Have you ever worked somewhere that some employees are sitting around, surfing the web, and not being productive? They obviously have too much time on their hands and likely should be fired if they suck, because they are likely bringing the entire organization down on productivity (“if she isn’t working and doesn’t care, why do i? she doesn’t get punished for it”).

Anyhow, what about possibly outsourcing some spare time that your employees have. This could also help if the company is in need of revenue. If a programmer could work 10 hours per week for another company that wasn’t a competitor, that could help pay their salary.

This is a simple idea really, although probably could use its’ own website to help facilitate/coordinate. What about using Kickstarter (which is a website for crowd-funding ideas) and utilize it for neighborhood initiatives, such as painting a house, fixing someone’s roof, etc. Essentially helping thy neighbor.

This could simply be that one person leads the way for getting someone’s house painted that can’t afford it. Maybe $500 is needed for the paint and supplies, and 10 people are needed. I believe people locally would contribute financially if they couldn’t be there in real life to help.

Think of it as a crowd-sourced (and on a smaller-scale) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, for communities.

I believe these types of activities simply benefit everyone — you feel great about helping someone, you meet others helping, the recipient feels grateful with their new/refreshed *insert whatever here, such as Home*.

And/or mowing lawns, snowplowing driveways.

My belief is that there’s a lot of elderly and single Mothers out there that could use some help, as I’m sure many other people.

I find it amazing that most of us don’t know our neighbors.

This was written specific to City of Buffalo, NY, but really this should be built for any city. Here’s my idea, it’s yours, please go execute and build it!

We need a mobile parking app that allows you to see if you can park in that spot, or on that side of the street, and also when you can’t park there — also the app will show you were parking tickets get most often reported (via our app; and maybe there is open city data with that info too!).

Here’s how it works: $0.99 app (or other biz model). Shows the map, shows a number on each street in a circle — click on that and it gives info on reported tickets on that street. You can also see the rules for the street, either side — maybe each side of street is in red or green, to show if you can park there right now; also you click on the side of street to get full rules of the street. You could also have it set an alarm for you at 8am or something as a reminder to ‘move your car’. The reported tickets on the street will say ’5 tickets reported on this street in last 30 days’ ’12 in last 90 days’.

The other part of the app is to be a good samaritan and notify someone that their car ‘is on wrong side of street’, ‘needs to be moved’, … a drop-down of options, no freeform text. You input the car’s license plate #. If the license plate is a registered user of our app, they receive a text saying, “Heads up from a good samaritan: your car is parked illegally”. We only send one text every hour (using twilio) — thus if multiple users identify the illegally parked car, only one text is sent. The end-user can then ‘thank’ the users that alerted him/her. Could be anonymous, or you could share your info. I think anonymous is the way to go though.

Also, if you get a ticket, you report that into the system. Good for the people to know, so that we can see if something fishy is going on with the parking police — maybe the signs are faded, or confusing, and hence why so many tickets are occurring each day.

The parking police can’t mess with this idea! Power to the people!

Thoughts?

This is my buddy Aaron’s idea originally (@lloydxmas). I’m sharing because he and I would like someone to create this. I spent a bit of time exploring this idea. You’ll see my mockups below. The gist of the idea is that people currently have no way of tracking our life’s win/lose percentage in games. I wish I had a history/record of all the Monopoly games I’ve played with friends over my life.

Imagine if before you start any game (kan jam, Settlers of Catan, Monopoly, Sorry, etc), that you initiate that game via an app. You specify who you’re playing with/against. Then you could share that to twitter/facebook, telling the world that a battle has begun in Monopoly. During the gameplay, you and your opponents/teammates can take photos, write comments… basically keep a record of all the action from the game. When the game concludes, you specify if you won or lost. Also, once you start a game with these players, the app will show you your win/lose percentage with your teammates, versus these opponents, and overall. You could even specify where you are playing [via foursquare].

I think this would make a neat app. Below are my mockups, as well as all of my notes. I have not built this app. I hope someone will build it. If you think this is neat, or have comments, add comments to the bottom of this post.  And please, someone, create this app! I called it ‘Broughten’, which was a word used in the film ‘Bring it!’. I thought it was witty and sarcastic. Most of my friends disagreed with the name, to be honest. This entire post is all yours, please do something with it. This could be a good StartupWeekend project for someone

Win lose percentage — original idea

Examples of Games & Scoring

Posted by Steve Poland

Initial Mockups

Posted by Steve Poland

Buttons for Popular, Recent (by me), Console, Handheld, Outdoor, Cards, Board Games, Online, Mobile

2. On Mobile page, show popular games. Tab for seeing all alphabetical. Search to search like 4sq does (hidden on android). Show game titled and # of people playing right now.

3. On Words With Friends page, show tips, Number of people playing now with faces that link to profiles, Tips, Rules, [FUTURE: Cheats, Forum, Buy/Sell, Resources (links to webpages)], Photos, 31 Wins 14 losses 2 ties (which brings up feed of games I have played for this game) ((or just say My History but not mu actual record– put that onsubmit screen), omsubmit– leaderboard showing where I rank with friends (1 above me, me, 1 below me)– onclick shows full leaderboard for this game. ((Verified wins only)), 0 Games in Play ((these are any outstanding games in play– if user doesn’t say win or lose in specific time period then we close them I think))

“BRING IT!” button for creating a game I am playing now. Ability to leave some pregame banter or notes, pregame photo, twitter fb 4sq checkin (pool at The Pink; darts at Fathers; pinball at Putt Putt). Add opponents– list of my friends in order of popular that i play against, by contact list, by username,

By name (not a user in system): “computer”, “unknown” (description field),  friend not in broughten.

On submit screen of “oh, its been BROUGHTEN!”– show any history between you and these opponents (You are 2-5-1 vs CDMoyer all-time, 5-game losing streak), as well as their records for this game. Show your record for this game. Leaderboard of where u rank with these specific opponents ((or all ur friends? Neh u care about these people)).

So now you have a game in play currently. Somehow we show this to you, but you might have several games “in play”. You can specify the game has ended and specify whether you won/lost/tie/forfeit/cancel/dupe that game. Then you specify post-game notes [especially if 'cancel'], post-game photos, the scores of you and your opponents. [Possible things specific to each game here -- like kanjam "automatic win by hitting hole"]

After submitting what happened, we notify your opponent by email [or sms?] if they aren’t using Broughten yet [we got this info from user before game started]. If the user is on broughten, then they can confirm the win/loss/tie/forfeit and add their own notes/photos.

A URL is created for every game that occurs w/pregame notes, postgame notes, photos, and responses by each user.

Users will have alerts when another user has added them to a game or has finished a game with them.

[Both/all users should not create the same game; they should coordinate one of them to create the game]

[Need ability for user to specify 'dupe' if the game is a dupe creation of another]

USER PROFILE PAGE

• avatar, name
• twitter username, hometown
• last game played
• # of games played
• Most Played Games [last 6 months].  ”Kan-Jam” 2nd among friends
• Friends. [34 >] [Add Friends >]

Hearts “55 playing now” — based on avg length it takes users to create and end that game. All default at 2 hours, but Risk will eventually become like 4 hours.

“55 playing now” or “55 games being played now”

Tweet Possibilities:

Bring it! Kan-Jam w/@caryn1420 vs @lloydxmas http://broughten.com/jjey65

Oh, it’s already been broughten! Kan-Jam w/@caryn1420 vs @lloydxmas http://broughten.com/jjey65

Tweet:

It’s been broughten! Blokus vs @magnachef @nb3004 (@ Spot Coffee) [pic]: http://broughten.com/abc1234

I won! Blokus vs @Magnachef @nb3004 (@ Spot Coffee) [pic]:

I won! I have won 4 games of Blokus in my career.

I won! I have a .678 win %, which is #1 amongst my friends in Blokus.

I lost

Tweet out my wins

Tweet out my losses

Tweet out my badges

I am now the #1 ranked Blokus player in Buffalo, NY.

Chris Moyer started a Blokus game with you. (Confirm) (Deny)

Chris Moyer says you won the Blokus game. (Confirm) (Deny)

Chris Moyer says you both tied the Blokus game. (Confirm) (Deny)

Chris Moyer says you and Nicholas Barone lost the Kan Jam game against Chris Moyer and Terry Martin. (Confirm) (Deny)

This is a list of domains I’m selling. Most of these I am seeking 4+ figures. Feel free to make me an offer, my email is at the bottom of this page.

• MyFavorites.com (5+ figures), My-Favorites.com, My-Favourites.com, MyFavourites.com (original idea here)
• Fave.it
• MyFavorate.com, MyFavorates.com
• 2D2F.com
• Adonymous.com (anonymous ad network?)
• Broughten.com
• BuffaloConcerts.com, BuffaloConcert.com, Buffalo-Concert.com
• BuffaloDailyDeal.com
• BuffaloStartups.com
• DearWhatTheFuck.com, DearWTF.com (original idea here)
• InSeconds.com
• Kimpa.com
• Lyku.com (“like you”) (dating site idea)
• Memorees.com (original idea here)
• NailTheCure.com, PinkPinky.com, PinkPinkyPolish.com, PinkPinkie.com (the idea was for breast cancer awareness, the world painting a pinky nail pink — altering your appearance and showing your support/awareness)
• RaffleFrenzy.com
• Remynder.com, Remynders.com (“my reminders”) (original idea here)
• Searph.com (like ‘surf’ — it’s the word ‘search’ with ‘ch’ replaced by ‘ph’; search/surf the internet)
• Shagme.com (idea was a dating site with an underlying sexual tone, but not sexual in nature. If you liked someone, you would ‘shag’ them, they’d then thank you for the “shag”)
• Startupathon.com (good domain for some conference/org for startup marathons — like a weekend marathon to build a startup, such as StartupWeekend)
• TechJerky.com
• TechquilaShots.com
• ThankYouTroops.com (4+ figures), ThankUTroops.com, ThankYourTroops.com, ThxTroops.com
• TWTR.net (twitter URL shortener?)
• Uclips.com, YouClips.com  (original idea here)
• Vyous.com (your views) (original idea here)

ODesk is a huge marketplace of developers, designers and other contractors globally. When you hire someone on there, they have software that screencaptures the contractor’s screen while they work. So if you’re paying $20/hour, you see that hour of the programmer actually working and not dilly dallying.

It’s not perfect by any means, the programmer might have a second screen open where they dilly dally, but if you actually watched, you could likely see if/when the programmer isn’t clicking keys [although maybe they are reading a reference book on a scripting language].

Does something like this exist outside of ODesk for contractors? Paying someone $50/hour vs another $100/hour really doesn’t matter, if the first guy does it in 2 hours and the second guy did it in an hour. Finding a reliable programmer that meets deadlines and writes great code, is what matters.

When you are testing out a new programmer or designer or whatever contractor, that initial dating phase is up-in-the-air, unless the contractor comes referred to you by someone you trust, then you trust your instincts.

But I think clients would prefer to have a screencast system. And contractors would say that’s an invasion of privacy, but if someone is paying you and hourly rate, then it’s not. If someone is paying on a project basis (fixed fee), then no screencast is needed obviously.

The other day I met with a buddy that runs a photobooth rental company. After the meeting, I sent some introduction emails to him and others I know that he should know. It got me thinking, helping others is great — it’s human for us to want to help others. I know we have Twitter and Facebook, but what about another social network of needs? OK, Jig is doing that. But what about a focus on how can friends help you and how can you help friends?

I imagine a feed view similar to Twitter. Simple premise is “What are you working on?”, but maybe that’s not it. You could “retweet” things your friends say, want, or need. Contacts, ideas, cheaper vendors and options, jobs, restaurant suggestions, tips, etc.

Ways to comment on them, thank, introduce people (Hashable?), etc.

I don’t use LinkedIn, so maybe something like this exists on there?

Has anyone seen anything like what I’m describing? Basically Twitter for work. Not Yammer (that is basically for within your own company).

My latest guest post on TechCrunch, “What Startup To Build?”, can be read here:  http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/25/what-startup-to-build/

Past TechCrunch guests posts:

• “Will It End Very Badly?” Probably Not.
• The New Early-Adopter Addiction: Turntable
• Twitter And Facebook Turn Everyone Into An Affiliate Marketer

Some other favorite posts off my own blog:

• 100+ Web Start-up Business Ideas
• The little startup that couldn’t (a post-mortem of MyFavorites)

and more TechCrunch writings from earlier years.

Remember being younger and writing all over stuff? Benches in the locker room at school, walls in stalls, etc. “Dave loves Michelle 6/8/10″, and drawings of random things.

Remember the Million Dollar Homepage? A limited amount of space for sale at $1 per pixel, 1mm pixels.

Why isn’t there a big graffiti wall on the Internet. Simple tools of a paintbrush that can be fine size to thicker. Select color. You could draw anywhere on the “wall”. The wall starts small until it starts filling up. Then sections open up. Maybe when you get enough friends to draw, your drawing becomes permanent? Or maybe they all are permanent. Maybe you can have your own wall section that your friends add too, as they add then more wall opens up for their friends to contribute too.

UPDATE: google search for “infinite canvas”.

Simple idea, iOS app, I’d charge $0.99. App has one button “spotted” that you press when you see a cop.

Fuzz Alert app exists and appears to be similar.

Push or audio notifications when you are near an area with a recent spot, or a typical area of spots.

When a notification happens, it asks user spotted or not spotted, which helps keep the data updated for that point, and also whether the reporting user was for real or not. Maybe give points and ability for people to thank others. Maybe reporting spotted after a notification automatically thanks people.