Clever Concepts – Different approaches to business that work
I always appreciate interesting and innovative approaches to old problems. Over a decade ago in the relative lawlessness of pre-trammel Ultima Online you really needed to have your wits about you to not get screwed over.
There were always new scams and you had to make sure you were well researched and permanently ‘on guard’ to prevent yourself getting ripped off. I really enjoyed the savageness of this. As a result I always had an appreciation for scams that nearly got me because they took my abilities and awareness right to the edge.
So when I read [this article] today about select McDonalds restaurants in Sweden being used as polling places for the coming 2010 election I was intrigued to say the least.
Not only will people be able to vote at the McDonalds restaurants but they’ll be able to vote there up to two weeks ahead of time! The stated reasons for this initiative are to improve a historically lower voting rate in these areas and to create more engagement particularly from younger voters that frequent the establishments.
My initial reaction was that this was a bad idea. Mixing private enterprise and the democratic process? Never work! Then as I thought about it more over the course of the day I came to appreciate how clever this really was.
As the article didnt go into detail on how they’ll ensure the process is secure and the venue politically neutral I shall wear my [Yellow Hat] and assume those points ARE taken care of. So what, then, are the potential results of this initiative? Increased voter participation for the government and increased sales for McDonalds.
When I hear about clever ideas like this that potentially make for great synergies I always wonder why nobody thought of them until now. I’m not just talking about large scale stuff like this but even little process improvements in the workplace. Stuff that you never thought of but that hits you like a breath of fresh air and you make that “ahhhhhhh!” realisation.
Have you come up with ideas like this yourself? Been around when others had them? How much did they change things for you? I want to hear about your experiences with innovative concepts and clever ideas. Let’s have them!
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I was just comparing that idea to the way South Africa does it where I live, and I’m thinking that that will take a LOT of manpower.
But then again doesn’t US (and most other countries probably) have the whole voting process Electronically done?
In South Africa it’s like…go to one of the many venues, stand in a queue, get a stamp, fill out your form manually for your candidate, put it in the box, move on. It’s SLOOOOW.
I often feel like “little improvements” made in the workplace are often done by people who aren’t involved in the workplace, and tend to have the exact opposite effect of what was intended.
For example, at the store I used to work at, the order came down from corporate that the low-end-of-the-totem-pole employees had to wear these safety vests, like you see construction workers wear – the idea was that the courtesy help would be more visible to customers, because supposedly, customers were complaining there weren’t enough.
What really happened, however, was that people quickly associate wearing a safety vest inside while bagging with mentally retarded, and so a group of people already treated like less-than-people were treated even MORE like less-than-people. When we pointed this out to management, they just shrugged and said, “That’s the way it is.”
In the vein of “yellow hat thinking,” however, I do enjoy coming up with various uses for abilities in WoW that I don’t see most people using – using an “offensive” ability for defensive purposes or vice versa or something. I know they’re not ideas never come up with before, but when it’s something I haven’t personally seen anyone do before, there’s something very satisfying about it. Or, as I talked about with Saate, an idea I suggested to my guild for “fun things to do that aren’t raiding as a guild” to go to Icecrown and raid the Skybreaker and kill any Allies who showed up for their dailies, taking over the ship.
It’s a good feeling when you suggest an idea, and there’s a pause, and someone says, “That’s a good idea.”
Oh – as an addendum to that last post, here’s another very genius idea someone pointed out to me one night:
He had reached the gold cap on multiple characters, and while I won’t go into great detail how (because it’s a long explanation), one of the many things he would do is find direct buyers for raw materials.
Basically, everybody needs gems and enchants. It’s a renewable source of income because people are always willing to buy them. So jewelcrafters are pretty much always willing to buy ore – it’s usually profitable to buy ore, prospect it, and sell the gems back on the AH.
So he would go to Wintergrasp and farm up a ton of titanium and saronite. Again, I won’t go into how he’d come up with the names, but he would find people willing to buy these items in mass quantity, and instead of selling them on the AH, he’d COD them to them. Here’s why:
The AH requires you put down a deposit to put something up. Let’s suppose a stack of 20 titanium ore is a 5g deposit, and you’re trying to sell it for 16g a piece. Well, if someone undercuts you to 15.9g a piece, you might not auction your item, and you’re out 5g.
Now, the AH also takes a 10% cut of any sale you make. So when you sell that stack of titanium for 16g a piece, you’re only getting back 14.4g a piece – you get your deposit back, however, which most people don’t even notice they had to put down, so it LOOKS like you’re getting back as much as you sold it for in small amounts. Let’s say a stack of saronite ore is 16g, and the deposit is 3g. You sell it for 14.4g, but when you go to the mailbox, it says “Auction successful: Saronite ore. 17.4g” or whatever. So it LOOKS like you got back exactly what you posted it for, but you’re really getting 10% less.
Well, what he would do is find these JCs who were willing to buy as much ore as he could send them, and he’d sell it to them for, in our example, 15g a piece. Now, to the JC, he’s getting ore 1g cheaper per piece than if he bought it on the AH. And our vendor isn’t losing a cut to the AH – he’s getting 15g a piece instead of 14.4g, so although he’s selling it for less than he does on the AH, he’s actually making more money.
Now probably 95% of the people on WoW don’t even notice that there’s a deposit to post something, and that there’s a cut of all your sales, so almost NOBODY uses trade or the COD mailing system to sell things. But this guy was making a bigger profit by not using the AH and just finding direct buyers. I’ve since never seen anyone do that except for him and me, but when I put it to use, I made quite a bit of gold pretty quickly.
Now he continued expanding on this concept and his web of people, and again, I won’t go into why here, but he was basically making about 20,000g a day for about 30 minutes of work – and I’m not exaggerating that number.
This isn’t quite in the vein of the thread, but my opinions on the example in the original post – I’m by nature a negative thinker (black hat, it seems), so if anything election-related was going to be linked with a private company like that, I’d be worried about 2 things:
(1) Public money would be used to promote a private company in the advertising for the new system;
(2) The inevitable embarrassing pandering as politicians stoop to try and appeal to/fit in with the lowest common denominator of the target voter segment.
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As far as the thread’s actual topic goes, about all I can contribute is that I enjoy trying to solo WoW content that isn’t meant to be soloed – though I’ve fallen off the wagon a bit with it – I think that rogue who used the placeable rat to solo Patchwerk is ver inspiring and a great example of creative use of game mechanics.