It has been said that ideas are a dime a dozen, but the people who implement them are rare.

If you are anything like Larry Hartman, retired Northrup Grumman engineer, your mind is full of ideas that could change the world and improve the lives of many. You may even have a written list of them, like Larry. The difference between Larry and the majority of us is that he is taking the first steps to start crossing ideas off his list.

Recently he retired to North Idaho and has been actively involved in the Innovation Collective, the local entrepreneurship and innovation organization. After coming to multiple meet-ups and recently attending a Kickstarter mastery course, he decided it was time to talk more openly about his ideas.

This process of exploring his ideas started at the twice a month “IC: Coffee and Concepts” meetup hosted at 410 Sherman Suite B, on the first and third Wednesday of every month at 7:30 a.m. Larry has shown up consistently to grab a cup of coffee, provided by Java on Sherman, to discuss the local and national tech news. During the concepts portion, Larry began to share a few of his ideas with the product developers, patent attorneys, engineers and marketing experts in the room.

After a few minutes of conversation, there was a realization that Larry, like many of us, has some great ideas. What Larry was needing, like most of us, is encouragement — extra eyes and ears to look at the obstacles and evaluate the viability of an idea and possibly some help with turning the idea into a company. That is where the idea of a four-month push came in.

Over the next four months, the Innovation Collective decided to put Larry and his ideas in the hot seat. Each “IC: Coffee and Concepts” meet-up will have the typical 15 minutes of chatting over coffee, 20 minutes of group dialogue about big news in tech and startups that transpired in the last two weeks and then it is time for others to share their concepts they are working on to get feedback or help. For the next few months though, the concepts time will be referred to as, “Larry Time."

Larry will be presenting his ideas and prototypes he has built, one at a time. When the group that shows up identifies one with Larry that seems to “have legs” we will begin the validation process. The goal is to either turn the ideas into real products and businesses by creating a plan, further developing the prototypes, possibly patenting them, and developing a licensing model or produce them with a factory. We also may discover that there isn’t a real business to be launched because the market is saturated or the products are too costly to develop without the right market demand.

If being a part of this process is interesting to you, join us. Worst-case scenario you have a free cup of coffee, make new friends, chat briefly with the former head of innovation patents at Motorola or an accomplished startup CEO and you get to meet Larry. Best case, you get a front row seat in watching a startup come to life and possibly be a part of the team.

For more information about the Innovation Collective, please visit www.InnovationCollective.org.

Nick Smoot of Coeur d’Alene is an entrepreneur and creator of the Think Big Festival.