Seizing The Day

I had an appointment last night on my own. Normally my wife joins me and we work on marriage issues, family issues, communication issues and other joyous and fun things like that. But she wasn't feeling well and opted to leave it to me to go alone.

Which was fine, it gave me a chance to explore some issues that I've been coping with. Among them, feeling deficient, regretful and too focused on hindsight as well as the fact that I'm an outstanding starter, a middling middler and a very, very poor finisher. Which is funny in a way because, when I ran cross country in high school, I was awful at the start, pretty bad at the middle but had a very fast and strong finish but I digress.

That I have a tendency to allow minor roadblocks to obstruct my passage and that one possible workaround to this is to put together a support group of like minded people to help keep the forward momentum moving forward. Because most of my friends are in different places, both physically and mentally, I didn't really see a group emerging from people I already know. So I'm going to attempt to form an invention support group via Craigslist.

The odd thing is that, in the act of deciding to do this, I've found a whole new level of motivation to get back behind my invention and propel it forward. What that means for me is to start building out prototypes to see how the idea will work in actual practice. I plan on scoping out some parts later today.

I'm excited to be moving forward again. I want to try and maintain that excitement and get to something resembling a finish line. I know it won't be the end but I'm creating artificial finish lines within the project to allow me the pleasure of crossing them off as they are passed. Because it feels like things are happening when list items get completed and removed from the list altogether.

Next stop is to test the Craigslist community post pool to see who might want or need an invention support group.

Putting The Blog Into Gear

Let's cut right to the chase.

I've got inventions that are good enough and need to be put into production. One is an almost sure big success just waiting to hit as its directed at over-worked parents. Another is a more niche oriented product that will appeal to environmentally conscious dog owners.

There are some others that are still in the rumination stage.

What I need is a backer. Someone who can invest in the concepts and help propel them into production and into the marketplace. Because of my own current financial difficulties, I am unable to make the capital investment to get the process underway or I would have done so already. So I am looking for a backer to underwrite the process. In exchange I will split any profits arising from this partnership, percentages to be determined later based on number of backers (I'm sure my door will be knocked down any moment) and amount invested.

Yes, I am quite serious.

If you are interested then send me an email (erik at intellectualpoison dot com), include your contact information and I'll send you an NDA so that we can discuss particulars. You can ask questions by email or in the comments below. Investments do not have to be huge, they can be almost any amount and still make a positive impact on the process.

It is time to shift this sucker into gear and start moving towards my future rather than waiting for it to come to me.

Making Cool Tech Even Better

Digital photo frames are a very cool innovation as they allow all kinds of different photos to be displayed in one place. But they have disadvantages, like having to load images onto a media card and putting it in the frame and then having to repeat that process whenever you wanted new pictures.

So, my idea is to web-enable a digital frame, be able to point it at a Flickr photostream and display new images as they are uploaded to the website. This way, I could give a frame to my mom that's preconfigured to download the latest pictures of her beautiful grandchildren.

The frame could also include a card slot to save favorite images for transfer to computers, printing or for a slideshow in the frame.

I'm sure someone is already working on this and it'll be pretty sweet when they're widely available.

[Update: Easy was kind enough to provide the confirmation that this product does, in fact, already exist. Made by The Original Digital Picture Frame Company Ceiva. It isn't quite exactly what I had in mind but it is a web-enabled digital picture frame, the only drawback I can see is that the updated pictures need to be subscribed to and cost $100 a year or so. I guess I'm looking for a non-subscription set up that I can point to any photo stream I'd like. But it is definitely a great start!]

A Smart Bowl for Dogs

If you've got a dog then you know how quickly they wolf down their chow. Eating too fast can lead to gas, poor digestion and other, more serious, health problems.

So a couple came up with the doggie bowl for greedy eaters which is basically a bowl with plastic protrusions that make it harder for the dog to slurp up all of the food so quickly.

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ideas and I think I will want to pick one of these up for my speed-chowing hound.

And it reminds me that I've got a couple of inventions that I need to start driving again.

Anyone out there want to become an investor?