It’s important in business to always appreciate new and different approaches that catch you off guard. These approaches are far from being bad, too!

Having deftly slipped through our defenses we can learn a tremendous amount from asking ourselves ‘how the hell did that just happen?’ and going back over the experience step by step to find out.

So quite recently I was playing my 5-box shaman team, questing away in Dragonblight and minding my own business. I should probably explain before continuing that my shaman team are named after a group of Russian composers – their names are Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Antonovich and Porfiryevich.

So you can imagine my confusion when I received the following whisper: (continue reading…)

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!