Fiverr: What You Can Get For $5
Fiverr can help you practice the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Collect the Eclectic.’
It’s “The place for people to share things they’re willing to do for $5.”
Postings range from the practical (create an Excel model, improve your resume, appraise your vintage guitar) to the offbeat (toilet train your cat, make an emotional rant, send you a mini sod of irish turf for burning.)
You can also request gigs (someone needs advice how to get a job in mining industry in Australia).
Coffee Sense-Abilities
Two recent ventures took different approaches to exercising the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Be More Sensable.’ One attended to the sense of smell, the other to the feeling of a caffeine hit.
Hong Kong-based MINT took on the ubiquitous coffee cup lid – over 100 billion are sold every year. “They designed the Aroma Lid as a solution to the problem of plastic aftertaste and restricted aroma — smell is apparently responsible for 80 percent of taste — experienced when drinking through regular lids. Made in two parts, the primary lid comes into contact with the coffee, with a secondary lid made with aromatic material that sits on top.”
Harvard professor David Edwards took a completely different approach, creating the AeroShot Pure Energy to isolate that caffeinated feeling. “The AeroShot Pure Energy delivers a fine powder containing vitamin B and 100 mg of caffeine that dissolves instantly in the mouth. That’s around the same amount of caffeine found in one large cup of coffee … without the calories or coffee breath.”
How could heightening a particular sense create new possibilities or refresh your frame of mind?
Reverse Mentoring
To gain more current perspectives, try using the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Ask a Different Question.‘
Instead of asking,
“How could I tap into the insights of some one more experienced than me?”
ask
“What could I learn from some one with less experience in this?”
The perspectives of the less experienced will be based on different assumptions than the ones you’ve developed over time.
The New York Pizza Bus
Scott Weiner used the Fresh Ideas strategy “Rearrange the Sequence” when designing the business model for his company. Rather than delivering pizza to diners, Scott’s Pizza Tours delivers diners to the pizzarias.
“People always ask me where to find the best pizza in New York but that question is impossible to answer; it’s like asking an artist’s favorite color. There are too many variables: Do you want a sit-down restaurant? Are you looking for a slice or a whole pie? Does too much cheese make you cringe? How far are you willing to travel?
I used to pile inquisitive minds and tummies into my car for a day of sampling interesting pies but demand has far exceeded my Nissan’s capacity. The solution seemed clear: rent a school bus and deliver the people to the pizza! And so the NY Pizza Bus was born.”
Stockbox Grocers: Fresh Groceries and Fresh Ideas
“Across the U.S. a growing number of people live in food deserts, which means they don’t have access to healthy and affordable food within walking or biking distance of their home. Stockbox Grocers responds to this need with a miniature grocery that’s tucked inside a reclaimed shipping container and placed into the parking lot of an existing business. We innovate on the espresso stand model to build stores throughout urban communities, and provide fresh produce and grocery staples to those who currently without access to good food, where they live.”
On their concise web pages you have an opportunity to find or put several Fresh Ideas strategies into play, for example:
- Make a Note of Unusual Combinations: reclaimed shipping container + parking lot of an existing business + fresh produce and groceries = miniature grocery for food desserts
- Turn Up the Volume: take the espresso stand model and expand it to offer grocery items to get you through the week
- Prototype Early and Often: go here http://stockboxgrocers.com/ to learn how their prototyping is progressing.
Which Fresh Ideas strategies could you braid together to craft a new solution?
Good Judgement
Will Roger’s observation that,
“Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from poor judgment,”
gives a very good reason to exercise the Fresh Ideas
strategy ‘Risk Failing Well.’
Happy Englishness
Could it be that English speakers are biased toward exercising the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Accentuate the Positive”?
The Scientist reports that, “In one of the most comprehensive analyses of the English language to date, mathematicians from Cornell University and the University of Vermont collated more than 10,000 words from four sources of text—Google Books, Twitter, The New York Times, and song lyrics. The words were scored on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 being the most negative and 9 being the most positive. (The highest score was awarded to “laughter,” which received an 8.5, while “terrorist” received the lowest, coming it at 1.3.)
Overall, the researchers found that positive words outnumbered negative ones, suggesting “a positivity bias” in the [English] language.”
“What People Don’t Get About My Job”
The Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Network Differently’ encourages networking to find a new point of view.
The Atlantic article What People Don’t Get About My Job provides a virtual networking of sorts that encourages refreshed points of view about an alphabetical (from Army Soldier to Zookeeper) range of occupations.
Can you link any of these misconceptions to solving one of today’s challenges?
A “Pay As You Go” for the Young Set
Dutch De Cafe Racer’s BSO powered the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Mine a Metaphor’ with a pay-as-you- go – inspired vehicle propelled by those that use it:
“De Cafe Racer’s bus for after-school care … accommodates up to 10 children along with an adult driver. Most seats on the bus include pedals so kids can power the vehicle themselves, but the driver also has access to an auxiliary electric motor.
This prompts the question, “What others ways could customers be involved in delivering the benefits they need?”
How to Make Printing On Paper Good for Trees
Print a Forest applied the Fresh Ideas “Be the Contrarian” strategy to environmentally destructive printing habits, turning them into a funding source for reforesting efforts.
“The premise of Print a Forest is simple: Print 100 Pages. Plant a Tree.
Use our free computer software and be open to having a small message from a brand across the bottom of the pages you print. Branded footnotes from an advertising sponsor fund trees being planted with WeForest.org.
Our software transforms your printer into a tree-planting machine. With your participation, the paper you print results in a tree being planted for every 100 pages. Every tree worth of paper plants over 75 new trees.
Picture a stack of 100 pieces of paper.
Now picture a majestic tree growing toward it.”
