Category Archives: Ideas

lost opportunities

February 14, 2014 6:51 AM , 2 Comments ,

I know what you say when an idea is so obvious that you’re stunned that you didn’t implement it.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”.  

But what do you say when you did have that idea and had to watch it take off without you due to other people’s short-sighted vision?

Let’s go back to the mid to late 90s.  I’m working at a small consultancy that mainly did support work for the big oil companies.  We used satellite images to create geological maps for exploration projects overseas.  But satellite maps have various other applications such as agriculture, forestry, and city planning.  My supervisor was interested in the last.  He had contacts up in the city planning department and he had an idea.

We could use satellite images and the power of GIS (geographic information systems) to create online maps that would be used to catalog every feature on every property that the city owned and be able to serve it up over the web.  We decided on a small park just south of downtown as our pilot project.

Emancipation park is a large pretty park with baseball fields, a pool, and plenty of green space.  My supervisor and I spent an entire day with GPS units, a primitive digital camera, and lots of notepads to take measurements and record everything about the park.

Back at the office we took a satellite image and put it into the GIS and laboriously outlined the baseball fields, the pool, the playground, the sidewalks, the buildings, in short everything about the park.  Next we coded every feature we could think of and made large cross referenced databases.

Now came the bit that was exclusively my own.  I was no web designer or guru but I was a good second rater and had hand coded and designed the company website.  I added the satellite image of the map and coded regions inside the image to correspond to various web pages that would display information about various features in the park.  Everything from land use statistics to pictures to contact numbers.  Theoretically, a park superintendent could call up every piece of information he needed online.  My supervisor and I played with the website for hours, trying every feature and adding improvements here and there.  We amazed ourselves at how well it worked.

We loaded it onto a laptop and took it to a meeting with the Houston parks official my supervisor knew.  We explained the idea thoroughly and let him play with the website on the laptop.  He kept on going back to the statistics page and exclaimed “this is exactly what I need”

We thought we had him sold.  But as it turned out he was referring to the statistics.  He said that they were always looking for statistics to turn over to city council.  What he wanted was a nice thick binder of data to present to the council for budget time.  As for the website?  No thanks.  Too fancy and complicated for him.  It would never catch on he said.

So we had a very long and quiet drive back to the office.  The company owner said it had been a waste of time to try this project and we shelved it and went back to serving only oil customers.

But I kept at it.  I would tweak and poke at it in my spare time as best as I could without any formal coding education and without the benefit of the expensive GIS programs.

2002.  The company had folded and I was out on my own, trying to scare up consultancy work here and there.  I had secured a copy of the website we had made and got permission to use it as my own.  I pleaded and begged and got another appointment at the planning department and presented the website.  Again it fell flat.  But for different reasons this time.  The official I met typed in his own website and brought up the planning department’s new internal web-based site.

Time had not only caught up but passed me by.  It was all that we had made and more.

Today you can pull out any smartphone or tablet and bring up detailed maps that will find pizza places near you, calculate routes to get where you need to go, and even call ahead to make reservations.

I don’t claim to be the originator of any of these.  Many companies and individuals were working along parallel lines back in the 90’s.  But I do have to wonder what we could have accomplished if we had persisted a little longer or if we could have made that first sale.

Posted in: business, ideas, internet

Omens and symbols

December 16, 2013 9:03 PM , Leave a Comment ,

I suppose that in some ways I am superstitious.  But only because these things really happen to me.

I’m a precog, someone who can see into the future, but like most precogs it’s a fairly useless power and not at all reliable.  I will get an image in my mind.  Something pops up for no reason at all.  No trigger mechanism, no casual mention by anyone, just appears in my head.  Within a week an event relating to that image will occur.

In the past this mostly this took the form of predicting TV show reruns.  I would see a scene or character from a TV show and sure enough within a week, there’s the episode.  Now that I have for the most part abandoned TV watching this type of precognition has for the most part faded.

Now it takes the form of omens in my life.  Good example, this week.  I thought about my car’s extended warranty less than a week ago.  No reason at all.  My car’s in the shop right now for transmission work.  Hopefully the warranty will cover it.

Not at all a useful power.  It’s hard to sift between the real omens and the random thoughts and it’s not something that can be accessed at will.  I’ve discussed this phenomena with some of my more philosophically and metaphysically minded friends and acquaintances.  Their thinking points mainly to the writings of Jung and his concept of synchronicity and meaningful causality.  That these are not just random events but an expression of some sort of deeper organized pattern.  I just try to ignore it as best as possible.

Symbols are another matter.  I suppose they’re an expression of those things in life that I’ve come to sort internally as good/bad, better/worse, positive/negative.  They can range from the rather inane and pedestrian to esoteric and deeply personal.

Take some of the more banal symbols out there.  Coca cola for instance, not the drink but the logo, the colors, the font.  Comparing that to the Pepsi symbol.  When I was growing up the Coke symbol was good and Pepsi was bad just based on the logos.  Bizarre I know but that’s how a kid thinks.  My universe was sorted along strict lines and things like coke and pepsi were well and truly separated by an unbridgeable gap.  Of course now that I am free from my cola and fructose addictions I see all of these as “bad” symbols.

Over time I have added and disregarded symbols as time passed and as situations changed.  As much as I try to disregard these symbols and keep an open mind about things I find that they do sneak in and flavor my thinking about some things.  All I can do is to try to remain vigilant and keep my mind as open as possible.

 

 

Posted in: ideas, life in general, myths, psychology, thought

Withdrawing or engaging life

December 10, 2013 7:50 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It’s easy to get disheartened these days.  We hear so much bad news coming at us from every angle that I don’t wonder when people tell me that they’re distressed or depressed.

It seems that we can’t trust our government or big business.  They seem to be out to spy on you or “get you” and many of the institutions that we have come to rely upon seem to be turning against us in every conceivable way.  If they’re not turning against us they seem to be failing and disappointing us.

One solution is of course to pull into ourselves like turtles and try to block out the world as much as possible.  We can throw up our arms in despair and say that there’s nothing to be done and we have no choice in the matter.  We might as well just go along with whatever life has in store for us.  It’s a very seductive path in that you don’t have to expend any effort to follow this path and you get a moderate reward for following along dutifully.  Not everything that you want but at least enough or almost enough.

The other path is much harder of course.  You can choose to engage life and try to shape it in the ways that you want it to go.  You can look at the inequities of life and try to redress the balance in your favor.  You can plan and work towards that economic status that you want by seizing every opportunity and not squandering your resources on petty things.  You can affect change by supporting those causes that you believe in.  You can talk and try to persuade people to your point of view.

It’s a much tougher path to follow and it doesn’t always lead to success.  Indeed you stand a decent chance of failing if you follow that course.  But let me ask you, even if you fail don’t you think that this is going to be a more interesting path to follow?

Would you rather be bored out of your mind waiting for something to be handed to you, waiting for life to happen to you at its own pace or would you rather go out and make life happen?  Find out how things work, how those people who you read about in newspapers, magazines, and on websites make their lives into what they want them to be.

Which type of life would you rather have?

Posted in: future, ideas, life in general, motivation, thought

Creatives

November 20, 2013 8:49 PM , 2 Comments ,

I’ve been on a bit of a culture kick this year.

Going to art galleries, live theater, listening to new types of music, going to book readings and just really getting to know more about this world.

It’s not just the art work that draws me in but the people who created the works themselves.  I find it fascinating to learn about these creative people and how they came up with their ideas.  Mostly I love to hear about how they decided to share those gifts one day with the public and tell everyone ” Here I am!”

I can’t even fathom how that works.  To take something that was so private and so innate to yourself and think “yes, this is great and I must share it”.  I don’t know if I could do that.  So naturally I look up to artists.

I am also amazed at their levels of talent.  When you think of the amount of time and dedication put into these art works.

Simply amazing!

Posted in: art, ideas, talking, thought

into it

October 27, 2013 7:03 PM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve never been a fan of….well several things.

Math, that’s a good example.  I could, by pushing myself, extend into the realms of higher math but I never really got into it.  My problem solving skills in math are formulaic at best and I don’t have an intuitive feel for it.  As I recall my last dalliance with higher math gave me a headache back in college.

Music.  Playing I mean not listening.  I was lucky enough to go to an elementary school where music instruction was compulsory.  However that doesn’t mean I was ever any good at it.  Which is odd because I really wish that I was good at some instrument, and although I knew the keys and I could work the instrument my music always sounded mechanical and forced.  I was never able to make it flow forth as it should,

Of course there’s more examples that I could go on about but I think you get the picture.

It’s usually the way of things that if we don’t or aren’t able to commit to something that your efforts will be less than satisfactory or just plain terrible.  It’s not that I find these things difficult to do or that I don’t understand them.  I believe some mental block prevents me from doing these things the way that they should be done.  I find it irritating that I can’t.

And it’s not just skills but interests as well.  Some interests that I know I should like I can’t really get into and it’s worrisome to me that I don’t like these things while friends might.  I suppose it’s the same for friends when I go on and on about some sci-fi topic or book or tv show and they’re doing their level best not to keel over from boredom.

In some things I have to accept that I will never be that good at or be really interested in.  In others I think it’s just a matter of being exposed to it long enough to develop the skills or interests.

What’s the thing that you would like to be good at or would like to be more interested in?

Posted in: ideas, life in general, motivation

the current and future driver of the economy

September 15, 2013 8:36 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Ideas.

No big surprise.  But the way that these ideas are being served up in the present and near future is changing.  Traditionally ideas (whether they were inventions, concepts, music, games, whatever) were served up to the public by big bulky corporate structures that could market, distribute, and sell these to a wide audience.

The advent of the internet economy has changed the rules.  You can now literally take something from your mind and put it out there for the public at large to buy or support directly without the filters of the corporations getting in the way.

This poses unique opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs.

Opportunities:

Profit

This would allow a severe redistribution of the profits from grossly favoring corporations to totally favoring artists.  Something that those in the music industry have wanted for a long time.

Creative license

Too often it is that when someone with an idea goes to a corporation that they not only “tweek” the idea to suit some corporate requirement but they may actually change the total intent and purpose of the idea.

Distribution control

Corporations need to make profit on all their product lines.  Often they will bundle bad products with good ones to try to make money on all that they make.  With distribution control you get the right to sell your own product individually.

 

Challenges

Marketing and advertising

The thing that corporations bring to the table is their support abilities.  In particular they can research potential markets and craft advertising campaigns to help promote the product.  Not something that an individual can do easily.

legal challenges

Whether its patent infringement or researching copyright laws.  Again something big corporations can easily do that individuals cannot.

 

I think the biggest challenge in the future information economy is simply finding ideas to present to the public.  The people with the ideas need to wake up and begin moving onto the internet stage to make themselves heard.  Collectives of artists, designers, inventors need to form to band together to be able to present their ideas to the public on an equal footing with the corporations.

Posted in: business, future, ideas

taking a stand or moving out of the way

August 16, 2013 9:41 PM , Leave a Comment ,

“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;” – If by Rudyard Kipling

“If” is one of my favorite poems.  Just as Star Wars fans memorize, scrutinize and find inspiration in every piece of the movie franchise, I find inspiration for a variety of things in my life in these lines.  In particular for this topic I refer to the above line.

I’ve been reading over some of my work correspondence and have been detecting a disappointing pattern in my emails and proposals.  For the last few years I have been somewhat tentative and unsure in my quotations and proposals.  I will use phrases like “one of the better” or “almost without equal” when describing our company products and services.  Not the most reassuring words to describe our products and services.

Part of the reason is that I despise over promising and over selling things. Another part of the reason is that I am naturally modest and do not like bragging.  Whatever the cause I have to look at what type of impression it leaves on potential clients.  People that want quality and the best that they can get when spending their money.

I have to be more assertive in my statements.  Not just in sales but in my life in general.  I am not a teenager or even a rookie technician just out of college.  I need to step up more and give a better account of myself and put more confidence in my voice.  Whether that voice is on a written page or in person.

For far too long I’ve allowed things to develop at their own pace and let them affect me as they will.  Time to make things develop at my pace and affect me as I want them to.

 

 

Posted in: ideas, life in general

Cross cultural inspiration

July 5, 2013 5:26 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Rolling Stones performing country music

A few weeks back I posted about cross pollination

People from different disciplines, walks of life, and viewpoints coming together and inspiring each other to come up with totally new ideas.

Slightly less important but more common is the practice of people from similar fields studying the work of others.  This is very common in music.  Much more common than fans or even the performers like to admit.  The Rolling Stones playing a Waylon Jennings tune is odd but I’ve heard similar stories out there.  Sean Combs “Puff Daddy” admitted that he sometimes listened to Johnny Cash.  In the Beatles songs “Eleanor Rigby” and “All you need is love” have classical music elements thrown in throughout the songs.

This is harder to find outside of music but there have been some cross genre writers and of course some painters and sculptors that have progressed from one school to another during their careers.  Something about those other schools of thought that inspired and made them want to try other things than what they had previously done.

I think that’s when you can tell that an artist or performer is really worth listening to or admiring.  When they take the time to study and appreciate not just their own genre but look further afield to other genres and either apply what they’ve learned to create something new or enter that genre themselves to compete outside their comfort zone.

Have you ever considered stepping out of the familiar and friendly into unknown territories?

 

Posted in: art, ideas

Original ideas

June 11, 2013 8:19 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Some spoilers about the latest Star Trek movie.  You have been warned.

 

 

A few weeks ago I was at the latest Star Trek movie.  This new movie takes an alternate Universe view of the original Star Trek series and creates its own timeline.  Captain Kirk’s main nemesis, Khan, returns and almost destroys him.  In what seems to me to be the ultimate lazy movie writing move, they take a classic scene from “Star Trek 2: The wrath of khan” and reverse it.  Making Captain Kirk to be the one sacrificing his life while Spock looks on helplessly.

Hollywood and the entertainment industry is rife with “re-imaginings”, “re-launches”, and homages.  Battlestar Galactica came back a few years ago in some ways improved but mostly it was not as good as the original.  Doctor Who was relaunched and although it has held up well, I don’t like the fact that they seem to be focusing less on the writing and more on the likeability of the actors.  In music a few years ago, Kid Rock took the classic Lynyrd Skynyrd ballad “sweet home Alabama” and incorporated it into his own song.  This year the rapper Pitbull and Christina Aguilera did the same with elements from the 80’s hit “Take on me” by A Ha

Are there no original ideas left?

Well yes, plenty actually.  But you won’t find them in the mainstream conventional media or big websites.  You have to go out along the edges to find them.  Eventually if enough people listen then the media bigwigs will try to exploit and market these ideas but it takes a lot to make them move.

Comics, once the purview of nerds, made a huge splash back the 1990’s.  This opened up a wealth of new materials to share with the general public.  But even here we see a dearth of originality.  Both Superman and Spiderman have each been “relaunched” at least 3 times in the last thirty years.  The special effects of course are better each time but does that alone justify these relaunches?

In some ways these relaunches make things worse.  Negotiations allow the studios to alter the intellectual property to suit their needs.  Director Michael Bay has been widely criticized for his Transformers series.  Some say all he added were more explosions.  Last year he was named Director for a relaunch of the “Teenage mutant ninja turtles” (TMNT) movie.  A small insurrection broke out among fans when it was learned that he planned to change the origins of TMNT and make them into space aliens.  Production on the movie shut down almost immediately.  A contrite Bay spoke out and assured everyone that this was not going to happen.

My belief is that we constantly need to hear new ideas, concepts, stories, and songs.  New ideas make the mind stretch, grow, and evolve in ways that we can’t predict.  This should be something shared by all people.  I don’t dispute that some things are classics and are worth revisiting.  But we need to go out and find new things for our minds to ponder.

Posted in: ideas, pop culture