When your brainchild becomes 'his idea'

 

Recently I sat down with the head of a local shipbuilding firm to talk about its projects. The company, now more than 14 years old, has continued to grow incredibly since its launch in 1995 and regularly innovates with new vessel hull designs.

During the course of the session, we touched on the projects the company had bid for in the past. He spoke about one which entailed building passenger ferries for a local attraction, a break from the norm of building cargo ships, but a proposal he put a lot of energy and time into.

Alas, the job was eventually awarded to another lesser-known, smaller company, but not without similar designs and capabilities.

But who's to say whose idea it really was? There's unfortunately not a lot he can do about it because ideas alone cannot be protected. But that experience has left his company to become more selective in choosing customers and wary of jobs.

This situation is not unique to the shipbuilding industry. It happens in every industry, including the media.

Not too long ago I requested for an interview with a local company and was told to submit my questions. While waiting, its head of corporate communications however had different ideas and decided to share the company's answers to my questions by transferring them into a press release.

Still, a colleague's experience takes the cake. She was stunned when the set of questions she had sent to a local multinational firm was read out loud by its boss at its press conference. Obviously its corporate communications team had thought it was a quick way to solve their problem!

But it is a sad thing when some companies think there's nothing wrong with that.

The public relations (PR) industry faces the same daily dilemma. I recall an interview I had with a PR practitioner in 2005, who lamented over the growing number of companies that called for proposals from PR agencies but had no intention of using them other than to get ideas. "Things have gotten so bad that very often, of the 10 requests for proposals from PR agencies received, only three seem to be genuine," she had said.

She related how some companies would call for proposals from her agency and several other PR agencies to help manage their public relations and communications programmes, but after receiving their ideas, would stop short of appointing anyone.

What upset her most was that the company would implement the very same ideas given by the PR agencies a few months later.

While a senior consultant from a local PR agency said this problem has not become more frequent because of the current economic climate, it still persists. To protect themselves, some PR agencies are no longer as willing to extend a red carpet to their prospective clients as before. In fact, some, especially foreign ones, are imposing a mandatory pitch fee when companies invite them to pitch for their business.

"This is much like what advertising agencies have been practising," he said.

He said PR agencies are helpless to act as there is no legal provision that enables them to act against these companies. "There is no copyright protection of ideas, and it is often difficult to prove that you had an idea that we hadn't already thought of ourselves or heard about from someone else," he said.

It's not just Malaysia that is facing this problem. It is a universal problem. The US has long accused China of violating copyright law that the US says costs its companies billions of dollars in lost sales. Japanese manufacturers were once renowned as the masters of imitation too.

But that does not make things alright. There could be an instance of just one person at the other side who does not appreciate the protection we have on our intellectual property and that person should be stopped. Or else, eventually nobody will put forth their best efforts in the bid.

If you want good ideas, you must be willing to pay out of your own pocket.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, all ideas are really just ideas. Good execution also plays an important role and who knows best are the people who came up with the idea.

The shipbuilder, who had won the passenger ferry job, may have the designs, but how to execute on a good idea is another challenge. Like Thomas Edison once said, "Success is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration".