Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Global Brainstorming Event of the Year

Writing about April fools day scams is kind of corny, right?

I’m in the business of ideas and innovation, so let me ask you a question and try to answer it from my perspective:
How do you call a once in a year event, where great minds think outside the box with no boundaries or limitations, and publicly introduce theoretical innovative ideas that even sound reasonable in some cases (with no patents, NDAs, IP restrictions, etc.)?

Now you might call it April’s fools’ day, but for me it is Global Brainstorming Event of the Year (GBEY).
So welcome to GBEY 2010!

Here some of this year’s pranks. Try making some sense out of them:
1. Topeka is Google (really), now Google is Topeka
2. Starbucks introducing ridiculous new sizes
3. No Coffee for you! While Starbucks introduce new cup sizes, the FDA ban coffee causing the same Starbucks to move outside of the US.
4. Introducing Google Translate for Animals
5. HugSpot by HubSpot? New HugSpot Dating Software Helps Singles Find Love Online.
6. Chatroulette for the Enterprise, Randomized Productivity Management, i.e. RPM (who comes up with these acronyms!?).
7. Gartner publish Microsoft Decides To Open Source Windows Operating System.
8. New mobile search option, Where am I? who am I? why am I?
9. New resolution used by YouTube (TEXTp) saves YouTube bandwidth and money.
10. Redbox to Speed Up DVD Return Process by adding a return butler (i.e. real person) next to each kiosk).
11. iHOB, a new iPhone application that turns your phone into a mini-stove (great stuff!). It provides a 15 ring system to heat up in mere seconds to be warm enough to heat a can of baked beans or soup in 15 minutes and once turned off will cool down in 15 seconds.
12. A must have accessory for the iPad fans, an arcade cabinet for iPad

And the list goes on and on and on…

If you observe GBEY 2010 scams from my point of view, you might realize that with the right spin some of these crazy ideas can actually be quite good…