Simple Ideas

This is a blog post to just talk about some simple use of technology and the potential for that technology to make the world a better place.  These are not profound ideas and many have been done already, but generally just examples of what I've been thinking about recently.  Here we go:

• Wildlife webcams: See here for an example collection.  This seems like one of the simplest ways of conveying the beauty and changing aspect of the nature that is really not that close to many of us city (or suburb) dwellers.  One Step Beyond: make a Roku channel and add sound.  The Roku channel should default to a rotating "best of" collection and change every day.  Somebody should provide this to doctors offices / waiting rooms in general and just have a strip of silent advertising on the bottom or the side.
• Feedback & Tracking: Ask Me Every is a great example of this topic.  Their system sends and email or a text every day at a certain time asking a question that you set up and then you provide feedback.  It tracks your information (whatever you want).  It keeps you accountable and helps you track your progress.  Want to drink less alcohol?  Have it send you a message each day when you'd be done drinking and honestly   One Step Beyond: make it into an app.  Put the data into a broader data ecosystem for the user so that it could be integrated with custom scripts or display of the information.
• Easy Maintenance: Every new product that you buy should get registered into your maintenance database.  If a smart product, it can add entries in the db when maintenance needs to be done.  If not smart, calendar entries can be added.  Ideally, this would be facilitated through the manufacturer, but could be done totally outside of that scope.  It would have to be super easy for people to follow through, though.  One Step Beyond: rate all products for how much time and money they will take in maintenance.  Want to buy that motorcycle, well, be ready to spend 8 hours realigning the valves every 5k miles, or that other motorcycle only needs it every 20k miles.  Should be part of everybody's purchase decision but it's not (directly) now, people rely instead of rough brand confidence measures.
• [More to come!]

Simplest technology the best?

I went on a 20 mile bike ride today, but didn't bring any water with me.  Great ride, but I was pretty thirsty when it was over.  No worries, there was a McDonalds on my way home.  I went in, bought a large soda and got a cup for water.  That is when the problems started.

First, the water dispenser wasn't working.  Then, the Diet Coke that came out of was so thick with syrup that it was kinda gross.  And I had so been looking forward to the drink.  Why, I immediately wondered, couldn't I mix the amount of syrup that I wanted?

If you've been to Elevation Burger or BGR recently, you've seen some fancy touch screen soda dispensers.  They are fancy and have endless selection.  Diet Coke with some orage splashed in, no problem!  Anything.  But getting the mix of soda water to syrup down requires you to navigate several menu screens to get to just soda water.  It does the trick.

But not really as well as the old school machines that on the Sprite have a simple lever (akin to the water lever that typically sits next to the lemonade dispenser) that says Soda and as the name suggests, just dispenses soda.  What a simple and wonderful solution to the problem.  Infinite choice in a very simple package.