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Rating: 
Summary: A great inspiration
Review: A must read for anybody regarding him or herself an inventor. Mostly based on his own experience but also drawing on other "small" inventors, Mr. Kanbar takes us through the process from idea, to protection, to selling. The book is colorful written, which makes it easy to digest, but the content includes some very sound advice for any novice inventor, who would like to try to stand on his or her own. Mr. Kanbar also emphasizes the fact that an invention is an idea turned into practical use, preferable giving you a profit along the way, and selling / market your idea may need some major and well planned effort. The book also shows there is still plenty of room for the small companies to develop products, which can make a significant impact on the market.
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Summary: Inventor's advice - shaken not stirred.
Review: I flew through this book. Very easy to read (because my grandmother could read this type without her glasses). Very educational for beginners. Kanbar shares some wonderful stories to illustrate his points on inventing. He dishes out some great advice - that I plan on following. At the back of the book he graciously gives the reader many sources for every phase of the process.I'm very surprised that this book doesn't have SKYY Vodka on the cover & and the BallsOff Brush on the back!! Since I don't know much about the subject, I really don't know what he left out - but for some reason I felt he was holding back the good stuff & skimming over the top. Thanks Maurice, this was a good introduction to the world of inventing.
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Summary: Bought on a whim, and...wow!!
Review: I had no idea who Maurice Kanbar was when I picked up this book. I was browsing in my local bookstore, saw "Secrets..." on the shelf, thought it looked interesting, forked over my [money]. Kanbar says friends, co-workers, etc. have consistently badgered him over the years to write a book. I can see why. This guy is an amazing source of creativity and perseverance. Forget the "Inventors" title. Anyone with even a smidgen of entrepreneurial zeal can benefit from the chock-a-block common sense crammed into this small volume. The range of this guy's impact is stunning. The innovations tumble forward, one chapter after another. Kanbar says it all stems from a simple principle - see something you don't understand, and ask how and why it happened. Then devise a solution that provides a real benefit and market it with a twist. All the examples are compelling, but the SKYY Vodka tale - which Kanbar saves for the last chapter - brings everything together in a most impressive fashion. He lays it our very succintly: The problem? He had headaches after drinking. The reason? After study, scientists tell him that the distillation process leaves impurities, called 'congeners.' Solution? A distillation process that eliminates the congeners. The benefit? Drinking in moderation with less irratation. The entire book reads just like that. Great takeaway lessons for anyone. Get this one on your bookshelf ASAP.
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Summary: Not quite the advice I was looking for.
Review: I've been reading some of these how-to books about inventing, more for advice about the creative thinking involved than for all the legal minutiae about getting the patent and trying to sell your invention to a company. Kanbar supplied me with some information I can use about the former, but I don't find the rest of his book all that valuable. The description of his medical inventions is potentially instructional, but his nonpatentable "invention" of the multiplex theater, and his story about creating SKYY vodka, tell more about his entrepreneurialism than his process of inventive reasoning. And do people really need to be drinking more vodka, now that Kanbar has marketed a variety that doesn't cause hangovers? I'm looking for books which describe the finding of effective solutions to problems as an end in itself, not as a means to make a fortune (though the money could certainly come in handy!). This book doesn't meet my needs, and may not meet the needs of others with similar goals.
Rating:
Summary: Great introduction to inventing
Review: If you consider yourself an Inventor, or think you may want to become an Inventor, and you love listening to yarns about products and how they came to market, then this book is for you. Maurice Kanbar is a trained engineer and has many inventions to his credit. Many of his inventions are successful (36 patents) and some are household words. Some of Kanbar's inventions are not so successful and to his credit he airs his laundry willingly so that new inventors need not make similar mistakes. It is hard to classify "Secrets from an Inventors Notebook". To begin with, the title might more aptly be called "Musings from my Diary" or "Did you hear the one about... ".. After reading only a small part of the book you are immediately struck with the quality that has made Maurice Kanbar successful in a wide range of endeavors, he is a first class promoter and his enthusiasm comes across clearly in the book. Like many good storytellers, sometimes you simply have to take the story for it's intended teaching point and not be too critical of the details. Buried in the prose are many bits of solid advice on developing and bringing a product to market. Maurice's style is likeable and you find yourself wanting to sit down and have a beer with the author and chew the fat about inventing. That is both the charm and the pitfall of "Secrets from an Inventors Notebook". There are many anecdotal stories about how products were successfully brought to market or how they failed (both Maurice's and others). Some of these lessons are consolidated into Kanbar's Commandments for Inventors. Other lessons are in the form of good general advice; get a good patent lawyer, work on your prototype diligently before committing to production, and market your product heavily. What the book does not do is get into the gory details of how to do any of this. This is a "What To Do" book, not a "How To Do" book. If you have already done some studying about the business of inventing and are ready to dig in seriously, you may not find much in this book for you. There are only a couple of pictures in the whole book and no charts or numbers of any kind. This book is light (5 chapters in 168 pages) and easy to read. The storytelling style should appeal to anyone who wants to get a glimpse of what is necessary for an entrepreneur to get a product to market. It might be right at home in an undergraduate business class studying entrepreneurship. There is an Appendix with a decent bibliography, references, and several sample legal forms that entrepreneur's might use. "Secrets form an Inventors Notebook" is a good lighthearted introduction to the world of the inventor and entrepreneur by someone who has been there.
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Summary: Lots of practical advice illustrated with real stories
Review: This is an easy read, and it's hard to put it down. His basic process is easily summed up: 1) Solve a Problem, 2) Prove Your Invention/Build a Prototype, 3) Protect Your Idea, 4)Manufacture or License?, 5) Market with a Twist. And, those are his 5 main chapters. He shows you how he has done this repeatedly. He's a serial inventor/business starter. What I particularly liked was his detailed description of how he did "hands on" market research. He shows you how to prove out your invention early within the marketplace. From an invention point of view, he works primarily from finding problems. He describes his personal experience in all the chapters. There is no college theory here. I highly recommend this book for entrepreneurs and inventors. It's a fast read, but you'll probably come back and review it periodically. John Dunbar
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