Company Lottery Idea

Company Lottery Idea

I will explain this idea with an example based on BEC. (The Bahamas Electricity Corporation for our non-Bahamas based readers.)

OK, so BEC could fund this by adding a dollar to every customer's/meter's bill each month but that might cause trouble so instead they might fund it by allocating a dollar for every customer/meter each month.

Let's say the have 50,000 meters/customers. That's $50,000.00 dollars per month as a "lottery" prize.

Each month they would draw numbers one digit at a time until they reacher their account number length. If the numbers drawn match a customer number, that customer gets the prize so long as their account is in good standing. (Paid up to date as of the last billing period?) If there is no match or the account is not up to date, a percentage of the prize rolls over to the next month.

This should prove a powerful incentive to get customers to stay current. (With their current bill... rimshot.)

Say every quarter or two quarters, numbers would keep being drawn until the prize is won.

If this would be considered gambling, a simple "skill" question could be added to the mix after the numerical choosing. (If that would be enough.)

I should have some refinements and additions soon. If you implement this idea in your company, I would appreciate hearing from you.

I am available for consulting for tweaking this idea to better fit your situation.

What You Eat Affects Your Jeans

What You Eat Affects Your Jeans

Saw this on Slashdot:

What You Eat Affects Your Genes

But really we all know that:

What You Eat Affects Your Jeans

Dial Your Smart Phone

Dial Your Smart Phone


graphic from: http://www.openclipart.org/image/800px/svg_to_png/phone.png
http://www.openclipart.org/detail/74113/red-phone-by-pipeep
Drawn by: Benjamin Woodruff / pipeep

So here is a little idea, put an old style dial on a smart phone's touch enabled lcd. Allow the phone to be dialed complete with sound effects.

Hmm. Seems like someone already has one for the iPhone.

Begin And Persist

Begin And Persist

I get tired of hearing about people sending out Cease And Desist notices to others. Especially as it relates to music, the arts, culture, and software.

So I had this wacky idea. It might be fun to send out Begin And Persist notices. If you are doing the Free (Free Culture - Free Software) thing in some area why not send out a Begin And Persist notice to friends asking them to begin sharing your work with others and to persist in doing so.

Let me know if you like the idea and if you decide to send out some notices of your own?

Let me know if you have any ideas for making this even better.

all the best,

drew

Update May 22/2012

 Want to work with a graphic artist to design a logo etc, for this idea. Contact me to discuss / brainstorm  if you are interested.

I would also be interested in hearing from a lawyer interested in drawing up some letters for tongue in cheek use modeled off the real (anti)things. Pro bono of course.

ISP Suggestion

ISP Suggestion

OK, so I was just on hold for forever as a business cable modem was down this morning.

I was informed that it was a general problem with cable modem service for all areas and they did not have any idea yet as to when it might be fixed.

Fair enough.

The problem is that I might wait forever and not call back because I still have a problem when they think all is cured. Or, I may waste more hours calling back to check the situation when they are still working on it.

I suggested that they might want to give me a web page to check for status information. This seemed too much. I don't think it should be too much. Alternately, I could give an email address and they could email status updates.

They did let me leave a phone number and promised to call back when the fix was done but this seems to be sub-optimal for my case.

Perhaps they should consider offering all options to customers.

How does your ISP handle such issues? Telco? Other utility?

all the best,

drew