Idea-Mill.net

The Dust Drain

A few years ago when my sister's house was being built, she had the builders install a central vacuum unit, with a motor in the basement and hose attachments all over the house. Nothing special about those nowadays - they've been going into new construction for over 20 years now. But she also had them install a little pan on an inlet in the vac system in the kitchen that she could kick open and sweep dirt into. Nifty add-on to an existing system, and it caught my attention. I likened it to the filter in a pool, that catches all the debris as it circulates.

Only that's not what it does. But wouldn't it be a good idea if it did?

Here's the idea:
The Dust Drain is an inlet installed at the baseboard of a room. When the vac is turned on, this inlet works like all the others where the hose attaches, and draws air in. But like a swimming pool or whirlpool, the room also has air jets located along the baseboard which circulate the air in the same direction around the room. The jets push the air around in a circular motion; the inlet sucks all the circulating dust down into the vacuum bag. Flip a switch in the room and let it run for a few minutes and just like that you've purged the room of dust bunnies lurking under and behind furniture, and a lot of that other gross stuff in the air that we commonly call dust so we don't have to face the reality of what we're really breathing in all the time.

My idea is perfect for pet owners and would work best on hardwood floors. But I don't see why it couldn't be modified to more directly attack airborne dust. Instead of an inlet and jet system just along the kickplate, why not install another inlet and some fans near the ceiling (in discreet locations), and so circulate all the air in the room so all the toxins get sucked down the Dust Drain?

There's real first-mover advantage on this one - even the domain DustDrain.com is available. From me, anyway - I just bought it. Make me an offer on the domain and keep the business idea as a free gift with purchase.

12V powered auto sub-woofer

I spent a long time at Circuit City yesterday waiting for a car stereo to be installed in my fiancee's car. Part of the challenge was that the factory speakers were too small to deliver any low end, so I needed to add a subwoofer to round out the sound. I'm not talking about one of those dual-cone carpeted enclosure pimp-my-ride specials that needs to be powerered by twin 1200-watt amps. I got her a little enclosed tube by a company called Bazooka that has its own built-in amp and thumps out a gentle 50 watts.

But installation of my little thumper and the bigass Kicker is exactly the same. Both need the same wiring kit that connects them directly to the battery and a special subwoofer cable designed to handle low frequencies at high volume. The installation is designed to hold up for the big speaker, and is grossly over-engineered for the little one.

When we went around to the back of the car to see where they'd install it, I spied the 12V power outlet right next to where we were placing the speaker.

"Doesn't anyone make a power adapter kit that plugs right into the 12V outlet instead of having to run heavy cables the entire length of the car?" I asked.

"Nope. You can't get the power you need for big sub-woofers out of the 12V," the tech told me.

"But I don't need that kind of power. Couldn't this outlet power my little subwoofer?"

He wasn't sure, but thought that it probably could. Which still leaves the problem of running a speaker wire to the back, but that's a lot easier (and less costly) than the power kit.

My situation is not unique, I think. Many many cars have the combination of:

1. inadequate factory speakers
2. 12V outlet in the hatch/trunk/back
3. owners who appreciate audio but aren't quite able to be classified as 'enthusiasts,' meaning they will endure some expense and inconvenience to improve their experience, but not much

The Bazooka product that I bought is the only one aimed at this lower end of the market, but even this speaker overshoots many targets, I think. The goal is to find a balance between improved car audio quality and convenience/expense.

A powered 30-50 watt enclosed subwoofer tube (would have to be powered because cars with poor factory speakers usually have underpowered head units as well; but a little bass goes a long way towards improving the sound quality), able to be powered by the 12V outlet (saving the expense/intimidation/install time of the direct-to-battery kit overdesigned for 1200-watt systems), and requiring only a speaker connection were on the market for $100-$150 (including installation), I think it would be seen as a viable alternative to a full system upgrade AND create a whole new market of people not willing to pursue a full upgrade, but not fully satisfied with their current system.

And if auto makers were able to spot and support this trend, that would be advantageous to them. Just as many now include iPod compatibility (ranging from full integration where playlists can be viewed on the head unit and navigation is done through the steering wheel, down to a simple auxiliary jack the iPod plugs into) and Satellite-radio ready functionality, they could also offer 'Audio Upgrade Ready' packages, which would simply entail running a speaker wire to the back where the sub would go, and having a 12V adapter nearby as well, and then adding the product (whoever makes it) to their list of dealer-available upgrades.

Text-to-List

Now that it's the holiday season, I spend a lot of time thinking about holiday presents. But I often get an idea when I'm not trolling for one. For example, a couple of weeks ago I was at my father's house on a quiet weekend. I suggested to his girlfriend and my niece that we break out the Scrabble and have a game. Great idea, but there was no Scrabble. Normally a discovery like this would prompt a search for a replacement activity. In November, it suggested a gift opportunity. So I made a mental note to remember 'Scrabble' to add to my holiday shopping list, which incidentally is an Excel spreadsheet with a column devoted to each giftee, using annotations like bold and italics to show purchased/received or ordered status.

The following weekend I took a getaway with my fiancee to St. Michaels, Maryland, a precious little town on the Chesapeake. One morning we hit the local shops, a context that generated a handful of gift ideas for her. Most weren't  things in the stores I could buy on the spot, so I had to remember them. Absent a pen and paper, but not my mobile phone, I sent myself text messages to my email address listing the items.

Incidentally, on the same trip I sent myself text messages to my email address listing other 'ideas' for this very site.

Good ideas come very often from observing how people use and modify existing products. I remember reading a case study in school once about product development at Whirlpool. They saw that their customers were buying gallon jugs of milk and jamming them into the shelves on the doors of their refrigerators, often bending or breaking the little shelf guardrail. Other customers were buying 3 or 4 half-gallons of milk to line them up along the door shelf, when a full gallon wouldn't fit. Whirlpool designers promptly increased the depth of the shelves on the fridge doors to accommodate the fatter gallon milk jugs, and then began marketing this feature expressly.

I'd like to find a way for my text messages to go straight to lists that are actually actionable and manageable, instead of to an inbox that I then paste into Excel (itself not a list management tool without some modification on my part). So imagine a website or widget that is pre-designed to take in lists - holiday shopping, grocery shopping, to-do, whatever - all the things we keep in our brain and try to remember, ultimately stressing us out with their insistent overwhelm. When we're at our computers, modifying each list should be easy (why I think a widget would be better than a site - you could drop it right onto a personal homepage or if it's an O/S widget right onto your desktop or dashboard). They should be shareable with multiple people having the ability to modify them.

And there should also be alternate means of adding to each list - SMS certainly, but also dynamic or recurring events, such as regular searches of retail or shopping comparison sites that add 'Buy iPod - $50 off this week at Radio Shack' or 'Transfer money from checking to savings' every month to cover the recurring payments in your online bill pay, or 'New product that meets your criteria now available at eBay'.

Not that I need more excuses to buy things. Maybe seeing all in one place everything I think I ought to buy, right next to everything I ought to do, will result in me contributing more to the economy as a producer than a consumer.

'I park like an Asshole' bumper stickers

Self explanatory, especially when you see demonstrations of sheer, unmitigated thoughlessness like this:

Plenty more offenses at Flickr.

I don't know if this is a business opportunity or a marketing opportunity, but I do know that if I had a dozen of these stickers in my glove compartment I'd go through them in a week

Coffee Connoisseur Travel Kit

Now that I've stopped drinking, coffee is my drug of choice. I got hooked on coffee during my first job out of college, when my boss signed me up for a Green Mountain Coffee Roasters subscription program. They're crafty somebodies over at Green Mountain. The minimum order for the subscription was something like 3 pounds every two weeks, roughly the equivalent of about 8 cups a day. I lived alone at the time and, combined with my father's waste-not ethic, it's no surprise I quickly spiralled into addiction.

I don't know if mine is the average addiction, however. I'm not a coffee snob. When I travel and there's nothing in the hotel room but the bitter-bag-o-blend, or I'm at a rest area and the only place open is a Roy Rogers with a half pot of sludge on the hob, I'll still belly up. With me and coffee, it's a bird in the hand philosophy. If I happen to see a Starbucks or Caribou 10 minutes later, I have another hand for another bird.

I probably would be a connoisseur if I had any self-restraint. Or if I had a Coffee Connoisseur Travel Kit. Its purpose would be to enable anyone who loves coffee to enjoy it fresh-brewed wherever they are. It's a self-contained kit that has everything necessary for storing, brewing and - importantly - repeating. Ideal for the coffee lover on the move.

Here's what it might contain:

• French Press
• Portable  Water Heater (this is the missing link, I think - portable water heaters exist, like this one from Coleman that runs on propane. But other power sources would be more appropriate, which I'll get to in a minute)
• Mug(s)
• Canister for coffee beans or grounds
• Portable bean grinder (like this hand-crank)
• Thermos to keep milk or cream chilled
• Small canister for sugar
• Necessary scoops and stirrers
• Travel bag or case

The important question is what actually constitutes 'on the go'? Is it camping or hiking, where you're removed from civilization but want to carry with you some of the creature comforts you're addicted used to? Probably not - it's simply not feasible to be a connoisseur of anything when your bedroom is a 1/16" swatch of nylon and your bathroom is a shovel. There are plenty of camping coffee solutions available, but none that rise above bird-in-the-hand status. Carrying your domicile on your back entails some necessary compromises, connoisseurship among them.

Is it business or vacation travel, typically by air? Here, you'd only be able to use your Kit when you weren't actually in the act of traveling. So carrying it around, checking it onto the plane, and carting it to your hotel room may ultimately yield diminishing returns if the place you're traveling to has decent coffee.

So that leaves car travel. There's enough room in the car for the kit, and little need to carry it anywhere other than door to driveway to motor lodge or tailgate party or campground or fishing boat. I'd start there and then see which of the above components are need-to-have, and which are nice-to-have.

Keeping in mind that the objective is to solve a problem - which would also have to be clearly defined before beginning. Is the problem:

1. The unavailability of B+ or better coffee at periods when decent or better coffee would be desirable
or
2. The unavaiability of A/A+ coffee at periods when premium coffee would be desirable

If the conculsion (via hunch or research or whatever other means available) yields (1), then the bean grinder could be done away with. If you're going full gourmet, it's a necessary inclusion. (And it would have to be a burr grinder, not a blade grinder.)

But the other consideration is how 'unavailable' are we really talking about? Are we on the interstate where we could at least stop for hot water and cold milk? Or do we need to be entirely self-contained, in which case we'd even need a place in the kit for the bottled water used for brewing?

My guess is that if George Foreman can make and market 12 different variations of his grill, there are as many iterations of the Coffee Connoisseur Travel Kit brewing as well, for different applications and functions. The first and easiest to market would be one that relies on existing components: thermos, canisters, french press and spoons - all in a bag and ready for picnics, soccer games, fishing and hunting excursions, and road trips. But a battery or 12-volt auto charger powered water heater could be a real gamechanger, and open up a niche not yet tapped.

At the very least, it would create something to give my gadget-loving father for Christmas, since he already has two of these, three of these and four of these.