Brainstorming software

I wish I had more energy to chase building a company right now, but this just doesn?t quite interest me enough. Maybe later, I?ll build this, but for now I?m just going to share the thoughts. Imagine brainstorming with a large group of people, but you don?t have to listen to anyone talking, especially not the ones that overpower groups anyway. But, imagine you get a high amount of collaboration and ideas generating off of other ideas. What if it was just a piece of software? Now, imagine you have people logged in to a piece of software that doesn?t look much more complicated then a chat, but instead of streams of peoples conversations linearly floating up the screen with their name, it?s anonymous bubbles floating upwards like under the sea. As you see an idea, written inside one of these bubbles it makes you think of one, and you write it. This could go on for 15-20 minutes. Now, connect a reference database to it so that images started floating up replacing some of the words users are typing. You could add sounds as well, ultimately providing a visual experience of brainstorming. At the end, all the ideas are captured in a report and could even tell you who came up with each.

Posted by Darin Archer on March 14, 2005

Google?s indexing the universe

While Google is happily indexing everything they can crawl to, I?m left wondering why all those brilliant mathematicians and marketers can?t come up with a better return then a laundry list of miscellaneous web sites that have words on them that match what I asked for. How many times do you scan, click, scroll, return, and repeat until you finally find what you?re looking for? It?s painful. Here?s a thought. Why not take all the intelligence gathered and change the paradigm. I noticed the other day that when I was playing around with the keywords associated with an AdWords campaign I had built, Google was able to recommend other keywords. It seems to me that based on my key words it knows something about them, which leaded me to wonder if it knows enough to categorize my results so that I can more easily find what I am looking for. Here?s a simple example. When I search for ?Montana fly fishing,? I am returned results for sites that provide informative information about fly fishing, places to fly fish, etc. Additionally, I?ll find sites for fly shops in different parts of the world. Another key category is fly fishing guides and outfitters. So, why can?t Google take all the results, categorize them as best as possible and then show me a relationship representation so that I could drill down only on those pertaining to fly fishing guides, which was what I may have been looking for in the first place.

Posted by Darin Archer on March 14, 2005

System Execution

In today?s society, we are constantly surrounded and dependent on systems. Some work well and protect our lives and others well, let?s just say someone didn?t do enough testing. The one that gets me every week is the Seattle train system that moves me from the N gate back to baggage claim. After the train has taken off, it suddenly accelerates. The funny part is that this startles everyone, every time because the message, ?Please hold on? is delayed by about one second, just long enough to not warn you until it?s too late. It?s all about execution of a good system, not just the idea.

Posted by Darin Archer on March 14, 2005