If you make you processes predictable, you are never going to achieve outsize growth.
Change is the only constant. Things decay or they grow. But nothing, left to ‘carry on’, ever stays the same. It invariably gets worse, both in real terms and in the perceptive minds of others.
I love toys and I love to play.
However toy shops are so uninspiring. If you have ever been to London and think toyshop, Hamleys comes to mind. Have you paid a visit there? It’s all about the teddy bears. Where are real toys? The play areas? The ability to run amock?
Everybody of a certain age has seen the Tom Hanks movie, Big. That is the experience you should get in a toy shop. Like you want to come back and play and when you have enough pocket money (or suddenly become rich overnight) return to buy everything!
At the very least, toy shops should have:
Dens - like BIG ones that you can get lost in
Dolls houses - LOTS of them for girls to come and spend time (collaborating) with other girls
Sweet shop - with EVERY sweet imagineable and lots of ability to experiment with new concoctions
Cupcakes - everybody loves cake, especially pretty looking cake!
As a kid, the centre of my world was the West End of London. It provided toy shops (Hamleys), wall-to-wall stores filled with music (Tower Records, Virgin Megastore and HMV), arcades (Sega World/Fun Land), cinemas (Leicester Square), sweet shops, things to see (Guiness Book of Records) and people. So many people, from all over the world, just everywhere.
The Trocadero, which has been in decline for a number of years now, hosts one special situation: break-dancers. If you venture into the catacombs below Piccadily Circus, there is a hub of kids, music, excitement and dance. It really is something to behold: Kids claiming a space for themselves, when the world around them provides so little for them to do together.
That brings me to my idea: A place you want to go to. Imagine a store with cool gadgets, clothes, shoes and anything else that is ‘in’. BUT the feature of the place is that you can ‘experience’ everything there. Want to try on the latest football boots? Well why not TRY them out, taking shots within a special area (with possible celebrity players on hand to create buzz and connect with their fans). Or how about wanting to dance to the latest music? Give the breakdancers a performing space in the store, centre stage. Skateboarders want to test out the latest boards? Indoor skate-park in the same store. For those free-running (parkour) adrenaline junkies, a great big obstacle course circling the store (think Ninja Warrior/Sasuke).
Just somewhere people WANT to go to. Oh, and we would also sell cool stuff too. But to sell that stuff, you have to sell the aspiration of having those things (like Apple did with the Apple Store).
Piccadilly Circus is currently owned by landlords with little creativity, shoe-horning every-more tacky gift and memorabilia shops into once great stores. Maybe one day I could afford the £1m rent and build something extraordinary.
I am a PC! I hate anyone placing restrictions on me and therefore despise Mac software (even though I covet the hardware). But Microsoft seem to have zero clue about marketing (even though they are one of the two most legendary sales organisations…). You just have to look at their point of sale materials, advertising and worst of all, their product websites.
So I thought I would give Microsoft a hand:
Back in 2007, when the Mac vs PC adverts were all the rage, I came up with the idea for Microsoft Research Stores. Please have a read and if anyone at Microsoft is listening, get in touch!
http://www.wemakethingswork.co.uk/Site/microsoft_research_stores.html
Surely it is obvious? Kodak, is a legend. All that history. One of the best marketing slogans of all time. And, like Polaroid, a history if innovation which is ripe for reinvention WITH their patent portfolio in tact. My strategy would be to buy instagram, stickygram and forward. The combined entity would be managed to once again capture the world’s imagination (and photographs) through ubiquitous marketing and intelligent platforms for sharing.
I have wanted to write this one down for a while. Doing the laundry is a faff. It’s a faff, it’s boring, and it just destroys time. And laundry baskets are the base level of laundry nonsense. You put all your clothes in and the stupid, ugly thing doesn’t even sort the clothes for you. Like, seriously? It cannot do such a simple task?
So obviously I want to build a laundry basket that can detect colour and sort into different compartments, ready to load into the washing machine (or send to washing machine automatically when each section is sufficiently full?). But let’s face it, that is an endeavour that is probably less useful than the time it would take to make it work (anyone with expertise in colour sensing equipment…?).
The middle ground effort should then be something beautiful and saves time:
Laundry basket with sections clearly labelled/coloured for blacks, whites, colours and towels (textured?)
Online classifieds and transactional systems, like Gumtree and ebay have taken the impetus from newspapers, classified boards and even a myriad of agents and retailers. However, there is still something beautiful and human aboard a board or shop window filled with classifieds.
Flipboard has shown us that lists of text aren’t necessarily the best way to consume information, and beautifully displayed information is attractive and fun to spend time reading.
So my idea: online classifieds displayed beautifully. One big webpage (that can still be searched) with inertial scrolling that is just filled with classifieds. Ala Tumblr, it would be really easy to post up a classified with varying simple templates for text, photos and contact details.
I don’t know about you, but I like to window shop and I have a feeling there are plenty of others who enjoy browsing and being surprised with something unorthodox that just wouldn’t fit on ebay.
SLR cameras still hold pride of place in the camera world. However, cameras attached to smartphones allow for instant editing, sharing and anything else that is possible with mobile applications. Surely the two worlds should collide and give SLR cameras the same flexibility. All the ingredients are there with LCD viewfinders. All that is needed is for the manufacturers to use a mobile operating system which comes packaged with apps, developers and communications chipsets for wifi or even 3G. Just imagine taking a high quality photograph on your digital SLR, Instagraming it and sharing it with the world, almost instantly. The ramifications for journalism alone would be astounding. Professional shots for your newspaper or website, edited and sent just a few moments after the event.
I just found an OLD text document on a memory stick. The notes on there are really quite interesting. This is the first one:
Audit of waste per passenger
As a data junkie, I think it would be really interesting to see the average amount of waste per airline passenger. As someone interested in airlines being profitable and useful enterprises so that they start innovating (concorde was the last real innovation and that is from a time gone by), I think it would point to redundant things that airlines do.
This could also translate across to other businesses. Comparing how one business’s average waste per employee compares to another similar business. And then compare different classes of business. I would love to see the patterns that emerge and analyse the underlying reasons.
This data could even be used to help foster positive change in behaviour. Stats are often used this way, but I truly believe this could be something tangible, real and positive.
Other tangents to take this on are the difference between behaviour at home and on holiday (how many people wash a towel a day at home?).
Data is nice, but knowing WHAT SPECIFICALLY you will do based on the data is paramount. Simple and obvious things like reducing paper or packaging usage to more complex things like using less space so you buy/replace less furniture.
This thought is far bigger than what is just in my head. It would be nice for more experienced people to share their thoughts.
My end goal is and always will be to open the best schools in the world. These schools will give kids the ability to reason for themselves; giving them tools to research many sources, take all opinions with a pinch of salt and come to their own understandings. To be crude, I want to destroy the ability of any society to ever be prone to having stereotyped drone populations such as “Daily Mail readers” or even better, help break down the blind allegiance to party politics.
These schools will teach and innovate better than any other - set positive, humble examples
Another hope of providing the best schooling in the world is university places will be cut, to focus again on quality lecturing and research, rather than the current dumbing-down culture of giving everyone a piece of paper that is increasingly worth less and less (funny that money and education both have that in common - gold standard anyone?). Too many degrees devalues the achievements of those with good degrees. Education is about skills, knowledge and applicable maturity. Today, education is about collecting certificates and letters.
Industry and employers need to take the lead by better recruiting; i.e. not focusing on minimum requirements that underpin this race to the top of paper-collection.
Back to these schools. Mischief taught as a class in school, encouraging laughter, creativity and building maturity by displaying where the line is drawn and when to apologise for a joke that comes out being offensive.
Kids will be taught how to make things, and make things work for them. Computer languages, programming and assembly will be taught alongside traditional subjects like languages, maths, sciences, history and religious studies. Maturity and choice will be at the foreground of the teacher/student dynamic.
Other less traditional subjects will be taught to plug current gaps of understanding, like law, mechanical and electrical engineering (why can’t kids take an engine apart and put it back together?!), just like in The Tinkering School. And School Stock Market - young entrepreneurs raising capital from their peers (limits on investment to safeguard risk).
Debating, sports and accountability will feature highly. The school day will start at 7:30am and lessons will end at 12:30pm (the same amount as current schools days incorporate). Breaktime will be supplemented with amazing grounds, playgrounds, clubs and activities. After lunch, everyone will take a power nap/siesta! The afternoon will then be dedicated to physical activity, honing amazing technical sporting skills. All the hours of practice that professional athletes and sportspeople need to excel will be as standard for ALL children, so that they are world-class at any and many different disciplines. Healthy body = healthy mind. Sir Ken Robinson has the right idea. So good is his idea, that the RSA animated his talk.
More in the school’s day, but a better balance of it, all due to an earlier start.
Parenting is in massive, robotic, ignorant crisis. Parents will also receive schooling so that the home environment is right. It is absurd that we know environment shapes kids, but neglect to get the home environment right. This is a whole other topic, but one that goes hand-in-hand with the best schooling possible.
And last but not least hire the right people: encourage and provide a support system for retirees as teachers. While the government forces the young and inexperienced to teach, the real value comes from recycling acquired knowledge. Help train people with real life experience to teach. That way we don’t lose all the intricate things people have learnt through their lives (the key would be to bring parents in for regular sessions on what unique knowledge they have acquired). The Amazings helps older people transfer their knowledge and skills to the next generation. We salute them!
A tweet was broadcast yesterday highlighting the massive amounts of food wasted in the developed world could feed all those that don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
My immediate thoughts were how do we cut down on waste. The answer to that, for me, is simply better education. That process is long and requires a lot of politics and money.
My second thought was on feeding all those that are hungry, using crowd-sourced funds from all those that know and acknowledge that they waste. The idea is that the campaign raises awareness about how much we waste; people may even grow the balls to stop wasting and risk the social taboo of pointing out somebody else’s waste (Parents and children to start).
The method? At first the idea was based around raising a £1/$1/€1 from every restaurant transaction, but that would require speaking to a lot of restaurants and £1/$1/€1 is still an amount a lot of people would baulk at.
The ideal solution? Partner with Visa, MasterCard and American Express to operate a high profile campaign to opt in a 10c/p donation for every food transaction. The amount is individually small but the collective amount could be very significant in feeding the poor and raising awareness about waste. Think of it as a (Red) for solving the world’s hunger problem.
The better the diet of those in impoverished parts of the world, the less disease they will be prone to and the more energy they will have to find their way to better means. This is of course a short term fix, but a useful start to a real and immediate problem.
Oh, and the marketing campaign has Aloe Blacc’s ‘I Need A Dollar’ playing in the background while the stories are told contrasting the fortunes of the fed and the hungry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6oYX1D
RFID built into car tax discs - linked to your registered bank account.
Serves as toll/congestion indicator and also helps police run less intrusive checks on a car.
Left turn through red - utilise American style Stop process to check the way is clear before filtering through
Get non licensed drivers off the road - campaign to make the roads safer - police officers have been given more priority for issuing parking tickets, which is just absurd and frustrating to see.
Get dangerous drivers off the road
Less cameras, less expense, less discomfort
The cost of owning/driving a car is no small amount of money. Giving people instant, accurate data will help them make better decisions about their driving habits.
The solution: Car cost management system
Input annual costs (insurance, MOT), fuel and maintenance costs
The system then gives a continuously adjusting (for time and distance) readout of costs of running, individual journey costs and diagnostics on improving usage (tyre pressure, oil, driving style)
Making people more informed, better drivers through data.
