My friend John La Grou of Mil­len­nia Media and Safe­Plug is an inven­tor and an entre­pre­neur, to name just two of the bul­lets on his resumé. As read­ers here will know, I’m big on think­ing dif­fer­ently — not an easy trick, but one which gives you the fresh per­spec­tive to break out of assumed molds. It’s a skill that is nec­es­sary both to inven­tors and to entre­pre­neurs. At the most recent TED con­fer­ence, John gave a very brief TED Talk on one of the inven­tions he’s worked on, a new kind of “smart” power out­let that reduces the risk of fire con­sid­er­ably more than GFI plugs and stan­dard cir­cuit break­ers could hope to do. It’s an idea he and some friends arrived at by think­ing dif­fer­ently.