...but I say, REINVENT what you've just written. I mean, it's got potential but you need to develop your idea a little more... for example, I'd like to hear how will you ensure revenue for the website so it can offer future industrial designers a chance to express their ideas?

Keep up the good work!

I'm voting this one up. I'm not sure that you've nailed the exact, best way to maximize revenues from this (and I don't have an answer for that either), but there is some merit in this approach.

Check out this site that's been trying to do something similar http://www.cecrowdsourcing.blogspot.com/ I've noticed that they have been inserting their url whenever there is a thread around crowdsourcing out there on the net.

keep up the good work, Mik

i like the idea.
I mean coming up with some new utensils and everyday tools is something that everybody i know would like to do. But no one has the resources to market their inventions. So this site should give the public their chance to shine.

keep up the great ideas, Mik.

hey guys, thx for your comments.

To answer your concerns, this is how i foresee the site making money:
- Sponsorship from industrial design companies
- Sponsorship from actual manufacturer related to the posted product
- Special paying tournaments for universities
- And of course a cut of the sold end products

As the company capital increases it will soon be able to offer a prototype for the winning team product so it will get sold much easier

I have one word: IKEA...

Re-invent the wheel will be the IKEA of the knowledge economy

A while back I was thinking of an idea where each month a selection of everyday items were presented. Visitors to the site needed to obtain those items (commonly available) and create the most imaginative combination of those items possible. I was going to call it the Macgyver experiement, after the famed TV special agent who could always construct something life-saving out of common objects.

Your idea reminds me of that but with a much clearer purpose and potential revenue stream. Good thinking +1

that's is really a very creative idea...why didn't i think of that....
well if we can recycle paper, plastic,... why can't we recycle the whole concept.

Is that not the same thing as this site? You have just took!

I guess someday we will have to change anyway the way do many things. It?s always nice to go out of the routine.
My worries are just about the confidentiality and security issues concerning the creative.
But at the end it?s an excellent idea it should be definitely up.

I like it, I think this will be different form this site and the cecrowdsourcing blog in that it's geared more towards design innovations and more mundane everyday things that people still need nevertheless. This idea reminds me a bit of Cameron Sinclair's Architecture for Humanity, which is geared towards new innovative architecture designs for humanitarian crises.
I think this idea could also be used in such a way, in that creating designs for mundane, everyday tools and utensils that work better for different people in different environments.

Not bad Makramitto, or is it Mik? Creativity with no boundaries

Cool. The name is catchy and a keeper also.

I like the idea, but I'm not sure about the commercialization of the products. I think it would be an interesting challenge that many geeks would find fun (I've have discussions with friends about similar things), but it would be hard to mrket some of these. It might be more fun as a though experiement

Hey, maybe if you had a tool for online group brainstorming (one of my ideas), you might be able to beat other industrial design firms! :P

BY the way, the fork has already achieved the optimal form. It is called the SPORK.

Nice....I've often had ideas on how to improve everyday items, in addition to web development. But I've never had the time or energy to patent it, build a prototype, send it to firms etc...

In a perfect world this would be perfect, it sounds good on paper, I like the concept but my gut feeling (my innovative intuition) is that it's simply lacks simplicity.

NICE. I LIKE THIS!!!!!!

I have not read all the comments. But perhaps just make it an award where everyone can take part of, and people don't have to design it on the website online. I think designing and producing online is difficult enough, and how do you know which project is worth building. And aren't you then just rebuildin the Cambrian House website? Okay, with more focus on what type of products, so that might help.

Might be fun, but doubt it would generate any money

I find this a very original idea. As a viral marketing contest, it can count. As something that is a sustainable product that can bring revenue, I have serious doubts.

Hey, very good idea. Check a company called IDEO (www.ideo.com), They are benchmark in redesigning traditional products like toothpastes, shopping carts, etc etc.

Ideo is a fully brick and mortar company, and their team work (brainstorming, role playing, voting on ideas and so on) and variety of tools for building prototypes rapidly are major success factors. I imagine this bussiness an online version of Ideo, so we need to be build very good tools for interaction between members, because good ideas come from INTERACTIONS between people, and it is hard to replace the physical worls interactions.

But yes, there may be good possibilities to achieve this.

Here you can read an acticle of Business Week about Ideo: http://www.businessw.../240512BWePrint2.pdf

Cheers!

Interesting

Since this is the leader, and I really don't think it's a great idea... perhaps I'm being a bit flippant, so, I apologize in advance for hurting any feelings. I really don't think this deserves the position it currently holds. We need to think more clearly about what kinds of thing we are suggesting Cambrian House put into development.

I know this seems like an original idea but it's not. Every design school (not just most - every single one in every city you can think of) has their students try to take new look on common things. Fact is most common things are actually pretty good. And If there are ideas that could replace them you can bet there are design firms working hard on introducing them (silicon oven mitts or teflon 'ov-gloves' are a recent case in point.) My point is that I don't see how some website will suddenly unleash new great products. Let's stick to software and services.

donh
I respect your opinion but you have to be careful what you?re saying here :)

Don?t you think people all over the world are trying every day to come up with new ideas for software and websites? Does that make Cambrianhouse useless?

I think the logic behind this website, as well as my proposed idea, is to harness the wisdom of the crowds. And I strongly believe that you will be amazed with the product ideas that will come out.

Besides, being mundane everyday objects used by every single soul, if just 1 product gets adopted the financial returns will be HUGE.

Yes, Tim, I am sorry for being a bit harsh. What I meant is not that big money can't be made by great design of real things. I meant that the Cambrian House / IdeaWarz concept is to build many useful sites/services and software by distributing the making of them to the crowd and then distributing the money from them back to that crowd.

Manufacturing and design of physical products requires it's own skill-set and tools that, my guess is, this community doesn't have. I do know this community has graphic design skills, programming skills, database skills etc. If this were an idea to somehow connect up product designers with manufacturers and distributors or something that created a web based mechanism to service that industry - I would give it serious thought, but not as it stands. It's very expensive and time consuming to physically build something/test/redesign/test/market. When I say I don't like this idea, I don't mean that it's not fun to consider new takes on common things, I mean I don't think we should implement this idea as a business. I see this as a forum for ideas that we can implement fairly quickly and make money on.

I do believe in the wisdom of crowds - that's why I'm here. But at this very early stage - I'm suggesting we stick to what we know.

Hey donh....name is Mik :)

Ok well i see your point. But you have to understand that what CH community needs to build is exactly the website itself and the collaboration tools between designers not the actual products. In the CH business model, the end product does not target the CH community only!

So, as a community, we don't need to know how to design products, what we are building here is a website that will be used by those who do!

Hey Mik - sorry! I have no idea where Tim came from *blush*

Well, you do say in your idea that the money would come from taking an actual product to market.

RobinHood Fund is fun, easy to implement and starts to make some money right away - and hopefully will build from there. FundableFilms fills a real obvious need for fimmakers to get money (especially with grants and endouments being cut left and right) and can match the already proven huge audience for film and video of all types. Those are great ideas for us now and I know there are tons more.

That's all - I promise to spend more time pumping up the ideas I love rather than putting ones down that I don't! Happy idea grinding everyone!

Hello All, somehow our initiative is not so far from this idea even if we will apply this principle only to the consumer electronic products (http://cecrowdsourcing.blogspot.com/). We will launch an official website, I hope before end of november ;-) and you will be able to participate to this revolution. Bookmark our blog website in order to be informed of new website address: I know this blog is a shame and not really professional but this will be not the case of our new website.

Interesting.

I very much doubt this could be done by CH or generate money.

Hello Mik, this idea is included within our business model. Join us on http://www.CrowdSpirit.org
Lionel
Crowdspirit Team

Sounds the same as http://www.crowdspirit.org

Like this idea because it stimulates creativity. Voting up.

CH is already here(w/out protection though to the ideas)..throwing something specific to work on would not let the whole crowd participate...

I like it to.

So up you go

]V[oogy

A number of very popular sites encourage people to take an image or theme, photoshop it to their heart's content and enter it into a weekly competition. Even where the reward is nothing but kudos from the site's community, the competitions are typically popular and bring out everything from very amateur jobs to sophisticated pieces of art that look very professional and must have taken their creators hours. Either way, the results are often very clever and force a new look at an image that would look to most people to be straightforward and uninteresting. What you're proposing could - if marketed correctly - go the same way.

As others have suggested, the challenge would be working out a sensible way to commercialise the output ideas. Let's face it, most of the suggestions will be completely unworkable, but you have to hope it's worth it to find the hidden gems. Unfortunately, beyond copyright of the idea statements - which isn't worth much as it doesn't stop someone changing the look of the product and writing the idea in their own words - I don't think you can offer any kind of IP protection, which could be a stumbling block. Why should inventors submit a serious proposal if it can be stolen, and why should companies pay for ideas they can steal?

I wonder if you can get some innovative companies to sponsor the process somehow... Perhaps they cast an eye over the entries and get first pick of any they want to pull out and commercialise, with some payment then going to the contributor? That way contributors have an incentive to submit workable designs, companies benefit from seeing innovative designs without paying very much, you take the sponsorship monies and any ad revenues, there's no pressure from committing yourself to supporting bad ideas and everyone's happy!

Mik. I read the idea but skipped over the comments so I may be bringing up some redundant issues. Regardless I think this idea is a great start. Here are some ways I think it could be more industry oriented and potentially bring in some $$$$ <---- money.
I am an engineering student and AutoCAD/Solid Works user so I have experience with design. Speaking from my perspective I would be interested in going to a site where companies in various industries posted descriptions of products THEY wanted designed/redesigned. Let them offer the incentive for the winning designer (selected by them and of course critiqued/rated by the community).
The site just acts as a network linking the industries to the designers and you collect money from frees companies pay for posting their design description on the site.
From my perspective, I would certainly be keen to join this website and think it would have great success. If this idea goes through. Sign me up!

Industrial design is doing just this all the time.
Would be nice to go in session to think completely out of the box.
Tommy

Best idea I've seen in a long time! I'd love to see this come to life so I can use it myself.

As long as it keeps us thinking....

I like the idea... I just know you will need people working hard on these... it would prove crowdsourcing

My main concern about this superficially appealing idea is the cost of the products. They will mostly appeal to niche markets, and therefore be low volume and high cost. It will be difficult going unless you get lucky with a runaway hit that you can get into the high volume channels before it's ripped off by established players.

CH could develop the site, but who is going to pay for the prototypes and patent attorneys? It could work, but you would need some serious venture capital.

In theory it's a great idea, it encourages creativity and harnesses crowdsourcing. But I have trouble seeing this as a viable business. I look at sites like Innocentive, which uses crowdsourcing to solve difficult problems for major companies and they only see a 28% success rate. Despite offering large rewards.

The difficultly with your idea, is that once you've developed the product, it still needs to be brought to market, or even proven to have market demand if you want to convince another company to buy it. You would also be competing with the communities out there on university campuses and other groups who do similar things already.

hi Mik, I have read your idea and also read few comments (especially by noniesaft and a few others). I kind of think on the same lines that you do and would like to clarify my standpoint.

I think that the whole point of "reinvent the wheel" is attracting the discussion on business viability as we are treating it as a new product. Instead, we can emphasize that "Enhancements" to existing products to make them "user/consumer friendly".

For example, If we were to put up a start up firm, the core focus area must revolve around product/service enhancements to increase user experience significantly to create a differentiation in market could be the vision of the firm. Also, the start up can handle product/service transformation services for the identified product/client.

Great idea, I like it!!

This is a timely idea; we're seeing big companies like OXO, Method (a big company NOW, anyway), and to some extent Apple re-inventing consumer products. Pininfarina may also be a good example of a company making "stale" products fresh again. Dyson is a good example of an underdog win; the guy who invented the power-stapler they sell at office supplies is probably a perfect example here.

My point, though: While there is an endless supply of ideas on how to make better products, you have to have marketing power to get those products into consumers' hands. I'd really like to see more about how we can get those products manufactured and onto retailers' shelves.

There is a site who is doing this about specific things like energy it is called urbanrevision.com there are several contests. All things must be green.

Wow, this idea has really potential

was this created long time ago would everyone check out my new idea for filmwrite search the business then check it out thanks people

i think this is a very good idea

nice idea..
but what if the re-invented thing will be a poor version of the existing one, and may be it does not appeal to the mass.
But still its a gud one.. 3*

I like this, and would personally get involved in redesigning stuff. I think CrowdSpirit is mainly electronic devices, so concentrating on ordinary household items would be good for this idea.

Maybe... but it ultimately sounds very Cambrianesque.

I've been told by business teachers, "You don't need to reinvent the wheel to have a prosperous business". But I have always had that thought in the back of my head, "Isn't that what sells?" People like new things and doing things differently. They don't like doing the same mundane things day in and day out. I like the concept.

Is this about functionality or look-and-feel? Because improving the function of a device seems like it ties in to the world of patents (as you're coming up with something novel and not-obvious). So... its good to post that on a site, and establish prior art, so at least no one is going to be able to SUE YOU if you really are the first to come up with the new functional device. But to keep others from stealing your redesign... then you'd need to file a patent yourself. Do you see this site as wading into patent wars...

Would you allow team members to be a part of multiple teams? The problem being what if you have 99% non-skilled to moderately skilled participants and .1% of your population are solid works experts (3D modeling tool)

The people with the highly technical skills would need to be shared some how.

The patents should be a big hairy mess. Patents are intrinsically tied to the idea of protecting and sheltering idea. Make sure you have a real good patent lawyer associated with the site.

All nay saying aside, sounds like a good idea. Best of luck to you in making this happen. If you can conquer the legal implications, this could help improve EVERYTHING.

really cool and interesting one!

Absolutely love this idea!

Love the idea, I am always asking myself why we use the things we use every day and if it should really be like what we know, the example you gave about scisors and knife is exactly what I am talking about.

I disagree with Firefox on Enhancement though, I think we should question the very existance (or at least look and way we use) of common items!

But then again who would buy? :)

I am truely loving this idea. This would be nice :)

I like this idea, as I said last time. How has it been updated?

Interesting... but I'm not sure it sounds like a sustainable business method. People have been redesigning household objects like forks and knives for years, but none of the new alternatives ever caught on. Marketing a product like that is difficult - do you think the major companies will be willing to buy your designs?