Ethnic Blogshoppers

Posted: Wednesday 24 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

To create a series of blogs where medium-high-income people can join young interior designers hunting for ethnic furniture around the world, and eventually buy online what they find.

First presumption

New York City, Paris, Milan, Moscow, Dubai, Beijing. How many high-income people who live in cities like these struggle to find the chic ethnic furniture that they want for
their homes? I have no idea, but they are many for sure.

Second presumption

If they are very high-income, they probably normally hire some kind of interior designer to help them on out. But this is generally very expensive, so the more middle class usually go to specialized ethnic shops (every medium to big western city has at least a couple of them). They window-shop, choose what they want, and they buy it, always paying a premium price for a not so original object.

There are a lot of design and architecture students out there who are looking for some good practice (and adventure, why not?) between their graduation and their future career. They could certainly be useful to these middle class people I was talking about above. But the connection is not always easy to establish.

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A School that Lets You Exchange Stuff for Classes

Posted: Tuesday 23 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

This innovative idea for a night school comes from OurGoods, a peer-to-peer network where artists can barter of goods and services. This is already a cool idea, and now they have extended it to education. Trade School offers continuing education to students in exchange for items and services that the teacher wants or needs. So for example, if the teacher of a creative writing class would like to have more fresh local produce, a student who want to take the course could sign up to bring a basket of organic vegetables. The possibilities are endless, depending on what the students have and what the teacher needs.

The first classes started in January in New York, and you can read summaries and view photos of them here at OurGoods' blog. The course offerings are pretty diverse and interesting, the two classes today (Feb 23rd) are titled for example "How to Make Herbal Concentrates" and "Drawing for Pleasure and Relaxation", while tomorrow's are "How to raise $ for your creative projects on Kickstarter" and "PLAY: Improv for Ideation."

Bartering always comes into fashion during rough economic times, and this is a great application of it.

Tip: Iconoculture

Funny Business Idea: Travel Agency for Stuffed Animals Only

Posted: Monday 22 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

The idea of taking pictures of stuffed animals and toys in front of famous monuments has been around for a while, and was especially popularized by the kidnapped gnome in the film Amélie. But now someone has had the inspired idea to make a business out of it. Toy Traveling is a new business based in Prague, which offers a unique service for anyone around the world with a "darling" stuffed animal. You send the teddy bear to Prague by mail, and you'll get a photo album with the toy in front of various landmarks in the lovely Czech capital. The basic holiday package for your stuffed animal will cost you 90 euros.

While in these economic times one might think that it would be hard to find people willing to pay for a holiday for a stuffed animal, the man who came up with idea, Tomio Okamura, is optimistic, and insists on the seriousness of his enterprise: "There are about 1.2 billion toys in the world, and a lot of their owners like these toys very much, and they want to make them more happy. The owner of the toy will send his toy to one of four or five locations in Central Europe, and we will take photos of the toy in front of Prague Castle, Charles Bridge and the most famous sightseeing spots. Then we will put these photos on a CD, and send them and the toy back to the original country."

The site's most luxurious holiday package, going for 150 euros, includes massage an aromatherapy as well: "we will make massage on the mat next to Charles Bridge, with Prague Castle in the background. So we will put teddy bear on the mat, put candles around him, and take photos. So then his owner can say that his owner had a massage in Prague." You can check out the full interview here.

You can't say this isn't a creative idea. If you live in a major tourist destination, this is an business worth keeping an eye on, if it does well one could easily start up a similar operation in Paris, New York, London or just about anyplace that attracts visitors.

Find Green Hotspots near You, Now with Your iPhone

Posted: Wednesday 17 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

I don't know how I missed this one, but last year GreenMap was launched, which provides corwd-sourced maps of all the green stuff in cities all over the world. The idea is that using these green maps you quickly and easily find green products, businesses, services, events and more in whatever city you happen to be in at the moment. Everything is neatly plotted on a Google map, and things they find that are green and cool to be included.

Better still, GreenMap has just released a brand new iPhone App, that lets iPhone users access all this from their phone. Best of all, the app is free. For those who don't have an iPhone but another kind of smartphone, there is also a new, super easy-to-use mobile site. The app and the mobile website feature the "What's Green Nearby?" tool, which is described as "drawing from over 8800 sites contributed to the interactive Open Green Map sustainability mapping platform by local Green Map teams, this beta version delights users as it guides them to farmers markets, green buildings, gardens and heritage sites that help everyone make greener, healthier, low-impact choices."

As it's still only in beta, we can expect even better things in the future. Cool!

Tip: TreeHugger

A Website to Manage Your Charitable Donations

Posted: Tuesday 16 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

There are such a vast number of worthy causes to give to, what's a good Samaritan to do? For those who are interested in giving to multiple charities, but have difficulty finding the time to manage all their donations and relationships with various non-profits, Givv.org provides wants to provide a simple solution. The Texas-based site allows users to set a monthly budget that they can allocate to various charities of their choosing. Givv.org takes care of the actual distribution, collecting the donations to each charity into single payment. Thus users don't have direct relationships with a charity, and won't be on any mailing or calling lists as a result of a donation.

Those who use the site get to choose whether to make their list of charities public or not, and can submit new charities to be added to the site. Givv.org is, naturally, non-profit itself. This Idea seems so natural to me I am surprised it has taken this long for someone to realize it. Surely similar sites for different countries would be a good idea.

Tip: Springwise

Funny Business: Twitter for Your Dog

Posted: Monday 15 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

Twitter has quickly become one of the internet's principal social networks, where you can find everyone from hollywood stars to your local barmen sharing their life in 140 characters or less. So why not your dog as well? Toymaker Mattel has introduced "Puppy Tweets," a plastic tag equipped with a sound and motion sensor that attaches to a dog's collar and connects its USB receiver to your computer. You create a Twitter account for you pup and get live updates throughout the day of your dogs activities.

The tweets are, or course, pre-recorded, and are triggered by whatever the dog happens to be doing, running, barking, eating, etc. By the samples included in this article on CNN Money, the tweets seem to be of the extremely cutesy kind that only the most sentimental of dog lovers could stomach: "I finally caught that tail I've been chasing and...OOUUUCHH!", "Somedays it feels like my paw is permanently on the snooze button!" and "YAHOOOOOOO! Somedays you just gotta get your bark on."

Silly idea? I don't think so; it's a clever twist on social media, and no one has ever lost money overestimating people's fondness for their dogs. "Puppy Tweets capitalizes on two popular trends - the use of social media and real time communication, as well as peoples' extreme love for their dogs," said Susan Russo, Mattel's director of marketing. I think this is right on, and bet the Twitter dog collars will turn out to be a hit. Retailing at 29.99$, they'd make a great gift, if nothing else.

Tip: Cool Business Ideas

Market to Sell Things from Your Exes

Posted: Friday 12 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

As this Sunday is Valentine's Day and all, I wanted to share with you an appropriately themed business idea. I believe that the Market of Exes that is taking place in Milan today and tomorrow captures just the right spirit. Part of "Ex in the City" event, it is a flea market where people can sell the stuff their exes gave them that they don't want anymore. Though one must assume that we are primarily dealing with exes of a romantic nature, you can sell stuff at the market from any type of ex, "ex-friend," "ex-school," "ex-sports team", etc.

Entrance to the market is free for shoppers, while if you want to have space to sell stuff the cost is 20 euros for Friday and 35 for Saturday. For those of you in Milan, the hours are 16:00 to 22:00 in via G.B. Pergolesi. A perfect place for last minute Valentine's Day shopping, I'd say.

This is a lot of fun, but it also seems to me a good business idea to reproduce in other cities, especially around Valentine's Day. It would be relatively easy to organize such an event, you would just need to find an adequate space to rent, and calculate how much you would need to charge vendors in order to make a profit. The most difficult part would be promoting it, but since it is a creative and fun idea there will probably be a lot of people willing to do a quick story about it.

Tracking Things We Buy with Shopping Cartography

Posted: Thursday 11 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

Ok well this isn't exactly a business idea per se, but it's a pretty cool idea nonetheless, and deserves to be diffused. Traceability is becoming an increasingly important value for many consumers, and while I have seen it addressed by many technology-based services, using RFID for example, the Shopping Cartography Project proposes something a bit more charming an old fashion. They provide a world map designed to fit on your refridgerator, where you can put color codes stickers representing different types of purchases on the place where the item was produced. Green for food, yellow for clothing, blue for other consumer goods, and red for homemade or second hand things, which are placed around the edges of the map.

The idea is that, over time, the stickers will accumulate to give someone a picture of their consumption habits and patterns. The project is volunteer based, run with donation money, and entirely non-profit; maps can be ordered from the site or printied out online, you can even design your on map if you like. They also ask to share the maps with friends and colleagues.

I haven't printed one out myself yet, but I like the idea, because it's fun and friendly.