The one size fits all approach of standardized testing is convenient but lazy.

Having a good idea is one thing, but persuading other people to buy it is quite another. Good inventors are polymaths: they think with their hands and their brains. They're experts in design, engineering and business.

If you didn't have patents, no one would bother to spend money on research and development. But with patents, if someone has a good idea and a competitor can't copy it, then that competitor will have to think of their own way of doing it. So then, instead of just one innovator, you have two or three people trying to do something in a new way.

Don't listen to experts.

It's the unlikely juxtaposition of creativity and logic which causes the wooliness and confusion around the term 'innovation'. Everybody wants to be innovative; many companies and ideas are proclaimed to be innovative and no one doubts that innovation is a money spinner. And, thus, we are all looking for the magic formula. Well, here you go: Creativity + Iterative Development = Innovation.

Fear is always a good motivator.

The media thinks that you have to make science sexy and concentrate on themes such as rivalry and the human issues.