Garbage day gets more interesting.

While looking through my bookshelf this weekend for something fun to read, I came across a book by an Ideo employee called Thoughtless Acts.  It's full of photographs of all the interesting ways people adapt the world around them to meet their needs.

While looking through the book, I was reminded of my father on garbage day.  I know that's a strange association - but he has a really funny way of bringing the garbage can back up the driveway after it's been emptied.

So, for your enjoyment (and my father's embarrassment) I taped his solution.  Take a look:

And, for those of you who are concerned, I did tell my father I would be posting this on my blog!  I didn't give him much of a choice though... ;-)

Oh, and he doesn't drive down the driveway just to get the garbage can. This is how he retrieves it when he's coming home from someplace already!

Comments

[Steve Todd]

How does he mow the lawn?

[Lee]

Iמ SIT- Systematic Inventive Thinking, we would call this Task Unification - Assigning a new task (bringing the garbage can back up the driveway) to an existing resource (the car being driven up the road). In fact, Task Unification is the mother of many fresh ideas.

For additional Task Unifications, visit this link:
http://www.sitsite.com/blog/2008/12/energy-solutions-with-an-sit-twist/

[Ryan Scharfer]

I am a big fan of bakeries and I live in Germany - a beautiful combination. The very bountiful bakeries here usually offer 20 or so baked items - 75% of which are sweet, the other 25%, "healthy". Other than offering something very tasty for whatever mood you are in, they offer GREAT deals nearly daily, but not every day -- something I never saw in the States. For example : there is this multi-grain roll type thing (I won't bother with the German name) I get that is normally 1 Euro 70. Occasionally, however, you will see a special where you can get 3 of these for 2 Euros! The same goes for other random items at bakeries. The specials are never predictable, so it is a giant thrill when you encounter one. I think this is more important that tne special itself. People loved to be surprised.
I never experienced this in the States. I love the banana chocolate chip bread at Starbucks, but I never walked in one day to see 3 offered for the price of 1. I never saw this at any other bakery, either. Maybe you do find this same type of marketing at particular bakeries in the States, but the bakeries here are so ubiquitous, it's hard not to notice.
The lesson here is to keep the customer guessing... in a good way.