Ok - I'll start.
I was looking for an iPad case and found Cloak. Got involved in naming and taglining. Loved the creative outlet, distraction, and online interaction so I got sucked into logos and eventually submitting ideas and of course, commenting on the entire process.

I work in marketing at a small company.
I've always been a creative dabbler, and a daydreamer. I've had ideas but never knew how to follow up on them. I'm ADD so not sure I ever could have.

Quirky is a great creative outlet for me, and hobby that has challenged me to push myself to do things I never thought I could or would. One that I hope makes me some money. And it's a company that I hope one day will be a household name and I can say I was involved with from pretty early on.

I'm very curious to hear others's stories.

Video on CNN.com

Yes, in some capacity.

Hobby

Yes. I invented several products relating to a hobby I had. My ideas opened up new possibilities for people in that hobby. Greed of others undid what I built.

View the train wreck and check my account balance. Used to be to hang with the community.

Zymie, I saw some pictures you posted once of something you said you invented, but didn't know what it was. Sounds like a bad experience, but I am curious to hear more someday.

Sad to hear about the used to hang with community part, but I do agree Q doesn't cater to that anymore. Simply adding the "recently commented" filter back on would help with that, as well as adding comment count onto names and taglines, but then of course the "gaming" returns, not that it would mean much now that votes don't matter, or do they?

I have invented before and was doing some songwriting and working with people and it just became fingernails on a chalkboard and I needed to take a break and do something else for a while so as not to have a nervous breakdown or hurt my hand bitchslapping people, so I got back into inventing and saw Quirky on an inventor blog and visited many times before joining. I had never really participated in an online community/fourms before. I would like for it to become a full time something...product development/writing/entertainment thingamijigger. I come back for the entertainment value. People here make me laugh. I don't even think Quirky/Ben knows what they have here yet. It's really not even about inventing products or money. Hopefully they will get it someday.

Do you think Ben has an alias and trolls the forums?

No

I am currently unemployed and kind of isolated here on the couch, unplugged from my various communities I was involved with face to face daily. I visited here after catching the show, and got hooked on the creativity. I have always been artistic and creative, used to work as a copywriter eons ago, but traded art for security the last decade while working as an eye wear stylist/unlicensed optician. I am tired of being the only creative person at work (you have to fight to reinvent the wheel daily) and have decided that I want to go back to some creative pursuit, or at least a sales or marketing one in a creative environment that lets me do some writing. I have begun to like that again.
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When you are creative, if you are not around others who are, also, your brain goes to mush. I consider this place a gym for my brain, and really love the Name/Tag phases best of all. What I never expected were the forums. I have never been involved with this sort of thing before, and I am absolutely blown away be the cool factor here. After years of being a purple fish in a brown pond, I feel like I have found my people. That's why I have dedicated the last few weeks to trying to move some of the huge problems her (Ribbongate, etc) forward. I am going to do everything I can to help get this place fixed, or at least fixed enough to continue to move forward. I do NOT want this place to go away, I am enjoying it on so many levels. I contact a few people a week on PM to get to know them better, and this has been great. So don't freak out if you see me in your inbox. I invite you to do the same, and look forward to getting to know you all in the forums.
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I did get my first awesome idea this weekend, so y'all stay tuned. Gotta entice the hubby to do a simple illustration for me. I think you will all be pleased! Pre-pimping here, since that is not quite forbidden.

ok EW thanks for the invite here and so here goes, thrifty who the f is he?
hes an old git, from the uk a seasoned engineer and web developer,been mucking with stuff since DOS 5 ..if you need to ask dont..main passion music and DJ stuff, mainly house music. but all stuff is good from blues to heavy rock.Ive done music but left video to one side and now trying to get into it bigger, apart from that ive got 3 teenage girls, two 4x4s toyota's which i love to thrash around in mud, i love to get filthy dirty and not only in mud.
i joined Quirky coz of the BBC,and i needed a mental outlet to expand and re kindle my creative mind, but fuck thats got my matches pissed on...quirkys not the all is said on the tin...ok mr honest over for now maybe i'll add more later.

I am a research junkie, daydreamer, investor and entrepreneur.

My passion is understanding stocks, mainly the companies, products and people they represent.

I need to know how they work, why they work, what was their origination. What was the idea, that sparked it all.

Seeing Ben on CNBC caught my interest immediately (the name too, because I am Quirky for sure). Hooked!

Quirky is my outlet. My possibility of ordering the chaos. It allows my ideas to have a home.

A friend back in March told me to check out Quirky. He had seen it on some news program and thought it would be up my alley since I am indeed quirky.

For some reason I just can't get my mind to work creatively. I seem to have an inventors block, except mine is going on for 29 years now.

This has become a real hobby for me but I also get paid to do it. I work at a hotel 3rd shift which gets extremely boring at times. Most of my time at work is spent on Quirky therefore I also consider it my job.

I keep coming back to Quirky because I enjoy seeing and being part of the process in bringing products to life.

I'm a toy designer, and saw an article in the Parade magazine. Designing toys got like candy, so I went back to my roots as a industrial designer, and Q has made each week more creative & fun...

@DFQ, did I ever tell you that at one point I thought you were a comedian hired by Q to make this place more fun?

@Elizabeth, well put. I think everyone is pumped you've gotten so involved.

@thrifty, we've met before ;) - very interesting. What kind of stuff did you work on as an engineer? And I sense a lot of anger toward Q, why do you keep coming back?

@Mike, cool. We're similar I think. Where is that awesome pic taken?

@Mark, love that you can use this as second job at your first job. I hope the money rolls in eventually for all of us. In the mean time, we should try to figure out a way to get over that inventors block. I have a few methods, and Im sure people have others, I will start a thread soon about that.

@Peter, I always associate you with the movie Big. Thanks for the background (though most of us know you!)

@Justin
Thanks! That's Sweet and I love ur new pic. Nice profile. Meow. :)

@Justin, no anger at Q, just in myself sometimes. and as an engineer i did toolmaking and mending rotary equipment like turbines and screw compressors, as well as a host of other stuff.Just love to get to grips with tools and cars now. woodwork and construction i find relaxing.computers drive me nuts, hence the sense of anger.

@DFQ Growl.
@Thrifty impressive. Tech is a double edged sword for sure.