Ideas, Rule » Ideas

You and your energy – What else can be done?

Sujay — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 05:32:01 +0000

Last week I met Sandeep Ayyappan, editor of You and Your Energy. It’s this awesome, neat looking, well organized content (edited / aggregated) around Energy sector.

I thought of putting up few thoughts of what more can be done. Really don’t know the complete business model and roadmap what Sandeep wants to take up for YAYE, but here is what I feel can be done.

# 1. Get a mobile app

This is like the simplest task. There are tons of DIY solutions which you can use and get a branded YAYE Iphone/ Android application. I have listed few below (Disclaimer : I am not affiliated with any of them)

AppMakr

Swebapps

Seattleclouds

#2. Community, Community, Community

You need to involve people. Getsatisfaction, Quora or as simple as putting up your own user driven community portal may help.

#3. Have a dedicated video section

Video section would make a lot of sense where instead of reading, I can also see stuff.

#4. Personalization using Facebook/ Twitter

There is a lot of news one can get. YAYE also offers a lot of news in Energy sector. Do you think you can ask users to login using their Facebook so that they can “subscribe” to specific topics and follow them – less clutter, no?

#5. Company database (Think Crunchbase)

Big fan of Crunch base. Or think of Angel.co. If you can create and maintain an exhaustive Company database around energy sector, that will be so valuable. All the financial updates, new announcements, gossip, investments, diversification news, board changes can be done on this platform.

#6. Follow Companies/ Exclusive Research material

A small extension of #4 and #5. You can also start letting people follow companies, bookmark particular activities around companies.

#7. Stock Track

I don’t think you need any explanation on this. Can you run Ticker of Energy related companies, their financial news, a particular news affecting all these companies, past trends etc.

#8. Infographics, Timeline story

So I noticed there is a special story. However, you can build some cool, useful Infographics around several such news.

#9. Bit.ly and Twitter Integration

Get Twitter feeds of all these famous companies or people who write on Energy related topics.

#10. Give it back to society

Tie up with services like Change.org. When I say tie up, it can really be a mashup. There are several such niche community driven sites as change.org

#11. Pitch more and harder

Promote your blog and site on

http://alltop.com

http://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-way-to-promote-my-new-blog

Several other news promotional platforms

#12. Education

Tie up with TED. Or environmentalist. Let them blog, talk, refer you. May be you can have sections talking about saving energy. Invite guest writers to come and write on YAYE

#13. Misc

A. Special feature : http://youandyourenergy.com/~youandyo/gulfoilspillfeature/

I see this. It’s quite good but can I get a PDF of it? Out of 15 pages, give 5 and ask to sign up/ pay/ tweet for the rest of 10 pages. (or you may as well just give it)

B. Use platforms like Storify to write about events which are going around Energy or atleast controversies going on. They will at least bring you more readers!

Hope this is helpful.

Top 8 Business Ideas around Recession, Unemployment and Credit Crunch

Sujay — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:53:56 +0000

Go over any news site, blog you will see the entire space filled up with Recession, crunch, layoffs, unemployment. Thought I might try to help here, with my “2 cents” (in literal terms, as can’t afford in these times to spend more)

1. Starting a web site

Yeah, I know you might have already guessed it. But it is just not writing “TOP 10″ or “TOP 15″ things the way I am doing right now.

Check them out - http://unemploymentality.com/

I just loved the way John Henion and Tania Khadder have set up the entire site. Very creative and catchy.

2. Stand up Comedy

I don’t say being an artist is everyone’s cup of tea, but surely if you have the panache go for it. There are so many things going wrong these days and surely you will get your punchlines and subjects from the turmoil. Layoffs, wall street bonuses, white house comments, recession news, company bankruptcy — there is no dearth. BTW, I came across this video by George Carlin, which is worth a watch.

George Carlin – Who Really Controls America

3. Buy and Sell Gold

I was extremely shocked to see these signs while walking down to my office on the Wall Street. Bunch of guys with all funny messages strapped around their body, trying to send a message on/ around Wall Street.

We Buy Gold

4. Blogging

On common, now don’t complain that this should have been on the TOP at #1. When I was reading about blogging, I was trying to understand the whole SEO and stuff. Somewhere I read that you can become famous and attract readers, if you can create controversies .. Don’t know if I will support that, but makes sense to me. The following blog is making some noise these days. People are putting all adjectives for them, but I found them quite funny. Check it out .. http://dabagirls.com/ (Dating A Banker Anonymous)

5. Business around cars

Uncle Sam wants you to buy a car — Whoa, this sounds great to me. America runs on cars (hmm, Dunkin Donuts will not agree) but yeah I really liked that idea. If people get cars, they will travel and money starts pouring in. Think about any business around cars then.

Garage, rental businesses more like Zipcars, accessories around cars might work.

6. Being Patriotic

I really liked the video below, even if Thomas L. Friedman would disagree to make his Flat World, around again

http://money.cnn.com/video/#/video/news/2009/01/30/news.costello.013009.cnnmoney

Well, what one can do is gather list of all the products, services, materials which are consumed in United States but produced elsewhere, fire up the patriotic feeling amongst fellow Americans, and when local businesses start pumping up, they share revenue with this guy who generated the patriotic feeling

7. Joining Meetups, Social Networking sites, Business Networking Sites

Well I thought about this and whether it will be helpful. What I realized is you anyways have nothing to do. And what you can definitely do now without spending any bucks is make contacts, connections. After all it’s all networking and personal connections which matter. Be it Satyam Computer’s Mr. Raju scam or Madoff’s ponzi scheme — nothing gets executed without a connection. I am not suggesting to build connections right now, and then be tomorrow’s Madoff, but the emphasis is more on Networking. As we know most of the successful companies originated around similar times. So go for it, and try to find your business partner.

8. Act and make films – Concentrate on home entertainments

Because Netflix is going to help you there .. apparently when everyone is reporting losses, they are posting profits, because they feel recession is good for home entertainment.

Opportunities in Health Care Domain in India

Sujay — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:44:39 +0000

The opportunity I am talking below is in Health Care domains which India will be dominant in some years from now.

Indian Medical System is on an upbeat and in a very naive state where no advanced systems and Government regulations are present. In US, there is a law under implementation to store all the patients data in a US central database, so that the patients information, his previous medical history, medicine information etc are available across hospitals. This is not yet done.

Now if you map this to Indian medical scenario, there should be a similar system, but in a different form.

There are several big hospital chains, also there is a huge IT penetration amongst good doctors where they have access to Internet and computers. Now if there is a “hosted web based solution” which will gather all the patients information, his medical reports and store centrally, so that patient need not carry any papers. Moreover if he travels across hospitals, doctors can retrieve information. This patients family can view all the information online, communicate with doctors etc also.

Now the initial survey we have to do is –

1. “Whether hospitals and doctors” need such system?

2. Are they willing to use such system and store information online.

3. Say out of 100 patients who visit big hospitals, I understand not all be willing to signup for such feature … but we need to find out how many patients are literate enough to understand this and buy this concept. So we need to understand that number X.

4. We also need to figure out who will pay the money for our service. My initial thought is patient. But we can also think of selling it to hospitals under the name that we are streamlining their paper work, storing information online for them to view, integrating their machines with the software etc etc. But in any case we need to come up with what amount per person to charge?

I agree this thinking might not work today. I mean Indian patients and hospitals are not ready for this. But imagine 3 years down the line, where Indian Medical system is seeing more foreigners, more people leaving their parents and going to US, more IT savvy people coming onboard etc … considering all this, I think its worth a try talking to Medical people/ directors and finding out the need of such hosted service.

TOP 10 Ideas of 2008

Sujay — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:57:04 +0000

Came across this pretty read post on NY Times. I read all of them and the list was very impressive. Here is the list of 15 top ideas, ofcourse according to me. And frankly while reading you will go, woooo (nice), ahhhhh (why didn’t I get it), grrrrrr (BS), sigh (I still don’t get it)

# Biomechanical Energy Harvester -

A knee-brace-like gadget developed by a Canadian scientist harnesses the power of the human gait, generating enough wattage from your daily walking to power a cellphone or two-way radio and then some.

# Brickley Engine -

Five years ago, Brickley, a self-taught “engine inventor” in Austin, Tex., decided to give it a try. He realized that one of the biggest drags on engine efficiency is friction: whenever two parts interact with each other, they generate heat and drain energy out of the system. So he began designing a new type of engine that reduced friction by doing away with several traditional parts. In the Brickley Engine — as he calls it — there are no piston skirts and several fewer crankshaft and crankpin bearings.

# Fast-Food Zoning

In an effort to provide residents with more nutritious choices, the L.A. City Council adopted landmark legislation in July mandating a one‑year moratorium on the building of new fast-food eateries in a 32‑square‑mile area.

# Gallons Per Mile -

The problem with m.p.g., argues Richard Larrick, who wrote the article with his business-school colleague (and carpooling partner) Jack Soll, is that it leads consumers to significantly underestimate the gains in fuel efficiency that can be achieved by trading in very low m.p.g. vehicles — even for one that gets only a few more miles per gallon.

# Mahlangu Hand-Washer -

Van Peer realized the need for such a device while working on sanitation projects in South African townships; many of the township residents have difficulty washing their hands because they lack easy access to water.

# The One-Room School Bus

An experimental program that transforms the school bus into a mobile classroom.

# Spray-On Condom

Jan Vinzenz Krause, a 31-year-old German entrepreneur, says that condoms should be more like shoes. “You go into a shop, tell them your size and you get shoes that fit your feet,” he says. “Not so with condoms.”

# Two-Tier Teacher Contract

One of the big debates in education today is over teacher quality: how do you reward successful teachers, get rid of unsuccessful ones and attract more high-performing applicants? Michelle Rhee, the young, controversial new chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools, thinks she has the answer.

# Vending Machine for Crows -

“Klein designed the machine so that when the crows searched for the missing peanuts, they pushed the coins out of a dish into a slot, causing more peanuts to be released into the dish. The Binghamton crows quickly learned that dropping nickels and dimes into the slot produced peanuts, and the most resourceful members of the flock began looking for more coins. Within a month, Klein had a flock of crows scouring the ground for loose change.”

# Wine from China -

Don’t laugh just yet. China is already the world’s sixth-largest producer, with some 400 wineries. And it has been making grape-based wine for at least 2,000 years. True, most Chinese wine today is unremarkable, even undrinkable to Western palates. And reports abound of counterfeiting and labeling imported wine as Chinese. But China’s 1.3 billion citizens are developing a taste for wine, which experts say will drive better winemaking. Producers are taking steps to raise quality, too, bringing in wine consultants from Australia, France and

other regions. “None of us were drinking wines from Chile or Argentina 50 years ago,” notes Bartholomew Broadbent, an importer and co-owner of Dragon’s Hollow, a winery in China’s northern-central Ningxia Hui region. “Why not China?”