The Seattle Think Tank is a society of technology enthusiast and innovators. Its purpose is to create systems and inventions for fun and profit. This group was established so that ideas could be vetted by constructive criticism. We meet regularly to discuss ideas and to plan out projects.

Archive for the ‘Seattle 2.0’ Category

Co-working spaces

Around Seattle we have Co-working Spaces.  These are large spaces that have been divided up so individuals and small companies can rent desks by the day or month and have somewhere to work other than their house.  Its an interesting phenomenon and I have a feeling it will grow tremendously across the country as people choose not to drive everywhere and to work more independently. Clearly there are problems with having a group of strangers use the same space to work.  Everyone has different working habit, noise requirements, and space requirements.  And then there are all the “human” problems that need to be addressed.  It certainly is a tricky business to put together. Last week the Seattle Think Tank’s  “Weekly Online Brainstorm” question was “What are the problems with co-working, and what are innovations that can make it more widely adopted?”  The following are some ideas we came up with. Ideas
  1. Meeting Room Tablet Reservation system : Imagine an iPad duct taped to the door of a meeting room.  It has a google calendar on it of everyone who has reserved the room. You can easily see who is in there and who has it reserved.  If you want the room there is some touch screeny way of doing this.  If you don’t want to get up, you can just do it through google calendar.
  2. Heavy and Light Room Configuration : Divide a space into two distinct areas for co-working: a Heavy work area, and a Light chill area. The Work area is like a library, and it is where you do the “heavy lifting” work. Quiet, chill, and all the assets of having an office. The Lightweight area has bean bags, couches, etc, is reconfigurable, is probably open to the kitchen, etc. This is where you sit with your laptop and do all the “lightweight” work that doesn’t require a quiet deep-focus area.
  3. How To Start A Co-Working Space : A book explaining the ins and outs of creating a co-working space.  It would also have techniques for dealing with common and difficult problems.
  4. Mall Incubator : With the death of the mall you might be able to use it as a co-working space. Malls have a lot of space available, plenty of parking, food and grocery stores, and if you have a space on the outside wall of the mall, 24×7 access.
  5. Co-working Membership Card : Create a federation of co-working spaces with a universal membership card.  This would allow someone to one person at one place and then have office hours for someone else at another.  Something like a subscription coffee shop.
  6. Co-working Skills Network : it would be nice to have a easy connection to the different people and skills from within a co-working space.  This network would let you know what other people at your space are working on, what they are looking for, what they can provide, and their availability.
  7. Quite Booths : Remember the desk with walls you had in grade school?  Having some of those around would be handy. When you need to focus.
  8. Self Cleaning Fridge : It’s a fridge with a countdown timer on it.  On Friday at 4 pm the countdown will hit zero.  Then all the shelves tip forward and dump everything in the fridge into the trash; recycling, whatever… It then self cleans and the timer resets for next week.
This actually ended up being a very difficult subject to form ideas from.  For the most part they were about how we could change rules or specific changes that could be made to co-working spaces that are available. I do feel very strongly about this as an alternative form of working.  I suspect that there are several possibilities for changing how people work, commute, and interact with each other.  I also feel that with the pressures of fuel and quality workers many people want to shift in this direction. At a minimum it makes a nice alternative between working from home or a centralized office.  There certainly are opportunities here.
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Posted by paulin to Seattle 2.0, Weekly Online Brainstorm on June 28, 2011 at 6:12 am

Opportunies with the XBox Kinect

You probably already know about XBox Kinect. “Kinect for Xbox 360 is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console. Based around a webcam-style add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 console, it enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller, through a natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands.” What you might not know is that the Kinect has a very special camera built into it for capturing 3d scene information and a multi-array microphone to capture where sound is coming from.  Because of this, the DIY community latched onto the Kinect and has been reusing the technology to make some very interesting projects.  For instance, here you can see a better way to display earthquake data.   And here are 5 hacks that people have done to the Kinect.  What is great is that Microsoft has even released an SDK to make it that much easier to create applications from the Kinect. Last week the Seattle Think Tank’s  “Weekly Online Brainstorm” was targeted at this technology. We explored what else could be done with the Kinect. We did end up with over 50 ideas but, I have pared them down to 12.

Ideas

  1. Senior Health Monitoring : Use the XBox Kinect to measure the flexibility, stability of seniors in a elderly health care facility.
  2. Secret Dance Door : Build the Kinect camera into a front door.  It now can recognize a set of gestures to unlock the door.  No more keys and it knows who is outside.
  3. Virtual Kanban Board :  Add a digital projector and convert a wall into a very large Kanban board.  The information could be captured and stored for an agile team.
  4. Object copier : Use the Kinect camera to take a snap shot of a shape and then use a 3d printer to make the shape.
  5. Virtual Water Cooler : People could gather and talk in a virtual hallway, you could walk to a door and see the office of different people, even though they were virtual.  This would be more for people who are working remotely or at home.
  6. Virtual Walk Input Device : Add to a Tread Desk, to facilitate a multiple screen work space while walking.  The Kinect can detect your movement forward and backwards which would move windows and perhaps scroll up and down a page when you walk.
  7. 3D House Mapping Bot : Use a robot to map the inside of a house in 3D.  This could help home shoppers to get a more complete virtual tour of a house before visiting it.
  8. Gesture Pictures : Build gesture capture into a digital camera so you don’t have to ask someone else to take a picture of you and your friends. Just gesture to queue up the next shot.
  9. Auto Pothole Detector : Mount the 3D camera under a car for pothole detection.  Using this information and GPS it can be sent to the cities pothole backlog for repairs.
  10. Non Intrusive Personal Fitting : Auto detect a persons size at a clothing store to custom size patterns for them.
  11. Queue Watcher : Put camera on store lines and see, not just when they are too long, but when people are getting impatient and fidgety.
  12. Posture Watcher : Use the Kinect camera to monitor your posture.  Use this to help prevent back problems and carpal tunnel.
There is a lot of potential for the technology involved in the XBox Kinect.  I believe that many of the applications of this technology are outside the obvious.  I also think that we will see more applications as natural user interfaces become more common.
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Posted by paulin to Seattle 2.0, Weekly Online Brainstorm on June 20, 2011 at 6:23 am

Best Ideas from the June 1st Idea Sprint

On June 1st we had our most recent idea sprint.  These idea sprints are something like group party games with the purpose of practicing ideation.  It was a lot of fun and the details of it are here http://bit.ly/Idea_Night_June_1 .   If you are interested in participating, I always send the sign up sheet out through the mailing list and the twitter feed, two weeks in advance.

I picked out 10 ideas that came up.  I’m not claiming that these haven’t been done before or that they are fantastic ideas.  But, we had fun coming up with them and they could provide a starting point for your next big idea.

  1. Energy Bill Map :  You can see your neighbors power consumption on a google map.  They can see yours as well.
  2. Appliance Blue Tooth Energy Report : Appliances could have this blue tooth standard. Using a blue tooth device they can tell you their power consumption easily
  3. Instant Conversation Subject : It a mobile app that gives you some conversation starters. This is to help people talk about something different from what they usually think about.
  4. Green Screen Adspace : Use a green screen at events so the ad can be swapped in later.
  5. Real time Micro Sponsorship : Micro sponsorship/advertising in real-time, such as on video games, in live recorded broadcast video.  Possible ad placement could be auctioned off as the event unfolds.
  6. Community Power Efficiency Competition :  Designate city wide neighborhood boundaries. Then track the power for the community. Make this information obvious. (in the news?)  Whichever community improves their power consumption the best gets a prize. i.e. free power for a while
  7. Celsius Day! : One day of the year we only use Celsius. Weathermen, news papers, and teachers. Think “talk like a pirate day”, but for promoting the metric system.
  8. Blue tooth bike security : A device for your bike that records when its being tampered with.  You can use your phone to view its log.
  9. QR Code discounts : QR Codes in public places.  If you scan them, they could have a secret coupon.  On the flip side the advertiser knows how effective the public sign is.
  10. 3rd Eye QR Reader : A QR reader that constantly looks for QR codes and stores that information via bluetooth to my phone
Hope these ideas get you thinking in a different direction.  Perhaps we will see you at the next idea sprint.
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Posted by paulin to Idea Sprints, Seattle 2.0, ideas on June 6, 2011 at 6:18 am

Cleaning off ideas

Ever had someone pitch an idea to you?  Not just an offhanded, “hey, what do you think of this?” but where they have put some serious thought to it.  They might start off with one type of idea, and then the conversation bounces around as they explain the authentication scheme, and then how will the deal with malicious users or scaling the system.  Maybe features for twitter, facebook, and other add-ons get lumped on top of the original idea. Pretty soon the general objective of the idea has gotten muddy as more features are added until it really does not have that much punch anymore.
I know I have seen this many times.  I also know that I have done this many times.  Its a mistake that is easy to make.  If someone holds onto an idea for a very long time they risk over-thinking the idea.  Isolation is the garden of feature creep.  Mapping out the idea and reviewing it with a friend can help dig out the original idea and to round out features to make it stronger.

The process

Here is how it works.  First start by finding the core problem by answering the question, “what problem does this idea solve?”  No matter how much documentation and detail you should be able to identify where this all began.  It is entirely possible that there are 2 or more problems being solved but, I doubt it.  There will be one core problem that started this all for the inventor.   Now go through and list all the other features that are included.  This can be done at any level.  Perhaps you are just looking at a business plan, or during a presentation but listing the features will give you great in-site into the visionaries background.  You become a bit like an anthropologist at this point.  Slowly digging up one artifact at a time to realize where the focus changed and what became important. You should now have a list of features.  Go through that list and ask yourself the question “What problem does this feature solve?”. Each feature had a purpose to exist.  If its a tie in to twitter then it probably had something to do with the problem, “How do we get this to go viral?”.  If it had a feature like comment rating, the problem most likely is “How do we get the good comment to be seen?”.  It very important to sort this out because some of these problems exist because they were created by other features. At the end you should have a list of features and a list of problems that these solve.  Your objective at this point is to get rid of many of these and create a trimmed down idea.  So start chopping.  It might be helpful to write each feature on a post it and stick it on a whiteboard.  Then its much easier to group things together or draw lines between features that influence other features.  You might also consider prioritizing the features or limiting it to 10 total.  The other features don’t necessarily need to be discarded but, they can be set aside so the focus on a much simpler starting point.  You can always do multiple iterations. It might even be handy to make a mind map looking graph.  Put the core problem at the center and then the core features that solve that problem next.  Some features are built on other features and it will form branches.  You might be able to reduce several features by pruning a whole branch.

Find a buddy

This process is the hardest to do if you are the visionary or inventor behind the idea.  In fact you probably are so close to the idea that you don’t even realize how much excess thought has been put into this.  See if you can get someone else to help you do this process.  Maybe buddy up over coffee and sort out what is really being built.  It is also possible that you have ignored key problems that would help to round out an idea.  Talking to someone else or surveying people can help identify the biggest problems.

To conclude

This really is the mental equivalent of cleaning house.  Its funny how much feature hording can happen even when you are actively trying to avoid it.  But, if you are creating a business plan or a small prototype some of those features can completely confuse the message of the original idea.

“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein
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Posted by paulin to Idea Sources, Seattle 2.0 on May 19, 2011 at 6:08 am

Types of Ideas

At the Seattle Think Tank events we do mental exercises that helps the group generate large numbers of ideas.  They are something like party game.  With the hope of coming up with some new mental exercise, I’m trying to track ideas to their sources.  I do believe that there are a limited number of sources for ideas and the source itself defines the purpose of the idea.  In this article I want to propose all the sources of ideas I could think of. Please tell me if you know of other sources for your ideas.

Ideas from solving problems.

It all starts with the thought, “There must be a better way”.   Then your mind races through its experiences, tricks, and whatever else can light up in your brain.  Out the other side comes a solution. I think this is the most common source of ideas.  It is the most repeatable and at least you know you will get a result.  I seems that companies go through this loop constantly.  They survey or study what is wrong with products and then solve these problems.  It is an iterative approach to figuring out what to do next and it probably the easiest type of idea to judge.

Ideas from playing.

You find something on your desk and the thought “What can I do with this?” pops into your head.  Suddenly, you are visualizing using the item to hold open a door, make a tiny wrecking ball, or a valve to prevent coffee spills.  These are the more whimsical fun ideas.  Its actually pretty easy, pick any object near you and try to think of all the things you could use it for.  You will get an idea out of this.

Ideas from miscommunication.

I love it when this happens but, it is absolutely unpredictable.  Maybe you have had this experience.  You walk up to a friend and tell them your idea for solving a problem.  It’s complex, and they are not paying attention, and hear something different.  They don’t quite understand but try to figure out what you are talking about.  So your friend debates with you about your idea.    After several minutes you both realize that no one was on the same page but, the idea that came out of it was much better than the one you started on. No one really was the source of it.  But both people walk away amazed that this popped up.

Ideas from a change in resources.

When a new technology or cheaper becomes available it can change the landscape of what was possible. Think about the music industry and rise of computers.  They are wandering along building a nicely profitable business and then this wildfire of tech rolls over the top of them.  This happened because of all the changes in the way information is distributed.  The same sort of things happen in any industry when an assumed constant, suddenly changes.  Good places to look for innovation would be anywhere you know a resource is about to change price. This is very similar to finding idea by solving problems except certain solutions were not practical until a resource cost change occurred.  These are also really good places to look for business ideas.  Many of the problems a new material or cheaper resource can solve are old problems.  But, everyone else has forgotten that the problem existed.

Ideas from politics

This is similar to changes in resources in that it can affect a whole host of other technologies.  Mainly the expectation is that an announcement is made and puts pressure on a set of problems to be solved.  Perhaps money or just getting calling out that certain problems exist can get innovated people to focus on solving these problems.  It might also cause a change in the cost of the resources that were being focused on and thus a host of new business problems and solutions changed.

Ideas from research

Imagine you are grinding through the scientific process.  Making a theory, proving or disproving something and hoping to write a paper about it.  And then… Something really strange happens, you get some results that were totally unexpected.  So you rerun the experiment, and the same thing happens again.  Now your original question is mundane.  But, as you learn more about what you are seeing you start to realize just what the implications are. As you realize what is now possible, a whole mess of ideas come into your head because you have seen something no one else knows of.  This didn’t come from solving a problem, but finding out what is possible.  These are my favorite ideas because they were always right in front of us. We just were blind to the possibilities until our perspective changed.

Ideas come from competition.

This is similar to idea from research in that a disbelief was shattered, however it wasn’t from figuring out the universe, the inspiration came from seeing someone else do it first. One of my other favorite bits of history is the space program.  The space program was not as much about putting people in space.  It was more about one country vs another in a race to get the upper hand.  No one thought you could get into orbit, then they didn’t think you could do a high orbit, then they didn’t think you could get to the moon.  But, every time one country would pull it off and then the other country would do something almost the same very quickly afterwords.  This bar raising was amazing as vast groups of problems were solved almost overnight.  I do believe that the competition between these countries changed their expectations of what was possible.  Maybe this is less a source of ideas but, it is certainly a good situation to push a group to work together solve problems.

Ideas from zoning out.

De-focus, day dream, go into that side of your mind that doesn’t use words, but images, shapes, visualization.  Find patterns that are the same and match them.  Pull from one set of shapes and map it over another. If you can get your mind to relaxes from stress, worry and too much focus it might just start making connections between things that it never has before.  I wouldn’t say these are not great ideas but, they are ideas.  Somewhat like idea from playing but, with no objective.  Who knows what connections you will make when your mind isn’t focused on its usual topics.

Concluding

The source of the idea gives a little hint into what was desired.  Ideas that solve problems build good foundations for companies.   Where ideas from day dreaming are amusing and maybe better for the creative space; writing, art, and fun.  Depending on your mood and objective you might want to use one source of ideas over another. Do you have a secret source of ideas that exist outside of what I listed here?  I would love to know.  If we knew the source of the ideas then maybe we can find a better way to generate them.
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Posted by paulin to Idea Sources, Seattle 2.0 on May 12, 2011 at 6:23 am