Random Thoughts

A smorgasbord of ideas and observations

Nov 11 2007

Why Not, What If, Wouldn’t It Be Cool

Posted by John in Brilliant Ideas, Idea Generation, Innovation

A few years ago Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres published Why Not?: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small. The book challenged everyday folk to use everyday ingenuity to solve problems. This innovation primer outlined a simple framework for generating solutions to existing problems and applying existing solutions to new problems. I recently stumbled upon the Why Not web-site. Checkout the idea exchange. Here visitors are encouraged to post great ideas while other visitors vote on their favorites. Most of the traffic is from 2003 (the year the book was published.) It is amazing to see why items were merely “ideas” back then but have now been implemented. Here are a few of my favorites.

Audio-in jacks in cars - I’ve been asking for this for probably 10 years. It is now a reality.
Dashboard Tire Pressure Gauge - Done. My wife’s Caliber has it.
Chip bags with a Zip Lock top - This is such an obvious idea, why are we just starting to see a few of them?
Fridge door open alert- The Maytag we bought last year has this one!

I’d add to the list an MP3 podcast/audio book player that can book mark and annotate files on the fly (see post on 10/26/07 ). What would you add?

(cross-posted on Thinking Analytically)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Brilliant Ideas, Idea Generation, Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Why Not, What If, Wouldn’t It Be Cool”

pegmichl says: November 13th, 2007 at 7:59 am

Good ideas. I recently saw an add for “zipper bag tops” to put on top of another bag that doesn’t have a zip closure. Now why not buy MORE plastic to put on top of OTHER plastic to keep it closed? Why are we such a wasteful generation? Snap clothespins work great as bag closers and they can be used over and over……don’t even need to buy plastic “snappers”!