I was clearing out some files at home yesterday and came across one that had ‘great ideas’ written on it. The file was around an inch thick and clearly hadn’t been opened for a while and the ideas were mostly dated between 2000 and 2002. What I had here was a whole host of ideas that had been generated when I worked as head of Innovation at Royal Mail. Unfortunately not many of the ideas got off the ground and I tried to remember why they hadn’t been taken up – was it that they were bad ideas, was the timing wrong, were they unprofitable ideas or was there something else?
I thought it might be worth whole publishing a few, taken at random, on this blog to see if there is any reaction and to see if it was just timing or they are really not good ideas – so here goes:
- Address for life: this concept is based on making available personal postcodes, non-geographic postcodes that people could buy – similar to personal number plates. The sorting technology in the IMP machines has the ability to read this code and spray on to where the postmark would be the real address so the postman can read and deliver the item. The benefit of this idea is that it could be the basis of a ‘follow me’ service as it would be relatively easy to reroute items as long as 24 hours notice was given.
- Semantic Mail: Tracking of items of mail is becoming more common, particularly for high value items, however it suffers from the problem of being carrier/operator specific – being reliant on a central database. The concept of Semantic Mail, mail which understands itself, is that there would be some form of coding on the mailpiece, either in a 3D barcode or RFID type device – the idea proposed something called Microspot developed by HP. Encoded in this would be where the letter had come from, where it was going to, the class of the letter and something about its contents – this could be read by Open Source readers and therefore the letter could be tracked across carriers. One problem with this is that unauthorised people could also read the code.
- Virtual Warehouse: This idea was to build a software system that took input from all the tracking systems of all the carriers – both Mail and Parcel – and displayed this on a Map based online system. The advantage of this is that companies shipping products could see where they all are at one time. Although this idea was dated 2002 I came across a similar product developed by a guy in New York 18 months ago and tried to persuade Pitney Bowes who I was working for at the time to buy it and develop it further. Unfortunately it didn’t fit into their vision and I didn’t succeed, but at least it proved that the concept was viable although the timing of the original idea was a little too early maybe.
- Web enabled Post-box: This concept was to install a web server, powered by solar, on a number of key post box locations around the UK and in customers premises. The technology would have the ability to do image capture to ascertain whether items were first or second class, as well as just basic counting of items in the box. It was proposed that simple mobile phone technology was used to relay the information back to a central site. This idea came out of work I was doing during a strike when I was doing post-box collections. Many of the boxes were empty – others were full to bursting, however as no information was available I spent a lot of time visiting post-boxes that had little or no mail in them – wasting time and fuel. The initial cost for the unit, which was to be installed, was £5k but this was reduced to less than £500 when the idea was taken to York University Advanced Computing Group – and today it would probably be down to £50!
- Dog Repellent Trousers: Always my favourite idea and one I could never get funding to develop. Dogs are an ongoing problem for post persons and a large number get bitten every year. This idea was to develop material that would protect against dog bites – that was cheap, attractive and flexible. Loughborough University did some initial work generating some ideas but funding through the Royal Mail Innovation Fund ran out and it never got off the ground.
OK so these ideas as they stand may not be of immediate interest but there are elements within them that may be usable. When I was involved with the Innovation Lab within Royal Mail we generated many thousands of ideas – less than 5% ever got out of the lab and had any development focus, however it doesn’t mean that the other ones were bad – it just wasn’t the right time for them to be good.
In the UK hundreds of companies are running brainstorm sessions almost on a daily basis, generating ideas of which many will be dismissed – wouldn’t it be great to capture all these ideas somehow and make them available to a wider audience - an open source ideas database/wiki?
Do you have a similar file?
HAve you got ideas that you think are worth sharing?
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