Inventors, Innovators - improvements for Arborist

On or about the winter of “96 Tobe asked me to come out and run his warehouse while he took his wife to Hawaii for a month. He had one of the fanciest Mac computers available, at the time, and he was able to produce his entire catalog “in house” and all by himself. Basically he would hole up in his office at home for 3 months and produce what became known for being the highest quality and most informative catalog available to the tree industry. After doing this for a number of years he promised Anne, this particular year, to take her on a vacation for an entire month. At the time he didn’t have anyone to answer the technical questions when someone called about a piece of gear sold from his catalog so he hired me and I moved to Greensboro to help out. One day I talked to him while he was still in Hawaii to ask permission to contact his vendor, Mr. Jameson of Jameson Poles, and ask him to help me with some ideas I had about using his poles for an attachment I was thinking about that could be used to hurl a throw ball bean bag into the tree. Of all things, I was thinking about using a lacrosse basket or Jai alai scoop at the end of a pruning pole in order to fling the bag. Mr. Jameson sent me a ¾ inch by 6 foot long pvc pipe with a metal spaghetti strainer epoxied into one end. Needless to say, I lost interest in that idea and moved on to other things. So, now to the punch line of the story… A month or two after Tobe returned from his trip he invited me over to his house and showed me the first prototype of the Big Shot. I was speechless and in shock!!! I was so close yet so, so, so far away. Kinda like Knut’s story of his Vietnamese student “inventing” the double ring on a string cambium saver installation trick while taking his first class on tree climbing. At the time, we couldn't install the rings higher than a quarter of the length of the line we were using. The student walked to the front of the class and said, "...why not try it like this?". And, the rest is history.

That’s my story and I’m sticken to it…

Bob Weber
 
During my old school beginnings, in the early 70's and 80's, I envisioned many of the tools and methods we are using today, but I had neither the means or resources to manufacture such items and put my ideas to work. I roughed-out a few of my ideas. As I'm sure so many of us old schoolers did in the day.

It really wasn't until the latter 90's that the ideas that so many of us had come to bear fruit. The internet, of course, had much to do with that. By which many of the ideas of past were taken on by people who had the resources to make them work. I applaud those people for doing such and going on to become innovators for further advancements in this industry.

Still, recognition for many of those original ideas that we benefit from today should be paid in some kind of tribute to the people that dreamed them. Being it just a tip of the hat will work for many.

Nonetheless, I am amazed at the innovation the industry has achieved and is currently putting to use today. It's fascinating.
 
Wow great to hear stories/thoughts that bring perspective to the conversation.

rawtree thanks for sharing your story first hand. When you say,” so close yet so, so, far away” coupled with the rest of your story I would take that to mean that you saw no ill intent there. If I’m right that’s great to hear.

I have always been intrigued by stories of invention. Sometimes two people on opposite sides of the world coming up with the same idea and getting to the patent office literally hours apart (say the telephone). Sometimes the stories are not so honorable.
 
I am expecting to contribute to this thread later. It's going to take some writing and time. I've only been at this introducing an item to this industry for about a year now and it is quite amazing what a person goes through. BTW, going back to the positive that started this thread; I'm going to assume Sherrill wants to improve their image and do things respectfully, unless they show me differently. At this time I am happy with my relationship with them and hope it continues well.
 
its true.
you know kevin designed the rope wrench. and was able to keep back some of the money and he spends a lot of time energy and money working on other systems. there is a big difference between someone who makes something to make money and someone who makes something to help people. when I patented the Haas I got a very minor amount of attitude from a few people. I am really thankful I did patent it, it does not make a ton but it has helped to keep my family fed in the last few moths. but the real reason I am happy i did, and some may not believe me, is it made it available. Patents do not protect from individuals building their own systems, so anyone can go make it, and that is fine people should have the right to build anything they want for personal use., that is not the point of a patent. the patent makes sure if I want to sell it I can as the inventor, that is it. interestingly enough, you get a guy like Kevin. who builds something he will work on it for life trying to make it better. once a big company gets ahold of it, it becomes how can we sell more, and how can we make them cheaper. what you don't get, is a strong devotion to innovation.
the guys in the office don't care about busted up joints, or how sore you are at the end of the day. their thought process is.... we need sales, these guys have a issue, if we can fix it we can sell them stuff. when guys in the field design stuff it usually the complete opposite....this is hard, and our bodies are wearing out we need a solution.
the difference is the driving force is money in one situation and its truly addressing the real issue in the other, which in my opinion leads to a much better product.
 
treehive, welcome to the Buzz. You bring up some very interesting points. I perceive that there is an assumption by some that tree people should give away a tree invention/innovation and that this would be better for us all because I/we would then not have to pay for it. In fact, I think we would just get far fewer great tools to work with.

I’m glad you patented the Haas and are seeing some benefit from it. I’m going to make more money with my Haas over the next couple of days (thanks to you and thanks to Bonner for making such a informative TreeStuff vid about it.)

By the way, would you be willing to share some round numbers for how much it costs to put a patent on something, how much time it takes, relative frustration factor etc.? I’m always amazed at how often someone expresses that they have a valuable idea etc.. but we never see it in the marketplace. Perhaps some perspective on costs and some more success stories like yours will start to change that quicker. Anything else you have to share on your experience - we are all ears.
 
thank you!

not a problem. and I hope it makes/ saves you a ton of money and saves your knees elboes and hips.


there is no real answer to your question. there are three stages of patent,
provisional, utility and full. its a pay as you system. you pay for the stage you complete. total may be 18 to 100's of k depending on how complicated it is.
I did not find it/ finding it stressful. I have not filed my full yet. that one will be some money. provisional and utility were a few grand each. the haas is a really simple concept. just a very out of the box idea. so it was on the cheaper side. letting the money go was scary.

Im not legal advise though.
 
This is an awesome post..
You could start a religion with that kind of thinking if you took it to task!

[ QUOTE ]
its true.
you know kevin designed the rope wrench. and was able to keep back some of the money and he spends a lot of time energy and money working on other systems. there is a big difference between someone who makes something to make money and someone who makes something to help people. when I patented the Haas I got a very minor amount of attitude from a few people. I am really thankful I did patent it, it does not make a ton but it has helped to keep my family fed in the last few moths. but the real reason I am happy i did, and some may not believe me, is it made it available. Patents do not protect from individuals building their own systems, so anyone can go make it, and that is fine people should have the right to build anything they want for personal use., that is not the point of a patent. the patent makes sure if I want to sell it I can as the inventor, that is it. interestingly enough, you get a guy like Kevin. who builds something he will work on it for life trying to make it better. once a big company gets ahold of it, it becomes how can we sell more, and how can we make them cheaper. what you don't get, is a strong devotion to innovation.
the guys in the office don't care about busted up joints, or how sore you are at the end of the day. their thought process is.... we need sales, these guys have a issue, if we can fix it we can sell them stuff. when guys in the field design stuff it usually the complete opposite....this is hard, and our bodies are wearing out we need a solution.
the difference is the driving force is money in one situation and its truly addressing the real issue in the other, which in my opinion leads to a much better product.

[/ QUOTE ]
 
Taking the initiative to run with an idea can lead to a product. How many of these examples have you thought of, but not acted on?

Creative ideas

Then...after the idea...go for the long run and bring the idea to the market place...whew!

About 3/4 of the way down the page there's an inflatable yellow back seat bed. My Dad made something like that when I was a kid...circa '55. he took out the back seat, made a deck with legs and put the crib mattress in place for my sis and I to travel on. Of course...no seatbelts in those days! They came along in '60 when my folks paid to have them installed in our Plymouth Belvedere like this one.
 
Kevin, you make some good points but are not entirely on the mark with regard to bigger co's just being in it to make money without innovation. There are lots of co's that take that invention, bring it to market, sell it, then take the feedback from the market to innovate and tweak the product to better serve the marketplace. If they didn't that product would slowly lose its place in the market and end up on the junk pile of history as newer better variations on the theme came available.

Kudos to inventors, but lets understand that its a dynamic environment one tries to serve and is costly. All of it is part of business and each plays it's part in serving the market.
 
Tom, lots of interesting things listed on that site, I love how ingenious people can be. I didn’t see anything there I have thought of. I have been thinking of one example of ideas going by, in front of ones face, though.

When I was first getting going in tree work I did quite a bit of work with a friend that was also a gifted machinist. We were both enamored with big equipment and big trucks. When we were riding around to jobs we would see 40 ft. semi trailers and talk about their weight carrying limitations. I said, “Why not move the forward axle toward the truck more,spread out the load?” His reply was you couldn’t do that because that set of tires would be dragging around corners all the time. Hmm - sounds right.

Similarly we would see transfers or ten wheelers and talk about how they were limited on weight they could carry. “Why not put an extra axle on there that is just lowered by hydraulics when you’re loaded?” Couldn’t do that because of all the extra weight you would be carrying all the time and it would take away from your payload anyway. Hmm - sounds right.

So now I see as many or more 40 footers (in my area) that have a forward-able front axle. Also I see as many or more ten wheelers and transfers with tag axles. I tell my wife, someone stole another one of my ideas.(Tongue in cheek joke)
 
neither are you…. I'm not kevin!

seriously though we are on the same page, if you read my post I never wrote they care about money without innovation. what I wrote was they only care about innovation because of money. and as you put it, keeps them off the junk pile of history. you drive home a point I only scuffed on which is we need both. take the big companions out of the game and I promise we would all be in rope saddles and taunt lines. and that would be no fun
 
[ QUOTE ]
thank you!

there are three stages of patent,
provisional, utility and full. its a pay as you system. you pay for the stage you complete. total may be 18 to 100's of k depending on how complicated it is.
I did not find it/ finding it stressful. I have not filed my full yet. that one will be some money. provisional and utility were a few grand each.

Im not legal advise though.

[/ QUOTE ]

not stressful until you get into the big money and wonder if you will ever make that money back.

The most simple products seem to take $8000 to patent, or so they say..... then when you get into it, you might find they ask for another $1000 here and there to finish it.

patenting seems to have changed towards benefitting the rich.
 
Saw that David Driver (theXman) is clearing out his X-Wheels for amping up the usefulness and productivity of the Hobbs Device. In spite of the fact that I don’t own a Hobbs, at the reduced price of around $400 I wish I could buy one just because it is a work of art both in form and function.

This brings something to mind. I went to a Tony Robbins seminar called Financial Mastery where Tony brought in accomplished people from various walks of life to share their experiences. A highly successful inventor, a top wall street fund investor, and a guy that had built for sale over 137 businesses all said the same thing. Out of ten things they tried, put their heart and soul into, if two were big successes they would consider that to be a good ratio.

And on a separate but similarly interesting note, of all the millionaires, the average has made and lost a million 2.3 times. One guy that built a business up from zero and sold it for 800 million used the phrase, “Keep on keeping on” a lot. Maybe he was referring to that.
 
Venture capitalists, those guys you see on "Shark Tank" who invest at the early stages of growth say that they look to see people who have tried at least 5 times and failed. If they can see progression in their skills through these failures then there is a sense they will be more likely to succeed.
 
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