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This Defense Intelligence Agency reference document is dated 30 March 2010. The Defense Warning Office prepared it under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It compares lone maverick inventors with corporate inventors who work in think tanks and other large organizations, focusing on unconventional energy and propulsion, including antigravity. It sorts inventors into five types. It concludes that formally trained mavericks (Types 3 and 4) are the most likely source of the next innovations. Untrained inventors are expected to contribute nothing substantial.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/30/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD compares lone “maverick” inventors with researchers working inside larger organizations in order to ask where major future breakthroughs are most likely to come from, especially in unconventional energy and propulsion. It concludes that the strongest candidates are technically trained, relatively independent, and flexible researchers working with some freedom from institutional constraint. Because that preferred profile closely resembles the kind of researcher who appears to have authored or shaped much of the broader AAWSAP DIRD effort, the document reflects a notable methodological circularity, validating the program’s operational model rather than neutrally assessing the innovation ecosystem.
UNCLASSIFIED/ /FOR 8FFl@IAL l:991! Oi ◄ Lf already been tried, using resources not generally available to the maverick inventor, such as patent searches, scientific and technical documents, or an in-house library. Another benefit is access to the latest technical apparatus, prototyping, and machining capabilities. In most cases, the inventor does not need to be an expert in the operation of all types of analytical or experimental equipment or machine tools. There are technicians at his disposal! able to convert his ideas i1nto reality. A relatively recent development in the larger organizations is the establishment of a "blue-sky" team of highly creative individuals, sometimes just two or three people, whose job it is to think outside the corporate box and provide directions and policy, usually for the long term. However, in general, their tasks still fall within the general purview of the entity funding them. Sometimes government laboratories will allow such teams to investigate unusual areas and possibly set up experiments leading to eventual inventions assigned to the laboratory. A particular example is that of Tajmar (Reference 4). Other relevant models for this type of activity are found in research and university hospitals, where continuous innovation is the norm. Corporate inventors also benefit from belonging to an organization that includes people with business acumen. An invention is worthless as a commercial innovation if it cannot be produced or marketed at a competitive price. The business side of the corporation is an essential component of successful innovation. The maverick inventor typically does not have these skills close at hand, and often the enterprise fails not for techn ical reasons, but because the inventor has not thought out an appropriate business plan. However, there are drawbacks to the life of the corporate inventor. Fluctuations in the overall economy can put projects on hold, cause them to be canceled, or force layoffs that can stall or kill a project. The maverick inventor will strive to keep his project alive regardless of the external economy, which unfortunately sometimes means loss of savings, house, family, friends, and so forth. A Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome often can interfere with overall progress in areas where a corporate inventor approach is the most suitable. If an idea did not originate with a particular organization, it may not be pursued, even though it may represent the best approach. Maverick inventors rarely suffer from NIH. Whereas the maverick inventor is generally accustomed to putting 100 percent of his time into the invention, the corporate inventor may suffer from burnout if he is not as personally motivated or has such a personal stock in the invention. After a while, "group think" syndrome can infect large organizations, including their innovators. This happens in organizations that do not recognize or encourage radical thinking, resulting in mediocre innovation performance. This process is exacerbated if the number of projects being attended to by corporate inventors starts to overwhelm them. The maverick inventor is usually single minded in his attention. Technologies In order to gain a clearer understanding of the relatiive roles of the maverick and the corporate inventor, it is instructive to observe how each addresses specific technological areas. This paper concentrates on innovations in the areas of unconventional energy and propulsion systems as examples of ideas pursued by the maverick inventor in particular. The study does not focus on how the personality of the maverick inventor determines his innovative capacity so much as it focuses on what tools and techniques are available to him in addressing a particular potential innovation. UNCLASSIFIED//FOA QFFI&IAL tt91! DNLf 4
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 19 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.