Stapler-Hole puncher

If every student needs a stapler and a hole puncher on on their desk, why don't we save space and combine both of them ??

Employee fat buster

If we can design any portable equipment that will allow us to exercise in our office itself, it would be a huge market.

Some of the present ideas are:

• Squeezing the stress release ball in your hand
• Lifting a bundle of books with your legs, while sitting.
  

But all these ideas are not revolutionary. You need to have the next revolutionary design so that the employee can burn some instant fat sitting at his desk, like stretching a rubber cord or compressing something with your feet to build your calf muscles.

If possible need to work with a kinesiologist to come up with the design.

The market is huge considering all the people working in front of computers all day. And if the product is designed so good that the doctors recommend it, dude you are on to big things.

And if the product is credible and certified, corporates are going to buy them for their employees.

DARE - Because entrepreneurs do

Found this new website this morning. http://www.dare.co.in/

Its actually a portal with all kinds of resources and news for indian entrepreneurs.

************************************************************************
Update:
This site is more than just another portal. I am impressed with the wide range of topics that it covers from IT to Air filter manufacturing to rural irrigation pumps.
Also has a host of new FEASIBLE ideas.

Tata Nen's hottest startups

Lots of entrepreneurial activity going on in India.
The most encouraging fact is that the entrepreneurial activity is not in the old tried and tested waters but in the innovative value waters.

Tata-NEN have announced the hottest startup awards for 2008.
The TATA NEN Hottest Startup Awards are a result of the combined efforts of TATA, a rapidly growing business group in India with significant international operations, and the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), a non-profit organization, and India's leader in entrepreneurship education.I am not here to explain what it is, just tune into their homepage.Click here

Businessgyan has come up with an article on the 30 shortlisted startups here

While I was researching each business, these ideas struck me as innovative.

Ecomove solutions: Its like the bicycle rental service available in France.
Ecomove Solutions Pvt Ltd (EMS) is intending to launch rental station network that allows you to hire and return a bicycle.
"It is proposed to provide eco friendly and economical alternative travel solutions to the members of EMS. To start with, we are looking at providing high-end bicycle rental services to all the members at various locations in Mumbai. We intend to have about 40 locations to start with around Mumbai and nearby areas."
(Wonderful idea, but I am afraid if the market is ready for a change like this. I may rent a bicycle in US, but would not do the same in India. My reasons would be sweaty, personal safety and pollution.)

Dailydump: Helps you compost most of your home waste at home. It sells related products and helps in after sales service.
(Can see a niche market in upper class and few sections of the upper class society. If the investment is not huge, breakeven would be pretty easy. Great idea though.)

Deskaway: Online project management tool.
DeskAway gives you an accurate view of your project progress and eliminates common problems when working in teams. DeskAway is an online software, so, there is nothing to download or install on any computer. All you need is an Internet connection and a web browser.

Elements Akademia: Elements Akademia - conceptualized, funded and run by a group of IIM Alumni - is envisaged as an innovative national chain of vocational schools.

Lakshya: The background looks very impressive. Built hobby into a business. Figured in the entrepreneurial case study in Darden Business School and ISB, Hyderabad. Lakshya is a dream child of four young IIT graduates, conceptualized with an aim to revolutionize the way learning is perceived and teaching is delivered. "We believe that with a proper thought process given to teaching pedagogy, "Learning can be made Interesting" and hence effective."

The Loot: "The LOOT" is a multi-brand discount store, offering customers a wide range of products with discounts ranging between 25% -60% - throughout the year.

Evam Entertainment: Evam is a 'theatre entrepreneurship' fuelled by youngsters for the youth. A 5 year young 'happy factory' with one mission - use theatre to make people's life happier and to fill their lives with lightness and a sense of purpose.Primary Revenue streams include live stage theatre shows, corporate theatre performances, theatreLIVE methodology based corporate training modules, 'd sound n d light' - Evam's audio media productions and student interaction modules.
(This looks promising, esp for the Gen-N group who wanna do diverse activities while working on their full time job. Suprisingly met an old friend after 16 years and she mentioned that she was part of this theatre chapter in hyderabad.)


Sanmaan Org: Sammaan's idea is to systematize the working of all Rickshaw pullers by bringing them under one roof and to modernize the cycle rickshaw pulling sector (which contributes 30% in urban transport) with small but innovative changes. This not only makes it easier for the rickshaw pullers to drive and increase their income through Outdoor Advertising, but Value Added service such as sale of Mineral water, Juices, Mobile recharge, courier collection, Bills collections also makes it more comfortable and enjoyable ride for the commuter.
( I like this idea a lot. Was just reading "The Blue Ocean Strategy" which mentioned of entering unchartered market spaces by adding value with innovation. This is exactly what they are doing.)

Librarywala: Librarywala provides a wide selection of books to readers at a low cost and at their convenience.
(An idea that everyone has but no one has the guts to go about it. Success depends a lot on the marketing, operation and serving customer values)


These were the most striking and innovative ideas among the shortlisted 30.
The common positive point observed among all these firms is the website design. The website designs of all these companies are really strikingly innovative. Lots of young minds working creatively...

Important lessons in personnel management

Learned few very important lessons today in the first 4 hours at office.

Get their monkeys off your back. If your people have a problem and they need a solution don’t just jump into the ring and provide a magic solution that fixes everything. That is the worst thing you can do. Sit back, frame the problem statement and give it to your people asking them to solve it and come back with the solution. Then discuss the merits and demerits of the solution and make them select the solution you want to implement.

Reason: If you provide the solution, they won’t implement the solution whole-heartedly. Even if you give the whole perfect solution, they are going to find faults in it. But if it’s their own solution, they will make it work.



I asked the supervisor if he would like to use a visual training board. He said yes. But if I do the whole work and give the finished product, he will not use it as much as if he creates the board himself. Now I must ask him to create a list of all the operations and make him do the rough draft.



On the assembly table, I did the biggest mistake in trying to help them. I did all the homework, identified problems, worked through every problem, and designed the end table. I may have done all the engineering stuff right, but I did the biggest blunder in personnel management. “ I designed the whole table, which they should use.” Their ideas are different. What I should have done is ask them to come up with what their problems are and their potential solutions, help them out and make it their design. That is Lesson 101 in a manufacturing plant.



You don’t need to show how smart an engineer you are by reeling out perfect solutions, instead focus on a solution that is going to be implemented. It is going to be implemented only if it’s their solution. Just give them the problem and ask them to come up with a solution.

The way a customer centric business should be run

This morning, as I was going through my daily list of must read blogs, I stopped upon this wonderful article of how an ideal customer service oriented company should run.

Saishunkan is a Japanese cosmetic company. You’ve got to read this article and open your minds to what true customer service is?

The hierarchy looks like something right out of a fairy tale book… so fictitious and dreamy…

One question that pipes me is that how can one transform an existing company into such an ideal place? Is it even feasible.

Some of the decisions that they have taken is straight out of the gut feeling, you feel it should be done like this and you do it. Your other half of the brain may reason that it has never been done like this and it may be foolish but you got to refer back to you gut feeling again and follow it.

The old adage supports, “If you want something that you never have, you should do something that you never did.”

Read the post on Saishunkan here… http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/10/jke-day-2-saishunken-cosmetics---customer-care-trumps-a-factory.html

Design - Common sense is not common

This is one of the designs that strike you as, " Shucks.!!! why did it not occur to me."

The Revolutionized Wrench provides exceptional user ergonomics, comfort, control and torque through an innovative design that offers a 500 percent larger surface area over traditional wrenches.

In addition to seven patents, the Revolutionized Wrench has received numerous industry awards and much media attention, including a commendation from the National Arthritis Foundation.

Check out the other cool award winning product designs here in Businessweek.

Everything about consultants

An interesting story about consultants:

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the shepherd and says,

"You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep." Says the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young! man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

"Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?" T

he young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." says the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"

"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know crap about my business."

"…Now give me back my dog."

Tacts of Persuasion

This is an interesting piece that I read today morning. It’s about the art of persuasion in sales. It’s a real time experience in Turkey.

One of they key points that I have deducted from the anecdote is: Make your customer like you first. Then he will be more willing to like your product on your price. Don’t focus on the product and the pricing initially. Make friends with him and give him an impression that you are going to remain friends even if they don’t buy anything from you.


This reminds me of my friend Praveen’s dad’s line. It just got etched in my memory.
During our Engineering days, Praveen wanted to buy a 1955 four wheel drive open top JEEP.
Negotiations were going on between Praveen and the seller for over a week and they were haggling on the price range of around Rs.80,000. Praveen’s dad entered the negotiation to close it.
His approach was totally different. His key points were:
• We are good friends.
• I am going to walk away from the deal, if the price doesn’t suit me.
• We are going to be good friends, even if we don’t make the deal.

He stressed the last point repeatedly. “Sir, the jeep is not as important as our friendship. If we don’t buy this JEEP, we may buy another one. But we should not let this deal spoil our friendship.”
Once the relationship of friendship was raised so high, the seller felt obliged to be consistent with the relationship that was supposedly growing and came down to Rs.55,000.

That was the first time I saw a practical application of Persuasion.

Read the article here.

Hiring the most creative people

This is a nice article on how you should go about hiring employees like you for your company.
One point that is repeatedly stressed is: The most creative and enthusiastic people’s prime motivation to join a company is not just money. Money in fact is at the bottom list when compared to other aspects like complete freedom, an avenue to vent out their creativity, an opportunity to be a part of a passionate team with great ideas, work while having fun, etc.


Read here for the 10 reasons why you should join Mind Valley.
The rules are put in such a way; it would be tough to resist their offer.

Steve Paslina: Habit change is like chess

Steve Paslina has an insightful post on how to break habits and create new ones. He compares changing a habit to a game of chess.

There is an early game, where you don’t directly work on the habit in the beginning but set yourself up for the change.

In the middle game, you analyze what you need to successfully go to the end game. Such as researching about people who already made this change, knowing the difficulties you are going to face and preparing alternatives to make it easy.

In the end game you sail through, if you have executed the early game and the middle game perfectly.

Comparing it to my GMAT preparation, I can find some similarities that I implemented.

Long before I started preparing, I read through the experiences of previous exam takers.

Then read through the problems they faced and how confidence plummets in between, how frustration creeps in, etc. Made up my own ways of how I thought I would face all these tides.

In the end game started my preparation based on other’s experiences. Though I faced all the same problems at least I was not taken by surprise.

Read the whole post here.

Guy Kawasaki

"Guy Kawasaki", every technology entrepreneur must have heard his name at least once. He is one of the original Apple employees in 1984. He is a venture capitalist now and a great speaker. Click here to know more about him. This is his blog.

I have read a lot about him and wanted to read his famous book, "The Art of the Start".
Today started watching one of his videos, to actually forget one of the most dreadful chores in an office-going guy's life. Yeah, you have guessed it right, its "ironing clothes". (Just waiting for the day when some genius would invent a portable machine to iron my clothes. )



This video of Guy Kawasaki is one of the best videos for a budding entrepreneur.
Its both incisively informative and humorous. He just throws out pearls of wisdom, one by one in the most simple yet humorous way.

.If you are not into entrepreneurship, you should watch this video to analyze how to make your presentations effective and interesting.
Some of his pearls are:

• His famous 10-20-30 rule for an effective presentation. Your presentation should have less than 10 slides, should be less than 20 minutes and have a font size greater than 30.

• Always ask a woman about your business model. Don't waste time asking men.

• Always hire a person who is more intelligent than you. If your employees hire less intelligent people than you and the cycle repeats down the chain, soon you will see dumb people all around you.

I don't want to spill all his pearls. I'll let you watch the video and have some fun.

Remember, the time spent watching this video would be one of the best things you did since the last time you read a good book.

TED

End of a boring day, you feel an uneasiness in you. Feel that the whole day has passed off, without even having to switch on your brain. All day it was feeding on beautiful babes on VH1 and those larger than life hollywood homes, which try to make you believe that sometimes elephants do fly.

Wanna switch on your CPU(brain) for a bit? Switch off the TV for a moment and watch this video while your having your dinner.

I bet, it would give you something to chew on.. and make you feel a bit better than what you were an hour ago.

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is an annual conference held in California, USA. It defines its mission as "ideas worth spreading". Its lectures cover a broad set of topics: science, arts, design, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology, and entertainment.

For a start, try watching this video:

His product designs are both simplistic and innovative.
In between "Product Design is my new fad.

Viktor Frankl

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue... as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself."

Scarcity and its effect

Seth Godin, one of the present day’s marketing gurus, is the author of one of the most popular blogs in the world.

Was reading his blog today and one of his tip, set my thinking bells tinkering.


* “Scarcity creates fashion. People want something that others can't have.” (Refering to iPhone)

Recollected a conversation I had with a friend from Hyderabad a month ago. Presently owning a BMW does not necessarily put you above your social peers. Because it is no more scarce. Audi is the Zing thing now.

It has happened with Benz also. 7 years back, when Mercedes was just entering Hyderabad, owning any model of Benz put you way above your peers. But slowly Merc was not so scarce with every one’s dad(rarely), uncle or at least having a friend whose uncle owned one. (It automatically becomes as good as your uncle owning one ;) )

So how would it be if Mercedes or BMW played the scarcity game and created an aura around their brand??


* “Give the early adopters a reward. In the case of Apple, I would have made the first 100,000 phones a different color. Then, instead of the first buyer being a hero for ten seconds, he gets to be a hero for a year.”


You can read the whole post here.