Waylon Kenning Blog » great idea

Great idea – Getting website references from your friend’s browsing history

Waylon — Tue, 26 May 2009 08:56:49 +0000

Google decides the popularity of a website based on what other websites think of that page. But people actually are more interested/have a higher weighting towards recommendations from their friends. So if you could take someone’s browsing history and use that instead of google, then that’d be more successful.

Great idea: solar powered wireless routers in a mesh network

Waylon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:37:38 +0000

Imagine a mesh network of solar-powered wireless routers that have a battery backup. This network would generally route traffic and provide internet access to the general public. In an emergency, communications would still flow through the routers that were connected to each other, hopefully providing enough coverage for IP information which could be more useful in an emergency than just voice. QoS would ensure that this emergency traffic would take priority.

Great idea: touchscreen kiosks in liquor stores giving wine tips

Waylon — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:10:21 +0000

Here’s an idea, have touchscreen kiosks in wine stores that give information about particular wines, including what wines suit what meals. Make sure that people could say “I’m buying this wine, what meal should I have?” as well as “I’m having this meal, what wines do you recommend?”. Combine with a loyalty card system to get a greater profile of the customer, and better tailor deals to that person.

Great idea: travel website based on money available to spend

Waylon — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:08:16 +0000

When people go shopping for travel, they have only a finite amount of money to spend. Instead of focusing on where people can go, why not focus on where people can afford to go? One package can be for 10 days in 2 star accommodation, the other package could be for 5 days in 4 star accommodation. Include all meals, connections, transfers, entertainment. Call the site 3K for travel under $3K, or 5K for travel under $5K.

Great Idea: On the fly printing of greeting cards at airports/hospitals

Waylon — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:48:33 +0000

What about the creation of greeting cards at airports and hospitals? All it takes is a touch screen computer, a high quality inkjet printer, and you’ve got an instant personalised greeting card.

Great ideas are obviously great, to more than just you.

Waylon — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:40:32 +0000

I’m working on a great idea to turn into a website. I created some mock screens to explain the concept to some of the others working with me to see what they thought. Apart from some questions regarding honesty (not of myself, but of the end users), the potential of the idea to turn into a great service for businesses is:

Obvious. This idea can be explained to anyone from CEO to Janitor in about 5 minutes. No PhD necessary. Once pointed out the idea makes sense, and like Velcro, is something you wondered why no one else has thought of before (though actually someone has).
Fiscally evident. This service clearly improves the bottom line. No extraordinary thinking or suspension of common Laws of Business are required. How does your great idea improve the bottom line for business? If it’s too abstract, that may not fly well (see the realm of intangible).
Simple. Some ideas are abstract, complex, and like the Large Hadron Collider, aren’t exactly easy to communicate and point out to managers. And while some things are justifiably complex (like CRM software), others are in the realm of intangible.

Good luck for your idea, but remember, a great product is 10% idea, 90% execution.