Doesn't everyone want to be a winner? Being a winner brings a sense of accomplishment. There are the accolades and recognition from friends, family, professional colleagues, and total strangers! The status conveys the concept of a positive future, as it can open up doors heretofore closed and raises horizons to heights heretofore unknown. Winning brings personal pride, which motivates a person to reach for higher goals, believing that greater aspirations are attainable. But what does winning mean when it comes to innovation and who is the winner? Is winning the monetary reward that comes with the commercialization of one's ideas? Is winning the number and kinds of accolades and awards given when others find utility in the form and function of an innovation? And/or is winning the personal perspective of the person who birthed the innovation? Who is it that actually "wins"?

Let's consider an Olympic rower, Calvin Coffey, who rowed with his partner Mike Staines in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and won a silver medal in the coxless pairs event (2 persons in a shell/boat with no one else in the shell to direct its route to the finish line).1 At Northeastern University, he was a 2-time Sprint winner and Grand Challenge Cup finalist (very impressive accomplishment in case you don't know anything about rowing!). The bottom line here is that this gentleman developed a very refined skill that offered to him a bright future. But his future was cut short by a life-threatening car accident that fractured both his ankles and his left wrist and ruptured his diaphragm. Multiple surgical procedures put this world class athlete back together again, but recovery was slow, and Calvin had a passionate need-to row again. It took a year to get Calvin back on the water, but how did he accomplish this? Calvin Coffey chose innovation. Most health care professionals think they know the majority of answers to rehabilitation protocol, but this Olympian had a new idea! (C. Coffey, oral communication, July 25, 2015).

Being an elite athlete brings much knowledge about the sport in which one participates. The knowledge is not limited to an understanding of how one's body performs in the sport of choice, but there is an acute understanding of the equipment that is used in the sport. In rowing, there are many things to take into consideration, but basically there is an understanding of the shell (boat), its construction and component parts, and the technology of the oars. Calvin had started a company that was optimizing new materials for the sport. The health care professionals thought they were going to send Calvin to a rehabilitation facility with all his pins and plates in his ankles and wrist, and a newly constructed Gortex diaphragm. But this Olympic silver medalist decided he was going to row is way back to health and invented the sculling SimulatorOAR (http://www.coffeycorporation.com/SimulatOAR_S2TI.php).

The Coffey SimulatorOAR mimics the water sculling experience including the feeling of pitch and yaw. It is used today to train new athletes in the technique of sculling and to provide practice opportunity when water conditions are undesirable. The design is patented worldwide and continues to undergo improvements that enhance its functionality. It took iterations of his idea to perfect the design that some might call failures, but there is no question that Calvin Coffey's innovation was a winner in many respects. Not only was a profitable product created that was needed by the rowing world but he also maximized his mental and emotional facilities to enhance the recuperation of his body parts. Calvin's primary win was rehabilitating his body so he could row on the water again (C. Coffey, personal communication, July 25, 2015). But this goal was supplemented by meeting a significant need in the rowing world that challenged his intellect and directing his emotional response to an uncertain future and it provided another offering in his company's product line. The return on the investment has been excellent. Calvin Coffey's innovation was a triple-crown winner, benefiting not only his physical and mental health but also the international rowing world and his own company.

Here is another innovation to consider-Wikipedia! All of us realize that Wikipedia is not an acceptable, academic source as the validity and reliability of its data are questionable.2 But the concept of a free, open-sourced encyclopedia of information that can be read online in multiple languages was truly an innovation when it was launched on the Internet, January 1, 2001.3 Although credit for this innovation is very controversial, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger are recognized as cocommercializing this concept that others had proposed in earlier years.4 It is Jimmy Wales who remains with the organization that supports this Web site, so for the purposes of this article, focus will be on the winning innovations of Jimmy Wales.

Wikipedia was the end result of evolutionary disappointments. Wales had started other Web sites, but they did not produce the revenue or response that he had anticipated. But these efforts did provide him with the funding to pursue his passion, an online encyclopedia.5 With a credible, scholastic background, Wales was eager to apply academic standards to his online encyclopedia. With the help of Larry Sanger, Nupedia was Wales' first online attempt at a peer-reviewed, open-sourced encyclopedia, using the standards of academia. However, the complicated nature of managing the academic review process proved to be unproductive.6 The concept of "wiki," an application that allows anyone to add or delete information from a Web page, was introduced to Larry Sanger and then incorporated into Nupedia. Peer reviewers, however, felt it was an unacceptable compromise with academic standards and wanted nothing to do with it.7 When funding for Nupedia disappeared and a nonprofit organization that accepted donations was established to continue the existence of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger resigned. Was this going to be another loss?

To the amazement of everyone, Wikipedia was an instant success, far outstripping the response to Nupedia and former Web site ventures. What could have been perceived as a loss, that is, moving to a nonprofit status, actually accelerated the financial success of Jimmy Wales, making him an instant Internet star. His fame brought him many speaking engagements and lucrative product endorsements. He has testified before the United States Senate Homeland Security Committee8 and cochaired the World Economic Forum in the Middle East.9 He has advised the UK government on how to put taxpayer-supported academic research online at no cost.10 He has taken the stage with John McCain, Manual al-Sharif, the Saudi Arabian women's right activists, and Shree Bose, a celebrated researcher at Harvard University.11 He has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Maastricht University and has been given the Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University. This prize comes with a million dollar reward recognizing "innovation and interdisciplinary research."12

In terms of how the world generally distinguishes winners, that is, wealth, position in society, association with famous persons, involvement with global programs with international recognition, etc, Jimmy Wales appears to have achieved the title of "winner." His winning, however, is different from Calvin Coffey's. His name is more recognizable; his accomplishments are internationally paraded in the media; and his net worth is probably at a higher level. But does any of this matter in terms of being a winner? Greater degrees of wealth and recognition are nice, but most innovators agree that winning in innovation is about personal satisfaction from an effort well-conceived and directed toward a real need that meaningfully contributes to a greater good. Coffey created a product that can be used in any rehabilitation environment that requires the dynamics of his simulator. The innovation helped him recovery from life-threatening injuries, and it will help train all levels of rowers in the future. Jimmy Wales satisfied a deep, personal passion, that is, to provide the world with a free, online, open-access encyclopedia.

Winning does matter. Or perhaps better stated, the attitude of seeking to be a winner makes a difference in life and in creating novel innovations. The determination to win helped Calvin Coffey and Jimmy Wales push through adversity and refine their ideas. The iterative process of constantly seeing a need and the deficiencies surrounding that need made them strive for more complete answers. Neither Coffey nor Wales was always a winner. Although it seems contradictory, some of their failures funded and directed their research, helping them perfect their final product concept.13 The result was greater self-satisfaction, as their products were more useful and had a greater impact on the audience for which they were intended.

Have you ever had the same experience when practicing holistic nursing? Have you tried to implement an innovative idea, but it did not "work." Were you criticized for your presumably vein attempt? Fleshing out the many issues that surround a problem often involves layers of understanding. Although one tries to address all the factors involved, latent issues may not always be apparent until a failure is incurred. Contextualizing failure helps one see the opportunities that failure presents and plot a better solution.

Do not give up in your attempts to innovate! Nursing needs constant refreshment and new perspectives. Your failures are just a stepping stone to better ideas that will more fully resolve the problems you propose to solve. Think through the reasons why your innovation failed; collaborate with your colleagues to generate new ideas as a result of the failure. Seek out interdisciplinary opinion. Persist. If you need to take a different direction, that is most acceptable. But do not remain on "pause." Enjoy the initiative that you have taken, bask in the new knowledge you discovered, and keep looking forward. Winners are often redirected failures. Remember, "real" winning for the innovator is personal satisfaction with their accomplishment(s). Appreciating the context of one's innovation will help one better ascertain one's winning status, which ultimately helps produce more valuable solutions to pressing problems. Be a winner ... innovate!

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