Post Modern Banking

At the moment banks make profit from playing with customer’s savings as well as charging them with different sorts of fees related to the accounts.
Thus bankers make a double-kill: they ‘milk’ people and the people’s money. This might be acceptable in the past but is increasingly seen as unethical and greedy. Especially in the light of Occupy Wall Street movement which sends a clear message: Greed is bad for business!

I’d like to see a bank with honest strategy: PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT. 

1. The bankers should realize that when customers give their money/savings to a bank, it’s the bank’s privilege and not the customer’s.

2. Practically it means that a bank should treat its private account holders as equal partners and make all their accounts activity absolutely FREE (no annual fees for credit cards, any money transactions or any other hidden or unhidden costs.)

3. The bank makes money only from outside business investments!

21 century business mantra:

GREED IS BAD FOR BUSINESS.

Idea: Alcohol Patch

as an alternative to traditional oral consumption:

Works on the same principle as a tobacco patch: to the blood via the skin.

How to pay for magick

A magickally charged object ( i.e. a talisman) to be fully efficacious should never be sold, lent, coveted, obtained by fraud or force. To be fully effective a magickal object has to be given as a gift from a maker to the client. It is a symbolic operation and conventional fixed pricing is not involved here. A person who receives the 'gift'  must then offer a reciprocal gesture, as a payment for the service. Usually it is the 10th of the efficacy value (EV) of the talisman. Here's an example, say a client needs a talisman with the value outcome of 10. 000 $ (i.e. a start-up of small business venture), in this case his/her reciprocal gift to the magician should be 1000 $, which is the 10th of the 10.000 $)

Another important point to understand when personally determining the value of the service: The price for the efficacy of the object is symbolically addressed to the spiritual entities that partake in the creation of the talisman. Technically speaking, they feed off the energy of the client's offering.  When we make deals on spiritual levels, any attempt to covet or cheat the real value of the service will be immediately registered (not necessarily by the magician, but by the spirits involved) and subsequently annul the magical potency of the object. In other words, you can't cheat spiritual forces. A spiritually dishonest client would end up paying for a spiritually useless object.

Idea: Personal development with magick

Welcome to God-Form Personality workshop.

We help our clients to improve their existing personality or develop an additional one through the use of ritual magick.

This is how it works:

In magick, the common way of utilizing the power of the gods is by putting them on, like a cloak or mantle, over the perceived self. This is called assuming the god-form and is a form of invocation.

If our client wishes to become more attractive, through this method he or she would partake in a ritual to take on the god-form of Apollo or Aphrodite, and view the world through the eyes of that lesser deity for a time. If done correctly and repeatedly, this would give our client great personal charm and beauty of a combined physical and psychic character. The hidden forces of beauty channeled through our client by the focusing lens of the god-form would transform the personality of that person by reaction and alter the physical body as well.

Beauty is inevitable. Its exact quality would depend on the assets and defects of our client, both physical and mental, for magic always seeks the easiest course to its objective. If our client were crippled or deformed, the beauty would take on a predominantly mental and emotional character. The physical handicap might become lessened through surgery or other treatment. Magick uses mundane means to reach its ends as readily as the more esoteric means. Magick makes no distinction between the physical and the psychic - these are human distinctions.

Another function of assuming a god-form is that it better enables our client to issue commands to the spirits and forces that fall under the rule of that god. In becoming Thor, for example, our client will command the storms; becoming Pan, he or she will rule the woodlands; becoming Neptune, the sea.

It is quite possible to assume a god-form of the opposite sex. Every human being has both masculine and feminine qualities, with one or the other in a dominant or active position. By assuming the god-form of the opposite sex, our client may learn a great deal of useful information about the other side of his or her nature, which is usually suppressed during ordinary consciousness.

Before undergoing the magick ritual, our client will be given a special knowledge of the basics of ritual working, the ability to compose a personal rite of invocation that is viable and a complete knowledge of the gods of mythology (their strengths and weaknesses, associated materials and colors, familiar animals, symbols, scents, etc.).

It is our strict policy to work only with the benevolent god-forms.

If you have any further questions with regard to personal development through magick, please feel free to call as any time.

Disclaimer:

Requests regarding using magick powers of ‘ungodly’ nature will be declined.

Black Swan says less is more

I believe that the current 'global crisis'(Black Swan) is caused by a sudden radical shift in values.
New perceptions create new needs. The next model of society is likely to hold values polar opposite to the current ones. As rules of the game change, so some conventional business practices will transcend or simply perish.

Below is a list of business sectors that in my opinion are going to substantially shrink, transform or die in the near future:

ADVERTISING (less consumption)

BANKING (less debt)

INSURANCE (less fear)

MILITARY (less wars)

POLICE (less crime)

LAWYERS (less crime)

DOCTORS (less diseases)

'fake' advertising in the future

Modern advertising has a serious ethical problem:
It artificially creates demand for things that people don't really need. Increasingly so it also perpetuates unsustainable growth.

Here's a simple comparison of what is and will be.

OLD MODEL:

we make a product first and then try artificially create maximum market demand for it (through advertising)
result: unsustainable overproduction

NEW MODEL:

we advertise the concepts of future products first (or try to create maximum market demand for it) and only later, if there's enough positive response for it, we move into production process.
result: sustainable economy

So the difference is in the order of continuity.

This also implies that a creative agency will be spending most of its resources on creating new product concepts and 'fake' ads.

News vs Paywalls

My guess is that in the near future the old concept of news ownership will be quite ridiculous.

Paywalls are anti-social and will fail. http://www.wallblog.co.uk/2010/07/14/no-one-is-subscribing-to-the-times-paywall-says-source/

Earlier post on the subject of free news.

IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT JOB

Welcome to my vision of the future advertising agency. This is my video application for the perfect job.

Idea: A Fight Tank (mobile emergency service)

Problem: How many times did you have an argument with someone and later really regretted that you didn't record it? It could be for reasons of personal record, entertainment value, educational value or even as a legal evidence.

Solution: Why not to set up a service that offers a special mobile room where customers can sort out their differences in an organized and fruitful manner?

A FightTank van, for example, that can be easily rented out when you need to have that serious talk with someone. Click on pic to enlarge:


All arguments are automatically recorded by installed inside cameras for further study or references. The service promotes a constructive argument and personal awareness.

(A set of disposable vases to smash around is available upon the request.)

Couples who seek an objective opinion may also choose to get their tapes analyzed by an independent specialist (i.e. as a free bonus for customer loyalty :)

Mobility of the service also let's the customers to choose appropriate settings for their disputes, for example, a countryside waterfall, a back street alley, a fairground car park, etc.

Idea: LeBay is the new eBay

Strategic reasoning: In the time of recession people tend to buy less and share more. So why not to design a new product that would let people auction their items only for temporary use?
It’s like leasing meets ebay. Let’s call it LeBay for example:




As part of marketing strategy to launch the site we invite special celebrity guests to rent out some of their personal items to general public. The money raised from their rented out belongings will go to a charity of their choice. i.e. Madonna rents out her old sofa to support hungry children in Africa, or Ronaldo rents out his car to support decriminalization of marijuana, whatever.

Idea: How to fight video piracy.

Question: How would you deal with pirates selling illegal copies of your original product?

Answer: I would become a kind of pirate too! I would start chipping off a big chunk from their (pirates) profits by starting to sell my own “original fakes” and right on their own turf… aiming to take customers away from them. I would give people an option to buy cheaper versions of my original products (with worse quality, of course).
For example, lets take the famous Kaosan Road in Bangkok where backpackers for 150 baht can buy a copy of any latest movie or software program. It is a very strategically important spot, thousands of tourists roaming in hordes there 24/7! So I would open a small shop there with a big sign:
BUY ORIGINAL FAKE MOVIES HERE! LEGALLY!

And the street vendors selling “not original fakes” (not endorsed by the legal owner) can do nothing, for they have no legal leverage to complain.
The “original fakes” would cost half the established pirate price (i.e. 50 instead of 150 baht) and some popular items I would be giving out for free!

Here's an example:

Thus we'd gain:

1. 50 baht for each copy which otherwise would go to pirates (a million copies sold a year!).

2. economic weakening of illegal piracy marketiers.

3. make a lot of people happy

(Current market price for a fake copy movie is set to 3€ (150 baht) since a few years now. Competition will be forced to match their prices to be able to stay afloat. When this happens, we start offering ALL our products for free. This will eventually eliminate the pirate competition.)

p.s. why not to set up a special counter-piracy enterprise agency sponsored by all major movie studios? With outlets in all major tourist nests in South East Asia and India.

why not even sell a bulk of our legal fakes for pennies to local street vendors so that they would flood the fake market and undermine competitors?

Eventually fakes become almost worthless! Demand for originals will soar.

Idea: Soul-gazing as a dating event

They say, your eyes are the mirrors of your soul. Why not to have a dating service for soul gazers? Or rather a “speed dating“ style event where strangers sit in front of each other for a few minutes or so, silently looking into each other eyes and say nothing (perhaps making notes afterwards).

Soulgazingdates.com anyone?

Or why not to push this blind dating thing further and make it literary blind: blindfolded couples date each other by means of dancing and talking (no visual contact!). This method of dating might would be most appreciated by “touchy and feely” couples.

Idea: The greediest consumers of the world experiment

or Pay-As-Much-As-You-Want International.

It would be interesting to conduct a social experiment that will illustrate levels of higher consumer consciousness in different countries: Who is most greedy and who’s most generous.

In order to do that we shall open a chain of special mini shops in major capitals of the world that will offer popular consumer goods not at fixed prices as usual, but letting the consumer decide how much they should pay for each product.

Each of these “free-pay shops” are given a one-time limited start-up capital, say 50.000€ for renting space and buying the first merchandise. A city with the most commercially successful shop (as a sustainable business) will have the highest percentage of “enlightened” consumers. And visa versa, a city where the shop gets immediately bankrupt – will be hailed as the greediest!

I see this project being transparent, interactive and educational.

Working hours of the shops will be publicly viewed online as daily video episodes, i.e. live footage from the hidden cameras installed in the shops. Online interactive tools will help visitors to discuss, form groups and interact with the shop’s stuff and among each other, i.e. for donations, sponsorship, access to the shop’s balance books, etc.

LONDON vs ATHENS vs MOSCOW vs NEW YORK vs PARIS vs BERLIN vs LIMA vs etc.

The experiment can last a week, a month or a year.

It would be also good to make an educational TV documentary out of it.

The experiment can last a week, a month or a year.

It would be also good to make an educational TV documentary out of it.

Idea: A message from The Economist

Copy: Lose money. Or lose fear.

Idea: Crowdsourced movie trailers

MyBestMovieBits.com is a place to watch free movies and to mark-in and out your favorite scenes from the movie while watching it. The total length of the clip with the best movie bits is limited to 3 min max, or a length of normal movie trailer.

We can also share our custom made “movie trailers” with friends on Facebook, etc using a special notification widget.

And we can upload our own (off site created) movie clips as well (guideline: only footage from one same film per one clip to be used!)

Note: Users can only proceed to watching the next movie online (for free!) when they published their “personal trailer” for the previously watched movie!

Alternatively , Cinemaxx could be a sponsor and use this idea as a platform to promote its own movies

New job for Wallstreet

seriously funny

Idea: Beer brand supports local community

A beer brand launches special edition beer to support personal dreams of the local community members.

Members of the public are invited to register at www.beer-support.com where they can upload their dreams andl wishes. Once a month 2 or 3 profiles will be randomely picked to be featured on the actual beer bottles.

Each bottle will have a direct link to the the website where the beer drinkers can get more info about the "person on their bottle" and how much money they have raised so far.




www.beer-support.com will accept all sorts of causes to support as long as they serve common good of the community.

Registration and posting on the website is free. (premium membership can be introduced later in exchange for more features).

We are currently seeking business partnership with a beer brand to make this project a reality.

Details via email

Idea: Brands sponsor online lottery

Project idea: online lottery to be sponsored by brands. A pool of brands generate 1 million fund for a special lotto website with a public guarantee that the winners will spend the money on their brands.



more info via email.

Idea: Instant Desktop File Previews

I don't consider myself an overly organised person and usually there is a lot of stuff scattered all over my desktop (usually for a quicker access later on). The problem is that current Windows XP operating system (I don't know about Vista though) doesn't give you much information when you roll a mouse over a particular file on your desktop. Here's an example as it is now:



So, wouldn't it be more convenient if it displayed an instant preview of the actual file? (similar to Snap Shots preview widget used in Wordpress). One could preview not only image files (jpeg, png, bmp, etc) but also all other possible formats like word docs, pdf, music files (audio preview), exel, etc.

Below are some examples of instant desktop previews of different file formats (click on image to enlarge):