Pat’s Point of View

I read with interest, some of the great ideas in trendwatching.com’s Innovation Avalanche. As someone at work commented, there are definitely some services ripe for reproduction in other markets, for example:

Parkingspots.com connects those who have parking spots to rent out with those who need them on a monthly basis…[full article]

Though more ‘intention economy’ than crowd power, Dutch ING Bank’s WoonWaarUWilt (”LiveWhereYouWant”) initiative is too much fun to not include: the service lets clients make an offer on houses that aren’t on the market, but that they’d love to own…[full article]

…Located in the Britomart (a public transport hub) in Auckland, BikeCentral offers bicycling enthusiasts and commuters a welcoming place to park their bikes and transition into the next part of their day. In addition to safe, secure bicycle parking, BikeCentral members have access to private lockers, showers and changing areas. Coffee, fresh food and free wireless internet are also available, as are rental bicycles and an on-site repair service for minor repairs…[full article]

The authors top and tail the list of ideas with their own editorial on subjects such as coming up with your own innovative ideas and how to make money off those in the list. Good stuff.

Despite the great ideas discussed in this article, I must say I don’t like trendwatching’s design. The graphics are too big and poorly coupled to the text—it’s actually difficult to tell which belongs with which—and overall it’s quite hard to scan because there are no headings for each of the 41 innovation ideas. The overly large headings that pepper the page, such as “hyperlocal” and “tryvertising”, add to the confusion because it’s not clear that these are actually category headings (for lack of a better word) that group together the ideas. A clearer content, and visual, hierarchy would be good.

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