuss problems common but unique to technology experts.  I would like to consider one problem here and get your feedback.

Outside their own specific area of expertise, many technology wizards lack an ego.  Here is the observation.  When technologists are talking about things in their field, either networking, electronics, web design, medical, or whatever, they are Chatty Cathy’s and go on and on and on.   (Usually to the point of exasperation on the part of the audience, but that is not the focus of today’s discussion.)  They exhibit high egos and often a sense of superiority.

However, what I would like to point out is that many of them, once outside their technology domain, are unsure, timid, withdrawn, and reticent.  I posit that this arises from their innate selection of science or technology as their chosen field.  Science and mathematics are exact.  There are correct answers.  There is a right and a wrong.  To the wizard technologist, this is a compass, a guidepost, and an anchor for safe harbor.  They know what to do because they know what is right.

Even with random events like radioactivity or the distribution of energy states at equilibrium, the physicist attempts to understand this by what specifying what will statistically happen.  Scientists model the statistics of the events and predict the probability of occurrence, not of the individual particle, but the ensemble behavior.  Even though all the events are random, there is still this element of control that statistical mechanics brings.  Technologists still know what is right, predictable, and controllable.

Outside their technology domains, the world is subjective and indeterminate.  I believe that this indeterminate randomness drains the ego from the technologist–there is no map or compass–so the net result is to be uncertain, taciturn, and withdrawn.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this particular observation:  Whydo so many technology wizards have exalted egos when talking about technology and such debased egos outside their technology?  Why?