10,000 Brilliant Ideas

Companies have no incentive to make their products last particularly long. Of course they have the incentive to make their products last as short as possible without customers believing they are of lower quality or too environmentally irresponsible. Is there some way to reverse this by having an insurance scheme type approach where, let's say you pay into a yearly membership for, I dunno, cleaning sponges. You pay your yearly dues and whenever your sponge gets stinky or wears out, you pay a small amount (representing a loss for the company/manufacturer) for a new one. Thus, the company/manufacturer's incentive is to have their sponges last as long as possible and help you the consumer make the item last as long as possible. But then, we all like new stuff, right? True. See this idea . Perhaps there's a way to hibridize these ideas. Hmmmmmm.

Who doesn't love new stuff? Ever since your first day of school when you had brand new shoes, a new shirt and pair of pants, a new spiderman belt with a magnet (well I did anyway) and even new socks and underwear - you love being in new stuff. So instead of getting something new occasionally and then wearing it to the ground or disposing of things willy-nilly, you can join the new-stuff club. It works like this. - You pay your dues (of course) - You get a catalogue and pick out the new things you want - On a pre-determined schedule you receive a notice that you can now pick out a new one of the item you got. - A robot or something comes and picks up the old one and leaves you with the new one. - The old one is re-sold The pre-determined time would be based on optimum re-sale possibilities. This could even work like a charity where your used products are given away or sold to the poor for cheap. I think some people do this anyway, but why not formalize and officialize the

A promo scheme for some yogurt maker (or the like) where the yogurt comes in tight plastic (or something else) cups that can be played afterward. You can have several sizes and collect the set. Of course you could also pay a little more for sticks and the stand where each of the containers fit snugly into.

Fireworks are one of those sketchy areas where the only reason they're still allowed to exist is purely tradition and anything that departs from the norm is tragically unsafe because the whole thing is unsafe, even though the new idea might make it less unsafe. If you follow me. That said, this is a brand of fireworks that has an in-fuse and an out-fuse (color coded). The out-fuse is exactly the right length for the time it takes the firework to go off. Thus, when one finishes, it lights the next one. In this way you can daisy-chain several fireworks together and have a full show that you only have to light once. Could this be safer? Well, fewer lightings mean fewer chances of getting hit or burned. A controlled method of lighting multiple fireworks means fewer cobbled-together attempts that so often result in bottle rockets pointing non-upwards. And if you made the spark on the fuse very obvious, then people are unlikely to walk-up mid-show to see if the next one needs lightin

Mr Klein, here's an easy one for you. Make a credit-card sized bottle of cologne. Slip it in a leather pouch with a pocket for a couple credit cards and a money clip on the other side. Dudes headed out a clubbin' will have everything they need right there.

The job hunt is not fun for anyone. You tweak your resume to look hoity toity - synonyming every verb to give maximum punch. You drop your current friendships into the sacrificial volcano of 'business contacts' - and feel like you're doing dirty murder in the process. You spend hours perusing job listings and writing and re-writing cover letters and that ol resume, to look like you are the guy reincarnate who just left the job. The employer side isn't much better. You try and imagine the requirements of this ideal future candidate. You wait on HR to screen the butt-load that come in. You go over the shortlist trying to find that one person who isn't going to be a pain in your side for years to come. You interview and try to size up someone based on 15 minutes, extrapolating interview skills to fork-lift driving skills (or whatever it is). And maybe you feel like a horrible person smashing each candidate's orb of hopes and dreams with your baseball bat of reali