design: impulsant
Thursday, July 28, 2005

Great idea for great ideas

I just found this company that does something similar as IdeaBroker. They ask you to send in your ideas and then, if they like it, help you with funding and getting your product to market. I submitted on of my (great) ideas right away, just to see how it will work out. If they make me rich, i'll let you know!

http://www.goede-ideeen-fabriek.nl/

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

BikeTag - don't lose that bike


It's a simple idea based on an interesting statistic: 1 million bikes get stolen in the Netherlands, per year. In Amsterdam about 70.000 bikes are 'found' by the police. Of those 70.000 bikes only 10% gets returned to it's rightfull owner. They sell the rest.

Based on the figures we decided to start a new project called BikeTag. At our website you can buy a tag for your bike with an unique number. When you bike is found after you lose it it can be returned to you via one simple and free SMS message. A Biketag will only cost you 5 euros. More information here , and an article here

Monday, July 18, 2005

Pimp up your Presence

What do you do when you meet someone new, be it business or private? Some of you will put the name of your new acquaintance in a search-engine. Some companies do this as well when getting into contact with potential business partners or employees. Are you happy with the results the engines yield? Did you check, recently, what information about you has found it's way into those wide open online spaces?

I propose a new business that will tend to building up your desired online presence. First we'll find out what can be found now. Then we will establish what you would like your online presence to say about you. Next we will 'insert' pieces by and about you in the relevant places. & of course try and remove online pieces of you that you would rather forget. (now here's where I think the company needs to have some whizz-hack-kids & we sure as hell need legal council...)

anyone game? ;-)

Friday, July 15, 2005

UnPimp My Ride

I just had coffee with Bram Alkema and we suddenly realized what the future of automobiles is going to look like. It's wikll be the era of UnPimping. Think about it: right now everybody wants his or her car to look like something you keep in a closet, behind glass and never touch because then you would have fingerprints on it. This is weird for a machine that you keep outside and drive arround with and which get's dirty no matter what you do. Cars shouldn't be shiny! Cars should be firm, lasting and durable. So this is what is going to happen: within a few years we will start seeing beautifull cars that have super strong and durable car paint that isn't shiny and which you can hardly scratch. And here's the best part: if you scratch it, it wil look good! You will say to people "I hit this structure so hard it actually scratched my paint!" and that will be cool. The bumpers won't be painted plastic but big Blob like rubber structures. Kind of like the taxis in New York but then good looking. You will go to a bar and brag about a new dent in the front of your car from a tree you hit while parking. The future isn't shiny, it's UnPimped...

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Again a stupid government spend tax euros on useless companies plan? No. Minister Bot (foreign affairs) could be joining a genuine VC (he is named as a potential partner in Gilde and Atlas) after his career as a minister. Reference is made to Colin Powell who recently joined Kleiner Perkins. Their international network and lobby capabilities are worth it for the VC's.

Guess it could be worse. Maybe if these kinds of people join the Dutch VC world, the government would take VC's and starting companies more serious.

(source: FEM Business)

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Big names, big brains ? TED

Luminaries from the worlds of technology, entertainment and design are gathering in Oxford to share their thinking about our future.The big thinkers include leading authors, musicians, playwrights, and pioneers in technology and science.
Bob Geldof, top political author Charles Leadbeater, and biologist Richard Dawkins will be among the distinguished delegates at TED Global.
TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is already a top US event.
The aim of the event is to explore the three main arenas that shape and influence people's future. But it also considers how politics, the environment, and other social issues impact daily life in the 21st Century. Let's hope it makes a difference!

Sunday, July 10, 2005

ICE: In Case of Emergency

A good idea from London's Steve Flaherty after the recent bombings: store the word " I C E " in your mobile phone address book, and enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency" under it. In an emergency situation, ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them. ..provided your phone's still working after the blast....For more than one contact name ICE1, ICE2, etc.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Thermometer improvement

So this morning I looked at our thermometer to see how hot it was outside. It was 19 degrees celcius outside. Then I realized that that number didn't tell me what I wanted to know: what should I wear today? Coat or no coat? T-Shirt or sweater? I thought about that for a few minutes and then came up with a simple thermometer improvement. A clothing index card to place next to your thermometer. It shows you what people generely wear when it's 19 degrees celcius outside. That way, I can look at the temperature, look it up on my index and dress accordingly.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Women!

One in every three starters (33%) is a woman now. That's up from less then 25% in 2000. This according to the Chaimber of Commerce numbers over 2004. Average age: 36. Many of them are not born in The Netherlands. But that's common for all starters.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Help wanted: taking Ideabroker to the next level!

At the previous Ideabroker meeting in the WTC, Rotterdam, I realized how much effort 'them Ideabroker peeps' (JK most visibly) invest into organizing things, stimulating innovation, gathering people, keeping the juices flowing, helping and connecting.
As an identity designer I felt the urge to be giving back some of that good ol' energy,most logically in the form of a logo design and while I was at it, I also designed a new look and feel for the weblog. (And some business cards ;-)

Anyone outthere who also likes to help and would be willing to tweak the code of this weblog and help integrate the new design into the exisiting weblog?

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Idea for banks

As Jan Karel stated on the last Ideabroker event in Rotterdam, Ideabroker is meant to share ideas. Specially the ones you are not planning to use yourself or not capable of implementing yourself anyway. So here is one I would love to see, simply because I'm getting a little sick of it.

It has to do with customer friendly banking (I know, I won't hold my breath). But I recently got my new credit card. And it now has a.... PIN number. Yet another PIN number... This means I cannot pay with my signature anymore and I will have to remember this number, yet another one. Now I don't know if this has changed, but last time I tried it was impossible to change the PIN of a credit card, so I can use one code for more cards. So now for my idea, that I would love the banks to introduce. An all in one card. My PIN (normal bank card) just gets the 12 or 16 numbers on the front so I can make internet payments, and it's all done. No more different credit and bank card, no more different PIN numbers, just one customer friendly card.

So there it is, now let's hope we have people from the financial sector reading this blog.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Dutch Tub @ the Club

Sometime you stumble on something so cool you simply can't ignore it...this time it happend to me at cool Club 11's newly decorated roofterrace (with a magnificient view over the city).. i saw DutchTub! ,looking like a cross between a cow's tit and an oversized teacup this is a wood heated! outdoor tub..with BBQ potential, designed by two young dutch designers.. utterly brilliant and helas highly expensive (for now)!

Jaap van Duyn

Today an interview with Jaap van Duyn (Robeco Chief Investment Officer) in De volkskrant. His statement is simple: we're too rich. From a historical perspective we're in the same situation as the 18th century. After our golden age, we fell back and went into a 100 year recession. The wage of a carpenter in 1780 was the same as in 1680. Why? Because we were the best, and we got lazy. The Dutch financed the industrial revolution, but hardly profited from it.

He also complains about the management culture. The salaries are way too high, and that's because RvC's don't have financial gain in salary negotiations with top management. We need more entrepreneurs, less managers. His solution: education. The only thing you can honestly influence.