The Value of an Idea

An excerpt from "Intangible Assets" by Angela K. Mack

(con't from page 1)

Personal Evaluation

Think about areas in your life where you are dissatisfied. Are you in a rut of thinking that things cannot change? Do you find yourself complaining all of the time? Does your dissatisfaction bog you down? I encourage you to begin the next phase and begin brainstorming about how YOU can create change. Yes, one person can make a difference. And that person can be you!

New ideas also stem from passion. When I sought to change the cultural climate of Grafton, WI, I had a passion. That passion was for the African American artistic contributions to American culture that are frequently minimized and/or forgotten. Sometimes this history is overtly underscored due to racial prejudices. Other times, it is due to a general lack of knowledge. I realized that it would be easier for me to approach the lack of knowledge through education. Writing is my passion. Speaking the truth is my passion. Teaching is my passion. Music is my passion. African American history is my passion. All of these passions acted as conduits for new ideas to flow.

As a composer, some of my greatest ideas flow from my passions and feelings. I am not always inundated with passion, but when it rises up within me an idea for a song is often born. People who have a passion for animals create ideas. New in my lifetime are the “pet spas” where dogs and cats can get massages and pampering like humans. Pet spas began with an idea. It stemmed from a passion for pets.

Personal Evaluation

I pity the person who does not have any passion for anything. People who lack passion generally also lack vision and purpose. They are also very depressed people. Consider yourself. What is your vision and dream in life? For what purpose do you think you were created? Which themes keep coming up that you are passionate about? What have you been passionate about in the past? Have any of your passions sparked new ideas?

Idea for this Book

This book idea stemmed from both dissatisfaction and passion in my own life. As a creative, entrepreneurial and highly visionary individual, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with coming up with ideas to better individuals, companies, organizations, and the community in which I live. Don’t get me wrong. I love coming up with ideas. They seem to come naturally. What I do mind is when others benefit from my idea, take the credit, and walk away richer. I have not yet tapped into how to make a living of creating ideas that promote change. If I were an inventor of products like my great grandfather, I could patent the ideas and receive royalties. However, ideas that bring more tourism into a community, ideas that launch successful programs in organizations, and ideas that launch others toward reaching their goals aren’t so measurable.

Naively at times, I have shared my ideas with others without researching how to copyright them. It is my understanding that ideas cannot be copyrighten. Perhaps in the writing of this book I will find more insights and a good lawyer will prove to me otherwise. After being burned time and time again, I am now seeing the need to at least write down my ideas and mail them to myself as a poor man’s copyright. Whether this method is truly effective in a court of law, I still do not know. But I hope to find more answers as time moves on.

It’s the taking credit for ideas and benefiting from them that dissatisfy me the most. I have spoken with many other artists in my lifetime and many are equally frustrated. Idea generators are not always obsessed with gaining a buck. Their primary goal is to express themselves and to offer a creative solution. However, after being taken advantage of, lied to, devalued, and stolen from time and again, they can become very dissatisfied over time.

Savvy business people are often some of their worst enemies. There are some people who don’t have a creative bone in their body and long to pirate the ideas of others. I found this to be the case of the recording business that once existed in my hometown. Back in the 1920s and 30s, savvy business men knew how to manipulate contracts of illiterate African American musicians and make a buck off of their talent and musical ideas. Many of these delta blues musicians lived impoverished lives and became bitter toward the company.

Ironically, I live in the village of Grafton, WI. One of the haunting definitions of

Graft (verb) “is to obtain money dishonestly by exploiting one's position of power, especially political power [American English]. Graft is understood as political corruption with an element of greediness. Graft (noun) refers to the rewards of corruption: the loot, booty, payoffs, or spoils.” (1)

That “grafting spirit” existed in my community about a century ago. I believe it can exist anywhere in the world at any time. Using power to exploit and steal from others is one of the cruelest types of human behavior that exists in the world.

Continued to article page 3 »

About the Author | More by Angela Mack
Angela K. Mack is the Marketing Director and a Performing Arts Instructor at the North Shore Academy of the Arts. She enjoys composing music and writing articles and interviews in her spare time at creativeconnectionarts.com. She has spearheaded a revival of Paramount Records with her award-winning music history website. Her passion for spirituality, creativity, the arts, and race relations fuel many of her creative endeavors.

08/21/08