Make 'Em Happen

Looking to the future: the value of helium

2010-03-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

This is exactly the kind of article I like to see. Thinking critically about the future, people's needs, and flows of materials. Makes me want to buy a lot of helium and wait for 50 years. Not sure iif the time horizon is right. Could be 15 to 150 years or more I guess.
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/going_going_gone/

Techno rave visuals usine MS. Excel

2009-12-23T12:23:00.001-08:00

As you may know (I might have written it on here) I LOVE excel. For some reason it is so fun and awesome. Anyway I am frustrated by how all artistic visuals that go along with music performaces tend to be these sallow washed out trippy tie dye colors. Heres my idea: using conditional formatting and the RAND function, together with some other calculations to add control, you can make colors and boxes that move and jump around. Gonna have to try it sometime.

High School Elective

2009-12-22T15:03:00.001-08:00

Its your life... Let's kick ass!!!
A class in high school about having fun with success, getting things done, making time for work but more time for play. Give HS students a reason to want to have discipline. Making big bucks! Doing awesome stuff! Living the life they want to live! I think it will really resonate. The kids are calling out for this stuff.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Fashion modeling company for any designer

2009-12-22T13:26:00.001-08:00

Make a fashion modeling agency that caters to small, independent and home designers. Give them a venue to show their work, and put on fashion shows that they pay for.

Why do they make subway cars so tough?

2009-12-14T17:04:00.000-08:00

Living in nyc now I've been riding on the subway quite a bit. I've noticed that the subway cars are really strong and heavy, made from lots of steel. Why do they need to be so strong? I feel like they could have a thin walled skiff and that would mean enegy savings not to mention improved schedules since they could stop faster. Now, they just seem way ovetengineered.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Rfid Memory cards built into post-its

2009-12-10T15:20:00.000-08:00

So you can store text files and other information as 'attachments' to the paper post it, on which can be written a note and a description of the attached file. Would be even better if the file could be read by ones phone or computer using hardware that is already present, like bluetooth or wifi.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Magnetic paper to be used like post-its

2009-12-10T15:15:00.000-08:00

Instead of sticky on the back, its magnetic so it can stick to metal.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Awesome idea to product website

2009-12-06T12:22:00.001-08:00

Found this recently as Kluster.com went out of business, and got merged into this company. Cooler idea - people submit product ideas, people vote on them, then winning ones actually get made into products and then sold. The idea generator has to pay $99 to get the idea in, then they get some of revenue as the product is sold. People who vote and comment also get some of the revenue. Looks like they are also generating a lot of data.

Quirky.com

Pretty darn cool.

Heavy lifter fitness machine

2009-10-26T06:53:00.000-07:00

Make a fitness machine that lets you use all your muscles at once (including arms, legs, abs, chest, neck hands, all of em!) to see how much you cam lift. Cables and gears would connect it all together so the energy you exert from every individual part combines into one force used to lift a weight.

Bathroom diaper dispensers

2009-10-06T15:50:00.001-07:00

They have the changing tables in most bathrooms... Why not sell diapers too?

The power and decline of the polymaths

2009-10-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

Great article, a little depressing since I identify with the curiosity and breadth of knowledge that these types of intellects develop. I feel that lots of creative thinkers are not, do not want to be, or simply cannot be specialists, and that there is a real value in this versatility and variety. To a large extent it is the breadth, not the depth of knowledge that inspires me.

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/edward-carr/last-days-polymath

Soundproof sleep chamber

2009-09-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Many people need to sleep in noisy places and sometimes ear plugs are not effective because they do not eliminate all the sounds. Instead a clear plastic bubble could be created which would block sound (keeping background noise out and snoring noise in), hold in moisture, even purify the air There are many benefits to the head isolation sleep system. It even has a built in alarm clock, and a travel version can be created with a pillow built in.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Ice shoes

2009-09-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

Walking on ice in the winter can be very dangerous, especially frozen lakes, streams and rivers. The primary danger comes from breaking through and getting stuck in the water where you cannot get out. In a river you could even get sucked down by the current under the ice and be trapped Breaking through occurs when too much weight/force is focused in one place like when someone is standing or running on the ice. A solution is to wear a type of shoes that spreads one's body weight evenly over a large area. This would be useful to people who need to cross questionable ice areas, and emergeny responders who need to help people whp have already broken through. This is taken from the idea of a water skater bug.

Friend Notes

2009-09-22T10:10:00.001-07:00

I'm working with my friend Eric Allen on a facebook application that let's people take notes about their friends, whatever kind of notes they want!

I think it's really cool because it lets you now build your own content about your friends. They present themselves, and you record and interpret it through your own lens. For now, all notes are confidential to the user, so the friends and others can't see them, but we're thinking about creating some sort of sharing or collaboration capability in the future... thoughts?

Here's a link!
http://apps.facebook.com/friend_notes/

Book idea: how to get rich with any profession

2009-09-14T05:23:00.001-07:00

Thinking that working in any field offers lots of opportunities for financial success. Artists for example often are early residents in neighborhoods going up in value. If they buy some of the places they live in they can capitalize on this. Same thing goes for non profit social welfare workers if they invest in the positive results they are working towards. Not sure if this would work all the time, but should be enough for a book at least.

Fun combo business #1 Paws and Laws

2009-09-14T04:42:00.001-07:00

A law office and a dog sitting place in one. Good because the lawyers need some distractions to boost up their hourly rates, and they're sitting around most of the time anyway.

Anti-brand Idea

2009-09-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

So much energy is devoted to branding yet so many brands are annoying and have strong weaknesses. Brand Hitmen would be a services company that is hired by companies to target these weaknesses in their competitors. Any number of actions could be taken to erode the brand of the target company including publicly poking fun at its name, leading a negative PR campaign against the quality of the brand, turning the brand name into a synonym for poor quality/something gross/etc., doing things to make the brand cheap/trendy/etc., and so on. An example would be making negative connections between the similar sounds of IP phone company "Vonage", and the word "Bondage" such that every time consumers hear the company name Vonage they think of S&M sex, building (for most people) a negative connotation. Viral marketing tactics would be used for them most part. Everything would be legal, and the focus would be on de-branding rather than corporate defamation, like drawing attention to the fact that the company uses sweatshops for example. The focus instead would specifically be on using the target company's own marketing message against them.

Income study of Kiryas Joel

2009-08-25T08:05:00.001-07:00

This is a town in new york, orange county I think. It is supposedly the poorest or one of the poorest municipalities in the US. It is a hasidic jewish community though and it doesn't seem that poor. Would be interesting to find out why that is, there could be some economic lesson that would apply to the nation at large. Apparently the whole town collects welfare, and it may have something to do with the large number of children each family has. Efficiency or exploiting the system? Subject for further research.

Idea for a basic trend description website

2009-08-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

So there are always these trends like "cloud computing", "Social Media", and "Mobile Internet" that us tech involved people hear about, get pumped about, and understand to some extent, but what about everybody else? I feel like there are lots of places that provide technologist/very early adopter news (focused blogs lets say), and lots of places that only cover things that have become big trends that the general public can understand (the New York Times for example), but what about a place that makes the biggest trends instantly comprehensible to the larger public that can make use of it? I'm talking more basic than Wired, and with a real focus on not only what the tech is, but what the heck its for and how it can help people. Specifically. Concretely. Like Twitter for example, its powerful, but so many people don't even understand what the heck it is for. Sure some of the nuance will be lost in this, but so what? We sacrifice a little richness for a lot of reach. Ok.

Cloud Computing has been the Hot Stuff, but now what? Application Ideas? Post em!

2009-08-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Ok so some readers who have a lot better handle on this may find a mistake or two, but here is a basic description I wrote up for my father, who was asking about what it really was. He needs to know, he works in publishing. The question is, what are some great applications for the cloud that cannot be done with our normal infrastructure?

"Cloud Computing I understand it reasonably well. Remember that before computers became PCs on the desktop, they were mainframes? Then, every user had a terminal, but all the processing was done on a larger computer - the terminal was just the control station where you interacted with the mainframe. Cloud computing is very much going back in this direction. Instead of processing being done on your home computer or your smart phone or whatever, it is done by a larger "computer" somewhere else. The difference now is that this larger computer is not one mainframe, but a giant (and I mean giant) network of computers working together. This is the cloud. Together they have the power to process lots of requests. You can think of what Google does as cloud computing sort of since they have vast warehouses of servers stacked up, each of which is really a pretty humble machine, but working together they form a supercomputer, and with it, they give people access to services. Google docs is a very cloud computing type application, because they take what is normally a desktop application (word processing lets say) and make it into a network application - you just access the internet and use the program running in the cloud. This is why Microsoft is afraid of Google, because if Google does enough of this, the valuable windows operating system becomes obsolete. The crazy thing is that in cloud computing, your computer can become part of the cloud too though. Conceivably, the cloud could be the whole internet if everyone participated."

Voice-to-text app for smartphones

2009-08-20T16:49:00.001-07:00

So this idea came to me while I was driving and I was tempted to text someone. Using voice recognition it turns speech into a text message over the phone. It should be integrated in an app w the phone's address book, so sending a voice text is as easy as calling someone. Maybe partner with a speech recognition company.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

New facebook app

2009-08-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

Make an app that lets you find very unconnected friends of friends. I was in a friends facebook page when I clicked on a random one of their friends only to discover that I had another completely different friend who knew this same person. Wild. I want to do that more!!

Stock and Economy Ranking Website

2009-08-04T12:31:00.001-07:00

Ok so this is simple, people visit this site (and of course there are some cool integrations with other websites, esp social network) and give a thumbs up or thumbs down to a stock. You only rate the stocks you know, and an aggregate opinion is drawn out of this. Whether you want to go with it or go against it, it's an interesting data set. Other analysis can be done and interesting conclusions drawn. You could also yes/no investment in nation's economies, anything really, but I think there would be most interest in things people invest in.

alternate tent idea

2009-07-23T11:46:00.001-07:00

i have found traditional tents to be clammy, and inconvenient to both set up and occupy. here is an idea for an alternate tent designed to be drier, lighter, and with a little bit of training easier to set up. (diagram needed).

first is the roof portion. this is a single piece very opaque rectangle of waterproof material. it is essentailly a tarp, but lighter and easier to manage. it is suspended across a line that is set into the ground by two solid tripods (staked down), or tied between two trees. if comfortable with a low roof level, big stakes could be used instead. the the line is fed through loops or grommets to hold it in place. the corners of the roof are staked down all stakes used are of a special design with a small stake within the larger one so that when hammered into the ground, the top of the stake is turned to set the small one perpendicular in the ground, much like an anchor in the water.

to keep dry in the tent area, there is a roll up barrier that is made of plastic and set a couple inches into the dirt to encourage drainage water from uphill to flow around the barrier. properly set up, people's heads are on the uphill side of the camp area, and feet at the downhil section.

the end result of this is a disconnected low roof and wall set that keeps out the elements, is lightweight, and very breathable.

Self-Marketing Idea

2009-07-13T10:57:00.001-07:00

Ok so thinking about jobs now - there is so much great creative and idea work that can be done when you are part of a larger whole, and you can work in an area you enjoy. Everything doesn't always have to be completely independent.

Anyway, in getting a job, or even work as a consultant, I had an idea for an interesting way I could market myself:

In New York City there are billboards and signs everywhere to compensate for the fact that people don't watch as much TV. Many of these take the form of maybe 2'x3' posters pasted on walls or the plywood barriers outside construction sites. here's the kicker...
I advertise myself on them. 3-5 different photos of me, with my name, a tagline (possibly "for creative business success"), and a website that leads to a portfolio page of my projects, or simply a resume. It would be fun, funny, and in peoples faces. I could post them outside of leading advertising firms, to advertise back to them that I can come in there and kick ass. The photos would have variety too, one would be of me in a business suit, and depending on how far I wanted to push it, it could range to me in paint splattered clothes as an artist, or me as a rap star with a diamond toothed grill and lots of bling.

A step further would be to cut the tagline and website (or make the website name really small) so it is more of a mystery, and then I just promote myself making my name and face famous. That oughtta generate some valuable opportunities.

Sandpaper Gloves

2009-07-07T06:55:00.001-07:00

The process of sanding wood with a piece of sandpaper can be long, laborious, and very tiring on the hands. I think that in many applications, gloves that have sandpaper surfaces would make the whole process faster, easier, more convenient, even more fun! So, it would be a set of gloves that was either sprayed with glue then sand to make the glove surface itself abrasive, or it would be gloves with areas where special sandpaper pads can be affixed. These could take the place of the electric mini sanders in many applications as well. When a job is too detailed/complex to use an electric sander, but too large to make hand sanding practical or pleasant, the abrasive gloves would really come in handy (no pun intended, though it's a good one). They would be amazing for sanding joint compound on drywall seams, given the proper abrasive surface on the gloves.

Phones in Heads

2009-06-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking that it seems like people could do this right now if they wanted to. It's the next logical extension from the bluetooth headset. Get a cell phone implanted right under their skin, near their temple lets say, and using the sound transmission properties of the skull, it could speak the phone number calling you, or whatever and no one could hear it. This might be a drawback though: how would you see anything? Perhaps the cell phone is still present so you can see the numbers to dial and this is just a headset implant. The battery life could be really long, and it could be recharged through induction just like my electric toothbrush is today.

Ok so I'll admit it, this is a pretty creepy idea, bordering on the "not good" ideas that I keep from sharing (the ones that I think would be not good for the world), but also how can humanity resist something like this? Once you start getting phones in heads it borders on telepathy and people always want psychic skills, or at least they say they do. You touch your head and communicate with your friends. Do it right, and the numbers go away, replaced with voice command names. It's crazy how doable all this is now. reading a christensen book on disruptive innovations in education. This would be a disruptive innovation in communication - lots of factors that are currently valued in cell phones (nice screen, web, cool features) would have to go away, but whole new applications would be enabled.

thanksforthefavor.com

2009-05-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

A website where people can go to give nice things to people who did nice things for them. It is a gift shop, but its not for giving our gift baskets or bottles of wine or anything like that, it's for when people do nice things, you do nice things in return.

For example, someone helps you out because they are being nice, you can go to the website, type them a message, and a handwritten note will be sent to them from you.

If they do something really nice, there will be a wizard interface that will help select something that they really might want. For example, someone lets you use their parking space for a couple weeks because your car is having issues. You want to get this person something they will really like. The interface will ask: "what does this person like", with responses like their car (and they can select specific types), their home, their kids, various hobbies, movies and celebrities, etc. The site has an automatic link that allows the users to buy from established sites like Amazon.com, and gives additional personalization options. Since the person who lent their parking spot loves Porche cars, you get them a sweet picture book about Porche.

boring idea

2009-05-15T17:59:00.001-07:00

boring the movie... excerpts of the most boring parts of the most boring movies ever. billed properly this could get some funny reverse psychology market interest.

solar laptop

2009-05-02T17:41:00.001-07:00

there must be something like this now but if not, it needs to be done: a skin that is a that goes on the back cover of a laptop. some kind of adapter would be needed for sure but this could be simple and great. credit to Teresa O'brien.

opportunity question

2009-05-02T09:40:00.001-07:00

what are ideal uses for frozen tundra? what if it gets warmish in the summer?
purchase marginal land on the tundra in canada and wait for global warming to make it more accessible. Buy as far south/accessible as possible while still keeping the purchase dirt cheap.

book: how to succeed in life, for those who like world of warcraft

2009-03-22T17:04:00.001-07:00

funny book but probably will be successful. play on all the character types, team dynamics, points systems, motivational rewards, and that thing that sets a fishhook in yer brain and doesn't want to let go. lots of good content herel

internet thought

2009-03-22T14:01:00.001-07:00

how many times does one go to a store, and they don't have the info to help you, but if they had access to the internet there they might. not so often for me but i think it could. I wonder how many sales are lost this way...

making wind turbines fit in better

2009-03-20T13:55:00.001-07:00

start a wind turbine painting service to color them so that they fit in more with the surrounding landscape. use exceptionally long lasting paints (or even better, non-fading colored panels) and make the turbines beautiful. this will help get over the NIMBYism and adoption issues over wind turbine installations.

delicious

2009-03-18T21:26:00.001-07:00

i'm eating this now:
sort of tough marshmellow peeps (I guess they have gotten a little old) dipped in t. marzetti brand old fashioned caramel apple dip... YUM!! I never would have guessed it is so good!

consulting businesses to start

2009-03-18T15:59:00.001-07:00

- Sales for startups
- Idea generation in support of solving a problem
- Business plan development
- Job placement counseling
- General needs biz consulting
- Market research

another new word...

2009-03-03T22:13:00.001-08:00

prestalgia: the feeling of nostalgia but for things that have not yet happened. it can be as if they almost happened already, or that the relationship to the idea or vision of the future has become so familiar that it evokes feelings of warmth and longing.

New Word: Chemechanical

2009-03-02T10:56:00.001-08:00

Don't know what it would mean, but with all the interaction and cross pollenization going on in the sciences today, there has got to be some situation where this term would be relevant, perhaps a perfect fit... let me know if you use it.

Chemechanical: in my mind it refers to a situation where a chemical and a mechanical process are working simultaneously. Perhaps this will be relevant as nanotechnology grows (no pun intended), and small machines begin working together in chemical-interaction like processes.

Name This

2009-03-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

have I ever shared this website? I think it is very good... earlier this winter I made about a hundred bucks naming things, not much money for sure, but it was only a few hours of time, and lots and lots of fun!!

www.namethis.com

wifi bs idea

2009-03-02T09:12:00.001-08:00

set up wifi hotspots in places where people always try to connect for free and force advertising on them when they see an open connection and try to connect. at an airport where they charge for access would be good. free internet can be given after clicking a bunch of ads or not. gosh what a bs idea. still could work. adds no value to society. yay.

hazelnut harvesters

2009-02-19T10:22:00.001-08:00

ok file this one under crackpot ideas but it coulod have some merit. here it is: train squirrels to harvest hazelnuts. bring a lot up them out of cities to hazelnut farms, make special homes for them that take the hazelnets after the squirrels hide them. they are smart creatures. chalk this idea up to the prodigious gentlemen dan hutchison and perry jones!

boarding pass idea

2009-01-11T08:09:00.001-08:00

paper boarding passes for getting on airplanes are obsolete. build a system where check in can be done by cell phone, and the boarding pass is contained in the phone. for example, the phone could use bluetooth to communicate and send a verified message just like the paper boarding pass. If one were to lose their cell phone the traditional methods could still work. saves money for airlines, reduces lost boarding passes, can have other advantages includiong tracking and marketing.

functional clothing idea

2008-12-30T15:11:00.001-08:00

make pants that are designed to work well in the car, for example having butt padding, and velcro up pockets on the front of the pants for easy access.
another funtional change to clothing could be shoes that lace/tie on the inside face of ones foot, the side with the arch. this would allow for tying ones shoes without the knee getting in the way.

rental car idea

2008-12-22T18:28:00.001-08:00

it seems that all rental car companies just rent out american cars, plus hyundai and kia. the idea: start a rental car company that is a little bit premium priced but rents out the finest foreign cars of all brands. from hondas and toyotas at the mid low end to bmw, lexus, mercedes, all the way up to bentleys and ferraris. these top ones would be available only at selected airports and of course at a premium. would there be a market for this? if people are willing to pay $10,000 for crappy 1st class seats, i think there may be.

Quick Note

2008-12-15T11:27:00.000-08:00

Hey so if you like the ideas and what you see here, subscribe to my RSS feed! You can do it easily by clicking the links over on the right hand navigation bar, down the column a little ways. You know you want more of this. Heheheh.

Ideation Services Idea

2008-12-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

Contract out to companies to help them think of ideas to solve their business (or other) problems. Develop a clear definition of the problem, come up with many solutions, and present the findings in a comprehensible (though probably not comprehensive) manner.

In fact, if anyone needs help in this area, I could certainly pull people together to get perhaps even 1000 ideas to address the problem. After that we would give in depth interpretation and serious assistance implementing/integrating the ideas.

microwaveable gloves

2008-12-12T13:04:00.001-08:00

stick em in there and it dries em out or warms em up for when you ar going outside. yeah, ya don't eat em! so whacky of an idea i think that people coul't help telling each other about it! the question is will it work, will it be useful, and will people percieve the idea as viable... big questions.

thought

2008-12-11T07:18:00.001-08:00

memories are the keys to other older or less exposed memories. sometimes certain obscure memories may be the only route to access them so to remember, a chain of memories must be linked together.

idea business

2008-12-10T10:37:00.001-08:00

make a company that finds good business ideas, proves feasibility, does market research and builds the foundations for operations/profitability.. just enough to get risk reduced and information centralized so that it can be sold to companies who might be able to benefit from such a thing. consider doing this on a contract basis as a service - start with an idea and contract for its study, or find areas where companies might be willing to buy ideas and do research there. Question: is this an area where we (i.e. one company) can have a competitive advantage even over a broad range of industries/markets? are there enough companies that would want to outsource this? this seems like a creative bazaar model of collaborative innovation.

cooltech idea

2008-12-10T10:23:00.001-08:00

get some small flat led lights and arrange them in such a manner that they are like a very rudimentary tv screen that can be mounted on a flexible surface like a shower curtain. this could display images but could also get up to a reasonable resolution for basic images. concise description... superbasic large flexible tv screen with led lights for pixels. much credit goes to seth madison, classmate at RPI since this is essentially his idea for a light pattern shower curtain.

green thoughts

2008-12-03T18:03:00.001-08:00

what is the situation now with sequestering carbon in algae? maybe we could grow giant tanks of it in dilapidated inner cities like detroit and harvest and store it periodically.

wiki idea

2008-12-01T21:06:00.001-08:00

create a wiki dedicated to the cololaborative creation of self help materials. people can share their experiences and weigh in on how they achieved success or fought failure. probably based on a for-profit advertising model.

medical question

2008-12-01T01:17:00.001-08:00

i wonder if progressive physical debilitations such as arthritis or macular degeneration correlate with increased incidence of alzheimers disease.

there is the story of the man who was a championship chess player who complained that when he got older he just couldn't see 5 moves ahead any more, he could only see 3 moves, but he was completely normal mentally otherwise. after he died they discovered that he had advanced alzheimers but it seems to have been covered up by how strong he had developed his brain.

what if now he couldn't see the pieces any more, or he couldn't otherwise play chess at all because of a physical ailment. would it be more likely for the alzheimers to set in right then? it seems likely. deserves a scientific study if there hasn't been one already.

neon repair idea

2008-11-29T13:43:00.001-08:00

i have a peeve about broken neon signs. put business cases together about how much money is lost because of broken signs. build a taslforce that repairs neon signs within 24 hours for a reasonable price.

research idea

2008-11-25T19:42:00.001-08:00

do wacky research projects that people find funny irreverant, offbeat, silly whatever. present the findings as psuedoscientific. make them things people really might like to learn about anyway but just because they are silly or fun. examples:

which can run faster cats or dogs?
will picking your nose make you fat?
are some people afraid of beach balls?

certainly there are some better topics as well which i will post as comments if i think of them.

business research study idea

2008-11-23T09:39:00.001-08:00

so people talk about how most acquisitions of businesses fail. maybe however, they are getting judged unfairly. a study could be done to quantify the full benefits of having made the aquisition. this would be similar to finding the option value of an opportunity rather than the DCF value, or looking at inaction as a steady decline of revenues rather than a steady state. competitive issues and future positions must be factored in. i beleive it is very likely that many of these acquistions has more value than people will admit.

cool trick to catch a fly

2008-11-20T09:39:00.001-08:00

ok so i just did this and it worked so i figure i'd post it. a fly was in my bathroom flying around and hitting the window. i wanted to get it out without killing it or squishing it on the window so i took a clear plastic disposable cup and wham put it over the fly as it was flying against the window. it was in there but now how to get it outside? if i just took it off the window the fly would fly out, so, instead, i turned the cup around slowly so that the fly kept flying into the window but first the wall of the cup was in the way then the bottom of the cup was in the way. when the fly was flying into the bottom of the cup, it's like there was a top on the cup since it didn't know it could fly out the other way. ok so maybe a convoluted description but cool!

health idea

2008-11-20T09:14:00.001-08:00

i dont know if this will work but it came to me in a dream last night. a way to cure/relieve asthma symptoms. 1. bring a toothbrush with you 2. do strenuous activites, brush the inside of your mouth and use this to help spit out all the gross stuff. 3. take a break for a couple minutes 4. do these steps 2 more times. 5. breathe easier a few minutes later because the airway is clean. overall this will strengthen the lungs as well reducing asthma symptoms. this came to me in a dream so there is a good chance itis crazy and will not work, but maybe there's something to it.

entrepreneurship idea

2008-11-19T19:40:00.001-08:00

start an entrepreneur training center, that is like an mba program but all experience based. the students will be tasked with starting up to 10 businesses. the first business they will start with no guidance but some assistance, then new businesses are started with more and more direct guidance and specific learning objectives. at the end of the project they are tasked with starting another project, again with no guidance, and there they can express all the skills they have learned. if any business really takes off, the business people are free to leave at any time, and in fact encouraged to do so. payment for this training will be minimal to cover base salaries and costs only but the school will own part of every business started and so will the professors. as the businesses pay off the school will become well funded and the teachers will get paid well, directly in line with the performance of the students. this place will give people a free time away from work to start a business, and allow them to take advantage of student loans. it will also become a place where funders can go to find good investment opportunities, and companies can go for acquisition targets.

funny word idea

2008-11-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

with the amont of play that collaboration gets and how can be a buzzword, i think a new word can be created: collabortation
this is when collaboration goes wrong, or when it is forced in the wrong situation and to ill effect. example: that group meeting wasn't helpful, it was just a collabortation session.

environmental idea

2008-11-17T20:03:00.001-08:00

find a way to quantify the benefits of all things green, organic etc. i know i do not shop at the health food store/food co-op because stuff is too expensive and even a bit snooty. if there were a way to see that the total cost of ownership of this food were cheaper for me (for medical reasons etc.) or cheaper in general (because the real cost of environmental impact is priced into the non-organic stuff) then i would probably buy it, and so would a lot of people. fact of the matter is though that organic food may not be healthier and in many cases it may not be less of an environmental impact either. without this real quantification, its difficult to tell.

sales idea

2008-11-17T12:55:00.001-08:00

start a distribution company in a market with stuff i think is cool that finds the smaller players (esp those w innovative products) and pushes them into the stores. develop a reputation for always having the first and the best new technology in this area available. this idea came from the thought that i could distribute personal floatation devices and other watersports gear. make a catalog and a websitel

energy idea

2008-11-16T22:32:00.001-08:00

make smart grid control devices. try to make something that people will like to standardize on since this will be crucial for a smart power grid to work.

another business services idea

2008-11-16T22:02:00.001-08:00

patent commercialization services. we don't work the market segment that just has an idea but needs a patent (general consensus seems that this is worked by a bunch of scam artists now anyway so that would not be good to be associated with that). we will work with the technical or creative side of the market that wants to spend more time making ideas and less time commercializing them. target: many patents, 0-3 commercialized already. this might just mean something like an agressive extension of a university's tech transfer office.

business services idea

2008-11-16T21:16:00.001-08:00

sell business planning services over the internet at low cost to small business owners who need help with getting set up. this could mean making a plan that is acceptable to the bank or the government immigration authorities.

business strategy idea

2008-11-16T19:47:00.001-08:00

if ever faced with a situation where industry regulation seems onerous to all companies involved but also seems inevitable in the long run, start ramping up for compliance immediately and switch lobbying dollars from fighting the measure to supporting the measure publically. this will allow you to gain an advantage over your competition.

Example: auto industry and fighting environmental regulations. if one of the US manufacturers supported regulation and lobbyied agressivly for it, they could have crushed competitors both foreign and domestic by being ready with the required capabilities more quickly and at low cost.

taxes idea

2008-11-16T17:51:00.001-08:00

increase us tax revenues by keeping us companies from moving their headquarters abroad by doing things that help encourage real love of the US in people like CEOs who might make that decision. if this winds up being based on fear tactics i won't like the idea, ie fear of losing something they love.

archival idea

2008-11-15T16:15:00.001-08:00

create a book, dvd or other static information item (a book works so well because no other tech is needed for it to work) that is a year in review of wikipedia. this would make a great christmas present, and can be made by pulling content out at a certain time, making sure it is clean, and publishing it. the articles that have recieved the most activity (hits and edits) over the year would be top candidates for inclusion. revenue issue not clear now - name could be licensed and project operated at a profit, or it could be done by volunteer workers and sold at cost. anyway it would be interesting to have annual benchmarks of how the world is changing according to the grand mind of wikipedia.

lots of ideas

2008-11-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

so, back to the ideas, see link below I can't claim these as my own, but there are some that are quite interesting. Some associates and I are investigating the Hydration Personal Floatation Device right now. Old skool website but some good thoughts... Enjoy em!

question about our global future

2008-11-14T10:12:00.001-08:00

ok so no proposed answer to this one, its a question that boggles my mind: how can the world's population be controlled without being inhuman, immoral, inequal, restrictive, or otherwise not nice?

i am reading a book by Thomas Friedman Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America At times he's saying that we need to control the population on the earth' especially as people begin to consume at american levels, but at other times he is calling for an end to energy poverty, to increase the standard of living worldwide.

if we need to fight population growth
to preserve the environment, why would we fight poverty at all? this is the old malthusian dilemma - except that Malthus was a cold unfeeling dude who didn't care about human suffering. the answer is obvious, we fight poverty to fight human suffering. also its important to note that developed countries have lower birth rates, so that could help with overpopulation, but so far they still consume more!

now again though, how do we keep our world livable for ourselves and the other species without doing something like this though, or enforcing a strict one child policy like they do in china? technology is certainly one idea. actively reducing the standard of living of people across the globe (retrogression) is also one idea, and if you look around it has a surprising number of proponents already. still this goes against all human history so far.

I think part of our species essence is to grow change and catalyse things. this philosophy of constant growth and improvement has been with us for a long time and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. this view however means that we must be willing to kill off our species and many others in the process at some point. is this creative destruction or calamity? from one perspective we are accomplishing in thousands of years something that has taken nature millions of years before. as humans we have a tremendous fear of death and change. We also must not forget that we are natural too, and thus our actions are as well.

i hope you realize i am just being provocative to get us thinking about this tremendously difficult issue so that we can hopefully solve it in a way we can all agree on. we are intelligent and concious of these issues so we should be able to do better and realize we don't need to kill things off and cause pain. nonetheless a solution is needed to humanely limit the human impact on the earth. the hope is that we can do this without abandoning our growth.

I think the premise of Friedman's book is that we can do this. I'm not sure I agree though. how can we both continue to increase people's standard of living, not limit population and not impact the environment? we may need to give up our love of growth at some point to keep ourselves alive. I love creativity and new things, so I hope not though. My view, which I share with scientist Steven Hawking, is that we need to prepare now to colonize other planets. That may be one of the only hopes we have to continue humanity's grand dream of universal knowledge.

video idea

2008-11-02T10:22:00.001-08:00

i just watched a air battle between a hawk and three crows. the crows were faster and more manuverable but the hawk had more endurance. it really seemed like it was more of the hawk evading the crows. i once saw a hawk kill a bluejay that was going after it in the air though.
here's the idea: make a documentary of air battles between birds.

thought

2008-10-31T13:55:00.001-07:00

its funny how people adapt to technologty over time. it becomes second nature and part of our being.

information processing idea

2008-10-30T20:07:00.001-07:00

since people, especially executives, dont like to read anything more than a page, develop a summarization service that takes text of all sorts aned boils them down to their essential components. great for theories, concepts, and information related stuff but could even be used for books (oh wait that's kind of like cliffs notes). this could also be a website that does this for news and other info everyday.

New Opportunities with the Opening of the Arctic Shipping Route

2008-10-29T22:29:00.001-07:00

So I've been hearing about this for a little while, but
This Map shows very clearly what is happening with the north pole. Take a look at the reduced surface shipping distance between Japan and Europe with this new route that has just opened up. Is this a result of global warming? Very Likely! But... all change does tend to have its upsides. As the economist Joseph Schumpeter says, radical innovation comes from "creative destruction". Oh well. People have been longing for the Northwest passage for a long, long time. That is even what the Lewis and Clark expedition was all about. Think about the great real estate investment opportunities! This is truly a "Sea Change"

IP Rights Idea

2008-10-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

Make a system for publishers etc to track royalty revenues for all IP over the vast number of possible permissions.

art idea

2008-10-23T23:40:00.001-07:00

oh man this one is so bad but kind of funny in a stupid sort of way. would be kind of nice to see mixed in with a set of stuffy type art. i think that would be the real art in this idea. ok so here it is... you have a little booth sort of like a voting booth for just your head and upper body. the piece is called 'album' - outside it has the title written small but conspicuously. the whole thing looks serious and beautiful. Inside the private curtained area is a book that has a picture of a plumber type dude on the cover. His name is Al. inside the book you have pictures of his bum. al bum. album. like i said, stupid, but the placement, the setup and the experience would make it not bad art. people like to get tricked a little bit and in my opinion its good to suprise people, make them laugh, and question where they are and what they're doing. album. hehehe.

The Atlantic is Thinking About Interesting Questions

2008-10-22T21:51:00.001-07:00

The Atlantic Monthly - the magazine that is in my mind a sort of beautiful but different half-sister to my favorite magazine Harper's - is running a really interesting set of questions about ourselves, our ideas, and our society. You can comment on them, the different perspectives are great. Here's one particularly relevant to this blog...

WHO WILL OWN YOUR NEXT IDEA?

http://thinkagainblog.theatlantic.com/2008/who-will-own-your-next-idea/
Some corporations want to lock up copyright even tighter. Some naive intellectuals want to abandon copyright altogether. Where is a “do-nothing” Congress now that we need one?

Some of the other ones are really good too...
- Should Women Settle?
- Is Google Making Us Stupid?
- What's The Cost Of Being A Nerd?
- Are Good Books Bad for You?
- Why Are Campaign Commercials So Bad?

pseudo-energy idea

2008-10-21T20:56:00.001-07:00

give carbon offest credits(is this the right term?) for planting trees and other vegetation. when plants are cut down carbon credit must be purchased. possible exemptions for food and other crops.

thought

2008-10-16T19:44:00.001-07:00

the strange thing about the present is that the past and the future are both now

computer idea

2008-10-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

disposable screen (or like a jump drive) that can be used to store/display digital documents. easily hand in or share these documents. Used like paper and can be shared around/disposed of.

toy idea

2008-10-14T15:16:00.001-07:00

rc helicopter that holds water and can fly around. can be used to play in waterfights (with supersoakers). someone can sit in the house/out of reach and run the water air support.

futon idea

2008-10-11T11:53:00.001-07:00

make support pillars that can catch a futon that is in bed mode and ready to tip over. often futons will tip over when too much weight is applied to either end of the bed surface. these pillars could be like metal cylinders just shorter than the height of the metal bed frame from the floor, with small bases so that they can be freestanding.

Education Idea

2008-10-11T05:59:00.001-07:00

Problem: when teenagers get in trouble and have to go to jail/juvenile hall, etc. any existing problems at school get exacerbated.

Possible Solution: provide a program in the place of detention to keep the classroom continuity going. have HS classes taught there and have some sort of (digital) connection to the schoolwork currently being assigned by the teacher.

game idea

2008-10-10T17:57:00.001-07:00

crowd bingo. like regular bingo or in car bingo but to play with your friends while people watching.

collaborative travel idea

2008-10-10T12:28:00.001-07:00

make a website where people can catch rides with others flying in private airplanes. Similar to http://www.couchsurfing.com for staying at people's houses, or the many rideshare boards on craigslist and college campuses everywhere. could be a fun and easy way to travel faster, further, and cheaper while exploring the joy of the sky.

Political Idea

2008-10-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

Lifted almost directly from:
Edge: WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN? By Jonathan Haidt
Interesting article by the way...

The democratic party can develop unity throughout the country by thinking of morality in different terms. By accentuating that social programs are there to keep us together, or by making stronger use of, and in some ways reappropriating the truly American iconography such as our Founding Fathers, or even the American Flag, people can be brought together. The article states that other aspects of morality besides treating each other well explicitly or implictly matter to a large percentage of the population.
"morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way. "

Also interesting quote:
"Most Democrats don't understand that politics is more like religion than it is like shopping."

tshirt idea

2008-10-02T18:49:00.001-07:00

if you can't identify with me by the way i look maybe you can identify with me by the way i think

scifi world

2008-09-28T20:05:00.001-07:00

a society where the 'lower class' really has psychic powers and orchestrates the world with their position in life truly being better than the 'upper class' whom they exploit, manipulate, and force into unknowingly maintiaining the world order. could be full of other situations that flip expectations on their head, such as jail being the best place to be, or death truly being something to look forward to. story could end with twist of who is really manipulating who, and possibly introduce a third party that would be even more unexpected, such as pets.

delivery idea

2008-09-28T16:21:00.001-07:00

start a furniture delivery business and locate yourself just outside of IKEA. try to let people know before they go into the store that we can deliver for them. letting them know even before they leave for the store is better because then they know that they don't need to truck it all home themselves. follow IKEA's marketing leaed and try to target the same customers in the same way. possibly try and cooperate w/ IKEA.

food service idea

2008-09-28T15:44:00.001-07:00

park a snack truck at highway rest stops that dont have any food service. bring a port a potty too if they don't have one. charge people to use it who don't buy food. have a vending machine for during the night.

car idea...

2008-09-28T15:32:00.001-07:00

lcd screen bumper stickers

lyme disease

2008-09-28T08:45:00.001-07:00

problem in ny state. lots of ticks around some of which carry lyme disease. reduce the number of ticks reduce the prevalence of lyme disease. ia pill to make our blood or the blood of deer poisonous to them, or a spray on poison (on one's body) could work.

Idea:

2008-09-25T10:44:00.001-07:00

Start a blog with records of all the papers and work i have done for my MBA program

problem:

2008-09-25T10:42:00.001-07:00

cups are not easy to drink from while laying down.

possible solution: have a cup with two sides one for drinking while sitting up, with a normal lip the other for laying down, with a concave lip that holds back liquid until it has reached a more extreme angle.

The Beginning

2008-09-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

This is the first post on the Make 'Em Happen Blog... an electronic version of my idea journal. Since this is being shared with the world, I understand that anything I put here becomes up for grabs. I'm not planning on holding any ideas back. Whether I like it or not I suppose that means that I am giving up formal claim on the idea. I really want people to see and share and use these ideas. Please know though, I am a capable guy with sales, marketing, and general business skills, and if you are in a position to make any of these ideas work, bring me in, I can help. It is my belief that an idea is only the beginning, implementation is where the challenge lies. Email me if you're curious and I'll send you my history.