Top Ideas in 2011

In the last year I have posted about 40+/- items in the ideas category. Some are repeats, some are maxims about ideas but it looks like there are about 30 new ideas and some of them are pretty good ideas. There are social ideas as well as product and service ideas. Some of them are original like the Israeli Student Marching Band in the Rose Parade and some of them are giving publicity and perhaps a tweak to an idea that someone else is developing on a regional basis like Cereal Boxx in Tucson.

a wreath by Lillian

To See All of the new ideas in the last year click here

My top ideas from this last year:

Tears of Affliction a product
What is growing there? an iPhone app
Guilt Free Garage Refrigerator a product
Cereal Boxx a restaurant concept
Emergency Preparedness personal readiness
Spanx Improvement a product for those of a certain age
Hamburger Phone the product you need to drive and talk
A New Rose Parade Entry a marketing idea for Israel
Charity Christmas Card Combo a fund raising idea for charities
Zip Lines of Pasadena urban zip lines what a great idea

Let me know which one you like or hate by leaving a comment below.

Thanks

Simon

October 1, 2011October 1, 2011

Jumper Cables

A wise person owns jumper cables.

A lucky person never opened the box they came in.

Thanks to Randy L. for this quote.

April 3, 2011April 2, 2011

Emergency Preparedness

Almost every time the media talk about the Earthquake, Tsunami, Nuclear disaster in Japan. They mention shortages of food and medicine. One effect it had was to make me think about my families earthquake preparedness. I realized that in a major disaster like Katrina or Japan the supply chain for prescription medicines is disrupted and you won’t be able to get prescriptions refilled for weeks. Yet most of us only have a few weeks supply of most medicine at home. This could be a big problem.

I propose that people who take medicine that is critical to survival keep a minimum 30 day inventory and have it in a place that they can get to it fast if they need to evacuate.

Hopefully you will never need them. You’ll need to rotate the stock so that you don’t have stale drugs and to get the extra supply you will probably have to manipulate the pharmacy/health insurance reimbursement system.

January 14, 2011January 14, 2011

A New Rose Parade Entry

We walked down to the Rose Parade on a cold but clear morning and watched most of the parade. One of the things we liked was a band from Mexico and several floats from Asia. This got my creative juices going and I had the idea that High School Students from Israel should have a marching band in the Rose Parade and the Jews of the San Gabriel Valley should make it happen.

A band on TV

The benefits to Israel are obvious; positive publicity, the promotion of tourism and normalcy. Working to make it happen would give the Jews of the San Gabriel Valley a sense of common purpose, a task to accomplish and another reason to visit Israel.

Drill Teams

The benefit to the Rose Parade would be a new international market and revenue stream.

There are many objections to be overcome. Security concerns, finding young people in Israel who want to join an American style marching band, financing and many more. But it could be done and the benefits would far outweigh the costs.

The Salvation Army Band

The next step would be to find some people on the Israel end who like the idea and get a sense of how it could be done. My estimate is that it would be a three to five year process and would cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

International Floats

One thought is that there are hundred of people associated with the Technion in Haifa who because of the connection to Cal Tech and JPL have lived in the Pasadena area. Since they would be familiar with US marching bands and the Rose Parade they might form the nucleus to get the idea started.

My favorite float in 2011

If you have any interest in this idea please circulate it to others and let’s form an exploratory committee. In a break from my usual role as solely the idea person I’d be interested in helping get this one started. Conversely if you think that it is a unusually unrealistic idea even for me let me know.

See my album of Rose Parade photos on Flickr