Why Not, What If, Wouldn’t It Be Cool

John — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 02:57:43 +0000

A few years ago Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres published Why Not?: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big And Small. The book challenged everyday folk to use everyday ingenuity to solve problems. This innovation primer outlined a simple framework for generating solutions to existing problems and applying existing solutions to new problems. I recently stumbled upon the Why Not web-site. Checkout the idea exchange. Here visitors are encouraged to post great ideas while other visitors vote on their favorites. Most of the traffic is from 2003 (the year the book was published.) It is amazing to see why items were merely “ideas” back then but have now been implemented. Here are a few of my favorites.

Audio-in jacks in cars – I’ve been asking for this for probably 10 years. It is now a reality.
Dashboard Tire Pressure Gauge – Done. My wife’s Caliber has it.
Chip bags with a Zip Lock top – This is such an obvious idea, why are we just starting to see a few of them?
Fridge door open alert- The Maytag we bought last year has this one!

I’d add to the list an MP3 podcast/audio book player that can book mark and annotate files on the fly (see post on 10/26/07 ). What would you add?

(cross-posted on Random Thoughts)

Thinking Analytically » Idea Generation

Why Not, What If, Wouldn’t It Be Cool