functional clothing idea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

information processing idea

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

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

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

art idea

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

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

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

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

computer idea

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

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

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

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

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

collaborative travel idea

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

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

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

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

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

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...

lcd screen bumper stickers

lyme disease

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:

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

problem:

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

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.