Never eat alone …

Is the mantra behind the national best selling book Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time.

It also happens to be the premise behind our Golden Axe Tournament champion’s idea:

It’s Just Lunch for Networking from techguy.

Congratulations techguy!

techguy is no stranger to the IdeaWarz tournament. Last month his Spoil My Spouse made it to the finals, and here he is back again only a month later finishing up where he left off.

When we asked techguy how he came up with the idea lunch for networking he said:

“The inspiration for this idea mostly came from the blog post I read about Never Eating Alone. Networking over lunch is something I’ve been enjoying recently. It’s Just Lunch seemed like the perfect way to market this idea.”

techguy was also kind enough to share his tips on how members can position or describe their ideas:

“When describing the idea, I think it’s important to get plenty of feedback from other people so you can address potential issues in the description. Keep it simple so that everyone can understand how it works and see a clear source of revenue.”

Hailing from Las Vegas Nevada, techguy enjoys spending time with his wife, playing Ultimate Frisbee, and learning all things technical He is also a great community member, prolific forum poster, and very supportive of other people’s ideas.

We are super happy for techguy, and also want to congratulate our other very deserving finalist PsychSplash. His idea, Spot-Light-Special, did an amazing job of lasting as long as it did in the tournament, and advancing all the way to the finals. PsychSplash is also a prolific ideas guy with over 39 ideas contributed to date.

As tournament champion, Christmas comes early for techguy. Besides the heaps of treasure, prizes, and glory that comes with winning the tournament, he also gets a professionally executed Market Test (courtesy of Cambrian House), a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate, and a stunning Jessye Cook designed IdeaWarz tournament t-shirt.

If all goes well in the Market Test, techguy’s idea will be commercialized into a product branch with it’s own development, marketing and sales team.

So there you have it folks. Congrats again techguy and all the best to our future contestants.

May the best idea win.

To watch the World Wide Announcement of the Golden Axe Championchip check out the non-HDTV video below.

Hiya all,

This is it. The Golden Axe Finals! It’s almost high noon. The chips are down.

It’s the two juggernauts …

Spot Light Special vs It’s Just Lunch for Networking

… battling to the end. Yes it is still a VERY close race between these two as I predicted. So get out there and determine our next tournament champion!

Voting ends this Wednesday at high noon.

Best of luck to both our contestants, PsychSplash and techguy, in the finals.
Whatever happens, it has been an honor serving with you both

Just a reminder, the Purple Cow Tournament will be starting Thursday of this week. If you haven’t told friends and family about the Purple Cow be sure you do. There could be a $10 iTunes, Amazon, or ThinkGeek gift certificate in it for them. Click here for details.

May the best idea win!

Robin is looking for passionate people! Are you (or do you want to be) a:

• Graphics Artist,
• Copy Writer,
• CSS/HTML/Image Cutting Guru,
• Flash Wizard
• PHP programmer

Created in the spirit of Robin Hood, The Robinhood Fund empowers everyday people to make a wish. The fund then grants wishes to the most deserving (or entertaining ), based on community votes.

We have plenty of concrete crowdsource tasks for you. You can begin working right now and contribute to the project with as little as a few hours of your time. Have a chance to work with the best of the best. Cambrian House is a great and diverse team made up by the masses of talent from around the world.

Robinhood Fund market growth and success on the web is resulting in developing revenue stream. Earning Royalty Points will earn you cold hard cash. As the product earns money, you get a portion of every dollar earned proportional to how many Royalty Points you have earned. It is a passive revenue stream.

Robinhood Fund values contributions from the Cambrian House community and we want to compensate people for there efforts. Merman was Robinhood Fund’s first contributor and has earned Royalty Points!
Check out our project page!

Here are ways to contact me (Jim), the RHF Team Lead. Get involved!

• Public Chat: http://robinhoodfund.campfirenow.com/1185c
• Email: jim@cambrianhouse.com
• MSN: amyrmidon@hotmail.com
• Cambrian House Private Message: - jimmyd - I’d love to be your friend
• Second Life: Battle Axe Island - Jimmyd Halberd - We hang out by the wishing well, come join us!

Subversion is up! - our repository is avaliable to any community member! Get in touch with me and I’ll hook you up!

Can’t wait to hear from you,
JimmyD

Hiya all,

Let’s get down to business. 3 weeks ago 16 of the strongest ideas entered the Golden Axe Tournament, and now we are down to the final 2 - the Golden Axe Finals!

Before we announce our 2 finalists, let me just say these 2 ideas are the fiercest, toughest, coolest ideas this side of the mighty Bow River. It was a great round, but these 2 really stood out and had strong voting on both sides. Which means the final is going to be real nail biter!

So here we go … the finalists … for the Golden Axe Idea Warz Tournament are …

Congratulations to techguy and PsychSplash for making the finals. I would also like to congratulate mswayne and BLACK_SHEEP for making the final four and advancing as far as they did in the tournament.

Voting wraps up Wednesday November 29th, so be sure to tell everyone you know that the fate of these 2 ideas hangs in the balance, and their vote will forever change the course of history.

Till next time … May the best idea win.

Bonus Video Material! Interview with Jessye Cook - Lead Designer on IdeaWarz.

If you would like to meet Jessye, click the video below to watch this blog in beautiful, non-HDTV, Web 2.0 video format. It’s an exciting glimpse into the world of graphic design, as we gently (she is very shy) ask Jessye for her top three tips for up-and-coming designers

Hiya All,

I wasn’t kidding when I said this was going to be a close round. We had some very tight races here - and one not so tight But it came down to the wire, and the results are in.

Our Final Four for the Golden Axe Tournament are:

If you haven’t seen our new voting system for the IdeaExplorer, be sure to head over and check it out. These contenders will be some of the up-and-comers for our next tournament!

Voting for Round 3 wraps up next Wednesday November 22th at noon so be sure to get your votes in by then.

And next week we will be down to our final 2 … may the best idea win!

Hiya All,

Leaking Faucet and I just pushed the new voting system live and would love to hear your thoughts.

http://www.cambrianhouse.com/idea-explorer/new-ideas/

It’s basically a 0-6 style of ranking, with improved navigation, and a fresh new layout.

We still have more work to do:

• update the FAQ
• tinker with the ranking algorithms
• update head-to-head (do you like this form of voting?)
• redo search

But the basics are there for you to play with.

At a high level the IdeaExplorer categories are:

• New – newest approved ideas
• Contenders – ones we would really like you to look at. Possible contenders for next tourney
• Top – Current highest ranked ideas
• Hot – Ideas that are young (less than a month) but are scoring high
• MyFriends – ideas your friends have submitted

So tell us what you think. I created a forum posting here for discussion. If you have an opinion, you can drop it there. Or send it to us privately using the green GotBug link at the top of the screen, or email me directly (jr at cambrianhouse.com)

Happy voting!

Hiya All,

What an amazing week! AndyDoan winning the Golden Hammer, The White Lap Top is rumored to be on the move down in San Francisco, and we are already prepping for our December tournament – The Purple Cow. What else can we do today?

Well how about wrapping up the first round of the Golden Axe Tournament? That’s right it’s Wednesday and we are ready to announce the survivors of the first round.

Advancing to the next round, of the Golden Axe Tournament, in no particular order will be:

Voting for Round 2 wraps up next Wednesday November 15th at noon so be sure to get your votes in by then.

May the best idea win!

It is with great pride and joy that we announce the first winner of the Golden Hammer IdeaWarz tournament:

AndyDoan with his idea Film Funder!

Andy (hailing from St. Thomas Ontario Canada) is a fellow Canuck who has been making short films since the 90’s. In fact it was his experience as a film producer that gave him the idea for Film Funder.

‘I never thought Film Funder would make it this far. Somehow I’ve managed to capture the imagination of the community and I’m very happy about that.’ - AndyDoan interview (read the rest here).

We are super happy for Andy, and also want to congratulate techguy with his wonderfully popular idea Spoil-My-Spouse. There can be only one winner, but these ideas were so close that we wanted to let the market place decide which they liked - hence we will be market testing both. Film Funder (renamed Fundable Films) and Spoil-My-Spouse.

As tournament champion, Andy receives heaps of treasure, prizes, and glory. If you catch Andy at the movies you might see him wearing his new ideawarz Golden Hammer t-shirt, or you can ask him what he bought with his $50 gift certificate from ThinkGeek.

But what Andy would really like you to check out is the Market Test currently being executed on his idea - Fundable Film. If Fundable Film does well at the box office, it will be pursued as a commercial product and developed for real.

No doubt techguy wouldn’t mind you also checking out his sweet Market Test for his idea Spoil-My-Spouse.

So there you have if folks. The winner of the first ever IdeaWarz tournament - AndyDoan.

If you think you’ve got an idea worthy of battle in the tournament, head over to Cambrian House and submit it today.

Else help us pick the next tournament champion in our current Golden Axe Tournament.

Till next time – May the best idea win.

Hiya all,

Let’s face it, after you’ve seen one cow you’ve seen them all. But what if one day you were driving by and you saw a Purple Cow? Now that would be something!

Purple Cow is a term from a book written by Seth Godin describing how companies like Apple, Jet Blue, and Star Bucks continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth while leaving competitors in the dust.

For the next upcoming December tournament we are going to briefly leave our Viking theme of axes and hammers (don’t worry we’ll return and try our first themed tournament - The Purple Cow Tournament.

This tournament will feature all sorts of different, strange, exotic ideas from all over the land. Hopefully one will be a Purple Cow!

So stay tuned. We have already begun assembling our Purple Cow contenders and we hope to have your voting on these in the next couple days.

Got a Purple Cow? Submit it today and you may be our next tournament champion!

Mooooooo!

Congratulations Reddit, on your acquisition by Condé Nast. We are so inspired by you guys!

We’d also like to thank you for your parcel that we received today. We love our Reddit tees! We heart you, too!

We created congratulatory toast wallpaper in honor of your acquisition (and then we ate it for good luck.)

Your friends at Cambrian House.

P.S. For all you CH community members, we’ve added a little Reddit Overlord emoticon to our forums (he’s super cute, see? )