Archive for the 'Creativity' Category

Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of creating an electric car. One that you could plug in and drive to work or school. One that would let you bypass the high prices for gasoline (26 cents a gallon when I was a kid!). Over the years this dream has come closer to reality but with unfulfilled promises by manufacturers every decade or so.

It has always been a problem with batteries. The lead-acid units we have used for so many years in our cars, just don’t have the capacity to make an electric car feasible for most people. The range is too short and the weight of the batteries too high.

Technology has changed in the last few years and we are now seeing a wide variety of gasoline-electric hybrid cars on the market. These cars use a medium sized battery and a gasoline engine to provide power and charging capacity. Electric power is used at low speed and the gasoline engine comes in seamlessly at higher speeds. It is a marvel of modern technology that they actually work, given the complexity of the hybrid gasoline-electric power plant.

Many hybrids are currently using Sealed Nickel-Metal Hydride battery technology which is an improvement over lead-acid technology. Battery manufactures are now pointing to Lithium-ion technology (Like the new batteries used in laptops and digital cameras) as the next wave of power storage. There are many variations, but the main hurdle to mass production is overheating and fire (remember the laptop batteries that caught on fire).

One of the current battery technologies that is available that has overcome this problem is Lithium-phosphate batteries. These offer extended capacity without the danger of overheating. Once the Lithium-Ion technology is refined we’ll see even greater capacity.

With the advent of these newer batteries, inventors and entrepreneurs are scrambling to bring electric vehicles to market. I went online and found two companies that are coming out with vehicles that may actually live up to the promise.

The first is an electric motorcycle from Brammo Motorsports. The bike is called the Enertia Bike and is powered by multiple lithium-phosphate batteries mounted to a low weight aluminum frame. The bike has no transmission and is simply a computer controlled battery power supply and an electric motor. This simple setup results in low weight and a slim design.

The bike has a range of about 40 miles and a top speed of 50 miles per hour. A two hour charge time will have you back on the road. Given it’s limitations it is being marketed to urban inter-city commuters that don’t have to travel on freeways to work.

With a price tag of over $11,000, the market for this bike will be somewhat limited but there are some people that may want to be the first to actually own a plug and go motorcycle.

As battery technology improves, the range and speed of this motorcycle will increase, but for now it actually works and you can pre-order one today.

The second is one of the coolest cars I have ever seen. It’s a cross between My Favorite Martian’s Spaceship and a Cessna airplane. It’s called the Aptera and is based on a unique three wheel design with an all electric or hybrid power plant.

When production begins in late 2008, the unit will be powered by the latest battery technology. Currently the prototypes are powered by Lithium Phosphate batteries which give an all electric range of about 100 miles. The hybrid gas-electric model has a small gasoline engine to recharge the batteries and will provide fuel economy of over 200 miles per gallon.

Given its three wheel design and size, it is actually characterized as a three wheeled motorcycle. This puts it in a range of vehicles that don’t have to meet the stringent safety and environmental challenges of automobile manufacturers. This allows the company to actually produce a viable electric vehicle at a price point that most people can afford.

The company hasn’t scrimped on safety features though. They have included airbags and have crash tested the prototypes. The Aptera has fared very well in the tests.

This vehicle will be produced just for the California market right now and is designed as a super commuter car. With a target price of under $30,000 there will be a huge interest in the Aptera. The factory is in Carlsbad California and soon we will be seeing them on the road throughout Southern California.

I can’t wait to test drive one of these. The hybrid model would be wonderful for the long commutes that many of us have and being able to plug it in and go would fulfill a dream I’ve had for a long time. Aptera means wingless bird in Greek. Even without wings, this unit will fly off of the showroom floors!

Check out the pre-production video here.

In the meantime, this car makes a great wallpaper on my computer!

When I was growing up as a kid, Christmas was a special time. The magic of the day started months before the actual date. The thoughts of colorful presents under the tree would start appearing in my mind in early October.

It wasn’t to hard to imagine a new bike, the latest toy, or something advertised on TV having a significant presence under that Christmas tree. But there was something different about our holiday celebrations that my sister and I had that no other kid in the neighborhood would experience on that magical day.

We had a Dad that made Christmas an exciting event and we were center stage. On Christmas night, we would have to go to bed early… and then the magic began. My Dad would wrap our packages in plain brown wrapping paper. The kind used by businesses in their shipping departments.

Once the packages were wrapped he would take chalk and markers and draw wonderful pictures on the brown canvases. He sometimes would caricature my sister and I, other times it would be Santa and his elves. Our names would be prominently displayed in colorful chalk calligraphy.

What joy it was to poke our heads around the door on Christmas morning and see the personalized gifts. He would also create gifts for our Mom, and the whole room was lit up with unique magic of a master artist.

I don’t remember much of what was in those packages so many years ago, but I do remember the packaging and the love our dad expressed to each one of us. Christmas was truly a special day.

Later in the day Dad would usually make a long distance phone call to his sisters in Ohio. Even though that call would cost a fortune, it was important for him to have us kids say Hi to our relatives many states away.

Dad passed away a couple of years ago and Christmas is not quite the same. His humor and creative sense of joy are now in Heaven for all the inhabitants to enjoy. We all miss you Dad!

Maybe this Christmas it might be time to start a new tradition. To personalize a gift, to call a far distant relative, or to thank a parent or family member for the magic they bring to your life. Simple and personal, make this a special day to remember.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

John Richardson

P.S. This post was inspired by a moving Christmas story by Liz Strauss over at Successful-blog. Thanks for the inspiration Liz!

I love iPods. They allow me to take my music and audio books wherever I go. They make a great learning tool and have really helped me with my personal productivity. I have had a Video model for over a year and it is a daily companion, mainly for playing audio books in the car.

I stopped in to my local Apple store last week to see the new products that have been recently released. What caught my eye immediately was the new iPod Touch. This device looks like an iPhone but a little smaller. It has wireless internet access and an amazing touch interface. Everything is done with your finger on the touch screen interface.

The salesman in the store demonstrated the device for me, showing me the built-in safari web-browser and the amazing way the browser window resizes when you turn the unit in a horizontal position. It only got better from there.

He then pushed the main menu button and the device returned to the main interface screen. He pushed the You-Tube button and within seconds there was the latest You-Tube video streaming on the device in full dynamic color. I was impressed with the speed and the clarity of the screen when playing video.

Back to the main menu he went and then he pulled up the iTunes interface and scrolled with one finger effortlessly through the stored music files. WOW! The album cover interface was fast and you could tell instantly what was available for listening.

Another click of the menu button and the built in calendar popped up, ready to synchronize with the calendar app on your computer. Another click brought up the contacts screen, organized by phone number, e-mail, and web addresses.

He didn’t have to go much further until I could see some amazing productivity uses for this device. I had him bring out an 8-gig model and I was soon the owner of this amazing device.

After bring this unit home and putting it through its paces I find that it works very well. The interface is very intuitive. The screen is very sharp and bright and you can easily use the device in different lighting conditions including the car and outdoors.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be testing this as a personal productivity tool. This looks to take the iPod to a whole new level, with video learning applications, collaborative tools, and video podcasting as just a few of the new uses that will be available.

This holiday season, be sure to stop into your local Apple store and take one for a test drive. You can also order one online from Apple or pick one up with no shipping from Amazon.com. Make 2008 your most productive year yet!

In a previous post I talked about my adventures of shopping on Black Friday. This year I had an enjoyable time and I did most of my shopping early Friday morning. I found a short line at Office Depot at 5am and spent about an hour in line. Not bad to save hundreds of dollars on a computer system. From there it was down the street to Staples to pick up some technology gifts and then off to the outlet mall for clothes shopping. Almost all of my shopping done in four hours.

The interesting and almost unbelievable thing this year was the line at our local Best Buy store. People had started to line up on Wednesday, two days before the sale. By Thanksgiving night there was a whole tent city in front of the store. I could not believe my eyes when I drove by at 9 in the evening. There were at least 20 tents or canvas awnings setup and people sprawled on the sidewalk in beach chairs and sleeping bags.

Maybe I’m missing something but the deals were not that great. You could save about $300 on a low-end Sony laptop, or get a flat panel TV for $899. There were deals like this at all the stores. I can’t imagine camping out for days for any of the deals in their ad. My time is much more valuable than that.

As I was standing in the short line at Office depot, I struck up a conversation with some of the people in line behind me. We wondered aloud why people would camp out for days for just so-so deals at Best Buy. What we came up with is a great business opportunity for some budding travel entrepreneurs.

Here is how it would work… Two days before the sale…

Offer free RV parking in the Best Buy parking lot.
Offer to stand in line while the RV’s are getting setup
Offer local catered meals delivered from local Pizza Restaurants
Offer Starbucks delivery service
Provide custom awnings for sun relief
Provide custom beach chairs with the latest wireless technology
Provide a party atmosphere with great music into the night.
Offer portable bathroom facilities.
Offer to sell the purchased items on E-Bay for a small commission.

This whole package could be sold for Best Buy’s all over the country. It wouldn’t take much time to get things setup and coordinated and if you had multiple customers you could make a tidy profit.

You could run a simple ad in the travel magazines such as…

Discover Beautiful Downtown Seattle
Camp at the Best Buy Store Downtown.
Three days -two nights.
Full accommodations, including high tech comfort chair, wireless internet, fully loaded video iPod, sun awning, as well as three fully catered meals including the best pizza in town and Famous Starbuck’s coffee. Come enjoy free RV parking and some of the most friendly folks in town. Party late at night. To top it off, you’ll save big on the latest technology!
Make your reservations today… only $295

This deal is just waiting to be setup… Success Begins at Best Buy

I love blogging. It opens the door to new ideas and provides an interactive channel to the world. People like yourself, stop by and read what I’ve written. Sometime you might leave a comment and the conversation becomes interactive. I want to say thank you for sticking with me for the past two and a half years. It has been a great adventure.

But where do we go from here?

My friends ask me all the time… how do you come up with new things to write about? How do you keep going?

The answer for me is an easy one… the more I blog… the more ideas that come along.

I love to create new things. It might be a post, a free download, or a new logo, or graphic.

As a creative person, my passion is in the idea stage. I love to put the pieces together, move them around until they look just right, and then put them out to the world.

Sometimes they bomb… they crash and burn.

But sometimes they bring a smile to someone else and once in a great while they sprout wings and fly.

Sometimes they plant a seed that doesn’t sprout for years.

Ideas are wonderful!

But I have a problem with ideas. I can’t control when they come. When I try to force them, things can become tedious and sometimes they can be downright frustrating.

When I say to myself… John, set aside every Monday to write about ___blank___, I almost always find myself frustrated.

All of a sudden I’ve gone from I want to to I have to.

This to me is the creative curse.

Yet in blogging or most other forms of writing, organization is key.

As a reader you expect a certain flow of ideas. You expect a beginning, a body, and a conclusion. You expect blog posts to be organized by category or topic. You expect to find what you came for… quickly and easily… or you click away in just a few seconds.

As I look to the new year, I have a lot of ideas for posts. I can easily organize them in my mind.

I might say I will blog three days a week in January about PowerPoint. In February I’ll blog about using Excel for organization… in March I’ll blog about flowcharts.

It’s so easy to organize them in my mind…. yet it’s so hard to keep up the posts day after day.

When I have to do something, especially something that is structured in a strict manner, my creativity wanes.

So what is the answer?

I’m not sure… but I have some ideas I want to try.

1. Build up blog posts and post them in the future. This will allow me to write posts as the ideas flow, but upload them in an organized manner that will make more sense to the reader.

2. Write two or more posts in the same day. Once the creative ideas are flowing… just keep going. This may require weekends or evenings, but may be the answer I’m looking for.

3. Work with a Mastermind group to get fresh ideas and get the creativity going. This might have great potential.

I would love to hear your ideas about creativity. How do you get your ideas? How do you stay motivated? What techniques work for you?

Here is to a creative 2008!

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