A Mass Experiment in Idea Generation

A couple of Sundays ago Barry Nalebuff and I published an article in Parade Magazine where we challenged people with the question “Do You Have a Better Idea?”. We’ve been flogging the idea for years now that it would be valuable to tap into people’s excess ingenuity to help solve problems big and small – and our idea site, whynot.net continues to draw interesting ideas. But Parade has a massive and somewhat less techie reader ship and it’s been fascinating to see what they have posted to the website. Here a list of over 400 comments. (Warning: It’s a little frustrating, because we couldn’t convince Parade to use the whynot software that lets people rank and search for ideas). A couple that I just love are:

You snooze, you lose

Problem: over sleeping Solution: SnuNLuz alarm clock that connects via WiFi to your online bank account, and donates YOUR real money to an organization you HATE when you decide to snooze. Check it out at here (joke product, but really possible solution!)

WRONG-WAY DRIVER ON INTERSTATE

PROBLEM: HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ARE KILLED EACH YEAR BY CONFUSED OR INTOXICATED DRIVERS WHO ENTER AN EXPRESSWAY VIA THE EXIT RAMP. THEY PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE "WRONG WAY" SIGN AND ARE SOON AT FULL SPEED CAREENING TOWARD DISASTER. BRIGHT IDEA: SOMETIMES THE SOLUTION IS SOMETHING THAT ALREADY EXISTS BUT IS USED IN A DIFFERENT APPLICATION. AT SOME CAR RENTAL LOTS, WHEN YOU ENTER THE RETURN VEHICLE LANE YOU MAY NOT NOTICE THE METAL GRATE YOU PASS OVER. BUT WHEN THE CAR THIEF TRIES TO PASS IT IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, METAL SPIKES POP UP AND SHREAD THE TIRES. THE SPIKES THEN RETRACT AND SECURITY IS NOTIFIED. PLACED ABOUT 20 FEET FROM THE END OF THE EXIT (SO THAT EXITING DRIVERS, WHO MUST BACK UP A BIT WHEN THEY HIT A RED LIGHT, WOULD NOT BE AFFECTED.