Ask any ‘type of person’ ‘your question’ exchange plugin.

Forums always have been big. It the online enabler for platform communication. I tend to believe that all great things online started out as fora. When it succeeded to build communication and a community around it, the potential was huge. Off course the ask-answer platforms evolved over time. From obscure topical forums over blogs to the Quora‘s of today. I don’t think this idea is revolutionary but could work additionally to the existing question/answers communities with a separate business model.

When you have people with questions, they look for answers. What if you provide answers in case one doesn’t want to search. Or the question is too difficult to be found in the myriad of the web? Any person can just ask their question while paying two cents. Any person that answers the question, and its answer gets approved receives 1ct. One can cash out at 1 euro, use it to post their questions or change them into miles and more.

The challenge is in the profiling of the people so the API will plug into existing networks like LinkedIn. By positioning itself as a plugin (cfr. Disqus), it connects human knowledge and facilitates a human p2p network on top of existing networks and services.

 

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Platefinder.com: a reverse restaurant market place.

The concept is really simple. Restaurants share their menu’s and people can use the search of the site to find the exact dish they want to eat. Menu plate finder restaurant website is basically a reverse marketplace for food. So imagine you want a spaghetti bolognaise, lobster or eggs Benedicte, Platefinder tells you where you can go to eat it.

Facade facelift with walldecals for houses.

I don’t know if you know this but Belgium is a country with a lot ugly houses. Throughout the years everyone could do pretty much what he wanted with his house. And even today, this is still a reality where a myriad of styles are being planted at an alarming rate. When seeing all those ugly houses with their ugly facades, also old buildings in decay, i was thinking on how we could improve their sight at low cost.

Facade wall decals could be definitely a great option. I believe house owners, commercial entities and the government could drastically change the outlook of their houses, industrial buildings and even whole parts of a city. A wall decal can be made by anyone. You upload a picture of the house, add the exact measures of your facade and you create you own custom design via the wizard where you choose between existing templates or create one based on pictures you upload yourself. When done, you order the wall stickers in one go.

Wall decals can be placed by people themselves but the site also facilitates a partner network of professionals who are trained facade wall decal contractors. The practical side of things is something to investigate but I believe this is a really well thought out idea that could potentially disrupt the market of house facading.

Trusted animal farms and fokkers portal.

We’re bought three chickens but it was damn hard to find a good place to get them. I also remember researching a lot when we were considering a dog. There is no general portal available where you can find trusted animal farms and fokkers. It would be nice to have a single point of information where you can see who breeds animals and what the experience is with the animals they provide. This combined with an extensive database on the differences between breeds and tools to find the perfect animal match.

A certificate can be gained for the animal farmers when they have receive positive feedback from their clients. The revenue in this business model mostly comes from advertising but an e-shop with animal food and toys compliments the concept.

Ill, sick or just pretending.

A website with pictures where you can guess whether someone is ill, sick or just pretending. A bit like Fashion or Porn but with the different topic of wasted people.

P-Health service checks your health.

With all those products and services monitoring your health nowadays, people become obsessed with the state of their personal health. P-Health stands for personal health service. It’s a service that aggregates all product and service feeds (health data) you have and use, analyses its reports and gives you feedback on a regular basis. A dedicated team of doctors and coaches is at your disposal to answer any question and makes recommendations to improve your health status. It saves time and buys expertise you don’t have and no tool can ever give. The objective is better health, the goal for P-Health is to make it happen with you in a unique, personal way.

The business model is subscription fee based for the monitoring with personal chats and (training) programs on a consultancy basis.

iCard: a swiping e-wallet card

iCard is a piece of intelligent plastic which is basically a two-sided screen on which you can browse through the cards that you would normally carry in your wallet, such as your identity card, your driving license, your fuel card, your loyalty cards, your payment cards, library pass, etc. The iCard mimics the numbers on it and its functionality through NFC. No need for more than one card anymore, the iCard is everything you expect from it. Small, easy to use and cheap. The business model is 1ct per card activation and gets billed on a monthly basis.

Enhancing the Oculus Rift experience.

The Oculus company recently got acquired by Facebook, after it was one of the first giant Kickstarter crowdfunding successes. It a genius piece of hardware which opens the world to a whole new reality as a platform. But its main product, the Oculus Rift, is just to trick your eyes. What it lacks is an environment experience for the body. Therefor I hereby invent the Oculus moving mat, a round rubber mat in the form of a disk that works like a tank track but in a 360 degrees kinda way. This moving floor area anticipates your movement in space to enable you to physically participate in a dreamworld, sports game or action drama. At first, it comes with a suit filled with sensors that calculates your distance from the walls so the moving mat knows where you’re heading (or where you should be heading) at what speed, but over time you can equip your dedicated room with camera’s so the suit becomes obsolete.

I can imagine people reserving part of their homes for their escaping ventures in Oculus realities.

SweetWalls: get candy out of the wall.

Two friends of mine started a business ‘Zoet‘, an e-commerce venture in candy with a physical shop. It’s their dream as they both adore sweets and have good teeth 🙂

When I was younger, sweets were offered everywhere in those red candy machines at the exits of supermarkets, in shopping areas and other public places. When I was behaving really well, I could sometimes convince my parents to give me a dime and buy candy or a little, worthless present that they also held.

Today with so many people addicted to sugar, I want to jump right in and establish a chain of walls with high quality sweets pretty much everywhere. I believe that for each fitness a country counts, a sweet tooth wall makes sense. Compare it with croquettes walls in the Netherlands. With some retro branding and the accompanying smell of sweets, this will prove a hit again.

The O-chair; an all-in-one office chair.

With office space expensive in a lot of area’s and people working mostly as digital nomads space can be used more optimal.

A comfortable office chair with small tablet as desk, a hydraulic arm with a second (large) screen that can be deployed from the back, plugs for any device and electricity plugs under the seating that get powered by batteries in the wheels that are powered by floor contact or through an additional plug for supercharging reduces desk space with a factor between 3 and 5. Furthermore when equipped with a GPS, it can anticipate constant movement. By including your calendar appointments, you will move automatically to the meeting rooms in time, without being distracted from what you do and thus save productivity time. Over time, more intelligence could be build in so it analyzes everything you and your colleagues work on in real time so clusters of work will group people more logically on the floor. Adding the layer of wellness (massage buttons, media center,…) makes sure you never want to leave it again. Except when you feel the urge to spend a penny… 🙂

Square plastic bottles and cans.

It’s amazing how much space bottles and cans take up so today’s idea is to reduce the lost space that bottles and cans provide.

Square perfectly fitting bottles and cans uses optimal storage space. At the bottom there is a indent that fits the shoulder of the bottle or the can so the volume space is used for 100% (piling the bottles and cans) both in height as in width.

(Google) Talking Thoughts

Dunno whether Google is the right organisation for this idea but they’re certainly crazy enough to create it and put it in some kind of alpha experiment.

Talking Thoughts is an idea in which everything you say out loud gets recorded so you can make plans, resumés, to do lists, meeting minutes, appointments,… anytime, anywhere, on the go and on purpose, via voice commands (start now, last ten minutes,…). It can be build as an extension of current technologies such as google glass or the smartwatch, or it can be launched as a stand-alone connected device (pin, badge) that seamlessly works with a web service accessible via mobile and desktop.

The goal of Talking Thoughts is to facilitate thoughts into concrete actions by simply expressing them.

A Twitter feature: Read later to specific list functionality

Today, Twitter added a new feature to it great service; four photo’s to one tweet and tagging people (who than get a notification). It was Sofie Geyskens tweet that brought it to my attention and they seems also to be experimenting with a share functionality. But it’s not what I neccesarily want from twitter. The one I miss most is a simple read later to list functionality. I follow a lot of people who are sharing interesting content but I check twitter mostly on the go, meaning I don’t have much attention or time to read these interesting articles they post. Mostly, I favorite interesting content but I never go back to these to check them when I have more time…

The simple add to list functionality could be a fourth icon in the series of reply, retweet and favorite that opens a choice to add it to specific read later list.

So Twitter, follow me in this request, pleeeeaaaasse! 🙂

OpenOn dot com: What can I do now?

It’s a site in which, every service and shop listed its, opening hours define the query you want to execute. You can say what you are looking for, and based on location, date and time, it will give you an extensive list of everything that’s open. You can finetune your findings even further based on thematic categories (sports, kids, gifts, shopping, culture,…), location (travel time included), date and time ranges, etc. A nice extra feature is the planning modus in which you can create (holidays and day)plannings upfront.

iWILLvault.

What happens with your digital self after you die? It’s a very valid question. I have thousands of online services I use(d once) and I have no idea what will happen with those after I die. Therefor an idea that will solve that.

iWILLvault’s goal is to provide a safe haven for your will, all your online identities, services and passwords. In your will, you can state what needs to happen with this after you die. The service needs to be accessed periodically to remain active until the people you assigned your iWILLvault open will receive a message from you in heaven and can read what to do with everything when you’re dead.

An obvious partnership with lastpass or 1password can enlarge the potential of the iWILLvault service. There is a very small fee per month to keep on using the iWILLvault service.

Afterevents; a documentary series about the impact of events.

Inspired by the recent Olympics in Sochi and its consequences I thought of Afterevents, a documentary series about the true impact of events.

Every event has a lot of organising in itself. In this documentary series, it follows a whole region and its people in the months towards and after the actual event. I can’t get the idea out of my head that most effort is done upfront while only little attention is spent on the post era of an event. In this documentary series, a discours is being told about the region and its inhabitants (locals) where the event takes place. Ranging from political gatherings and protest marches, over music and sex festivals to large scale sportsevents, this documentary series tells their story and how they deal with the consequences of the event. Local political, economic and social story lines cross each other. The stress and expectations to make the event run smoothly versus the harsh reality of what happens after the event. Is it a hangover or a new dynamic for the region and its people? What with the organisers and temporary infrastructure? And so much more.

LinkedIn swiping app for recruiters.

Recruitment is big business. I invented a search&find plugin while I was working for Across that gave you the possible results of a combined query and all of its reciprocally relations (instead of direct results). The visual browser was intuitive, lightning fast, and the query was easily adjustable. Wim Deboel connected it through LinkedIn’s API. I would improve it nowadays by creating a B2B swiping app to explore candidates for recruiters to make recruiting a bit more fun:

• Swipe left – keep for further referencing and next.
• Swipe right –  to contact immediately and next. keep for further referencing but not the (job) skills I was looking for immediately.
• Swipe down – keep for further referencing but not the (job) skills I was looking for immediately.
• Swipe up – not to be included in next up queries.

You can find Mindtagger (that’s what it was called) by its (not so new and fresh but) current name Profeshion.

The Central School Library.

Every school of some scale has a library. It represents a big investment for schools and new books are limitedly acquired. This idea is about a centralization all school libraries in one place and make it available as a digital 3D library in which students can wander, discover books and reserve them. They can either choose to get the e-book or the physical one. The e-book is delivered immediately via download, the physical book is delivered the next day at school. 

The distribution center needs to be close to a daily school delivery service system, such as the food delivery, so a system of coopetition can be explored to deliver the books together with the food. 

Binocular glass.

It’s a simple binoculars with so much more app functionality. This concept high end binoculars offers google glass functionality, such animal recognition, Wikipedia & Google earth integration and several razor functionality including infrared vision, heat vision, night vision,…

Modular floor furniture.

I was thinking about the Ireland rocks my dad and sister showed me after they had visited some whisky farms. I find it fascinating how erosion got to make this one giant rock shape so beautifully.

This idea is a dedicated furniture concept for Quinze and Milan where one of my palls is currently working. It’s a moving floor structure like the piles of this rock which forms  the furniture you want. The material used should be firm, but soft (like QM Foam?) so it can the furnitures piles can form chairs, tables, sofa’s, a bar,… By rising from the floor, the elementary piles give support to each other.

With a dedicated app you can select what composition the room you want to have. A dining room? A living room? One living area can suddenly be turned in a different setup for multiple purposes. Also for events, a giant cube with top floor compositions is a guaranteed eyecatcher that everyone wants to visit.

I’d like to see this happen… So Bram, what are you waiting for? 😉

 

Skip to the next sequence: a video feature.

I sometimes (not very often) watch online movies on the YouTube‘s and Vimeo‘s of this world and there is one feature i’d like to add to them. It’s a function that makes me watch it faster. When I watch compilation movies of heavily edited commercials, sometimes I don’t want to wait for the next sequence, I want to skip to the next sequence in it. Especially for (almost -not- a) fail compilation, the duration of some sequences is just too long so I loose interest and skip to another movie. This would be solved if I could just skip the current sequence and the video resumes when a new sequence (camera point-of-view or edit change) is being identified.

Programmable paint.

My ‘Glow in the dark’ paint blogpost is one of the most popular on this blog. If you believe in WordPress statistics… But this blogpost will prove to be even better. 😉

Programmable paint is paint that puts a network of sensors on any surface so you can program its color. By adding it wall per wall, you can identify and create collections of programmable wall paint. But it can also be used on furniture. Turning a white rack to funky red and back to black, the possibilities are endless. If you like interior changes, try changing colors. You can use programmable paint pretty passively; program it once and leave if for years. But you can also use one of standard programs that changes the color during the day/night or to its place in the collection. A bit like the works of Pieter Vermeersch who creates emotion and sentiments by coloring rooms, such as I saw at ‘Happy Birthday, Galerie Perrotin’ at Museum Tripostal in Lille some time ago.

So whether you want it a piece of furniture in some bright or just sober color, a wall that behave to your quickly changing interior moods, programmable paint is the way forward.

This programmable paint can also be connected to a mindreader – a device that is connected to your head and transforms brain signals into wall or table colors that can be linked to the emotions you feel. Could be interesting in therapy to faster discover the sentiment of people or when applied in interrogations with suspects.

Conquer the beach: a marketing strategy

The idea is a simple as you just need to claim a part of the beach. By giving away printed towels, flipflops with footprints, parasols, …), you create such a visibility and positive vibe. I did it once doing it low-budget wen we were launching Simyo, a online and low-cost telecom alternative. The goal is to put your brand in a positive context (who’s not happy when at the beach?) and use pictures and video taken to further promote a summer campaign for a particular brand that want a sunny outlook.

WebSkinners.com

All those websites we use everyday are not always as nice to look at and to say the least, not so very easy to use. Although not as they could be. The idea of Website Skinners is to set up a website in which people can both add new web designs for common and less common used services. Ideally, websites with great webservices can and will be revamped when people think they’re better than the actual design.

Website skinners offers a website skin  for commons websites and webservices such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. People can choose between different lay-outs, minimal, selected or maximum functionality. Website skinners helps to improve the user interface and user experience of existing services.

Better Mornings coffee machine.

That feeling in the morning when you put on the coffee machine but it lacks beans so you first have to fill it up again. Or the water container needs a refill. Or just then, you have to empty the dripping coffee drops tank. It happens to everyone. These are things I don’t mind doing after having enjoyed some espresso’s, whether it is morning, afternoon or evening but only then.

The Better Mornings espresso machine gives you insight. It’s learning as you use the machine and it hints you when you can do best what, in counts of cups of coffee to optimize your morning ritual. How difficult can it be to add a simple display telling you in how many cups time you have to perform one of the actions you just don’t want to do in the morning?

Autowave: the automatic microwave.

Today, I only checked my twitter account once and this was the tweet I saw that gave me this idea. So thanks, Annick!

The automatic microwave is a microwave oven that scans and decides what needs to happen with its content. Whether it’s a cup of hot water or a bowl of soup, uncooked potatoes or a lamb shoulder, it exactly knows what to do with it, for how long, and the result is that it comes out perfectly hot, cooked or defrosted.

All ofcourse automatically, you don’t need to push a button for that. Also when you’re in front of the autowave, it doesn’t beep.

The intelligent motor helmet.

The intelligent motor helmet is a motorcycle helmet that has an earphone, microphone and a google glass-like visor that you can control with your voice and simple controls at the moto steering wheel. The first app i can think off is a clever GPS that boths combines itineraries planning, itineraries and speeding traps announcements. For the rest, it’s has some entertainment center functionality included (music, social media streams, …). I call it… the iHelmet. 🙂

Elevator Music Video Clip.

I was standing in the elevator towards the floor where I worked and I was singing, well humming in it. I thought immediately this would make a great music video. Both for singer-songwriters but also for bands. The scenario would be really straight-forward and simple. Someone walk in and holds still in front of the elevator. (S)He presses the button for the lift to arrive. (S)He looks around and sees something mixed with shots of the elevator shaft and what (s)he sees. The elevator arrives and (s)he steps in. There is no-one else in it. (S)He presses the top floor and starts wiggling, humming, singing, moving, dancing. It’s a long way and the only way is up. (S)He reaches the top floor, door opens, and the last repeat of the refrain or lyrics are sung well going outside, admiring a view on solitude, a city, a deserted place while walking the outro of the song.

For a traditional popsong, a ballad, an intimate hip hop or any other song this could work.

The eyes collections art project.

It’s been a while since I added an arts idea but it’s a long time favourite of me. I’m really intrigued by the eyes of people and by extension but those of animals. Everyone has different ones and they are always nice to dive into. My idea today is to set up a small portal to enable people to upload images of their and other eyes into and recycle them in various ways; in posters, in wall paper, in packaging, … All eyes are tagged with categories so you can make your own shuffled collections of eyes. Whether you want only gray ones, green ones or cat eyes, a mixture of exotic animals, or by locations, you create your own query and with the outcome you can order new products with these eyes collections.

Why?

• “The best stories are told with the eyes. You just need the patience and have to be willing to listen with your heart.”
• “The eyes are useless when the mind is blind.”
• “The eyes are window to the soul.”
• “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, said by Plato.
• “My eyes are an ocean in which my dreams are reflected.” ~Anna M. Uhlich
• “There is more than meets the eyes.”

 

 

Collaborative brands shop.

It’s a concept shop. A collaboration between two brands in which products that are created by different brands are being sold. It can be clothing, design, electronics, … Whatever really.

E-commerce window stores.

This idea is a very viable one. The business model is to invest in brick shops in both main shopping streets and upcoming districts and fill them with goods from e-commerce stores. The goal is to create a physical presence for small-knows e-shops, create exchange points to touch, feel and see goods. Online a portal site with these trusted e-shops will be made. It increases the trust in buying online due to the trusted certificate online and physical presence offline.

The money comes from monthly fees these e-shops pay to have a presence on the portal and in these brick and mortar shops. I actually thought about it when I was thinking about the pivoting options for ZOYOKO. But the upfront investment is way too big for me.

Sensorkeys.

With nanosensortechnology, the possibilities are endless. I was pondering whether it could be used in a home or office context and I see an opportunity in creating programmable keys with this technology. If they communicate with doorlocks, you should never use it anymore. Doors would automatically open when you’re near them. In addition to it, you could also have an app for your smartphone in which a control panel displays where your keys are at any moment and what locks are closed and open. In an office context, it could be connected to a time tracking tool and agenda. Any room could be fitted with extra sensors so the keys can also take into account time spend for lunch, toilet visits, smoking breaks, meeting times, etc.

The business model is both in providing the products and creating services around it. The marketing story could be built around convenience and safety.

Zin.in iets // Idlike.to something

2 url’s, 1 idea. One in Dutch, one in English. It’s some kind of (bullshit) generator of what you could potentially do. It acts as an inspiration trigger to actually do something when you’re bored. You can make a clear choice based on categories or sentiment, such as outside event or music or happy or … Why not sex?

Simple to market. Easy one off scoring opportunity.

The Squatting B&B Network: Guerilla hotels.

When I was younger, I always looked at punkers who were squatting buildings. I also visited some and some were quite nice. It had all the basics and the atmosphere there was unique. In Budapest you have the principle of Ruin Bars. Old, decayed buildings are transformed into community centers and bars. The best parties were to found there.

My idea today is to create a hotel network of guerrilla places to stay. You basically turn empty buildings and places into sleeping facilities with extra’s. You charge travellers for their stay and make money by offering extra services such as food, drinks and parties. Living adventurous for the B&B operators, adventurous lodging for travellers. Both will have an awesome time.

Testdrive-your-future-car.com

TYFC.com aim is straightforward. They connect car owners with potential car buyers. Basically it’s a collection of people who own cars and act as brand ambassador for car brands. They are willing voluntarily to share a testdrive with people who is willing to buy the same type of car. When somebody buys a car after arranging a testdrive via the website, both the car buyer and car lender, are giving a gift by the car manufacturer (car brand). The platform gets paid per connection made and gets in case of successful transactions a sales commission.

Simple, cool and handy, this peer-to-peer car test-drive community.

National color monday.

I am always amazed how many people wear black. It’s a depressing sight so I would vouch for this idea of a national color monday in which people are forbidden to come outside if they wear black. I choose a monday become it’s the most depressing day of the week by default and it is always awesome to see people wearing colorful clothes. It makes me happy when I see a couple of women walking past in bright outfits. I’m sure the same goes up for women who see men like that. Think of it as carnaval but without the costumes. Let’s make it happen!

Copyright embedded information for online files.

Someone must find a way to include copyright information in files. It’s just too damn difficult to know who is the rightful owner and whether a file can be (re-)used online or not. I always link on my blog to the original image I use (to illustrate an idea) so the origin of the image can be traced. I believe Creative Commons is a great initiative but the technology of meta data in files could use a launch a new revolution of ownership in the online context.  In addition to Creative Commons off course. 🙂

Rope connectors.

I was a scout once. For almost 3 years but it wasn’t something I really enjoyed. However the basic to knots is something I will never forgot. My idea today is one that resolves the problem of not knowing what knot  you need when tieing knots. I would like to introduce 2 new type of ropes. Ropes with magnets at the end to be reused and ropes with superglue at the end that connect by consequence of a chemical reaction.

Help at least one person a day.

This has been a very interesting day for me. I had insights on myself, who i am, what drives me, what makes my life worthy. My advice is one I practice every day. Try to  help at least one person a day. It’ll come back when you need it most. Share and talk to a lot of people. Sharing is caring.

Thank you, Tom, Kenneth, Eric, Sheila, Heidi, Luka, Annick.

Heated steering wheels in cars.

Only a small idea as I have to pick up my kids and I am already pretty tired. 🙂

It shouldn’t be an option because any car with a leather steer should have it. Just because it can be so cold and I not always have gloves in my car… The option to turn it on and off could be directly accesible on the steer.

Drugs boxes: what’s the upside?

It’s a legit question, I believe. Every time i’m ill, every time I take a drugs box out of our medicines cabinet, it seems that I always open it on the wrong side. That’s just what you don’t want on that particular moment. You’re miserable enough.

So a ‘What’s the upside?’ arrow indication like they do on courier packages should be obliged. You could state that for educational purposes (you cannot take drugs without reading the manual),  the upside always keeps the manual. First time user? Open the box from the upside. In other occasions, you would open the downside because that’s where you are. Or vice versa. Depending on what behavioral therapists and psychologists say.

Future of Food gastronomy trips: Meet the topchefs of the future.

“Nowhere in the world do they have more Michelin stars per square kilometer than in Belgium.”

A service site that has reserved tables in upcoming restaurants with top chefs (to be) and facilitates organised travel trips for super gastronomy experiences. Foreigners & foodies will be astonished by the power of food and drinks that upcoming chefs with their unbridled creativity and cooking techniques serve. This can be ordered by our e-commerce service site; It provides you with a detailled program, hospitality, transport, hotels, restaurant reservations,… We will also make sure you have a lot of suggestions for small walks, exhibitions visits, shopping, … for the time you’re not eating 😉

So you can leave your credit card at home. All is paid upfront so you don’t have to worry about a thing. Just enjoy the best food with the best chefs-to-be in the restaurants that form the future of the eating experience.

Just a grab out my new favourite restaurants for the future:

• Graanmarkt 13, Antwerpen
• L’Esco, Wetteren
• Vrijmoed, Gent
• J.E.F., Gent
• Eten bij Lieven, Brugge
• L’Air du temps, Namen
• …

RxC: recycled clothing brand

A brand that sells unique pieces of clothing by recycling fabrics and cloths of used clothes.  It reminds me of Ian Berry, the jean-iu-s who makes paintings from used jeans.

Fruit Fast Food.

I don’t eat fruits often. But I would if I could just get it in bitesize pieces, fresh and tasty. My idea today is a Fruit Fast Food chain, located near train stations, shopping areas, … With seasonal fruits and vegetables offered in menu’s or plain simple, the concept is easy to realize. An extra service would be that you can order your fruit and vegetables for home too. You get one menu on the go, you take the rest home. Fruit food is always underrated, until you eat it.

Where I work, i have the choice between a dozen of sandwich bars, real restaurants and shitty fast food. I would not go there daily, but if I could get hinted more often, I would definitely enter and get fresh fruit and vegetables for home.

Babyphone app.

We don’t have a babyphone. In fact, we had one, but we never used it. And it seems like we’re the only ones. Also today, we had visitors with children that needed to take a nap in the afternoon. When sitting outside, you don’t hear them waking up so the parents are anxious as they will not hear their baby cry when it wakes up. (The bedroom is upstairs at the other side of the house).

A babyphone app would solve the inconvenience quick and easy – I install the app on one of the available smartphones around and I’ll place it in the bedroom of where the child is sleeping. The app works with and without video. The other smartphone with (receiving) app works through push & sound notifications so one get alerted when the child is awake. The parent on the other hand can check in whenever (s)he wants and check  whether everything is ok at the other end.

I can imagine the stress levels would diminish gigantic ly as the parents involved that are less unease (with the situation having fun outside while their kid sleeps elsewhere). A great advantage is that distance isn’t a limited anymore. An internet connection suffice.

Lifehack of the day: don’t use your phone before xx am.

It’s simple. Your quality of life is diminished when using your (smart)phone prior to any other action in the morning. It screws up any routine you may have, in fact for most people it is the routine. And that’s a shame. I’m doing it for a week now. I do not touch my phone before 7am. That means I have a full hour before I get sucked in the trivia of social media and work. Yesterday, I only took my phone at 7.20am and then a second time at 8.25am. It a strange feeling. A feeling of relief.  I admit it’s hard at first. But it becomes easier by the day. I’ll try to keep this as my routine. The tea I take in the morning tastes better, watching my kids play or argue is just plain fun. I didn’t see it that clear… But now I do. 

How to start with this lifehack? Easy, set yourself a time before picking up your phone in the morning and stick to it. It may beep, vibrate, moan, whatever… It definitely leads to a more qualitative life. Enjoy!  

Improving the sustainable lifecycle: Label & Certification.

I am following a workshop series in how lifecycle thinking can be applied and this philosophy not only takes into account capitalist arguments but also sustainability as a whole. It you think about they end-to-end process of any service or product, you will be able to apply improvements along the way if you not only look at your part in the lifecycle but work together with suppliers, partners and customers in making a dent for the future. It makes you think  about raw materials, energy use, use of land, impact on the environment and health, climate change, eutrophication of the ground and the toxicity of used in the progress. They try to measure impact by touching base on all these different axis. They calculate a benchmark called functional unit. A gain is not calculated by comparing individual parts of a product or process but on volume and the gain on that volume. A benchmark is not to compare for instance a PET bottle with a glass bottle, It is to compare the usage of commercial drinking water in a restaurant for instance. Context is also very important.

It’s not a new movement in thinking. It has been around for twenty years or even more. With ups and down people try to do business in a sustainable way. But now, since the rise of the ‘green’ and ‘clean’ energy industry, it became top of mind of both customers and entrepreneurs as it gives them an extra edge, a competitive advantage.
It is more a philosophy than a science, although some instances try to treat it like a science… But with all things that are measured in a philosophy, the truth of finding a benchmark number is pretty far fledged as with numbers you can proof pretty much everything and you can certainly find meaning and value. That’s what it’s all about. Emotion defines how far you run with the ideology.

One example was someone who did in coatings. Because he works with small quantities only, he loses about 50% of this powder. If he could collect that powder and reuse the same power as a raw material instead of throwing it away, he can buy less to start with, he doesn’t need to bear the cost of the waste, … Although the cost is too low today to recycle, it made him think. If he applies a solution for it in which he recuperated 95% of the powder, and took his time frame broader than 1 year, this isn’t such a crazy idea to apply. He would definitely win most on raw materials, but also on the part that comes from the waste business and has an impact on our environment, etc.

Therefore, my idea today is to create an international sustainability label and certification. One in which companies should show that a percentage of their business revenue and/or profit is used to analyse, evaluate and make modifications to the lifecycle of the product or service they are involved in.
This certification could have different levels in which investing in the knowledge (set benchmark) gets you the lowest level of certification, a percentage of the budget spent on improving the benchmark gets you to the second level of certification. A third, and highest level, of certification can be acquired if you actively improve the lifecycle 360 degrees, meaning you don’t only look at your own impact but on the lifecycle as a whole.

The business model for something like this? The label needs to be renewed yearly, certifications should be renewed yearly, a ‘certified partner’ membership network could be created, …

There is no competition in this market yet. So the first who runs with this idea, wins the market.

Solvable chewing gum.

No matter where you look, you see gum. If you walk the sidewalk, cross a market place or just stand in line at a bus stop, chewing gum is sticking to the ground everywhere.  It makes the environment look less nice. The white, over gray to black spots on the pavement… It’s a real garbage problem and tt doesn’t go away in a couple weeks, gum only resolves after at least 25 years.

My idea would be to invest research time in finding a way to automatically solve chewing gum when consumed. There must be a way to find a substance that increase the resolve time of chewing gum drastically. A molecule that is activated by saliva perhaps? Or by air?

The way to earn money is simple, get the ip on it and convince governments to force chewing gum manufacturers to use it.

‘A life long’-documentary series about disabled people.

The concept of the documentary series ‘A life long’ is to follow all kind of people in all age ranges that have the same disability. The documentary follows them in how they handle key turning points in life. The goals is to give an insight in how well people adapt to their disability. ‘A life long’ can be shot around topics such as; blind people, deaf people, amputated people, ADHD people, La Tourette people, …

Ailurl, give e-mail wings.

Ailurl solves e-mail clutter. Ailurl is a technique in that indexes e-mail and creates a unique ailurl per e-mail that you can use to refer to. It can be used privately and publicly. You can use an ailurl in individual mails or as public links to e-mail messages. You can bundle ailurls to labels or create custom list of ailurl’s so you can organise your conversations better.

When e-mails are send to teams, you get diffused answers. It happens so many times that one refers to another mail that was send. It just needs a better organisation. Ailurl works with piles where you can direct your messages to.  If the world would start using ailurl, we will not waste time using e-mail but make it more efficient. E-mail is not something of the past.

Open up e-mail. Go public. Give e-mail wings. Make your mailbox swing. With Ailurl, your email indexed.

The business model: Sell to Google.