Think Inc

The following is an article that I wrote a while back for The Sunday Times but which remains relevant.
Advertising agencies put it on the map but now everyone seems to be doing it. Peter Freedman explains why bouncing ideas around the table has become so popular. When Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity, he answered, "I thought about it all the time". It was as simple as that. If Newton, or his equivalent, were asked the same question today, he would be more likely to answer something like the following: "Well, there was a bunch of us round a table. We were meant to be coming up with ideas for a new apple sauce. And so we had to imagine we were an apple, hanging on a tree. How did we feel? And then Sally from Human Resources said, 'I feel heavy, so heavy...' And then I thought..." He would, in other words, have been in a brainstorm. Born on Madison Avenue...

Protecting an idea for a new business is harder than protecting an idea for, say, a new invention. But new online services, plus the prospect of a major change in patent law, could benefit those worried about having their ideas stolen. Peter Freedman reports... Sam Shemtob has an idea for a new dot.com. It is such a good idea, he feels, that... well, he is reluctant to reveal what it is. "It's probably best described as a web-based business, providing creative services to major brand-marketing companies... but with a twist." It is at a very early stage, he says. "I have not yet formally approached any venture capitalists." Shemtob thus faces the dilemma of many an aspiring dot.com entrepreneur: how to develop a business idea, assemble the team and capital to execute it, while minimising the risk that someone he shares it with along the way might steal it. Shemtob's problem might...