Kim Gaskill traces the Adirondack chair back to Thomas Lee, who worked with a carpenter to design it in 1903. The story raises questions about when to patent an idea, share your work, and protect what you've built.
It's a new day. I'm Kim Gaskill and this is the Daily Spark. Have you ever sat in one of those chairs, the Adirondack chair? It's slanted, kind of low to the ground. You see them all over near pools and, and resort areas. They're pretty comfortable. I know I like sitting in them. It's a little tough sometimes because they're low to the ground. When you have bad knees, it's a little hard to get out of them, but the actual design of the chair, they're meant to sit in for long periods of time. Because of the slant of the chair, most of the weight distribution on your back and upper legs is evenly distributed. That's why you don't get as stiff and sore when you're sitting for long periods of time in an Adirondack chair like you do a regular chair where you're sitting pretty much straight up and all the weight is on your spine and your, your rear. So I'm sitting out here on the deck and I'm looking across into the neighbor's yard and they have several of the plastic Adirondack chairs stacked up back in the play area next to their greenhouse. And so it got me thinking about those chairs, and they are comfortable. And so of course I looked them up to see, you know, what the story is behind them, because that's what I do. I'm kind of a nerd like that. And if you don't know, the Adirondacks are in upper— upstate New York. And the Adirondack Mountains. And so some dude named Thomas Lee apparently was up there by Lake Champlain, and he built these chairs so that he could relax and enjoy comfortably sitting all day looking out over the lake. That's the story. But what's interesting, when I was looking it up, is his carpenter, Brunel, is the guy who actually patented the chair, the design of the chair. Now that happens all the time. If you look throughout history, people who invented things didn't get the actual patent. They invented them, people were using them, and then some business-minded person took the opportunity to patent that idea and make the money off of it and create a huge dynasty sometimes off of that product. Today, as entrepreneurs, we often get very protective about our work, and sometimes we don't want to collaborate with people because we're afraid of that happening. We're afraid of our ideas being taken by someone else and used first. Or if we don't get our stuff out there and we see someone else doing it, we're afraid to just do our own thing. Somebody's already doing that. I don't want to be I don't want people to look at me like I stole someone's work. And it's not always that case. There really isn't much new today. We're all just doing different versions of the same thing, and that's okay because that's what makes it unique. If I teach a class on how to cut down a tree— I'm looking at trees right now— there's 100 other people that might teach somebody how to cut down a tree. That doesn't mean I can't teach a class on how to cut down tree because I'm going to do it my way. But there are only so many ways to cut down a tree, let's face it. So get out there, get your stuff out there. Don't be afraid if someone else is doing the same thing, but don't get caught up in this 'I can't share my ideas with other colleagues because I'm afraid, you know, somebody's going to take it.' And If you have an idea that needs to be patented, don't be stupid about it. Get, get out there and pay the $10 or whatever to put a patent in to protect yourself, because there's going to be some businessman around the corner that's going to do it if you don't. Have a great day and catch you again tomorrow for another Daily Spark.
