Idea

Community Engagement For The Betterment of All

by dldamore

“… a fifty-year trend in this country toward less engagement by US citizens in their communities.”

What will be the inflection point where this trend reverses? Could an idea based off Meetup and other social sites enable people to gather around a do the work the community needs?

Community? Call to action. What needs to be done? Define the people impacted positively and who is able to help with skills, talent, time and money. The site could bring people together and help community leaders rally people in and around their communities.

Feature Request *What Would Make RunKeeper More Valuable?

by dldamore

Dear RunKeeper,

I’ve been thinking of how to get a little more value out of RunKeeper. I was thinking it would be cool to have a way to add a pair of shoes as equipment. It’s my understanding that shoes wear out after so many miles. Perhaps even weather conditions play a part too.

Here’s the idea…

Add Shoes

Estimated Distance on Shoes to start? (usually this will be zero.)

Then as people do their runs RunKeeper can keep track of miles, similar to how an odometer keeps a log of miles on automobiles. If weather is a factor in shoe longevity perhaps RunKeeper can use location data that the user has alloweed RunKeeper to collect to get local weather data. Is it cold? How cold? Is it raining? … Those are some factors that may impact suggested length of service for shoes when running. There might also be some cool graphs that could include shoe data as well.

Shoes in good condition prevent injuries.

Spending money at the right time feels good. My shoes are worn out, it’s time to replace them.

RunKeeper can ask the user if they want to participate in a referral purchase program. Some people buy replacement shoes online and some buy them at a local shop.

One more thing. Please consider allowing people to include shoe purchase data as a part of a shoe history locker. Brand, Model Number, Size, Price and Vendor/Store.

Best,

DLD

Detroit: Then, Now & the FUTURE

by dldamore

 

June 27, 2012
11:46 AM

Looking for …????

A person that will give an oral presentation with multimedia support about the history of Detroit. This will cover the beginning of the city formation.

What are the benefits of this location? Still relevant?

Projections of future possibilities.
Inspiration for people to dream, start conversations and get people moving to make Detroit Great in the future.

Huge opportunity…

Lots of open spaces
Low cost of land acquisition.

Region has smart and talented people. The need is to create a place where these people can come together to create.

Serendipity of people… Bring the right people together at the right time, BOOM! Something beautiful can start.

An IDEA → REALITY. ← MORE IDEAS, More improvements in reality. Ideas and improvement leads to opportunity.

Value creation.

11:52 AM

 

NOTES: This was written as an idea for a presentation by a person to give to 50 +/- 40 people. Inspired while reading the Wikipedia page for Detroit. The post was written with a flow of thoughts. Little editing was done. It is mostly typed as the ideas appeared to me. 

The idea is that there are things we can learn from the past about the present and how to make a better future.

Value creation: Read this as being jobs for people and organizations. Jobs to be done if you will. Some things need to be done but the people needing it done don’t know it yet. It’s up to creators to build first and create value and thereby spur demand from customers. 

We don’t know who the RIGHT people are in advance. 

IDEA – Business Week iPad App + Print

by dldamore

Was just reading a post on Tech Crunch about the new Business Week iPad app. One of the complaints was that the content of the app is updated once per week, just like a real magazine.

IDEA

Post all the writings of their talent in the app as it is completed. Then, based on the user data and feedback from the users of the iPad app, adjust what stories are featured in the magazine. This could be done with the top five articles that readers have rated highest. This could be highlighted in a page that explains what the stories are and where readers can find them in the magazine. Magazine readers may find this curation by the crowd to be of considerable value.

Notes

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have a similar feature in what published articles were most emailed, read or shared. Example links are below.

WSJ

NYT

Barcode Payment System

by dldamore

The other day I read a blog post from the 37signals blog, Signal vs. Noise, about apps they are using. One that really caught my fancy was Cardstar, hadn’t heard of it before and it really solves a consumer problem.Itt eliminates those cards you have on your key ring and in your wallet. Those small cards are a pain.

The app creates a digital replica of the barcode that is found on the card the store gave you. When you need the card to get a discount, you open the app and have it display the appropriate barcode. You get the discount and don’t need to hassle with the cards.

Let’s take this one step further. A barcode that is used for mobile payments. Could see PayPal creating this type of functionality. Lower fees for the retailer on transactions would be a big selling point on getting this implemented. Credit card firms may also do this to make payments faster and more secure.

Security might be handled by using two 4 digit PINs. One as a user ID and the other as a security feature. The user ID would allow for more that one person to use the linked credit card or payment system. Purchases could be tracked by user and made into charts and graphs weekly, monthly or yearly.

Could see a secondary user being a child in some situations. Their PIN would have spending limits and it would be easy for them to see their spending balance as well.

*This is just a rough idea that came to mind during or after reading the paper this morning.

*Many people have their mobile phone with them at all times.

What is 2011?

by dldamore

2011

“The Year of Solving Other Peoples Problems”

Tagline: “What’s Your Problem?”

*This came about after thinking about how camera apps could create a viable business model. This coming year should be about solving problems other people have. People may call it service. Most of the time it is a service, there are a few times where it is an idea that is implemented and that scales and creates massive value for the user. The creator gets a healthy reward for creating so much value for the customer.

Example: Supplier creates a product that crates $1M in sales for their customer with a net profit of $250,000 (25% net margin). Regular net margin is 10%. This product is creating $150,000 in extra net profit. Perhaps a third of that will go back to the creator of the solution that created a million dollars of business and created the opportunity to grow net profits $250,000. If the supplier takes a third of the excess, that would be $250,000 NPM – $100,000  SPM (Standard Profit Margin) = $150,000/3 = $50,000. There is an incentive to create excessive value and profit for their customer. Think of the 1/3rd as being a performance bonus.

*Still to be figured out.

Q: What if the buyer is OK with a 10% SPM and uses the savings to drive market share and be more competitive versus their competitors?

A: These things will have to be negotiated and put in writing.