Discover the incredible world of the Mentor Project's Innovation Lab, where mentors and mentees collaborate to bring innovative ideas to life and transform the future.
Guests:
Lily Osman, William (Bill) Cheswick, and Bob Cousins.
The Mentor Project: https://mentorproject.org
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Hosts:
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone Ph.D., Host of The Mentor Project Podcast | Host of Perspectives | Systems Psychotherapist, International Coach, Talk Show Host & Producer, Professor | Mentor at the Mentor Project
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/dr-susan-birne-stone
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine, Host of Redefining Society Podcast, and other shows on ITSPmagazine
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
"Discover the incredible world of the Mentor Project's Innovation Lab, where mentors and mentees collaborate to bring innovative ideas to life and transform the future."
Welcome to another fantastic episode of The Mentor Project podcast! Today, we have a thrilling discussion planned with the brilliant minds behind the Innovation Lab, a special project designed to foster creativity and bring together inventors, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Trust us, you won't want to miss this episode, so be sure to share it with your friends and subscribe to the show!
In this episode, we'll be diving deep into the fascinating world of the Innovation Lab and discovering how this incredible community of mentors and mentees work together to bring ideas to life. We'll be joined by Bob Cousins, Lily Osman, and William Cheswick – a truly remarkable lineup of innovators with impressive backgrounds, experiences, and achievements.
From the creation of safe spaces for innovation to the exciting and diverse goals of each member, this episode will give you an inside look into the world of the Innovation Lab. You'll hear firsthand how these passionate individuals are empowering the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs to create, innovate, and change the world.
Lily Osman, a young entrepreneur running a cookware company, shares how the Mentor Project has transformed her business and the importance of creating a supportive community for innovators. Meanwhile, Bob Cousins and William Cheswick – both boasting an impressive number of patents – discuss their hopes and expectations for the Innovation Lab, as well as their experiences mentoring bright and eager minds.
This insightful conversation will touch on the need for safe spaces, the importance of collaboration and community, and the incredible impact of mentorship on the lives of young innovators. You'll hear captivating stories about the birth of new ideas, the growth of businesses, and the potential of the Innovation Lab to change the world.
So, what are you waiting for? Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to hear from some of the most inspiring minds in innovation. Share this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues, and make sure you subscribe to the show to stay updated on all the latest episodes of The Mentor Project podcast. It's time to unleash your creativity, embrace innovation, and join the journey of these extraordinary individuals. Welcome to the world of the Innovation Lab – let the adventure begin!
Watch the webcast version on-demand on YouTube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYu0psdcllQSyw1kVnIvnQh_DzpPSPDm
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Resources
Learn More About The Mentor Project: https://mentorproject.org
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Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording as errors may exist. At this time we provide it “as it is” and we hope it can be useful for our audience.
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SPEAKERS
Bob Cousins, Lily Osman, Marco Ciappelli, Dr. Susan Birne-Stone, William Cheswick
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 00:00
Welcome to another episode of The Mentor Project podcast. Marco, this is going to be a great discussion. I'm really excited to have on today, a really special project for the mentor project. And it's the innovation lab. And we're gonna hear all about that today. So Marco, are you ready?
Marco Ciappelli 00:24
I am ready. And I have to be honest, I don't know much about it. I heard through the grapevine that there is this lab. I'm thinking the Bell Labs just because I've talked to Bill before chez week. So the connection is clear there. And Bob. So I know that it's gonna be an amazing conversation. I'm coming in not knowing much about this awesome. There is some stupid question, which maybe they're not so stupid. We'll see. We'll figure it out.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 00:50
As you know, Marco, there's never a stupid question. And as you will hear, this is a relatively new lab. It's really a new project. And I'm excited because today we have a couple of actually the co founders of the mentor project, as well as a mentee and a innovator. And why don't we start with introductions? How about that? So Oh, would you like to start?
Bob Cousins 01:17
Well, hello. I'm Bob cousins. I guess it was a bunch of years ago, Debbie hyzer. And I got together and began to run this down the hill. I'm a semi retired technologist and inventor in Silicon Valley, who've been I've mentored a lot of people over the years. And I've been very fortunate to have a chance to continue to do that. And in this particular context, we are trying to bring in various people to bring forth their ideas, maybe patent with them, maybe build businesses out of them, maybe sell them off, try to try to move them past the concept stage. And that's very exciting to me.
Marco Ciappelli 02:18
Absolutely. That is exciting already. So I want to know more about it. But let's go to let's leave build for after. Let's go we Lilia, let's tell us a little bit about yourself.
Lily Osman 02:32
All right, well, I'm Lily. And currently I'm running a cookware company. We're in the prototyping stage. And I got involved with the mentor project through my dad and got luckily paired with Bob. And it's really changed everything for my business. And so when I got the invitation to get involved in the in innovation lab, I really jumped on the opportunity, because it just sounded so exciting to meet other entrepreneurs and inventors and innovators and kind of have a community because sometimes it can be kind of a solo project that's hard to keep moving along. So I was excited to get involved.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 03:21
That's great. I look forward to hearing a little bit more about your company and some of your ideas. But let's go to Bill and Bill, can you introduce yourself and you're involved with briefly in the mentor project and in this lab?
William Cheswick 03:36
Well, my name is Bill Cheswick. I've been a science guy since Sputnik went up. And that led to a career in computers and internet network and eventually the Bell Labs. I'm a hacker in the sense of like, not, not this sort of breaking into computers. So I've certainly studied that I've done a lot with computer security. But in the idea of coming up with ideas, things to do, my Saturday projects are, tend to be very technical and so on. And like many people with a research bent, I'm much more interested in starting a project and finishing it. And and when Debbie Heiser stopped by here retired on a farm in New Jersey. I told her, you know, I'm pretty good at teaching, it's a waste for me to just sit here on the porch and read stuff. I shouldn't be teaching kids I, you know, I'd love the challenge of trying to teach your fourth graders class of fourth graders about quantum mechanics. Now, the fact is, I don't know how to do that. I've given that a lot of thought, but I have taught them rocket science, and a variety of other things. And and I've accumulated a few patents over my years. Mostly when you're in a place like Bell Labs, you come up with new ideas. You go down to the IP, the lawyers and you tell them the idea and they said, Oh, that sounds new. Let's get a patent for All right. So I've been inventing stuff. And I have a pile of ideas and sometimes parts for those ideas sitting around the farm here. And there are sharp teenagers who are technically inclined. And I say, Well, I have an idea, you know, I have my mailbox is a quarter mile away. And I'd sort of like to get information when the mailbox is open. So I can know that I've got mail. Well, how would you do that? There's no electricity at the mailbox, it's a fair distance for Wi Fi. There are technical questions, but maybe you could work at my last house, it did work at a motion sensor in my mailbox, and it will tell me when we had mail. So I've had a bunch of ideas like this. And the metro project is supplied me with some bright kids, I say, kids, college age or more. Working on these various projects, which give them a great chance to work on technology and to invent things. And yeah, maybe get a patent now. And then I think the patent, it's a cool thing to have. But for me, that's that's not the goal, the goal is to do new new and cool things. So you know, that's how I got involved with this innovation lab has a nice stream of promising people like Lilly who, who have gone out with ideas, and and started learning what it takes to make a business and the fate chase this stuff down.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 06:27
Speaking about patents, so Bob, how many patents Do you have?
Bob Cousins 06:34
Oh, something passed between two or three dozen?
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 06:39
And Bill, how many patents? Do you have?
William Cheswick 06:41
Something like 20? You know, after you've got a few of them, you start keeping track? Because
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 06:47
I think you guys were involved in getting them into project, I think how many up to like at least three of three, I think, three patents that you've been involved in? So can you tell us now So Lily, you're in good company in terms of getting patents? And you know, so with that, tell us a little bit more than anybody can really take this about? What do you hope, besides getting a patent happens with this lab? What's the ultimate goal really, for each of you, because I think it might be very different.
Lily Osman 07:20
That I think is different for all of us. For me, I really want to help build skills around communication and make a community and facilitate, really an area where everyone can come together and help each other. No matter how much experience you have or don't have, like everyone's ideas are welcome and encouraged. And I just really think your age doesn't define what you can contribute to a group. So that's what I'm really trying to bring out of everybody. And then yeah, I mean, I learned so much in all the meetings. So it's just so exciting to be a part of, and it keeps my own passion, like going to connect with everyone.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 08:07
Wow, that's incredible. Because I know, we've talked in other places about the need for safe space. And How incredible is that to create this safe space where innovation can happen and ideas, regardless of one's background or age? That's really phenomenal, don't you think Marco I know in other spaces, we've talked about not having that safe psychological and
Marco Ciappelli 08:32
real space to do. It's nice to know you're not the only one because sometimes you find yourself either as a writer or a creative person or starting a business or having a an idea and invention in mind. They're like, I'm gonna be alone on this and having a group of people I think that they experienced that I heard many times said by, by Bill Cheswick, about the time of the of the labs. It's the bellerby, it was the idea that everybody could just brainstorm and through something and somebody will take it and run with it. So I think is amazing. And I want to pass the question that you had to actually, Bob and Bill to hear that, what they expect him to really get and give getting give because part of being a mentor from this from this lab.
Bob Cousins 09:26
Well, allow me to make it slightly orthogonal COVID here. A little more than two centuries ago, there was a youth in Massachusetts named Frederick tutor. And he thought it would be really, really nice if he can have ice in his tea. And he grew up in a place where there was ice on the river and ice on the lake. And he figured out he could find a way to store the ice and use it in the summer when it was hot. And by the time he was 25 You could get ice Tea in Havana. And by the time he was 30, you can get iced tea in Calcutta, all with ice that had been harvested off of the lakes of Massachusetts. That is a classic example of innovation. Because of that, we learned to have ice boxes in our kitchens, and to use ice to preserve food in the modern way, that then gave birth to air conditioning, and to refrigeration, electrical refrigeration, and ultimately, the cryogenics and a number of other things. But it all can be traced back to one young innovators idea, which was sitting around the house going, gee, wouldn't it be nice if we had some of that ice in the summer that we used to have in the winter? So we're dealing with a lot of smart noobs here. And by us, I mean people younger than I am, and I'm old, who have ideas, and who often ask open questions. And I see this as a way to create a path for them to explore. And furthermore, to understand how to explore future ideas.
Marco Ciappelli 11:18
Wonderful, Bill, and I would jump on this.
William Cheswick 11:22
Yeah, I'm in the safe space part is sort of interesting, because, you know, I've always liked to teach. And of course, you want a friendly teaching environment. Bell Labs in some sense. Once a well provision space, you come up with ideas that give you equipment, they let you run with it. And at the end of the year or two, they said good job or not such a good job. And it might even be you haven't done a good job for three years, it's time for you to go move on somewhere else. And you know, something that's happened to some people. I've also seen people come in full of ideas. And the gods of the field said, No, that's a bad idea. Nope, we tried that. Nope, that doesn't work. Not very safe. You get over variety of personalities on various spectrums that aren't always welcoming. In particular, often not with women. So not not so safe. On the other hand, I have had the privilege to work with world class women and research and co authors and so on. But it to categorize research as a safe space is you need an asterisk on there, on the other hand, teaching kids eager technical teams, who are just learning that they're really unusual, and that there are other people like them out there, male and female, who are interested in this sort of stuff. It's very exciting. And I love to feed that. And let me give you an idea for just one project that I came up with that we
Bob Cousins 13:05
think we lost him.
Marco Ciappelli 13:07
Oh my god, I jinx it at the beginning. I said somebody fell from the internet. And, and he did. But here's
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 13:14
you if you put it on. Pause, will can we resume it when it comes?
Marco Ciappelli 13:18
No, no, no, we just keep going. He's coming back so I can continue his idea. Great. Well, here is he's back. I'm back. I'm back. I don't know what's probably your firewall. I'm guessing.
William Cheswick 13:33
Probably not. Good. Good. Steer counted. If I needed you. That was an interesting outage. I have Starlink here. I could hook to that.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 13:41
Well, for our listeners, for our listeners, the joke that Marco made. I know I should explain that on your wall. Is that Bill worked on the firewall and invented
William Cheswick 13:55
all right. I I've been accused of inventing the firewall. I did not okay. I have also marketing. Marketing people have also called me the father of the firewall, which is indistinct enough that yeah, maybe that's sort of right. But the firewall had lots of fathers, including somebody like Judy Estrin, who is would be the mother of firewalls. So I certainly had a lot to do with teaching the world about firewalls at the beginning. And you know, that put that on my gravestone if you want. I was, and yes, it is possible that we had an outage here I'd have to blame Comcast, but I don't know what's going on. I was going to mention and I guess we can pick it up from here. A project that I came up with, that is a good example of the sort of the, the sort of stuff I think of and the good projects that are working with the kids was the problem of navel oranges. You go into the store, you select some navel oranges, you take them home, you peel them, and they're wonderful and juicy, but some of them are dry and fibrous. Could we come up with an app to tell the difference? Well, some of the things I've learned over the years is that computers and iPhones and smartphones have very good microphones and very good speakers. They go up into ultrasound, they can go up to about 25 kilohertz. Could we make an app that would ping an orange? Listen to the echoes and tell a Juicy Orange from a fibrous one? Okay, I don't actually know the answer. I think the answer is yes. Wouldn't this be an interesting project? For somebody who's a little advanced for teenagers? But you know, there are teenagers who do college level stuff? How do you what what do you first of all, you'd have to write an app. It needs a user interface. That's a whole thing that you need to learn when you're getting into this field. In the field of programming and iPhones. I mean, this is a brilliant piece of hardware. This, this little device is more powerful than the $8 million computer credit computer we had at Bell Labs in 1990. And you know, you can use it on the toilet. It's, it's amazing. So
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 16:14
for those that are listening Bill picked up his cell phone for those I don't know.
William Cheswick 16:18
Oh, right. Sorry. I
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 16:21
guess it's a it's a cell phone.
Bob Cousins 16:24
It shouldn't be a pocket supercomputer that can imitate a phone. Yes.
William Cheswick 16:31
Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, it has an annoying phone property. Being a nice computer I gather, they don't call me I want to use it.
Marco Ciappelli 16:38
You're not let me let me add to that a second. Because Susie, Susie Katz, which you all know, as a photographer, she made a joke the other day saying that it’s a camera that actually makes phone calls. So I think everybody can get what they want from this machine. It's really good. So perspective.
William Cheswick 16:58
So how about a device that can test fruit in the grocery store? You'd need to figure out pings, you'd have to listen to the response, then you'd need to collect data to tell good oranges from bad oranges. Do you do that? By pure reason? Do you do that by analysis of the sauce, sonograms and the spectrum that come back? Or do you feed it into a machine learning algorithm, you've, you've given it 1000 oranges that were good and 1000 oranges that were bad. And say you figure out how to tell the difference. These are all skills that someone going into and through college into technical fields of programming and so on, are going to use whether the orange app works or not. And so I've been working with somebody who had some skills in this area. And we've worked on trying to figure out how to make this work. You could actually there's more to it, you could set up a web page where people could submit oranges, they said, I picked this orange and it was good at picking this one was bad. You could grab sources and try to figure out what what it is. And of course, people are saying, What about avocados, or whatever. But this is an open ended idea. I am not going to finish the idea.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 18:18
Is this and you said you're working with somebody? Are you working on this to dementia projects with the innovation lab is this happening there? With one of
William Cheswick 18:26
them? Actually, it predates the the innovation lab. But it's the sort of stuff that I love to do and look forward to doing more stuff in the innovation lab. I love to to offer these technical challenges to people, the kids can sort of stretch their minds and learn how to do this grown up stuff, which, you know, if you've got time and inclination, it's all there on the internet and how to do this. And there's nothing like having technical projects to work on to figure out how to solve things. And as you can see, there's a whole lot of questions, user interfaces, programming, and so on. You know, how would it work? Anyway, that's, that's the hope I have for the project is doing that sort of thing.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 19:11
Great. Let's go first,
Bob Cousins 19:14
I'd like to underscore something that Bill said, that's very important here. We live in a world in which there's a whole lot of development taking place. And we live in this world of open source and open ideas and open exchange of information. Which means that were 50 years ago, if one was to try to make his orange tester, one would have to start with designing circuitry, and writing a whole lot of very basic code after doing some serious mathematics to figure out exactly how to do things. Someone today can pick up an existing cell phone using the existing componentry and Pulling down big chunks of code and mathematical libraries available already, which means you don't have to know, vector calculus to do some of this stuff. All you have to know is, if I use this chunk of code, and I use it this way, it will do this function for me. And you've got enough compute power, where you don't have to be particularly effective or efficient. Now, what this means is that suddenly you can play this is exactly the same way, if you put three year olds together with Legos, they will begin to put together things that aren't necessarily optimal, but meet their needs. And they will invent new things. So what chance is talking about here is a wonderful new way where you can invent by using big chunks of knowledge that you don't yet have. Which means that you can begin to invent earlier, when you're more creative, when you have a brighter eyed view of everything, you aren't jaded. And that you can call on mentors, to help you to understand and understand what you need, what you're missing. And maybe they can help you to jump over some of the hurdles, which means that you can be successful more easily or quickly, with less frustration.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 21:27
So Bob, that's a perfect segue to my next question. And this one, I'm going to pose to Lily. So Lily, in your introduction, you talked about that, when you got involved with the mentor project in this group, that it's really changed things for you. Could you talk a little bit about how what's changed for you
Lily Osman 21:48
think a few things. But I guess the first one that's coming to mind is my confidence. You know, being in a room with Bob and Bill, and then like raising their hands to speak to me or like ask a question or ask me what I think I'm like, How did I get here or talking to Charlie and being like, Oh, I met an astronaut today. It's like, it's very cool. I mean, it's honestly just amazing. And it makes me more confident about my business and talking to, you know, new partners that I want to work with, or anything like that. But it also just made me more adventurous, I suppose, and using my voice and my opinions and speaking, although right now, sometimes I'm just taking notes, because there's so many cool things that I'm learning. But if I have an idea, I say it and I, if I have a question, I want to ask it, and I, I feel braver than before. And I also feel like I have advice to give, which I didn't really think of myself as someone who could, you know, help somebody right now. But I can't I do. And it's exciting. It's nice for me.
Marco Ciappelli 23:07
That's wonderful. I want to jump on this because we always talk with with Debbie and amongst ourselves how we're learning. I mean, even when I, I host the podcast, I'm learning as much as I'm reading a book, because I'm interviewing and having a conversation with someone that knows so much more than me on any given topic. So that's beautiful, what you say Lily, and I think I would like to get to the fact that, you know, the mentor is also the mentee. And that's a mantra that we repeat a lot in the mentor project, to go back on the lab and the invention, Lily, I'm going to stick with you. And then I'm going to do around with this, the business aspect because we were talking about paitent. And in there is also the business I think that the world is probably full of drawers with great ideas that never actually came to life and some lesser, less good idea actually made it really big because of marketing, business investment and so forth. So as we look at the innovation, we look at the way to market the innovation, I know that all of you have accompany their startup or sold some so what's the take there? I mean, Lily, let's go with you like you have a business. I you learning a lot about how to transform this idea into into reality to market it and so forth. Yeah. That's good. That's a good answer. Yeah.
Lily Osman 24:38
I'm also in a master's program where I take business courses and so I learned a lot there but I think applied knowledge from people like Bob and Bill and anyone else in the innovation group you learn nuances about starting a business that you would never come across and you also learn better ways to go out things. So, you know, I would never think of putting a magnet somewhere, but Bob does. And then I write that into my business plan. I figure out how that works. And then I can ask him questions about it. But some of the things I guess I know, from school, I didn't realize other people didn't know. So in the group, like last night, we were talking about business plans. And I have that information like at my fingertips, and I have 30 copies right now of my business plans, and we re doing it and redoing it and redoing it. But I think for me, at least with my business, it's like passion that keeps me coming back every day, and curiosity about how I can make it better and make things even more perfect and more beautifully designed, while also being, you know, a product that I'm proud of and works the way I wanted to. But marketing is a huge component. And that's honestly one of I thought it'd be my favorite thing. It's not like picking colors is so it, you think it's simple until you have two greens next to each other, and one is somehow more female, and one is somehow like more male. And, you know, there's just a lot of different minut things and talking to people and getting opinions is a huge part of business. So I think being in that group, and just asking a question about a color even is huge for somebody who's starting a business.
Marco Ciappelli 26:38
Very cool. Bob, the side of business, the innovation side of business, tell us about that. You're mute.
Bob Cousins 26:52
Here's the problem. Many nerds think that if they invent a better mousetrap, the world will be the path to their door. Matter of fact that they feel that they deserve to have the world beat a better path to their door. This doesn't happen. Many, many great solutions die in the dark, unheard of unseen, unseen, and unexperienced? Well, what we need is we need to get things to market. And to get things to market means you have to tell people about it, have to explain to them why they want it, you have to be able to get it to them a channel, you need to be able to support it, you need to be able to answer questions, you need to be able to improve it and come out with new versions, you need to be able to manufacture it, you need to be able to fix the broken ones. There's a lot of things that come about this. And many of the people that would come to me would say, Oh, we've got this great idea. And we don't need any of that normal corporate overhead will build a website. And I had explained that if General Motors can do that, they would have a 40% profit, not a 5% profit. But somehow they figured out you can't eliminate sales and marketing and all those other nasty support features. Many people who have ideas have no concept of how businesses are put together. And they have no concept of how the product goes from idea to actually on the market. And they don't understand the concepts of finding customers defining a market or anything else, many of the difficulties that you have is that when you're truly innovating, there's nothing out there that the end user can say that they want to see. Bill and I are friends with Bob Frankston, who wrote the original spreadsheet program VisiCalc. When he was inventing VisiCalc, there was no spreadsheet program out there. So he couldn't go up to a computer user and say, What features do you want in your spreadsheet program? Because they would say what's a spreadsheet program, he actually had to carry the vision all the way to the end, and actually explain it and have people learn to see the value in the product. And that required much more than just simply writing a bunch of code that required that he actually carry a vision and an idea and a use case and have a model customer. And then they had to create a company that would actually sell the thing. And that had that had to be run in such a way that it could make enough money off of each sale so that he could make the next sale. All of these things are complicated. And all of them have many, many, many decades of experience behind them in normal cases that are not obvious. So Oh, it's not unreasonable that people will lack experience and knowledge of the other side. And one of our jobs is to explain to them that there is another side to this problem. Another one is to help them walk through some of these issues. And the other is to help them to put together a team. Because often you need six or eight or 10 people to get one of these ideas off the ground, with different sections in different places. I mean, Lily is wonderful as a as a vision leader, and she has a wonderful, brilliant idea for her for her dives. But before she's done, she's going to need someone who knows how to do the finances, she's gonna need someone who knows how to do the mechanical design, and someone who knows how to do the detailed manufacturing, she's going to need to have someone who knows how to do the marketing and the sales, she's going to have to have someone who's able to support the shipments in the field. And the list goes long in each one of those jobs is there. One of the rules is you'll remember Pogues law, eliminating the job does not eliminate the work. If you trim the team down to where it's only two people, they've got a lot of hats, and they get better be good at wearing a lot of hats. So that's what one of the key roles we're having here is to explain to these people how to get into the bigger world. It's hard.
Lily Osman 31:32
I will say though, just jumping off of that, like, wow, that sounds like a very long list. For me, because I have this support system in this group. And just Bob to one, we have one on one meetings, I don't feel as scared of it. I feel curious about each of these topics. So I'm excited to learn about manufacturing, which I actually had a background and my first job was in cosmetic cosmetic manufacturing. So that gave me a really big picture of distribution and a ton of things. But I think when you kind of bite them off as curious topics, where you can kind of evolve into people you meet and trust and you kind of have some knowledge around it, and you're willing to hand it off and ready to hand it off. I think it just becomes a little less scary. So you know, it does sound like a long list. But slowly but surely it becomes a company and it's exciting. And I have a lot of those people now within a year, which I didn't think I would. Because I just got curious and a little less scared. I think
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 32:40
you'll do you want to answer that question? And then I have some comments to make. Because what you guys are saying is great.
William Cheswick 32:48
I think a couple of thoughts lead to mind. One, the marketing question, I co founded a company that used our internet mapping technology to find out where corporate networks go. And the marketing question came up. Is this a security product? Or is this a network management product? And that was easy to me? It's both, you know, why would you separate it? Well, you separate it because money for security comes from a different bucket and corporations then money for network management. And that changes how you sell things.
Marco Ciappelli 33:21
William Cheswick 33:23
I know you need this, I invented it because everybody was having this trouble. So that you get these things in there that it just sort of I can't believe this was an issue. The other thing is, as with science fiction authors, I found with inventors, that good ideas, there are lots of good ideas that come pretty easily, a lot more than make it to market. And I'll give you an example of one idea I had. It is my four word patent idea. So you got to listen carefully to the four words, color selectable hold music. Wouldn't you like that? Yeah, I don't want to listen to your crappy ads I want give me rock and roll or a time or quiet or something like that. Well, that's an idea that I've never heard anyone say that's a really bad idea. I'd like to we'd like to have that. I worked for the phone company when I came up with that idea. I couldn't get them interested in it. And you know, I'd still like that idea. But who would be the right place to take it? Who would? How would you do it? On the other hand, it's pretty cool. I have a patent idea. That's four words long. You know, obviously, you submit something quite a bit longer than that, but that's the gist of it.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 34:41
You know what's so interesting is sorry, again about
Bob Cousins 34:44
there's lots of examples of people who just can't see the problem because it's too close to them. Gary Stottlemyre, who had been in the laser printer was working for Xerox at the time, and he tried I just show them what a wonderful idea of the laser printer was. And they couldn't understand why anyone would want one. And he finally said, think of it as a copying machine. That doesn't mean an original. And that just completely confused them. And ultimately, Xerox is, of course, not the dominant player in, in laser printers, but they develop them. There's lots of other examples of these where, yes, the money comes out of the wrong the wrong pocket. Another one is, how high up on the chain, do you sell it? At different corporations have different signature levels, selling a $5,000 product is a lot easier than selling a $50,000 product. But selling a $60,000 product is a lot harder than a 50,000. Because there are a lot of people who have a $50,000 signature level, but not 60. To get to 60, you may need five or six other signatures. So figuring out how much effort it is to sell something, and how best to get it in to the customer. It's almost like planning the D Day invasion.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 36:08
Well, I'm not gonna follow up on that comment. But what I want to do is circle back to some things that Lily had mentioned. And both Bob and Bill had said, because there's a few things that I think really could be highlighted here in terms of what this project is doing for both Mentees and mentors. And some of the things that I want to highlight is that one, it sounds like what this group is providing that's so crucial is that, you know, especially here in the States, we still have a culture, I believe that's very individualistic, and that there's this this theme that you know, you can do it on your own. And that's not true, we know that you can't do anything really on your own. And so one of the great things that I heard Lilly talk about is how, what you've learned, and what this group is doing is really showing all the different aspects of an idea from beginning to then putting it out there and being successful. But in a way, that is really showing that there are people that can help, and that you don't have to shoulder this on your own. Because I know that sometimes when people have an idea, and then they think about everything that they have to do, if they think that they have to do it all, it becomes overwhelming. And then it does go into that draw that Marco you refer to. And so one of the keys is that, besides getting this great information and knowledge and experience, concretely, from both Bob and Bill, you're also getting this experience of realizing that, oh, there's lots of other people too, and I don't have to do this alone. And I can learn parts of it. But I can utilize other people, the teamwork approach. And you're also learning how to work as a team. So my question is, you know, I'm hearing a lot about Lily, you talked about what it's like, as a mentee, you're you're, you're gaining confidence, which I love. And you know, you're really taking the knowledge and seeing things in a bigger picture, Bob, and Bill, what are you getting personally from being a mentor? What does it mean to you to be a mentor of these mentees?
Bob Cousins 38:21
Well, first of all, you get a huge amount of satisfaction, to see someone who actually leaves the room and says, I know how to go forward. There's a great, there's a great pleasure that comes from transferring and enabling someone to be successful in the future. Playing even a small role in that is, is a wonderful thing. The other thing is, when you realize the hours and days and weeks of frustration that you may have been able to head off. That's that's a that makes you feel well, very good about things. And then finally, interacting with these smart people is a lot of fun, and they have great ideas. And they'll periodically surprise you. And they'll periodically amaze you. And this is a wonderful thing to see. And finally, the nerd culture is very basic on mentoring. This is something that we started doing. Heck, I was a year out of college, I was mentoring, and I was being mentored. So this is something that's a natural activity does kind of like walking and breathing. And that doesn't mean it's fun to walk and it isn't fun to breathe. But, Bill, I'm sure you can take my gibberish and turn it into something a little more rational.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 39:54
I think Bill's having a little technical difficulties.
Marco Ciappelli 39:57
Yeah, he's jumping from one star. link to another. So we'll get in when he came back. You know what I think we can start talking about unless Lily, if you want to jump on these as you know what you think the mentor getting into these please jump on it be an interesting perspective if you want to. Or we pass it to bill because it's Bill. Bill, what's your perspective on this? I know you're having some issues going in and out. But did you? Can you follow up on the question here? Yeah. Technologies? A friend today.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 40:39
Yeah, I think you're muted bill. Okay, Lily, do you want to take it? Um,
Lily Osman 40:47
I think that, at least my experience with Bob. I don't know, I It's so hard to explain, because I just think it's given me so much. But I we talk a lot about like that nerd culture and talking about how we think differently and how it's often like not really exposed. How we think and it's, we're not encouraged to ask questions or find the people like us. And I think having this community where it's like, not about doing anything alone, it's encouraged to do things together is very new for a ton of people. And including myself, I always want to do things by myself, because I just was kind of taught to do that. And Bob has really allowed me to see that that's not necessary. And it's not the easiest way, and why would you make something harder when you don't have to?
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 41:43
Great, you know, I'm just thinking, you know, as we begin to end this beautiful conversation, let's bring it back again, to the mentor projects Innovation Lab in terms of the purpose and for those that are listening out there, if they wanted to know what what can be mentored project innovation lab, or for me, like, how would I know if I wanted to call up and say, hey, I want to be a part of this. What's a couple of things that you would tell your listeners out there to see if they wanted to be involved in something like this? Maybe some questions that you they can ask themselves? What, what would you want to say, Bob, do you want to take this one to start with?
Bob Cousins 42:23
Sure. Okay, this is a real easy one. We want you if you want to help someone innovate, whether that someone is you or someone else, even someone you don't know, if you have experience in innovation, developing of products and businesses and concepts, then we would love to have you in our group, as a mentor, to help us to take these people through the process. And help us to build teams of support around these different ideas and carry them through, we don't have everyone working on everything, we have an idea and we wave the flag and people will, who are interested in that idea will cluster around it and help get that product out. The other thing is, if you have an idea that you would like to push forward, whether you're a youth are whether you're a professional, or whether you're a retired person, we have horizontal and vertical mentoring, which means if you have an idea you want out, come come to see us. And we'll treat you we will treat you with the same disregard that we treat everyone else. That's what puts you in there will ask you 10,000 questions. And before you're done, you're you'll come out of it like Lily, who's who's had to rethink her project multiple times, and has developed a really powerful idea from what was before a really good idea that hadn't been, shall we say, tested in the fire. That's what we, that's what we asked you to do. Come join us and help us to make it a better world for tomorrow. Because we're in the business of improving the world by bringing the things to the world that the world needs, whether it's addressing problems in the third world, or whether it's curing cancer, or whether it's just making the simple things around your house better. We want to make the world a better place. And to enable these people who want to do it to have the tools they need. So when they have that big idea, they can finally move it forward. I don't want to lose any big ideas because someone at the age of 15 or 20 didn't get a chance to learn enough to take their idea forward.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 44:43
Well said Bob, Lily, do you want to add to that?
Lily Osman 44:49
How I could top that but I'm think if you just have a curious mind and you have any idea even if it was like something in the shower, that you didn't write down and Now you forget it. And you want to come back and think if you can see if you can think it up again, we're a group where you can explore that. And I just encourage everyone to come and see what kind of confidence you can build your curiosity or knowledge and be a part of a community.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 45:17
That's great. And, bill, we're back. Yay,
William Cheswick 45:22
I'm back. Yes, I've used three different technologies to connect satellite cable, and cell cellular, we're back on cable, I can improve on Bob's answer, I can help Lily with a shower problem. I know someone who kept a wax pencil in his shower, and he would draw notes on his tile. And he showed me his shower, and it was just festooned with ideas that had come to him in the shower, I get some of my best ideas in the shower. So you know, you might want to do that.
Marco Ciappelli 45:54
So we may invent something that allows you to get better notes in the shower.
William Cheswick 45:58
Well, if it's the ideas that come out, you just want to capture them and you know, dictate them or write in somewhere in the shower, it works for you
Marco Ciappelli 46:07
do a microphone on the on the headset for the shower. It's an idea.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 46:15
So this has been great. And for those that want to get involved, or you want to learn more information, please go to mentor project.org you or you can reach out to us at the Mentor Project podcast. There's lots of ways to reach us. And please reach out this is amazing Marco, I'm kind of like feeling the pressure to come up with an idea just to be part of the group like these. It's amazing. I want to join the group. But I don't have any ideas just yet. But maybe
Bob Cousins 46:41
if I mean ideas, we need people to
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 46:45
okay, I'm the people I am. Like you, okay, I'm there, I count me in. I want to thank each and every one of you, this is amazing. And Marco, I hope that we can have them all back after like a couple of months from now, when we see what's been developed, and we hear more about Lily's business, and I think someone said something about knives in there. So next time, you can talk to us about that knife project that you're doing. Um, so this has been great. Thank you each and every one of you.
Marco Ciappelli 47:18
Yeah, just to close, I want to I don't have anything to add to this, except that I'm glad that you didn't ask me how many patents I have, because I would have been miserably saying zero. But I do have some ideas. So at least at least I got that. Talking about ideas. I want to close with a call to all the mentors and all the people involved in the Mentor Project disease. These what you're seeing right now is open door. You have you want to come have a conversation talk about what the mental project does. Tell us how you got involved with it. What is your vision for it, we are here me and Susan are just two humble people that are going to help carry in the conversation. But we need people that are as brilliant and all of you I would say anyone in the project for that matter. And so just come on, chat with us and we will share these with as many people as possible. And this was a great conversation. So I appreciate that. We're gonna go out on video if you're watching this, you know that already. If you prefer to follow up with listener again on audio version while you're driving in the car, don't watch this in the car, please that would not be nice. Do that and subscribe to the channel and visit the mental project.org And and you can you can donate. I mean we are all volunteers here so we will welcome that as well.
Dr. Susan Birne-Stone 48:53
And thank you all for listening and watching and we look forward to seeing you and talking with you again. Thanks
Marco Ciappelli 49:00
everybody waves now and I'm closing