The Innovation Capitalist

Innovative Automated Parking

I hate dealing with parking garages, especially when they pack them in so tight, their is a high likelihood of your car getting seriously dinged. This automated parking solution might be the answer. The video is a little goofy, but it shows that change is under way in the parking lot world.

Eternal Water

Whole Food is now distributing a new beverage called "Eternal Water" which is from New Zealand. The thing that struck me about this product was not only that it tasted good, but it came packaged in a very creative design, very different than any other bottled beverage out there. What is even more interesting is that the label is not on the front of the bottle, it is actually on the back of the bottle and the label shows thru the water onto the front of the bottle. Another very innovative design and feature.

Winter Driving Tips - Yes It Is Still Summer

Up here in New England I've spotted several sugar maple trees that are starting to turn color. Although school has yet to get back in session, its time to think about winter, especially my strategy this year for putting up our holiday lights. The number one strategy is not to fall off of the roof. I won't discuss my past experiences.

When thinking about this coming winter,  we will likely see some big storms come thru, I"m now thinking about snow tires. There is plenty of innovation going on in the tire business. Just check out Bridgestone Blizzaks or the Nokian Line of tires. But sometimes it is even more important to understand how to drive in winter conditions. Breanne Boyle, posted a great article on AskPatty.com with some great tips for winter driving. You should definitely check them out if you live and drive in a snow zone. Great stuff.

DietTV a good story for entrepreneurs

DietTV has been in the works for several years now and with a fresh round of new seed capital, they are off and running. As many say in the world of entrepreneurialism. its not easy starting a business. However, Ken Seiff, the CEO of DietTV does a great job explaining his efforts in this post on their website. We can all learn from each other and its nice to see a CEO describing his efforts for us to read about. You can learn about how they got started here. Oh, notice that the story starts with the title "Thanks From Ken".

Some websites should say "We Don't Talk To Customers Or Our Fans" -

You watch one of your favorite restaurant review programs, in this case The Phantom Gourmet, here in Boston. You and your family see a great burger joint that gets a glowing review. You check the website based on the recommendation from the reviewer, you look at the hours they are open and you jump in your car, drive 45 minutes, walk up to the door, trying to control your druel and you find it is closed (during peak dinner hours mind you). No sign, nothing. You peak inside, everything looks in order, tables, etc. You send a note to the email address of the food reviewer (again in this case Phantom Gourmet), no response from them. You send send an email to the "owner" of the food joint who prominently features his email address on the website and you get the following return.

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

"name witheld" @"the name of the burger joint" .net
mailbox is full: retry timeout exceeded

If you can't make it to your store, then leave a message, let people know on your website, put a message on your answering machine and be sure to be careful about these food review people. Here they are plugging a restaurant that isn't even open. Worst yet, they haven't even responded to an email inquiry. Here we are avid watchers of the show and they don't have the courtesy to even provide a auto response of some sort. If you don't want to talk to customers then don't offer your email or a contact form. Just put up some text that says "We Don't Talk To Customers Or Our Fans"

College 2.0

Yup, approaching that time when we have to start thinking about the college exploration process for our soon to be high school junior. Many parents seem to fear this process, but I'm one that is looking forward to working with my son on this topic as colleges everywhere are building much better websites these days. In addition, its very easy to find online communities that give their feedback, advice and insight on the college selection process. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, even the college search process is gaining a Web 2.0 interface that I will call College 2.0. Just check out http://www.campusexplorer.com/

Even big brands are creating web trash.

I hate stale content, expired content, content covering press releases from 3 months ago with nothing in between. I consider this web trash and even big brands are wasting money and causing confusion with out dated promotions. Let's explore just one situation of web trash.

Everyone knows that it is not unusual to find yourself purchasing a product and then finding out the next day that a manufacturers rebate is available having never heard about it thru the retailer where you purchased your product. This is exactly what happened to me this week. I decided it was time to upgrade my portable XM Radio and decided on the Pioneer inno due to its size and its ability to record and store MP3. The first generation XM Radio that I had just wasn't really portable and suffered from the first generation product syndrome where I tend to be an early adopter. The inno is very small and thin. This morning I decided to see what accessories were available for this radio and found myself looking at a link off the Pioneer website. I see a rebate link, click on it and there I find myself looking at a rebate offer that exprires "July 2, 2007" and called "The Winter Rebate Offer". What's with that? Here is it a hot day in August of 2007 and I find myself looking at a major manufacturers website offering a rebate that expires in July. Web trash!

Here you are, going to a link about a rebate for the product you just purchased, the expectation is set, you get excited that you might save yourself $50.00 and you get a big slap in the head with an expired offer tha is still sitting on the manufacturers site. I've got it, how about they honor this promotion. That's right, if you don't have the sense to take down an expired offer then you should continue to honor the offer until you take it down. Better yet, we need a virtual maid or butler to travel around a companies website and rid it of all the web trash they are creating.

Oh, here is the link to the expired rebate so you can see for yourself.

Stinky Dog Delivers Smiles

Last week I had a chance to meet Sam, the owner and chief designer of the Stinky Art Company who produces the Stinky Dog tshirts and other cool products. I ran into Sam at her store located in downtown Northville, NY.  The store was warm and Sam was certainly very welcoming. We got a kick out of all the various designs and items featuring the famous "Stinky Dog". Sam is a true enterpreneur and you can read about her story at this page of her website.

Blankets That Matter

I'm hanging out this week in the back woods of the beautiful Adirondack Mountains in upstate NY and during my travels I stopped in at the Adirondack Blanket Works and met entrepreneur Tim Baker who runs this small textile manufacturing firm in Amsterdam NY with his brother. What a business. Beautiful and colorful blankets, all manufactured in a mini textile shop that was converted from an old bowling alley right here in the U.S.

When you first enter their store, which fronts the manufacturing area, you will notice the wonderful assortment of great blankets. You will also see old bowling pins and bowling balls scattered around. In addition, all the blankets are displayed on fixtures that are made out of the old wood floors from the bowling alley. Very cool. Tim Baker told me that people still come in to take a look at the place they "bowled their first 300 game". He wanted to preserve some of the feel from the old bowling alley. What a great idea.

This is a unique business with some very passionate owners. Tim showed me around pointing out all the very unique styled blankets. In addition, he was quite proud of their "photo blanket" where one can send or upload a picture to their website and they will produce a blanket for you.

The Baker brothers are another example of a great small business, creating terrific products that everyone could use and made right up here in the Adirondacks. The quality is terrific. Oh, and what a great holiday gift for family and friends.  

Small Is Certainly The New Big

Seth Godin has published an excellent book entitled "Small is the New Big" and is definitely worth the read. Over the course of several postings on this blog, I will feature what I have experienced as great small companies that have clearly demonstrated passion and customer committment beyond anything I have experienced before. This includes very personable interactions between the company executives and myself. I call them the small companies that truely deliver WOW.

The first one is StickerCafe who produce very engaging oval stickers. They are available for sale at Ovalstickers.net. I love these oval stickers and while I was with IBM, had the folks at Stickercafe make me up several hundred THINK oval stickers. I gave them to many of my colleagues at IBM who loved them. The next thing I knew, I was getting request from all over via word-of-mouth that I was the one to contact to get one of these oval stickers. People put them on their laptops. It was pretty amazing how many people really enjoyed them. Stickercafe is lead by an entrepreneur who clearly understands the value of great customer service. The responsiveness to ones inquires are very fast, I'm talking less than 5 minutes for a set of oval stickers I just ordered. I was also surprised to get a nice email from the owner who remembered me from when I purchased the THINK oval stickers. The caused me to say WOW when I get his very personable email. The next thing I knew, I was getting an email saying my order was on its way. This is an example of a great small company that is going to be adored by customers. If you have an idea for a oval sticker, give them a chance. I think you will enjoy what they offer.