PBX Phone System

Interestingly, I’ve had a lot of people contact me recently to remind me about, or ask after, those original 100 Ideas I posted on my website, which you can still find (and they went beyond 100) with the search box (try this). I apologise that I never got around to collating the first 100 ideas into an ebook, as promised. I might get back to that, but with a fresh 100! Or maybe a Top 10. I shall avoid mobile banking of course, as we won’t have any banks left by then.

I first started publishing ‘ideas’ because I didn’t want to blog about other blogs blogging about other blogs blogging about vacuous press releases etcetera. I still try to avoid re-posting. The other reason was just to share and to make sure that I recorded some of the ideas in the public domain.

There are plenty of ideas that I think I had first, although I recognise that this is a common delusion that goes along with other ones, like ‘my kids are smart and above average’ (everyone thinks that) and ‘I can make money from good ideas by viral marketing’ (lots of developers think that) and ‘I am destined for great things’ (who doesn’t think that?). Anyway, no need to go into all these neuroses - let Grey’s Anatomy and other brilliant US TV serials do that, or Seth Godin perhaps (for a corrective about the viral stuff). Hey, maybe we need a TV series called ‘Purple Cow!’ I will gladly pen the script, now that I am officially a paid script-writer (more on that some other time).

Anyhow, I wasn’t embarrassed to throw out any product idea that came into my head, so long as they were roughly related to mobile. Like I said at the time, ‘big or small’, ’significant or silly.’ I did say something like that, didn’t I? Oh dear, I hope I did, I mean qualify the dumb ideas.

So, resuming the tradition, here’s one that popped into my head last night, related not only to wireless but to US TV shows too! I settle down to watch an episode from a boxset and, guess what? You will know if you have kids. Yes - ‘where’s the bloody remote control gone?’

Under cushions, under sofas, in plant pots, in the toilet (not down it, I hope) and everywhere on the trail of the kids.

Then it dawns on me. If only these things used wireless and could receive a signal back from the DVD player. Yes - you’ve guessed it, a paging feature to make the remote buzz and let me know where he’s hiding. By the way, it was CSI Miami, so my mind was well tuned to investigation.

Now, which idea was this? 10,038 I think, filed under ‘nice to have but won’t make me a million.’