Five years ago, I started logging ideas and observations in OneNote around pain points/sources of friction/other ideas related to things I’ve read/listened to in business models, customer experiences, technologies, process, civic engagement, and physical products. I’ve now compiled more than 100 concepts in my “Life Ideas” tab. When I first started doing this, I noticed they quickly bred.
Powered by an abundance mindset, one of my core values is sharing prolifically.
I am not going to take action on most of these, so why not share them, in case they spark something beneficial in the world?
A couple of them died on the vine in a research phase:
- Explore my thoughts around reinventing K-12 public education that started as a concept to integrate curated online and in-person learning experiences for digital nomad families
- A coding school for kids on wheels
And many more live on only in my personal notebook, never to see the light of day until now.
So, in no particular order, I present you with some Life Ideas, some of which likely did or now already exist. Some one-liners and some more developed…some good and some terrible…
Table of Contents
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Business
- Family airport lounge
- Hang out space
- Healthy snacks
- Healthy learning toys
- Laundry
- Concierge
- Car seats
- Local art
- Local artisans
- Yoga/meditation space
- Drop-in massage with childcare
- Led by educator
- Tech connections
- Wireless and loaner iPads
- Bathrooms with showers
- Membership-based with drop-in passes
- Network across major international airports
- Connect with children’s museums/attractions
- Nursing lounges
- Partner with TSA Pre-Check
- Storytelling app
- Parent narrated e-books
- Choose your own adventure with drag and drop items
- Custom photo-based character for up-charge
- Print pages for up-charge
- Narrated e-photo albums
- Parents and kids to create stories together
- Visual Storycorps for families
- Conformity Suit clothing line for the hidden hipsters embedded in corporations
- Hairbus – on demand styling in a restored VW bus
- Musicians on demand
- Bar truck, on-demand liquor delivery
- Pop-up restaurant/lunch cart at co-working spaces
- Donut delivery
- Donut bus on demand
- Startup fantasy camp – week-long camp to help shift corporate thinking
- Help corporations run their own hackathons
- Startup Motel
- Turn local motels closed for the winter into live/work incubators for startups in tourism/hospitality/cannabis/outdoor recreation => founders-in-residence program
- Live/work/sell spaces for artists and startups
- Café on site
- Community hub
- Classes
- PLAY | A Creativity Space
- Where grownups go to be creative and let their guards down, a mobile truck, available on-demand to visit various locations
- Mobile play lab
- Vice | Coffee, Chocolate, Cannabis
- Recruiting company focusing on neuro-diverse candidates
- Morning Pages journal (see Julia Cameron’s work) and pen/ink subscription service – eco-friendly lines – find the perfect notebook and smooth writing
- Ladies Who CTO – contract/fractional CTOs to get startups going
Product
- Post-It notes die-cut in the shape of process flow steps (for Business Analysts and other facilitators)
- Nerf-shaped natural pellets – shoot wildflower seeds out into a field
- What other natural things might be shot from a Nerf gun?
- Algorithm-created jewelry
- Plug in materials, themes, inspiration
- Generate model
- Data-informed jewelry
- Art to Die For – reinvent the death and legacy experience
- Inventive sculptures in place of boring gravestones
- Meeting/networking shakeup cards/activity => “social training wheels”
- Networking activities in a box friendly to introverts
- Physical product meant to engage people as an alternative to open mingling
- Worry journal for kids
- Like a dream catcher, keep the worries contained
- See worry dolls/stones
- Drawing exercises
- Mindfulness exercises
- Coloring
- Poetry
- Make a game to capture the worry monster and turn it into an ally not an enemy
- Code lessons for adults, just like you’d take piano lessons
- Weekly exercises
- “Codeching”
- For those interested in learning to code for whom online classes aren’t working and can’t commit to full-on bootcamp
Tech
- Gas station app that stores payment, receipt, car wash preferences- swipe phone at beginning
- Product naming app/algorithm => plug in attributes and it creates a name for you- hits translation databases to create unique word
- Name scanner – make sure your name ideas aren’t something explicit/offensive in another language
- Enter lists of words. Tool combines them and checks to see if the .com is available
- Family Tripper
- Answer short survey about dates, interests, budget and receive customized itinerary- click book and have reservations made for you
- Algorithm that plans stops, fill-ups, meals, hotels
- Recycling sensors at sorting facilities that detect materials and auto-route to appropriate place
- App that scans legal jargon to determine if there is anything you should be concerned about
- Crowdsourced info about final car prices
- RFID stickers for skis/snowboards/bikes – map routes to turn into art and theft-prevention – register your gear and when taking to a pro shop, verify ownership
- App that disables all apps and turns your smart phone into a dumb phone
- Digital detox app
- Social impact business marketplace
- Interactive dance floor – sensors underneath that track and display movement on a large screen real-time
- Festival tracker art – track collective movement around an event to create a canvas art piece
- Startup Accelerator rating engine
- A way to measure the environmental impact of a software application/product
- Product rating system
- Tools that evaluate environmental impact of compute power
- Plugin, dashboard…
- Buy products, choose shipping method based on environmental impact
- Select a recipe and have all the items for it appear in grocery shopping cart online
- Airport scavenger hunt for kids and adults
- Collect anonymous consulting rates – billable vs. actual pay
- Layer What3Words data on top of native lands data
- Plug in your What3Words location and learn about native lands
- Freelancer support marketplace
- One-stop shop for templates, invoices, receiving payments, legal guidance, other useful content, insurance options…
- Help people run successful, integrated freelance businesses
- Where do freelancers go for support now?
- How might I bring daily mantras/intentions and beautiful code together?
- Virtual mala stringing app
- Multi-media meditation tool
- Daily mantra/manifestation/intention
- Helping small businesses to comply with privacy regulations
- Privacy management systems/templates
- Open-source for small biz
- Consolidated app or resource for little known Veteran’s benefits
- Social impact technology incubator/accelerator
- I developed a pitch deck around this one based on spinning up a new practice area within an existing technology consulting firm (removed branding for ease of re-use)
- Please feel free to download and amend and attribute, where appropriate
Content
- Dear Boss – curated anonymous letters you always wanted to send, but didn’t
- A toolkit for how to drive DE&I conversations forward with your manager/company leadership
- Similar to reading angry tweets out loud, read error messages from software programs that are supposed to be friendly to business users
- Life lessons from kid TV
- Be a friend to make a friend. Barbie
- What kind of elf do you want to be? Saving Santa
- Big (movie) and how unconventional attitudes/ideas are squashed
- (Find Your) Purpose Canvas
Civic
- Helping citizens to become more literate around tech policy and helping government officials to know what they need to know about tech – Tech policy 101
- Gov’t crowdsourcing/idea platform to solicit solutions to big problems from ordinary citizens- i.e., budget
- Small town innovation incubator/accelerator
- Invite startups based on nearby industry
- Get equity
- Provide funding and infrastructure
Fintech/Insurance
- Partner with university financial aid organizations to develop a product for recent grads- investment product to pay off student loans and provide life insurance
- Discounted student loan interest rate bundled with term life policy and lender as primary beneficiary
- Create a hip and modern financial services/insurance company
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- Brokerage firm that makes insurance sexy
- Sleek Apple store approach
- Modern pod kiosks, smart phone blood analysis
- Coffee bar
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- Visual human body representation to identify history of medical conditions instead of lengthy question process when applying for life insurance
- http://www.bodylabs.com/bodykit.html (inspiration – no longer active site)
- Identify part of the body (heart, lungs, kidneys, etc.)
- See pop up list of most common/serious medical conditions for each body part
- Drag different icons into your scene to build your history – make it creative experience, graphic, game-like
- What are highest level pieces of information that could be good enough indication for a fully underwritten quote?
- Lifesquare (no longer active) allowed QR code with health history to be scanned – could something similar be done for estate planning?
- Socially-responsible investment engine/wizard
- Pick the areas one wants to avoid – tobacco, firearms, oil…
- Get suggestions
- Make investments
- Monitor investments
Process and Tools
For ideas that spark enough pain or passion, my next step in the process is often to jump into a Lean Canvas and set up a Trello board. This public board is available for copy and reuse (instructions within the board itself).
When trying to come up with names, sometimes I’ll make a mind map on paper and lists of words to start combining. “Worst possible idea” brainstorming can also be a fun and novel technique to test out.
Ideas-as-a-Service
If you need help brainstorming for an interesting, impact-focused initiative (education, healthcare, social justice, sustainability, DEI), let’s talk.
Icons via The Noun Project.
Photo by Finn Hackshaw on Unsplash.
