I've just had the most wonderful trip around the garden path, and I haven't even left my chair... As long-time readers know, I have ideas, eminently capitalisable ideas, and of the last five years at least, those ideas have been focused on making a difference to energy use, climate change, and sustainable resources use.
Today I think I experienced the ultimate "innovation" oxymoron. I went to an Australian Government department whose sole function is to nurture innovative ideas, and got shunted around Australia a bit, then finally told that they don't actually deal in innovation, but in fully-formed innovative business ideas. That was the main gist of the conversation I had with the various people on the phone. "We're not actually interested in innovation so much as in the business making money from innovation..."
There are research grants, too, yes, I nearly forgot. But for ideas and concepts that are already under development and which have projected earnings. So if I have an idea for a way to make a motor vehicle more environmentally friendly, I have to somehow fund enough research (on a pension) to prove that I can produce the whole thing (i.e. a prototype) and then have done all the market research (again, on a pension) to prove that people will flock to it and buy it in droves, despite any future further economic downturns or disasters? And I'm supposed to do this so that I can prove to that department that I don't need them? Please to be off-buggering now, government department.
And thanks for all the fish, cos it sure wasn't any help!
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