Group Political Problem Solving

All this talk about the health care bill has made me think. We have more smart, talented people in the world than just politicians. And though we could all write more letters to our senators, why not try some new incentives? :)

I'm thinking we need to turn some political issues loose on the public - like give them problems to solve, e.g., how to provide health care for those who can't afford it. We could make it similar to a reality TV show - something like...American Political Idol. Groups of non-elected people could come up with their solution and the winners could become wildly popular.

Not to trivialize politics - I think we are dealing with genuinely tough issues and we have a wonderful government system. It would be neat if we were all more politically active. Perhaps allowing the public themselves to come up with some answers and not just create mass problems, would provide some good and interesting results.

Banks and Budgeting

I'm wondering if it would be too much trouble for my bank to help with my budgeting sheet. My friend and I were discussing how the most difficult part of budgeting is simply remembering to regularly track all our expenses in our budget sheets.

There are companies like Mint.com that will track and categorize your expenses for you if you are willing to give them your bank account number. It would be so much nicer if the actual bank would offer the same service since they already have your account number and your trust. I would think they could easily create a budget sheet, link it to anyone's personal account and then categorize all their expenses into a budget sheet that they could personalize themselves and possibly even export - as long as the security could be good enough.

The bank could benefit by the sheet by of course having more fiscally responsible clients. Hopefully these responsible people would make more money, put more of it in the bank and be timely in all their payments on loans/credit. The bank would also have advertising space on these budget sheets, learn more about their clients and such. I may write my bank a letter about this idea. What do you think?

911 on a runner's watch

I love to run. As a female, it can be dangerous to run alone - so my question is - would it be possible to add a 911 button to a runner's watch, like a Garmon or something similar.

The button could be covered with a hard plastic bubble that could easily be flipped up, but would protect the button so that it wouldn't be exposed to any slight touch of the hand.

The emergency button could be programmed with your contact info and also have a small GPS tracking system, so that the runner's location could easily be found. My ideal would be that an email would be sent to 911 with the runner's contact info and location. It might be nice to have a phone option built in as well.

Hopefully runners would still take precautions, but having emergency options would aid the runner against unpredictable situations, injuries or possible attacks.

The Idea Blog is finally born

For over a year, I've been "posting" to my Idea Blog. The only problem was that I didn't actually have a blog. I would simply say, "I've got a new post for my blog" and then out with it. My husband or co-workers were my patient audience. Today, a Monday, I've decided it is time to start what has only been a figment of my imagination. Welcome to my idea blog.

The purpose of this blog is to post ideas of new inventions or innovations that would hopefully make the world an even better place. Who knows - maybe one of you brilliant engineers can take some of these thoughts and mold them into something useful for humanity.