Be willing to change your vision.
Corwin Hardham, who co-founded the energy company Makani Power, created a new kind of wind turbine that swoops high above the Earth. He says that the inspiration for his design came from the first time he kite surfed, when he realized that the wind that sent him sailing through the air could also power a turbine modeled after a kite. "The design is very different now," he laughs. In fact, the airplane-robot-helicopter hybrid looks nothing like the original kite inspiration.
Break the rules.
Tod Sizer from Bell labs created a cube that fits in the palm of your hand and can replace a cell phone tower. At a panel at PM's home base today, Sizer said, "I've been sitting here through these panels today, and literally everybody decided that they were going to break the rules." He's is no exception: He handed his team a square of wood six centimeters wide and told them to fit all the technology of a cell phone tower into it. No one thought it could be done. "Three months later, we had it," Sizer says.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Six Lessons for Inventors from PM's Breakthrough Innovators - 2011 Breakthrough Awards - Popular Mechanics
Author: Stephanie Warren
