Million-Dollar Opportunities
Excerpt from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon
When you are tired and frustrated and you know that the hassles you are going through are unnecessary, instead of venting, try to come up with a solution. Every hassle you face is a million-dollar business opportunity.
Have you ever been sitting on a toilet in an airplane bathroom when the captain announced that turbulence was coming and everybody should fasten their seatbelts? Have you ever seen a seatbelt in an airplane bathroom? Why not?
At a baggage carousel in an airport, have you realized that your suitcase has been going round and round, and you could have left long ago if you had quickly identified it? I used to have a similar problem in large parking garages, forgetting where I had left my car and walking up and down hoping to spot it. Now that problem is solved with a button on my electronic key that triggers a beeping noise from my car. Why not do the same for a suitcase, generating a distinctive sound, perhaps even saying my name?
Have you ever been embarrassed overhearing personal matters or unseemly language at a nearby table in a restaurant? Or have you wanted to avoid having your conversation overheard by restaurant neighbors? At home, you might use a white-noise generator to mask sounds from your neighbor’s apartment. Why not have white-noise generators and partitions available in restaurants perhaps for a nominal fee?
Electronic ankle bracelets alert the police when the wearer goes outside the permitted area. For greater effectiveness in virtual imprisonment, why not add the ability to jam electronic signals, to prevent the wearer from using a cell phone or connecting to the Internet.
Devices are now available that can translate spoken speech and generate voice output, making it possible for people who speak different languages to converse. Why not develop a smartphone app that can recognize and interpret culture-specific body language?
Sometimes loading and unloading airline passengers takes 15–30 minutes, with everyone going in and out of one door. Large aircraft typically have a door at the back as well as the front, but only the front door gets connected to the movable passageway that leads to and from the terminal building. An airport that allowed two ways in and out instead of one could cut boarding/unboarding times, pleasing time-conscious passengers and allowing the airport to handle more flights with the same facilities.
Graffiti is everywhere. Removing it or painting over it is expensive and futile: new graffiti soon takes its place. Corporations could hire graffiti artists to embed corporate logos in their designs, and the artists would then police their own work.
Typically, at a Chinese or Japanese restaurant, you’re given chop sticks to eat your rice and your main course, and a plastic spoon for your soup. Why not make hollow chop sticks that can double as straws?
Imagine a parking meter that is also a charging station for electric cars. While you are parked, your car recharges. You pay for parking and also pay for the power. Wide-spread availability of such charging stations would increase the appeal of electric cars.
In double-blind studies, where both groups believe they are receiving an experimental medication, but one group is not, the group receiving the harmless substance typically shows measurable improvement, sometimes almost as much improvement as the people getting the real thing. Apparently, if we think we’ll get better, we do, or at least the symptoms subside. So why not sell a placebo pill? Label it and advertise it, making no clams that it is real medicine. Clearly indicate that this will not cure anything. But explain that it may provide fast relief for symptoms if you believe that it will give you relief.
Have you ever been late for work because the noise of your air conditioner masked the sound of your alarm clock? Why not build alarm clock features into air conditioners? When the designated time arrives, the air conditioner shuts off and the alarm sounds.
