Have you ever looked at something and thought – I bet I know a better way?  Sure, most of us have.  A select few will go all in.  They do not just think about a better way.  They create it.  We call them inventors.Continue reading→

Flowtown co-founders Dan Martell and Ethan Bloch had a vision of how a company and its solution could help users leverage their personal networks across the social continuum to connect, engage, create value and grow. Continue reading→

Kathy Kolbe, Founder of Kolbe Corp,  did not invent conation, but the history, the study of conation, and most importantly the measurement and application of conative ability in individuals and teams has been her passion for decades.  It was through this journey that Kathy created The Kolbe Wisdom™  and invented the first assessment specifically designed to measure and describe conative ability, the Kolbe A™ Index.

Assessing the Mind:

Today’s assessment tools break out the functional areas of the mind into three areas, Cognitive (how we think),  Affective (how we feel) and Conative (how we get things done).

One of the first modern day measurement tools in this area , The Wonderlic Test was created by industrial psychologist Eldon F. Wonderlic in 1936 and a form of the test  is still used today by many organizations including the National Football League.

Later new tests were developed that focused on the  affective portion of the mind, some of the most popular include the DISC (1948),  Birkman  (1951), and the  Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (1962).   These test were designed to measure feelings, social styles, and other affective behaviors. 

It was not until 1987 that the first assessment for conative abilities, The Kolbe A ™Index was introduced to the public.  Interestingly, the journey to bring it into being is almost as interesting as the test itself.  As a young girl and a student, Kathy had to learn how to look at things differently.  As a dyslexic in a time where we did not have the accommodations and resources  that students have today, traditional learning was an uphill battle.  (Kathy’s form of dyslexia is so strong that things we take for granted like telling right from left or reading the hands of a clock are a challenge.)  Differences in how she and other learned led to her fascination with the patterns she began to see in the way minds worked. She had a natural mentor whose thoughts she often challenged. Eldon F. Wonderlic was Kathy’s father.  Her early work was with all forms of uniqueness, including the gifted and learning disabled in educational environments. But a near fatal 1985 auto accident put things in a new perspective  Kathy’s severe injuries included both physical and mental trauma that left her unable to read or write for over a year. She overcame what many believed would be career ending disabilities by using what she had learned about conation, the instinct-driven capabilities she knew she could count on. In the process of re-training her own brain, she learned more about not just how to measure conative abilities, but how to apply them to work situations, relationships, health and other adult challenges.  Her determination to write the book that became the foundation of The Kolbe Wisdom™  startled all doubters and led to her becoming known as the proof of her own theories.

The basis of her consulting and coaching process is her discovery of our conative Action Modes® that are the basis of a person’s MO (modus operandi). Since conation is the source of human actions, reactions and interactions knowing a person’s MO allowed Kathy company, Kolbe Corp, to predict human performance.

Four Action Modes®

Fact Finder – the instinctive way we gather and share information.
Follow Thru – the instinctive way we arrange and design.
Quick Start – the instinctive way we deal with risk and uncertainty.
Implementor – the instinctive way we handle space and tangibles.

The Kolbe A Index result is a graphical representation of an individual’s way of getting things done. Numeric results in each Action Mode represent different points on a continuum, on which every possibility is an equally positive behavior. There is no such thing as a negative or “bad” Kolbe Index result. Some, however, are more appropriate results for a specific job or on a particular team.

(Source:  http://www.Kolbe.com )

For over 20 years Kolbe’s assessments, strategies, and wisdom have benefited tens of thousands of individuals and thousands of corporations and organizations around the globe. Great examples of how individuals and organizations respond to Kolbe resources can be found in this article by Joe Williams speaking about his experience with Kolbe at NASA, as well as these article from the Wall Street Journal, O, The Oprah Magazine, and  Time Magazine.

To experience the  Kolbe A Index for yourself, simply click here. (purchase required) After you complete the assessment be sure to listen to the audio sessions that accompany your results from Kathy Kolbe herself.  It’s just one more form of Kolbe innovation.   

I hope you enjoyed this Inventor’s Profile as we celebrate National Innovators Month. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Inventors live a life of ‘firsts” where the ideas they dream up become new products, create solutions, and sometimes just bring a smile.  To kick off August’s series on for National Inventors Month, I reached out to an inventor who always makes me smile – the one and only Lon Safko. 

Lon is the founder of eleven successful companies, including Paper Models, Inc., which developed Three-Dimensional Internet Advertising for business, promotions, and education, for which Lon holds two patents one on Virtual Electronic Retailing and the other Three Dimensional  Internet Advertising.(US Pat. 7072949 and US Pat. 7546356)  and has a third pending. As an inventor in the early days of personal computing and software development, the patent laws were different. If Lon’s copyrights from the ’80’s and ’90’s were patents like we do it today, he would have an additional  125 software and 35 hardware patents.

Lon been recognized for his creativity with such prestigious awards as; The Westinghouse Entrepreneur of the Year, Arizona Innovation Network’s Innovator of the Year, The Arizona Software Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year, twice nominated for the Ernst & Young / Inc. Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year, The Public Relations Society of America’s, Edward Bernays, Mark of Excellence Award, and nominated as a Fellow of the nation’s Computer History Museum. Lon has also been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, PC Novice, Inc. Magazine, and Popular Science Magazines just to name a few. Lon was recently selected by the Smithsonian institution to represent “The American Inventor” at their annual conference.

I chatted with Lon this week and asked him a few questions.  Here is what he had to say…

“When you see your world in a different perspective, you see new ways to do everything!”  ~ Lon Safko

What is your favorite invention?

I like all of the obvious one’s like the car, electricity, the light bulb.  No invention has affected my life more than the computer.  From the very first Apple II  until today.  I learn from it, make a living from it, am entertained by it, manage my companies with it, communicate through it, and make a living from it.  If you take away every major modern invention today, but leave me my computer…  I can still do it all!

Why do you invent?

Because I see things.  I make matches.  I see a problem, then immediately see something that can be combined to solve that problem. It’s kind of  like a Google search engine in my head, everything just matches together. I also look at things from behind, backwards, upside down.  Like the paper models that have become so popular . (For one of Lon’s favorite models  click here. They are fun for kids and grown ups alike not to mention great for classroom projects.)

 What was it like the first time you saw one of your inventions in the Smithsonian?

Wow!  It was humbling.  Before I saw the items, they published a newsletter, that featured: Darwin, Wyeth, Edison, and Safko.   That was insane!  When they actually asked me to represent the “American Inventor” at their annual conference, I couldn’t speak.  I did speak, just not for a day after they asked.  Having 18 inventions in the Smithsonian Institute and more than 30,000 personal documents, is like being an actor and winning 18 Academy Awards.  The “Smith” is the ultimate valuator.  I guess to make a short story long, I felt honored.

How does your passion for innovation and invention tie into your work and books on Social Media.

Just as when the computer first came out, I immediately recognized it as disruptive technology.  Then it was the Internet.  Then Email.  Then eCommerce.  Then Social Media.  We haven’t even scratched the surface on how we can combine all of these technologies to create amazing new applications.  And, social media incorporates many of my passions; innovation, creativity, communications, computers, marketing, and sales.  It’s just the next cutting edge innovation!

( Lon’s book on social media, The Social Media Bible, at 840 pages is by far the biggest book  there is on the topic.  It’s choc full of the stories of the the evolution of the medium though interviews with the innovators and inventors how have pioneered the industry. Watch for The Social Media Bible II coming out this Fall from John Wiley and Sons.)

I hope you enjoyed meeting one of my “inventor” friends.  There are more to come.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

August is National Inventors Month,  a time when we celebrate invention and creativity. The tradition began in 1998 when  the United Inventors Association of the USA (UIA-USA), the Academy of Applied Science, and Inventors’ Digest magazine came together to honor our country’s creators. 

Finding the bright light

Lots of us see things that we would like to change or problems we would like to solve.  Inventors have the ability to take that idea and bring it to life. 

I love hanging out with inventors

My love of invention and passion for innovation just may be genetic. Both of my grandfathers were inventors – Grandpa Bill focused his creativity on his trade as a brew master (here is a link I found to one of his patents from 1937) while Grandpa Leo was an engineer and focused on mechanical devices.    Early in my career I had the opportunity to spend six years in the Silicon Valley and work with some brilliant inventors as the re-invented the way we work with data, created portable computers – wow can you imagine –  and dreamed up things that today we take for granted.

Vision Creates Energy

What I learned at Grandpa’s knee and later in the emerging world of technology is that an inventor’s vision creates energy.  In the inventors I know, it is so charged that you can feel it.  So in honor of National Inventor’s Month I have asked some of them for permission to tell their stories.  I hope you will follow along, it’s bound to be enlightening.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker