Movie Theaters: Isn't this obvious?

i saw a TED Talk a while back with Seth Godin talking about how things are 'broken'. (see TED Talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_this_is_broken_1.html)

he brings up movie theaters being broken in that the majority of their profit is made on concessions yet there are rarely enough people working the concession stands to serve the number of people that want to buy things.

i was having a discussion with my friend Josh a few weeks ago about this concept (he used to work at a movie theater), and we came up with a few solutions, some that we had seen implemented in other theaters and some that we came up with on our own.

here are some easy ways to fix movie theaters without having to hire extra people.

One thing we've seen before is the popcorn pre-bagged by someone and set up in rows so that when someone orders all the person has to do is grab the corresponding size you order and give it to you. going along with this, i've also seen "do it yourself" butter stands for the popcorn, this eliminates the concession people needing to ask whether or not you want butter and/or dispensing it.

another solution to the popcorn problem is having the popcorn machine empty into a hopper and have it dispense popcorn as it is ordered into the bags, much like they do with soft drinks. they could simply hit a button (indicating the size of the popcorn that was ordered) and it would dispense a pre-measured amount directly into the bag/tub. in fact, with this type of machine, the entire process could be automated eliminating the concession person altogether from the popcorn, aside from potentially refilling the machine once it got low. this too could be automated though, in that once levels got low enough it would just refill itself and make more popcorn.

now let's talk about candy. a lot of people will at least buy the overpriced candy at the movie theater. but much like anything else you have to buy at the theater, if the line is too long you will not buy it, especially if you're running late for your movie. solution: don't we already have candy dispensing machines? we see them all the time at malls, grocery stores, cafeterias, waiting rooms, everywhere! they're called vending machines! why don't movie theaters just set up a couple vending machines in the hallways on the way to your movie? long line at the concessions? no problem. i'll just get my candy from the vending machine! on this same note why don't they do the same thing with drinks?

these are just a few thoughts to make concessions more efficient. can you think of any more?

facebook universal wishlist

this christmas season my family utilized the amazon universal wishlist to guide our friends and other family members in choosing gifts for each other. it's a great strategy by amazon in which you can add any item from any online store to your amazon wishlist. it creates a single place for you to keep items you want (as opposed to making a wishlist on every online retail store site) and it keeps people constantly coming back to amazon.com and finding similar or complementary items to go along with what you've added.

well this worked out great and using these lists are now ubiquitous for myself and 2 sisters (as evidenced by one of them updating her wishlist for her upcoming birthday and e-mailing the rest of us about it).

so my mom and i were having a conversation about facebook having an IPO in 2012, when we started talking about their future growth. she suggested that facebook should incorporate a wishlist feature so that you could see all of your 'friends' wishlists simply by viewing a tab on their page. you can already see when your friends have an upcoming birthday so this type of feature would tie in nicely. facebook could partner with amazon as well as other online retailers and even make suggestions based on the individuals' "likes", preferred online stores, "interests", and other wishlist items. not only could partnering with these sites and offering this feature create a bigger use case for facebook, but it also opens up a very interesting business model. they could offer coupons, daily specials, or groupon-like deals and have extremely specific targeted marketing.

all of this is barely scratching the surface of how deep this type of strategy could really go. facebook obviously still has plenty of potential and it will be interesting to see how they grow in the future (especially should they take advantage of this type of opportunity).

p.s. - my mom turns 60 in March. who says older people don't understand social media? ;-)

socrates

back in the 1980's my sisters and i used to play with a "game system" called socrates which taught kids things like math and vocabulary (as well as geography and other subjects with add-on cartridges). here are 2 video clips of it in action, the 2nd of which is a bs "glitch" that happened to me and my mom while playing it after digging it out of storage a few weeks ago.

thankful

things i'm thankful for this holiday season (albeit a little late)

dopamine. without this little gem i would feel like complete crap, ALL THE TIME (instead of just most of the time). supposed feelings of love or enjoyment would be non-existent and therefore no intrinsic motivations for self improvement. so thank you to dopamine for making me a happier/better person.

dielectric heating. i am convinced that without dielectric heating i wouldn't have been able to enjoy even half of the bagel bites, pizza rolls, or pizza pockets i've consumed to date. not to mention quickly reheated pizza, chinese food, or thanksgiving leftovers all of which have contributed a significant amount to my quality of life.

newton's laws of motion. i once saw an episode of 'junkyard wars' that pitted nasa physicists (stereotypically nerdy looking) against boaters/sailors (very manly and brawny) to build a boat that could get them from one side of a body of water to the other the quickest. the guys from nasa created a propulsion system similar to that used in jet skis and blew the sailors away(though if i remember correctly their boat may have fallen apart due to not being able to handle the speed and turbulence of the water). taking advantage of the laws of physics is something i am very thankful for. brains over brawn is an underdog story that i'm a sucker for every time.

moore's law. this is more of a love/hate relationship. i love it because it proves that you indeed CAN dictate innovation, but that's also the reason i hate it. gordon moore described a trend that he was seeing while working for intel (which he also co-founded). in describing this trend he set forth a precedent that scientists felt they had to stick to even though they could technically innovate faster than the "law" dictated. i hate this. i hate it because as consumers and as a society we could have benefited from faster computers and processors earlier than they were given to us simply because of this so called law. fuck you moore's law! we could have had a cure for cancer by now and possibly ended world hunger but you screwed it all up! ok, i change my mind, this is a hate/hate relationship. i hope you burn. (ok, not really. also, i realize it's not entirely due to moore's law that we didn't get faster processors sooner. economics and smart business practices probably played a larger role in the MHz distribution plan.)

this list could go on forever but i'll keep it to these 4 for now. tune in next year for the enthralling sequel!

sexual predator

just to prove that not all blog entries will be formatted like the latter 2, i hate to establish some sort of limiting precedent, here is some early work of mine that i found and wanted to share with all of you.

mowing lawns sucks

the science:
-genetically modified plants, fruits, and vegetables have been on the market since the early 1990's.
-grass looks pretty and helps with rain water runoff and flood mitigation.

every kid can probably relate to this. it's summer time, you've got plans with friends, and your dad asks you to mow the lawn. sure, short work if you've got a normal sized yard; maybe what, an hour of work, maybe an hour and a half at most? but not our yard. my parents' yard is a multi-acre property and we're talking a day and a half of mowing at least (and this is on a riding lawn mower).

ok, maybe i'm lazy, i get to sit and ride while it cuts the grass under me and i'm still complaining about it. but that's not the point. the point is i've got plans, things to do, and very little extra time (being a teenager at the time, i stayed pretty damn busy in the summer!). so there needs to be a better solution.

-a faster lawn mower?
no no, that's too short sighted. even if it was faster i'd still have to do the work.

-remote control lawn mower?
maybe on a perfectly flat and level lawn with no landscaping and a bird's eye view of our entire yard. so again, not practical.

we need to get to the root of the problem here (pun intended). we need to attack the grass itself or at least its rate of growth or its maximum growth height. now, since i've had this idea for years there is no doubt in my mind i wasn't the only kid that had thought of this. but why the hell hasn't it been done yet!?

it seems so simple. grow a shit ton of grass then pick out the shortest strands. now cultivate these together and you've got a whole bunch of short grass due to either:

genetically being shorter

or

a genetically slow growth rate

all you've gotta do is repeat the cycle a few times and let the new seeds germinate on your lawn. now you've got a lawn with really short grass that grows slowly and you're mowing your lawn a lot less frequently if at all depending on how many generations you cultivate and how persistent you are at picking the shortest grass.

my original thought was to only choose grass that would only grow to a length of about 2 centimeters but i think that would take far too long to naturally select grass that grew so short in length. not to mention the backlash i would get from all of the fertilizer and lawn mower companies that would be on my ass if i were ever to sell the stuff.

is grass really so hard to manipulate? i mean, we can grow all sorts of genetically modified fruits and vegetables. we can make herbicide resistant crops, grow fruits and vegetables with increased vitamin content, and manipulate various colors, sizes, and shapes out of them that would have never occurred naturally. and you're telling me we can't grow shorter grass??

get to work people.

methane?

So here's the science/facts:
-Methane is 21 more times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2.
-Its atmospheric concentration has more than doubled since pre-industrial times.
-The number one source for all of this methane? Animal Agriculture.

So i was inspired while in the bathroom (which is where most of my inspiration occurs), and i thought to myself: why aren't we using poop/feces as a fuel? Where does it get filtered to in treatment plants and what is done with it once separated? Cows are bastards that, while delicious, are screwing up our environment! There must be some way to separate methane in the air from other gases. Can't we put all the cows in a barn or something and suck out the air and use that fuel? Ok, no, that would be a bad idea. Not enough room for them plus it's dark and would be pretty gross.

Then it came to me:

Lots of cows in a bio-dome where we suck the air out and use it as fuel. We could even put them in the desert because, hello: bio-dome! This not only helps us migrate cow populations out of big cities where they are a nuisance (damn cows eating up my front lawn) but now we've got a useful fuel while saving the environment!

You're welcome humanity.