Idea 45: 3D Busts

Problem:

Photos, letters, videos, and pictures are often the common ways to capture memories and preserve them over the years. In the past, one more “tool” was used – statues and busts. Mainly used by the upper class, royals and aristocractes, statues and busts were a symbol of power and an attampt to prepare one’s likeness for eternity. Today, statues and busts are still rarely used as, although living standards have increased, the number of people with the abilty to produce them decreased, which conseqeuntly resulted in an increase in prices.

Solution:

Thinking about pet owners for example, statues and busts might offer a way to help their minds to keep their favorite animal “alive” due to the physical characteristics that speak directly to one of the five senses – touch. To make this possible and affortable, the idea is to use 3D printers or lasers that would work based on 3D models of somebody’s favorite pet and hand in hand with materials such as glass/krystal and different types of plastic.

Idea 44: Waterfall Turbines

Problem:
Renewable energies open the gateway to clean and sustainable energy production. In some cases already existing kinetic energy is used and turned into electricity, for example in water turbines. A question connected to this example is where this constant flow of water exists and how we can use it.

Solution:
Although water turbines are already used in many different settings, one of the places that might open up room for future innovation focuses on waterfalls. Waterfalls would offer a lifelong stream of energy if we would know how to capture it. Due to its vertical flow, multiple turbines could take advantage of the same water stream at different heights. There are several problems with this idea, but one of them surely is not the number of capable engineers in the world to think about it.

Idea 43: Social Impact Rating

Problem:

With great power comes great responsiblity. However, often times many companies only talk about corporate social responsiblity when the profit and loss statement allows for it or once they have figured out that the CSR wagon is one they have to jump on, as it is the trendy thing to do.

Solution:

An objective rating body that analyzes the CSR focus and doings of a company in a transparent way might be a step into the right direction. Just like universities are rated in accordance to their perceived quality, companies could be rated on their social impact in the world or small communities. Besides the actual process behind rating the companies, reaching critical awareness about these rating among customers of these companies is vital to the perceived importance of the rating by the companies.

 

Idea 42: Road Trip

Problem:

Often times staying in touch with your friends is a problem. Once the years go by, friends move away and often times the tool to stay in touch is Facebook.

Solution:

The idea would be to create a Facebook compatible app that creates a uses google maps to create a road trip with the friends that you would like visit based on the current city they are living in.  On that road the app could propose hotels and other attractions to make this “road trip” one to remember forever. The app could suggest friends that are “on the way” or offer complete flexibility in terms of deciding what friends and routes one prefers.

Idea 17: How to write an Email

Problem:

Emails are these days the main and quickest way to get and stay in touch with different stakeholders in a company; especially when talking about multinationals that communicate across time zones, cultures and business etiquettes. However, the problem with emails or “text” in general is that people interpret messages and read between the lines to force the discovery of hidden “tone” and subliminal messages from their own perspectives, a tone they would be able to pick up on when actually talking to a person over the phone or face to face. This is augmented by the fact that people often don’t take much care in composing an email, as usually it is used as a tool to get a message across as the quickest way possible to “solve” the problem of having to communicate with another stakeholder. In the end, what counts more is the action of “sending the email” and not the actual contend. As a result, many people might find themselves in the situation of having read an email and either getting upset after it as they cannot understand “HOW the hell” another stakeholder could have written it that way (“in that tone of voice, how can s/he??”) or entering a vicious circle of misunderstandings as they have “read” the email in a different way than it should have been read (“that´s not what I meant; what I meant was…”).

Solution:

A standard around writing emails should be created, which then later can be taught to all stakeholders of a company to increase efficiency and decrease misunderstandings when communicating across different spheres using emails. The goal would be to create a common way of communication that only serves one purpose: to transmit information from one stakeholder to another, and nothing more. Leave information to emails and opinions and emotions to phone calls and face to face interactions.

Idea 14: Books for Multilinguists

Problem:

Learning a language is already difficult enough. And even once mastered, keeping that level is another obstacle, because when talking about languages a particular expression holds true: When you don’t use it, you lose it.

To learn and to maintain a certain language level, people watch TV, listen to music, go to language exchanges and read books among others. In addition, more and more people speak more than one language fluently as they often have to transcend their own country borders to find a job.

Solution:

Many books are translated into several different languages. Thus, offering books that include one or two translations might offer an interesting value proposition to people that speak more than one language to maintain a certain level of fluency in both languages. Keeping in mind that over the years e-readers will become cheaper and cheaper, manufacturing an e-reader especially for these types of e-books might attract a certain niche-market. Some e-readers already offer an “vocab-trainer,” which is a sign that people that speak several languages are an upcoming customer base.

Idea 13: Customizable High-Heels/Shoes

Problem:

For women, finding the right “height” of a high heel appears to be a significant problem sometimes. In addition, depending on the partner these requirements might change from one situation to another and all the sudden 2-3 centimeters might make a difference, especially when talking about one´s favorite shoe. This “phenomenon” also applies to men; stereotypically when the girl is the same height as the man or when talking about business settings where sometimes the height does matter in terms of perceptions of status.

Solution:

Being able to adjust the shoe by “adding” several layers to the heel might offer an interesting value proposition. One of the challenges would be the maximum degree of possible adjustments that still permits or supports that same “feeling” as before. Another challenge might be the design of making this adjustment as invisible as possible or as fitting as possible to the current design of the shoe looking at current colors etc.

Idea 11: Fragrances Docking Station

Problem:

Smelling good in every occasion depends on the availability of one´s favorite cologne or perfume in that particular situation; especially, when the day/night doesn’t appear to end. However, always having to carry around a big perfume/cologne bottle doesn’t make this particular easy.

Solution:

On the one hand, one of the things that usually everybody carries around is a wallet; especially in a night club.  On the other hand, sample fragrances and their tiny bottles that one sometimes gets when buying a cologne/perfume offer a great but short solution to the problem. It so happens that these bottles also fit inside of a wallet.

Thus, if one would be able to refill one´s favorite cologne into these tiny bottles over and over again, one would be able to solve this problem. Some sort of docking station would have to be created that facilitates the transfer from one bottle to the other. Therefore, from  a business perspective more revenues could be created by selling cologne, the docking station and the needed bottles. Taking this one step further, one docking station could be used for several colognes/perfumes whereas a tailor-made wallet would offer options to for instance hold up to 3 different colognes/perfumes, as sometimes people don’t always wants to use the same fragrance.

Idea 9: Hair Dryer No Sound

Problem:

Having a girlfriend that needs to dry her hair in the most unpleasant situations while thinking that men have no idea about blow drying hair in general.

Solution:

A completely silent hair dryer with the same power than a usual one market towards men as the best gift they can buy their girlfriends. Commercial (somewhat comical): A man watching TV while his girlfriend blow dries her hair right next to him; her hair moves almost through magic in the tact of her hand movements. Later the slogan: The best present for her…..and you!

Idea 8: Adopt a Grandparent

Problem:

Not everybody gets married, not everybody finds its soul recognition in another; and if so, many times no children are born out of this relationship, and many times one soul leaves the earth earlier than the other. Many of the elderly are alone in the later years of their lives; and many of them would love to still have someone to care for and that cares about them.

Solution:

On the one hand we have those who long for a family, and on the other we have those who long for a grandparent or somebody to talk to that has more life experience than oneself. “Adopt” a grandparent would allow for this match to happen by being an intermediary between two distinct stakeholders that both look for the same thing – a family and a friend that they would not be able to meet otherwise; somebody that listens that cares and that takes the time to truly get to know oneself. And even if a match doesn’t happen, the community behind this “service” might bring “like-minded” individuals together and relieve them from the feeling of being alone.