ignire

Four ideations I can't post and one that isn't ready yet!

So I told myself that I will never post any bicycle related business ideas even if they are not related to my current employer and I am sticking to that.  However I can say that I had four great business ideations today. The catalysts: getting my old bike ready to ride, setting up the burley trailer for my son, riding to brunch at Eldorado Grill, locking up Pooh Bear with the bikes and trailer and riding home much later after a most excellent brunch on the side porch.  It's true, that's all you get! Nothing more than a few key go-by-bike activities.  Those four secret ideas go to my peeps at the grand ole bicycle company.

-now the business ideation that isn't ready yet:

I was thinking about how important avatar's [with real photo's] are to personalization and trust esp in the age of LinkedIn and Facebook. The idea that I can befriend a person through online debate and then end up in their rental car, hitching a ride to Logan, fresh off the end of a conference in the great state of RI is pretty amazing and crazy really.  All that and I had never met the person in the living flesh and somehow was able to pick them out of the conference haystack, say hello and make a create personal connection...plus hitch a free ride 45 miles north!  Now I will stress point this rather bluntly, ALL this happened because of the personal photo/avatar feature.

If that person had used an apple as their icon it would have been no dice for meeting.  Same for those goofy anima avatars. I am all for people expressing their alter egos but it doesn't do much for their favor if their avatar has a mohawk, nose rings, blue skin and tattoo's on their cheeks but in reality that person looks like your everyday average braided leather belt wearing sales schmuck. (you know the guy, in 1997he'd also have a pager or nokia phone strapped to his belt tucked neatly below his gut fat roll)

You get my point, avatars and little images of yourself really matter. They say a lot about who you are, what you represent but more importantly they help people see what you actually look like! In the chance setting you sit down next to a VC and realize they are someone you enjoy following/reading and discussing with you will be better prepared to recognize they are "that person."  And how simple is that, right?!

Now, for real I can't finish this post because I need one photograph. This photograph will be so powerful that you will probably blink-shake_head-open_mouth like the "whaahhzatt!" messenger emoticon. It is a photograph that taught me the power of personalization, the importance of knowing ones audience and the brillianceof the Familiar.  Honestly I texted my sister and asked her to ask my Dad if he had a copy of this photo...somewhere, anywhere! [note they live in Maine, not Wisconsin so I couldn't just drive over and start digging through old dusty boxes]  I asked for any image of this photo, an SMS/MMS quality pic, a pixalated black and white FAX scan send via email would be fine. Heck I'd even take a polaroid via the good old mail company!  But no dice tonight. I could hear my Dad asking, "he wants what...tonight...does he know what time it is???"

In perfect Dad fashion he told my sister that he might look for it tomorrow. She texts back such words of Dad'ness. This means he might actually look for it tomorrow. It also means perhaps the next day or perhaps the next time I call him and bug him. Regardless I can't finish this ideation until I get this old photograph. I can't even begin to explain it and you won't get the full effect without the image so tomorrow or the next day or whenever my dad gets around to looking...perhaps then I will post the ending!

cL

Hick Luck

So this is pulled from my response to a discussion board that I follow. The discussion is from Mills-Scofield's Main(e) Points group on Linkedin.  Deb's entry was about Luck and included a re-post of an old article on luck...one that I swore was in Blink or Tipping Point...or maybe I read this article when I was reading one of those two books, I don't really know.  Regardless.

To quote Deb's entry, "Luck is a trailing indicator - At BIF-6 there was a lot of talk about hiring people who were lucky (Tony Hsieh http://spedr.com/3j32p from Zappos who asks people when hiring how lucky they think they are) - but to some degree, luck is a trailing indicator - the leading indicators are attitude! this shouldn't be a surprise"

Luck is a Trailing Indicator...That is so simply put it's brilliant. Think about it! Luck is a trailing indicator. A+!!!  ...a trailing indicator of, "My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good." -Richard Wiseman

So that brought up a memory from my past life as a screen printer and while I told myself that I would only list value or new business ideas in this blog I have to repost my thoughts (my discussion response) because I think the story is important for anyone interested in business making and luck. -At the end I will try to come up with some business idea that has to do with this subject matter. :)

A long time ago before I got myself together I worked at a screen printing company in Kansas. This was your average apparel printing and embroidery company that printed shirts for companies such as Budweiser as well as Big8 universities -that's right, this was before the Big10 kids. The owner, Dan Hix, started the company to teach his son how to run a business. The screen printing company isn't the story...

Dan was one of the founders of Hix Corp. Hix Corp is one of the largest suppliers of industrial apparel printing equipment in the world. They were pioneers in the screen printing industry...later food industry -think pizza conveyor oven tech, its the same thing as a plastisol curing tshirt belt dryer sort of. He was a normal guy. He always wore blue jeans and a white tshirt. He was pretty much your average farm boy, down to earth, midwest guy. He was also crazy successful and wealthy. ...and foul mouthed and brash...sometimes. Anyway Dan spent a lot of time in the factory part of the building hanging out and telling stories while helping with mundane tasks like folding tshirts and boxing up product with me and a guy named Lucky.

That's right the story could only get better with the introduction of a curmudgeon of an old alcoholic printer named Lucky right! No kidding, Lucky was an old townie bar fly. I don't think he ever told me his real name and no one ever called him anything other than Lucky. He used to say, "when I'm printin' I ain't drinkin' and when I'm drinkin' I sure as hell ain't printin' so don't ever ask me if I'm drunk at work cause I ain't."  True quote.  Another famous, Lucky and Dan story, Dan once offered Lucky a new car to quit drinking. Lucky declined. Lucky rode an old black mountain bike pretty much everywhere. Luck was from Seattle and if not such a drunk might have been a great philosophy professor. Lucky was mean in the morning, but at least he wasn't drunk right? As I have said before, I digress...

One day I ask Dan what's the secret to his success. He tells me the following: "Son my life is like walking through a field full of holes...holes as far as the eye can see. I walk along and skirt around some holes and some holes I just jump into [blindly]. Sometimes the holes are full of shit, sometimes they are not but most of the time they are full money...lots of money." Then he tells me about lucky hunches and the time he sold off most of his ownership in Hix Corp. When he wrote the terms of sale he put in a clause granting him rights to the eastern block/soviet countries. The buyers thought he was crazy and let him have it. He made the sale. A number of years later the wall comes down and the Soviet Union becomes free market and Dan owns the rights to a huge new market craving fashion items. He said everyone thought he was "damn fool crazy" for jumping into that hole full of shit, later they called him lucky. He said you just gotta know which holes to jump in. :)

Ok now somehow I gotta spin some value outta this right? This one is a tough one esp given that I am tired and want to go to bed. I assume the worst, I hope you do too.  Here goes:  We have heated conveyor industrial dryers, a DUI-guy named Lucky from Seattle, the idea that Luck is a trailing indicator of four distinct mind sets, not the least of which is intuition, and finally a guy who pretty much helped create the screen printed t-shirt industry but only wore white cotton t-shirts with no printing of any kind.  hum,

I am too tired to come up with something respectably Pro so perhaps a book of my very odd and ecclectic personal history spun with a strategy + business + design slant. You ask yourself, why, oh God why did I stick with this post so long only to find out that he is going to talk about...ugh...his personal story??!!!?!!  LOL I know, I know but you stuck with me this long so hang in there for several more sentences okay! I promise you'll love the book. 

Who else knows someone who worked for a crazy lady named Pat the Crocodile lady who owned 32 crocodiles-n-alligators in a crack neighborhood and only paid "employees" with wads of one dollar bills.  Never mind that this lady had Macaws and Parrots that cussed like she cussed and chutes and ladders from the first floor to the basement and outside to the yard that held chickens and pheasants. Also rats that were fed to the crocs. One side of the rat cage had hundreds of rats crammed together crawling over each other. The other side of the cage about 6 rats living plushly.  What up with the 6 rats? They survived 3 drops onto the snout of a croc so Pat thought they deserved to live the plush happy life forever. The chutes and ladders btw were created so the crocs and gators could move freely about the home and outside during hot KCMO summers. Sometimes you'd go into the back yard and the gators would try to chase you. It was seriously scary.  I am not making this up, it was a primo gig that I found on the job board at the Kansas City Art Institute before promptly flunking out (the best thing I ever did btw, seriously).  Talk about an entrepreneurial life experience.  One day I arrived at crazy Pat's house and she was out front yelling at these huge groups of people who were looting the house across the street. The house was a crack house and had been raided by KCMO's finest the night before. Since everyone in the house had been arrested the neighborhood thought it best to loot the place of any and all valuables.  You gotta buy the book to learn why this was a great experience you could learn from. 

The last chapter of the book would be about my last days as a design student in Detroit and rubbing belly's for good luck.  Specifically it would be about a Humane Society fundraiser that Bob Lutz's wife chaired and that I had the good fortune of being chosen to donate art/design too. The MC of the gala event?  Big Ed, that's right, Ed McMahon! I rubbed his belly for good luck and as I told him, "for the good fortune of fellow designers and artists at the Center for Creative Studies, College of Art and Design."  What a hoot, he laughed, pulled up his coat to expose his belly, let out that slow Big Ed rumble and said, "be my guest kid."  And so I rubbed Ed's belly for good luck, like some sort of pop culture buddha and luck it brought me and many of my good friends who have gone on to do some really great work in business, art and design.

There you go!

The Plank

One more million dollar franchise idea. I love when people use that phrase.  "...hey, I got an idea, man...it's gonna make a million bucks," says the guy with the hick accent!

 

Anyway, here it is:  A restaurant called, The Plank.

Sorta TexMex, all about TacosNSalsa, fast turns, large picnic style tables, beer & margaritas in pitchers only and chips for dessert.

Problem:  Go to Mexican restaurant and you get a basket of chips.  Sometime between your arrival and the moment your food comes to the table you eat enough chips to make you want to puke. Never mind if the place is busy right. TexMex has it good on long waits...super busy and not enough staff?  No PROBLEM! Give 'em more chips and salsa! It is less an issue of slowness and more an opportunity to sell more Margaritas right?!

 -Food finally comes and you are too full to eat or drink anything else.

So my solution, skip the ordering/waiting process completely. Skip the chips too and go straight to taco’s with chips.

-Enter “the plank.”  A taco bar on a stick of wood (a plank) that is sort of like those sushi boats you get in so-so Japanese restaurants at the mall but more like just a plank of wood full of taco making goodies.

When you order, you order a 1/2plank, a full plank or the UglyStick. Why is the  the name for the gigantic plate? Because if you eat too many planks of that jumbo size you will grow fat and appear to be hit with the UglyStick. You know it's true and it isn't crude meanness. Overeatin' ain't pretty but in some states it is considered quite manly, esp down south.

And pitchers of cheap beer.

And flimsy napkins.

And margarita's served in old plastic pitchers to hungry hearts via red plastic cups (washable, not the Solo throw away kind) ...with little green ummmbrella's with really dumb, trite phrases printed on them.

The only wait staff requirement would be junky cowboy boots. It doesn't matter what they wear as long as they have some killer skins!

 

So there you go.  You walk in, you sit down, a waitress gives you five options with three modifiers to mull over...beer, margarita, 1/2 plank, full plank or the Uglystick, modified veg-O-matic, bock-bock-chickAN, beef-its-whats-fo-dinner. She returns with water and salsa, you tell her what plankness you need, she walks back, grabs it (revolving door of preparedness), walks to your table and the eating begins promptly. Chips come at the end of the plank, sort of like dessert but more of a fat guy top-off. Filling the final voids that your plank selection missed.  Boom, you leave full and awesome.

Oh yeah, giant-long community building-picnic tables, good old school country played via RadioIO Classic Country web station, embroidery art shows...nothing says home like bad art made by grandma's, secret pickled hot peppers similar to secret options at In-N-Out's and the nicest, cleanest and most pleasant restrooms in town including baby changin' area for Dad's...THAT's RIGHT! DAD'S!!!  Well behaved dog's welcome too.

 

OK GOODNIGHT
:)

quickies- pdx, parks swings and the 10 day outlook

Numbah 1

Value component idea. Had it in the alley by Das Hammers house. Beautiful sunny day. Amazing crisp blue sky. Incredible October temperature. Happy kid in stroller. Thinking about travel. Thinking about the forecast. Thinking about the weather channel's 10 day forecast.  Thinking about cheap as snot flights out of MKE. Thinking about how flying to Portland (PDX) for weekend get-away is always crap shoot...so is Seattle and so Vancouver BC. Rain. Yep.

So a new value feature/product. Link just-in-time, last minute, cheap fare bookings to the Weather channels 10 day forecast.  Holy crap, Midwest Airlines, holy cow, Frontier, do you know how much money I would blow on $110 round trip flights to Portland if someone bothered to tell me that it was gonna be sunny, clear and 68degrees this coming weekend?  Seriously! Vancouver, you want Americans to come blow money in your awesome way-too-rainy town, have the 10day forecast tell you when to tell people that it will be nothing less than awesome! 

Forget Analytics software that magically makes some BS assumption about my purchase behavior and let's get to a shared human experience philosophy!!! And what is more human than being tied to the weather. Really it drives the world...we are just along for the ride. 

My editorial for the night: Analytics won't save the world nor can it know that I love a band calledNoMeansNo because I have all their music already and I don't buy new music in that genre anymore.

 

numbah 2

At the park. My son loves the toddler swings. You know the ones...rubber hoop with X strap thing-a-ma-jig. We swing a lot. He could seriously swing for several hours. He often points to the empty toddler swing next to him and points emphatically. What he wants? He wants me to swing next to him. The issue, it is one of those X strap thing-a-ma-jigs that no average American male would fit into. The next issue, of the 3 parks in walking distance of my house none have adult swings remotely near the toddler swings. Was this a matter of public safety design? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Either way my son wants Dad to swing next to him. So a killer feature would be mixing and matching adult swings with toddler swings. Simple and dumb probably. Unsafe in a human factors sort of scientific way...probably but who cares. Imagine a swing set including four swings. From right to left, adult swing, toddler swing, adult swing, toddler swing with a broken larger space between the first and second adult/toddler set. Make the swing obviously about swinging together. It would make my day, plus if my wife came to the park she could swing while I push the kid.   -no jokes about the kid being a swinger ok Hammer!

Let them eat something-or-other!

 

Well, I was talking to a dear friend this afternoon...  That's right, I said,dear friend!   note..."Dear friend" is a phrase that somehow makes me feel bashful but is earned through 33years of friendship or 87% of my lifetime. Those sorts of non family relationships are truly rare if you ask me so instead of just saying, "a friend," or "my pal," or "an old friend," I have chosen to modify with "dear."  Now you know I am talking about someone who matters a great deal to me.  Gooey I know    ..."I love you man," says the drunk guys. 

In the words of my music history professor, I digress.

My friend is a chef, a personal chef to be certain. He designs dazzling culinary creations for some fabulously rich people in NoCal. We were talking about his business, my entrepreneurial aspirations and life in general. Somehow we ended up on the subject of increasing revenues, though he used the humble phrase, make more money! The dilemma, how to increase revenue's and remain a small company of one or two? [digression #2: a great quote from today, " they aren't rich like that [billionaire's] but if the shit hit the fan they'd just wipe off the fan and turn it on again" -A+].

The combination: personal chef's + innovation conferences = taste and smell sensory innovation engagements!

Ever noticed the best conferences with the brightest people and most intriguing subject matter still have the worst freakin' food known to man?  For real, you have been there...How to Innovate Your Business To Heavenly Heights conferences...magazine editors...celebrity designers...A-list consultants...honest to God Rocket Scientists...D- to C+ food. This is not to say the organizers didn't have the best intentions! For goodness sakes they made sure they offered at least 35% vegetarian and a balanced assortment of option A, B & C (sandwich, pasta, fruit). They were smart about priorities making sure the content of the event was rockstar from InspireTheWorld dialog down to scheduled networking intermissions.  In short the food and the food experience at these conferences often does not up hold the conference theme or brand promise of INNOVATION and CHANGE. Best case scenario, any failing's in food-land would be forgotten following the late afternoon chocolate chip cookies unveiled at the onsite book signing!  In fact I would say that in most cases the food experience is in opposition to theme and brand objectives of such conferences. As I said it isn't poor judgement or ill intentions. It is just a reality of the planning priority process. The food becomes much less important than the speakers and content and I am gonna bet that nine times outta ten the venue dictates the food vendor. That's right, the venue dictates the food vendor! And nine times outta ten that predefined food vendor ain't innovative or interesting or remotely inspiring (thank the wife's years of planning training events for that insight).

Ha, I do believe I have over emphasized my point sufficiently thus leading us to kur-POW and whiz-BANG! Imagine how amazing that AMAZING Innovation or Management event would be with Jamie Oliver in attendance. Imagine him presenting an innovative business model story TED style.  Okay fine, he already did that. Now imagine him teaching attendees how to innovate with food and subsequently helping those lucky attendees make their own lunch. No need for catering, you got Jamie Oliver teaching the "innovatee's" how to make something new. Bam! That's an experience worth remembering and one that ties all aspects of the Innovation experience together rather than leaving lunch quite literally [uneaten] on the table. True, not all conferences would be able to draw Mr Food Revolution much less get him to cook lunch for attendees. For certain that would be a Presidential undertaking, but we all know that most conferences are not Presidential thus we find a significant opportunity for my dear friend in the Bay Area. The opportunity to take his culinary craft, sensory know-how and design foundation straight to the lunch hour break at Innovation and Change conferences across North America (or at least California! LOL).

The back story: My dear friend is a self professed slacker who enjoys walking his strange little dogs and taking frequent naps. He professes to be a lazy SOB but I know different. At his core he is a social connoisseur, and I know he gets off more by interacting with others and engaging them in active dialog (cook + debate + teach) than simply being an invisible crafts-person hidden away in a stainless steel luxury kitchen somewhere in Marin County.  Taking his personal chef business to conference markets would combine his "bests" and ability. It would grow his market potential, introducing him to the best, brightest and busiest business professionals who might someday employ his services in private catering functions or as their personal home chef and life coach.  [yes that's right, there are people who have their own chef's and he is looking for more of them to expand his business] Bonus, StoryTelling is all the rage in business and innovation and my dear friend can tell stories, linking personal know-how to insight and humor while tying it all together with a mind blowing curry or dry rub roast lamb shank.

In Summary: the business would be an expansion of an existing personal chef and private party catering business. This business would sell experiential training interactions targeted at the Innovation/Management Conference market.  The goal would be to develop engaging culinary content that supports and completes the primary goals of the Conference Brand Promise while being the primary food and beverage creative director of the conference or training event. Focus first on a targeted experiential engagement. ..second on filling bellies.  If the hosting venue has an exclusive catering requirement then the business would either work directly with the venue to deliver a non traditional event/menu (creative director) or just end around with legal semantics...you aren't providing/catering  or lunch service, you are providing an immersive educational spectacle. The food is simply a byproduct of the spectacle, and it was coincidence that the spectacle occurred from 11am to 1pm! :)

Finally, notes to my friend:

First dear friend, you know innovation. You quit Industrial Design before art and ID got cool with MBA's. They love us now and that is a good thing. Now you can bring your design knowledge back to the table in the form of a food experience that takes eaters on mystical, magic carpet rides from hunger to satisfaction while explaining the relationship of that experience to the search for New.

Second dear friend, conferences do not happen everyday thus they are perfect extra-cash opportunities that would allow you to retain your current beloved clients while experimenting and refining a new business model for yourself.  Plus your current clients are gonna love telling their friends that their guy is off teaching at an innovation conference.

Third dear friend, you already teach culinary arts part time. Why not take those skills to a new market; a market of soulless, mediocre big box catering and conference go'ers who are stuck eating soggy bread rolls and flavorless sauces.   Just make sure to bring the best darn cookies to the show...I know you got the goods -please send more for christmas again! digression 3 -Cookie smells sell homes.

Fourth dear friend, everybody loves you. You know this, people who know you know this. For crying out loud your clients trust their kids to you as if you were some sort of super Nanny ultimate Uncle of Awesome. Your ability to engage a crowd for 40 minutes of culinary expertise shouldn't be a problem and for the most part I am betting big that you will get off on it and find that it is your true calling.

Fifth my friend, this business idea is scalable on a bunch of levels from something simple and local to a monster much bigger. 

1. You could decide to be a promoter and place innovative personal chef's with conferences, noting that chef's might work for next to nothing because the event would actually be a marketing event for them (give away to get more). You would take fee's from the event and or act as an agent for existing chefs.
2. You could run the entire show and develop a specific range of topics/lectures to give at events such as Innovation through Curry (dumb, I know) or "learn to lead: how to not overcook your vegatables"
3. You could scale your event to include break out sessions, which MBA's and southern men seem to love dearly, thus allowing you to tackle such topics as, "innovation and brownies, how to reward staff and reap rewards"-LOL, or "cream sauces won't increase profits but they sure as hell will make everyone on your team dig you"
4. You could simply become know as the guy who innovated the personal chef business model thus leading to fabulous book deals and exotic speaking engagements including conf's where they don't even want you to cook, you'd just stand up and tell your story.
5. There are very few chef's who are teaching the value of craft to business (the hot pan, cold oil rule, or the right knife necessity)  ...as in= know your tools and don't get hooked on gimmicks that create more dirty dishes (business waste). This could translate into coauthored management books or the first ever coffee table business book with recipes>>>holy cow that would be awesome! 
6. Oh and website too. 
7. Once you refine the gig you could set up a catering business to address innovation, collaboration and team development selling your services not only to targeted conferences but also corporate development entities, management/retention seminars and training for the trainer/executive coaches. 

Last and not least dear friend, you gotta start calling what you do Your Business. As long as you call it a job you will never be in control or feel satisfied. Calling what you do a business will make you think differently about what you do. Calling it your Business will make it your own. Things that are your own are easy to pour your heart and soul into. Making it your own could be the thing that sets you on fire and leads you to that happy awesome place. Also as long as you consider your work a job you will never increase revenue because on a job the job of increasing revenue belongs to someone else, surely not you. You are in fact giving away the greatest power that you own, your own value. When you call what you own a business you start to think about your value very differently. It leads to great things man!

I could go on all night about this but I think you get the picture. Nice idea I think...esp the coffee table business/management book with recipes.  We should write that one!