Bringing An Idea to Life

Ever wonder what it takes to ‘bring an idea to life’ ?  The process of invention can be a wild and energizing one; it can also be very frustrating.  Making something out of an idea is not a process for the weak of heart.  Rather it is one that requires significant intestinal fortitude.  You might say ‘what the heck is that’ ?  Intestinal fortitude basically boils down to ‘not taking NO for an answer’.  No means you either asked the wrong question, of the wrong person or at the wrong time.  It can be one of these or any combination, but what it really means is that you simply never give up.  Like a dog holding on to a bone for dear life, you sink your teeth into an idea and you do not let go until your idea is walking on its own.

Sound easy?  Well, I would not say it is easy, but is certainly can be a heck of a lot of fun.  The envy of anyone who works is hearing people who LOVE what they do talk about their work.  You can hear the excitement in their voice, see the enthusiasm on their face and feel the energy they emanate when you are around them.

Over the past 30 plus years I have discovered that there are a variety of approaches that can be taken when you try to turn an idea into a tangible product or service.  One fundamental component for success is devour all the information that you can about the principles that will comprise your idea as you see it now.  Research, research and research some more.  Make yourself become ‘the expert’ for what it is that your idea will provide for others.  Break it down into small pieces and consume every one of them as if you were eating an elephant – one chewy morsel at a time.

Seek the advice of others.  Find people with whom you can talk about your idea and protect yourself by having them sign a ‘disclosure agreement’ before you tell them any specifics about your idea.  You need to be realistic; you are not going to be able to being your idea to life completely on your own.  Do your homework and be diligent and patient.  At some point you will need to decide if you want to try for a patent and/or a trademark of some kind.  This work will require focused effort and while it can be done online, I would strongly advise you to get the assistance of those experienced in the art of patents and trademarks.

As a holder of four US Patents and another in the provisional patent process, I know that my colleagues and I here at Dinter Consulting can help provide you with services that will help you get closer to making your idea come to life.

Contact us:  gail@dinterconsulting.com

How Scrivener Changed My Life

Gail Dinter-Gottlieb, Ph.D.

At Dinter Consulting do a fair amount of grant-writing as part of our business, and I have recently come upon a piece of software which has changed my approach. While we will always share such useful tools with our clients, I thought that I would share it here as well.

It is called Scrivener. Right now it is available for the Mac, but the beta version is available now for Windows users, and the full version will be out this month. A thirty- day free trial is available with either version.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php?show=new

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

In short, Scrivener is a unified approach to writing grants, reports, novels, non-fiction, research papers or proposals, just about everything. By unified I mean that you can work from a screen interface that contains all of the segments of your piece (Sections, Chapters, scenes) as well as the background information needed (additional resources, characters, and pictures or references you upload), your notes on each of the above, or ideas to be incorporated later, all arranged one click away from your central working screen.

That center screen can also be split into two parts, so that you can do a running edit on your document, or view two versions at the same time, or two different documents. The latter is especially effective if you are cutting and pasting pieces from one doc into another.

I discovered this software while doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and writing a mystery novel during the month of November. The editing of course comes afterwards. The tutorials are both printed and on videos, and are really comprehensive. At first I thought that it would be too cumbersome to use Scrivener for the current grant I am writing which is under a tight deadline, but I found that it has become almost intuitive. Amazingly, this brilliant concept was created by one man, Keith Blount. The only glitch for someone writing in American English is that words like “neighbor”, “color” and “plow” are underlined in red to indicated misspellings. Nevertheless, I find it easy to soldier on, ignoring the Britishisms.

The cost is another bonus, only $45. I can’t think of a better investment I have made in years!

Some other bloggers have also discovered the joys of Scrivener:

http://www.writerontheverge.com/writing/resources/why-every-writer-needs-scrivener/

http://www.rebecaschiller.com/scrivener-tutorial/scrivener-saturday-the-scratch-pad/

Let me know if you find a place for Scrivener on your desktop, though for troubleshooting, turn to them, not me: gail@dinterconsulting.com.

The Starting Up of a Startup

Gail Dinter-Gottlieb, Ph.D.

Who and what is Dinter Consulting, LLC?  We are a small, boutique firm that is building on the expertise of a group of colleagues based in New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia.  Paul started the firm, and has a strong background in management of non-profits and as a writer.  Last January he approached me and asked if I would like to join him in seeking out assignments.  My background is as a University President and Executive Director of a non-profit, both of which required fund raising, Board restructuring and management.  I agreed, and contacted Amelia, Diana and Stash.  We had all worked together at Drexel University fifteen years ago and more, and had moved into different fields and directions since then.  Amelia into online and for profit education, Diana into managing and starting up two non-profits, and Stash in information management and in starting up her own businesses. Yael is another experienced grant writer and fund raiser, and works in the area of international non-profits. Lou, with extensive business background, and Ray, with broad experience in HR, have joined us as well.  With a couple of hundred years experience behind us, as well as access to the newest ideas in management, Board building, strategic planning and education, we have a lot to offer.

We have a website at www.dinterconsulting.com, and each week I share interesting articles related to our expertise on Twitter at dinterconsult, on Facebook at Dinter Consulting, and on my page at LinkedIn.  We also have a blog, at dinterconsulting.wordpress.com, and will be writing original pieces based on our areas of interest and experience.  Yael wants to talk about E-mail etiquette in the workplace, and Amelia, for profit education.

We are registered with the Rhode Island Foundation to present Workshops through them, and will be compiling a listing of the Workshops we will be offering that we will share here soon.

The most exciting part of getting this endeavor going has been marketing ourselves through our personal and professional networks, getting re-connected and bringing in some challenging capital campaign assignments. So we are continuing to reach out in every direction to spread the word that we’re offering our services to small business, educational institutions, both for profit and traditional, as well as to non-profit organizations.  Please check out our website www.dinterconsulting.com for more information.

The tagline on our logo, which represents a phoenix, is:
Strategies, solutions, support.

Those are the services we hope to offer you.

Be Fair To Your Board

Paul E. Dinter, President of Dinter Consulting, LLC writes about the importance of caution and care when working with a Board of Directors

I remember my father cautioning me about life’s foibles and challenges with the warning, “There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.” What did I learn from him? That anything worth doing is worth doing carefully. A strong mission and vision, generous volunteers, and all the funding in the world are well and good. But stumbles and falls can happen even with the best intentions at heart. So proceed with caution and wisdom when recruiting, assigning, working with, and retiring the members of your board.

No doubt, many board members hit the mark, exercising their moral, legal, and fiduciary responsibilities. The sector could hardly be so robust if the majority of board members of today’s organizations did not do so. But new non-profits, founder-run organizations, and superannuated boards can make the job of board members unintentionally more challenging by violating the rules of fairness which mission-driven organizations, in particular, owe to their volunteer work-force.

In any such settings, organizational best practices dovetail with fair practices.  Here’s what some of them look like.

• Recruiting: New members often come through personal networking with present directors, so those recruiting the candidate are tempted to undersell the rigors of the job, not wishing to offend the donor or Board member making the recommendation by seeming to challenge the nomination. But underselling the work-load is unfair—to coddled recruits, their sponsors, and to board members bearing the burden of the day’s heat. Draft realistic board member duties and share them on your first date. Candidness pays.
• Full Disclosure: Having passed a first interview, prospective board members should be shown a confidential, bottom-line financial statement so that they can fairly weigh the opportunities and challenges they will face in stewarding the organization. Novice enthusiasm fades easily when lopsided balance sheets or outsized fundraising goals make a delayed appearance at a later board meeting.
• Checks and Balances: Getting the balance right between board and CEO in matters of program and oversight makes for fairness all around. A founding CEO who recruits a board and sets the organization in motion can unfortunately achieve a kind of idolatry that will weigh the operation down. In holding the founder in awe, directors may skimp when it comes to annual evaluations, compensation reviews, or program oversight.  Instead, the CEO and Board members must be peers. When peers share power, they sink or swim together and are less likely to enact a “Survivor” scenario when the going gets tough.
• Volunteer Energy: Without it, much of the sector’s work would sink like a stone. But uncompensated labor can be as fickle as the economy. Because non-profits depend so much on volunteer directors, paid staff serving on board committees can be in the position of having to make demands on their bosses and shrink from doing so. Fairness for all recommends that volunteers pledge an average time per month so that staff members can coordinate productive board time.
• Managing Inequities: Board chairs and CEOs need to adopt a strategy for dealing fairly with the diversity of their members’ contributions. Some have more time and talent; some less time but more money; others have expertise. What’s equitable, then, is for board members to make an explicit commitment of what (and how much) they can give at the beginning of the fiscal year. Taking some of the guess-work out of board philanthropy is fair for everyone involved.
• Saying “Well done. Goodbye.” By-laws regulate board members’ terms and classes and need to be followed. But too many organizations honor these limitations in the breach, holding on to both marginal and active members for decades. It isn’t wise, or fair—to history, to organizational functioning, or to junior board members. Committed supporters can often do more as honorary or retired board members than as perpetual volunteer managers. Gratitude for service shouldn’t have to mean never saying goodbye. Boards, fresh with new members and seasoned returnees, function more evenhandedly for all concerned.

All in all, manifest fairness to board members, other volunteers, staff members of all ranks, and those served by the organization represents the kind of standard that Peter Drucker has assured will attract generous financial supporters to an organization. Fairness as a standard also helps organizations build themselves around the free flow of information and open communication, not around a hierarchy of persons or vested interests. Fair practices will not solve every organizational problem, but they will help all involved remain faithful to the mission in the face of the inevitable problems that will buffet it.