Fresh Takes on Innovation

December’s issue of the NY Times Magazine looks at the ideas that helped make 2007 what it was. The editors present 70 ideas “that are fresh enough for our particular cut of intellectual sushi”.

The list includes posthumous email, wireless energy, suing god, the braille tattoo and a lot of other ideas, either ingenious or strange, or both at the same time – some of them subversive or illegal.

There is also a nice cartoon illustrating the buzzword of 2007: alternative energy.

We’re having a very exciting pre-Christmas season this year. After celebrating our first branch office in Frankfurt only 2 weeks ago, a delegation of BrainStore staff is – as I am writing – constructing a mobile idea factory in the Kuala Lumpur Conference Center.

This morning, as the 3rd Global Knowledge Conference – better known as GK3 – will open its gates, our idea machine will start operating. Together with 120 Young Social Entrepreneurs from all over the world – and with the assistance of some 2′000 conference participants – we will produce ideas on how to make this planet a world of entrepreneurs by 2020.

We’re here since Saturday for last minute preparations – by now we know our way around the KL shopping malls (they’re huge!) and IKEA. But our favourite view are the Petronas Towers – simply stunning.

Conference participants have started arriving in the last 24 hours – the place is filling up and there’s a definite buzz. We’re slightly jetlagged and exhausted, but definitely excited about tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted!

I wouldn’t wear one of these, but as we like to blog just about every crazy brain-gadget, I’ll have to blog this brainy cap and the gelatine mold to make delicious deserts with a bizarre canibalistic touch. Find more of these anatomically correct products at the Anatomical.com shop.

There are plenty of innovation timelines on the web. This new one from Wired is nice, because it let’s you vote on the innovations. Currently agriculture is leading the board ahead of the radio and the refrigerator.

Eight years ago, an elderly lady walked into our IdeaFactory with a serious order for us: She wanted to create and advent calendar for her dog and needed an idea how she could actually put it into action. I mean: How does the dog know which door to open? Anyway. Back then we thought it was just plain crazy, but of course we helped the nice lady and she implemented the first advent calendar for dogs.

Today, everything can be found for the canine friend or for kitty cat. Really, believe me, everything. The pet industry is one of the seriously growing industries everywhere.

You can get, for instance, dog costumes

Christmas stockings for dogs

Pet insurance

but also apparel, houses, carrying crates, accessories, communication gadgets, toys, and many other things. There are numerous sites dedicated to pets on the internet, where you can order everything right to your doorstep.

Whether you think this is completely ok because you love your own pet like your own child or whether you think this is seriously deranged does not matter that much, because it’s a fact: Pets are and will continue to be an important industry. At BrainStore we have learned not to laugh at a private clients “strange” request but to anticipate that more, much more of the same will come in the future.