Inventables(TM), a lifelong frisson

It's hard for others to believe my luck, but not for me. I am the luckiest person I know, not least because I tell my ears nothing but the things I want my brain to help accomplish — ergo, "I am the luckiest person I know."

One piece of such luck happened when a new editor I had copyedited for in hunting and fishing (Predator Xtreme magazine, formerly Varmint Masters) recommended me to a new publisher in a whole nother field — new technology. I can't tell you how excited I was when I realized that www.inventables.com was where new materials and processes met new applications, and they seemed to want ideas!

Somehow this new job led to my obtaining an invitation for all Mensans to view each quarter's new Inventables(TM) technologies package and contribute ideas via the Inventables online database, without having to pay the horrendously high (to someone whose royalties don't pay for a small DQ Chocolate Chip Blizzard per month) subscription fee. What a great benefit for Mensa members, huh? And at no cost to the organization!

Sorry, no can do.

Apparently this organization of smart people has an even smarter Executive Director, and she had already signed the organization to an exclusive contract: The Mensa Process, a marketing consultant company that pays a middle-class-salary licensing fee annually to market the fact that it uses Mensa members' off-the-wall creativity in its customers' behalf, objected to letting Inventables offer such a nifty free benefit to Mensa members if Inventables was going to gather the resulting ideas and, like, do something good with them. Oh, well.

As I understand it, the offer is still open to all members of Mensa's M-Inventors special interest group. Now if we could just find a way to get those 50-some people access online, I feel sure they'd soon be burning up Oz's inbox.