Benjamin Franklin is one of my heroes in many ways, and is worth being studied by anyone interested in invention, entrepreneurship, time management, organizational management, writing, doing, thinking, or just about anything else.

His contributions to the origins of liberal intellectual property in America went on to form the basis of what makes America successful:

[Great things] must be invented by people. And that, of course, is a great thing. Don’t mope in your room. Go invent something. That is the American message. Electricity. Flight. The telephone. Television. Computers. Walking on the Moon. It never stops.

In tough economic times, it’s tempting to get conservative. However, if we make it harder for organizations — like banks, real estate investors, dot-coms, car manufacturers, small businesses, whomever — to try something insane, fail, and move on (bankruptcy protection), we’ll lose what has been driving America forward for 200-odd years.