Innovativeness & a tie

“The Tie” was the topic of a 30 minute exercise that Prof. Tina Dacin asked us to do in groups in the class on “Innovation” today. The objective was to take a tie and come up with as many ways as possible to improve it. Here are a few ideas that the students came up with:

• Chameleon Tie: Will change its color according to the shirt with which it is worn.
• Gadget Tie: To keep gadgets like cellphones
• RFID Tie: Your tie will help in identifying you using RFID technology
• Cheat Tie: To keep small chits of paper that can be refered to … you know what I am refering to of course
• Communication Tie: Will have an inbuilt cellphone
• Healthy Tie: So many versions of it … one version could monitor heartbeats and send regular feedback to your doctor, one had some magnetic material inside it that could improve blood circulation, another one could massage your neck whenever you felt tired
• Stretch Tie: Can increase/decrease its length by stretching/contracting so that it can fit people of different heights.
• Ultra Stretch Tie: Could be stretched into a sleeping bag
• Deo Tie: Detects when you start stinking and automatically fills the air around you with a nice odor.
• Musical Tie: Has inbuilt earphones and music player
• Exec Tie: Has inbuilt mic and laser pointer to help you make presentations.
• Cool Tie: Has a coolant circulating around the neck area to keep you cool.
• Band Tie: Can be used as sweat band around your wrist, head band, belt ….

There were many more ideas. Some more notable ones were: Ties that come imprinted on the shirt… this idea was shot down as it would kill the tie manufacturer and help the shirt manufacturer. Tie with a vibrator …. the prof immediately stopped the person who suggested this and said she doesn’t want to hear any more about this idea 😉 . She told she had conducted this exercise in Italy and students there had come up with a tie that could hold contraceptives. She then started humorously comparing thoughts of students in Italy to those of students in India. The student, when finally given an opportunity to speak, clarified that what he meant was a tie with a vibrator at the lower end that could shape your abs – Ab Rocker Tie !! There was also a suggestion about a Thong Tie – a tie that could be stretched into a thong and worn.

The discussion went on to how some guy in Edison’s invention factory had come up with an innovative way of screwing the bulb into the holder to hold it in place. Then the prof talked about an innovative way of cost cutting in toilets in a Netherland airport. It seems they etched the outline of a fly inside men’s urinals and that resulted in less spillage and less cleaning to be done. It was found out that people started aiming at the fly and that helped control the spillage !!!

I think its high time I shifted to some other topic or ended this post.

Here is one last thing for today … in our GSB class today, there was a presentation about some UN index that relates to human suffering and somewhere I think in the talk there was a mention about satisfaction levels. So here is a question from P when the presentation ends….

P: “How do apply this to sadhus and fakirs who are already self-actualized?”
Presenter: “What the ##$#%# ? ”

Good use of Maslow’s hiererachy of needs ????