Where not to sit on business class

If you're traveling business class by plane, do your very best to avoid the last row of the cabin. That's where families with babies using skycots attached to the wall are seated on economy. Avoid that last row seat if you're headed on a long trip and you're tired or in desperate need for some rest during the flight. You will be thankful later.

If you can't be seated anywhere else, perhaps it would be a good idea to ask if the airline can give you a discount.

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Rent F-15 fighter jet

If this is the place to share those sticky, crazy ideas you can't get out of your mind, I'd like to share mine. I've always thought of an F-15 fighter jet rental business where people will ride the planes for amusement. The customer will be allowed to take 7 circles around the earth fishtailing and feeling the G-force and then the ride is over.

Those of them who don't return the jet after the 7th lap will be shot out of the air! :)

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Kitchen on the go

You'll probably laugh at the thought, but how about a truly mobile food delivery business that operates in a truck? The kitchen is fitted in the truck which does a regular itinerary during the day around the city. The customer can email, fax or sms the order and have it instantly delivered either to his place or wherever he might be, even on the street. With GPS technology both the customer and the truck driver can see where each other is.

The major daily cost for such business will be gas but that can amount to less than monthly rent if the trucks are hybrid or even electric. Who knows, maybe in the near future such business can be competitive and profitable.

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dead people's books

religion says the spirit never dies it only separates from body. this is strange situation but if the spirit is alive after death and if there was way to communicate and dead people wrote books that got published would you read them? my friends think dead people's books business is just good marketing to sell books to people who believe in paranormal but if science can prove it can be done what would then your reaction be? would you read it or be scared to death?

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Book lending for air travellers

I was thinking of creating a book lending business in airports for travelers on long flights. Instead of buying the book in the airport bookshop the passenger can borrow it only for the course of the flight by having the credit card charged full retail price of the book. Upon arriving in the destination airport the passenger returns the book and gets full refund in their credit card. The book can then only be re-lent to passengers traveling back to the country airport the book originally came from.

If a passenger really likes the book they will have the option to buy it by simply keeping it. In this case a new order to re-stock the book will be automatically made via the system and a small profit realized from having sold it retail price. People can also donate books in this business and if their used-book is sold they get to keep a portion of the profit.

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Would it be too embarrassing to order just dessert?

Dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal but I am thinking that in a weak economy people should become creative with cost-cutting and try to keep doing as many of the activities they were used to as possible. One is going out to eat in a restaurant. I guess I can eat at home and then go out in a restaurant with my friends and just order dessert and perhaps a drink to go with it.

Restaurants which will experience a huge drop in business need not advertise their plight in their websites by saying they accept dessert-only meals but if customers come in and order just dessert they should be happy to provide it and train the staff not to express any sign of surprise when they take the order.

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http://thinkaloo.com/ideas/view/view_idea.php?id=1133

Thinking out loud here. For women it's often the case in business meetings that their hands get crushed by male colleagues extending firm handshakes. If they wear a ring the pain is even worse. Handshake-friendly rings from cheap and soft material that resemble the real ring would be a great invention to sell along. I just hope the concept is not just my wishful thinking and perhaps others have thought about it too. With so many replicas of every fashionable product out there why wouldn't a replica of a ring made from soft squeezable material be possible?

I don't like people with soft/bad handshakes. I think that a handshake shows a lot about a person. I believe that you wrote that just for fun but if something like that would take place in reality people would be afraid to give their hand :)

The ideal is a warm handshake but with equal force applied from both parties, a woman can never apply as much force as a man so the man must tone it down to her level, plus some people grab and squeeze the other person's fingers which results in a very uncomfortable situation

Handshake is so customary that I don't think people can easily do without but my view is that we should stop using it, historically it has been a power game custom, whoever puts the hand on top declares he wants to be in control. people who don't get educated on this unconsciously communicate such messages even if they might not intend to

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T-shirt discount advertising

Businesses could advertise by giving t-shirt freebies to customers with their company logo and slogan on them. If customers wear it when they shop they get a 5% discount. This will encourage them to wear it and advertise the discount and the business to other people as well.

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Does your new house have a ghost?

Do you want your new house to have a ghost? We like friendly ghosts so me and my friends were thinking of a different new kind of business that will certify if a house is ghost-free or not. Not all ghosts are scary and there some can be pet-ghosts and play with the kids. If a house has ghosts and the new owner doesn't want them our business will clear the house for them or transfer the ghost to the house of another owner who wants them. The business will also be online and allow people to upload photos and descriptions of their ghosts and exchange them

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Crisis? What crisis?

Of course we have a crisis, people lose jobs, companies go bankrupt and all explained on the basis of greed, lack of regulation and wall street walking on clouds. Some people argue that the good times was just an illusion. Well, if the economic growth, wealth creation and the excess profits of the last few years were an illusion, shouldn't then an illusion's fall and demise also be an illusion? That's the only logical conclusion you can make if you accept the premise of the illusion.

So it wasn't an illusion and we have a real crisis which means we did have real growth and wealth creation. Is it simply changing hands now in which case the crisis is a process of wealth reallocation and ensuing disruption? Or is wealth actually destroyed at a level below the one that existed before excess growth building began?

Physical wealth in the US, Europe and Asia is not being destroyed. We are not experiencing a World War. With the exception of oil depleting and a climate changing, bridges, roads and buildings are still in place. So the major destruction is mainly happening to the intangibles. That's why prices fluctuate like crazy.

Isn't the creation of intangibles, however, infinite? If you look at history and also believe in human nature then you must accept its ability to create new intellectual words out of old ones.

I am optimistic. To those who argue previous wealth creation and economic growth was just borrowed time and an illusion, I rest my case.

Crisis? What crisis? It's just an illusion!

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How They Won...

This is not a story of an imaginary pun. This thought association is live and taking place as I type it in the plane. I'm copying and pasting the text as I'm reading it right now from the stranger businessman sitting next to me on our flight to Zurich. He's reading the Financial Times and is too absorbed to see me typing off his copy of the newspaper which I find very amusing. The article reads "The South Korean Won lost 4.7% of its value on fears that the Korean government will stop intervening to support the currency..."

I'm thinking of the journalist who wrote these lines. Did he see the pun but left it there in the hope his readers will see it too? Why couldn't he phrase it otherwise so that the words 'won' and 'lost' don't read next to each other? How can something that is Won be actually Lost?

Perhaps he saw it but left it there intentionally. Perhaps not. My mind veers suddenly into an imaginary ad propping up the 'lost' South Korean currency. A full-page flashing George Soros and Warren Buffet side by side. The world's two most iconic and revered investors describing 'How They Won...' by investing where else in the South Korean Won!

Perhaps the story of how the South Korean Won Lost serves as the perfect metaphor of our times. Something Won Lost because it was all Made off. Who knows why the journalist contrived the sentence so that the words won and lost parade next to each other.

A few years ago perhaps no one would have noticed. But now, amidst the worst financial crisis, nothing of the sort can go unnoticed. I am too tempted to ask my neighbor if he noticed the pun but I hold back. Perhaps it's better that I keep it to myself for now.

My mind drifts again. The most unexpected associations can sometimes come just by taking a glance at the newspaper of the person sitting next to us. Even if I never read the finance and business sections of the news - I admit I find them too boring - at some funny level I guess we can all somehow find humor in words whereby we can then converge or diverge our thoughts.

It's simply amazing, isn't it? The stranger sitting next to me is too engrossed in his reading of the finance world. But what is he reading? He is reading of a South Korean Won which lost 4.7% of its value where as I am reading of a South Korean Won which is 'Lost' and making the most unexpected and unrelated associations in my mind while killing flight time. Does the guy next to me also see anything funny in them?

How can anyone not find it funny, ironic or paradoxical when something that is so Won is also so Lost? The story perhaps starts to make sense to the reader as he jumps to the next article describing how Madoff lost what his rich world clientele had won over the years.

I guess it's only when it is made off from the start that something arguably so hard won can also be so easily lost at the same time...

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Unique scents

Wouldn't it be nice to make our own unique scent to wear? Instead of buying standard commercial brands we buy individual scents to mix and thus come up with our own unique scent to wear. I would like to start a business that teaches people at the shop how to mix scents and create their own unique aroma to wear depending on the occasion.

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Sometimes I just like to bitch

I hate when I complain about my job, and someone says, "Why don't you look for something else?" I don't want to look for something else. I want to stay in my comfort zone and bitch about this job. And anyway, the economy.

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How to tell if someone's made for business (2)

If I tell you that whoever started the tradition of throwing coins into fountains must not have been wishing for money and you agree with the explanation then, like most people, you are not made for business. But if you add that the guy who started the tradition did not wish for money because he owned the fountain, I'd like to hire you.

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unfinancial times

a newspaper that reports business news but doesn't report anything financial. the content is geared toward explaining how the businesses work rather than how much money they made or lost. no numbers, no financial predictions, only words and text.

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Scumbank

Now that Obama capped CEO compensation at $500,000, I am thinking of starting a new bank where Wall Street fat cats can park restricted stock bonuses, corporate jets, yachts and all sorts of ponzinous financial assets. Out of respect to the public, the bank's premises will be non-descript and decrepit-looking, the exact opposite of what a modern-day Poshbank would look like. Poshbanks are dead. Long leave my Scumbank in little Burglardeshi...

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4-year MBAs

Length of study becomes same as college. If all MBAs were 4-years, I bet most people would choose to do an undergrad degree instead of an MBA. Only those really interested in management would go through an MBA. We face a crisis that calls for transforming our economy. People will retool better if they study a new subject than do an MBA. I have in mind business and finance majors who recently lost their jobs.

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Cemetery licence for NYSE

Cemeteries are good business because no one escapes death. Cemeteries experience booms during wars and recessions. The NYSE can make money if it uses its underground as cemetery for people who commit suicide after losing all their money. The concept is to reenact the old ritual of burying the dead in the field of battle.

When the bulls come back to make money, they can do so by stepping over real dead bodies which can act as a reminder to all that booms Are transient!

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I think we should keep pay phones in place

I understand it doesn't make business sense to be on the pay phone industry any more. ATnT pulled out of the pay phone business a few years ago and payphone use is generally on the decline. Everyone's going wireless and using a cell phone and that's fine. But even if no one uses a pay phone in the future, I don't see the benefit of getting rid of them. Pay phones can still serve as privacy booths for cell phone users. If a pay phone is still in use, however, a cell phone user must allow the person who wants to make a pay phone call to use the space instead. I think pay phone booths should be kept because they can still be functional and remind people of how our technology has evolved over time.

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Business crime lessons

Do you think it's a good idea to require all white-collar criminals (see Madoff and Jeff Skilling of Enron) to give, as part of their jail sentence lectures at business schools on corporate ethics? I assume that even if these guys haven't regretted their actions by then, seeing how a former high-paid executive who conducted fraud ended his career and how he justifies his actions years later can be a powerful lesson to students of business. Just out of curiosity, why are all white-collar corporate criminals men? Is it because the field is male dominated or is the nature of women to be honest when they run a company?

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