A Little Bit Better

Have you ever wondered where your ideas come from? Most of us just accept them as a normal part of life and just keep on going about our business.

I just assume that everyone is more or less like me. Some are much more intelligent and there are some (few) who I am much smarter than. On the whole, I think the vast majority of us are pretty much the same. We have the same dreams, hopes, fears and doubts. Sure there are some of us that are afraid the lions will leap the fence around the village and make off with one of the babies. Some worry that the investment that they made won’t generate a 37% increase over six months. Some of us worry that the guys in the white coats will read our blog and take us to live in a padded room.

I was sitting in Tim Horton’s with Louise today and every now and then I would glance at the TV screen above the faux fireplace. This is a relatively new thing in the fast food industry. Put a flat screen TV on the wall, a fake fireplace with a couple of leatherette easy chairs and a too low table somewhere and I guess the people will think they are at home. I imagine this is to make us feel that it’s a good place to meet, have a coffee and discuss the issues of the day. Ahhhh…that’s the way it was before, wasn’t it?

 

I looked at the cup and thought that sometime in the not too distant future, there will be tiny screens on the cups themselves. It will be perfect for advertising, snippets of news and maybe it will connect to our cell phones giving us access to the internet. We’ll be able to settle those arguments about which year James Cagney actually died (March 1986), when the first recorded pair of bell bottom pants were worn (1813), and when they became popular with the hippies (60’s and 70’s). I may live long enough to be able to call my wife on a paper coffee cup. She’s not as impressed with technology as I am, so I’d better start to think of something worthwhile to say when I call her.

 

It occurred to me that I don’t have to wait; I can probably make my own today. No, it won’t actually work, but it might just look pretty good. I kept my cup and couldn’t wait till I got home. I spent a small part of an hour in the basement workshop and came up with my Tim TV cup. It had a screen in the bottom third of the cup, a couple of stir sticks that will double as rabbit ear antennas and an idea grew to fruition. Sure, the TV will cut down the amount of coffee and if you use the stir sticks the reception will be shot to hell. Other than that, it looks pretty cool.

It went from idea to real in a little less than an hour.

Most ideas just sort of creep up on us and we don’t really know where they came from, so it is kind of cool to be able to follow the whole process. Maybe someday the idea won’t be as stupid as this one and it will make peoples lives just a little bit better.