Good Idea! Now find a better one.

Here are three easy routes to a bad idea:

1. Take a simple, reliable tool and combine it with complex unreliable technologies.
2. Take a new technology, add it to your product and then look for the benefit.
3. Convergence over Divergence: Mash two unrelated tools together, usually to create inferior versions of both.

An organization called the Internet Home Alliance is rolling out tests in the Atlanta area of the Laundry Time Pilot project. Consumers will have the opportunity to test the “Laundry Room of the Future” which consists of, wait for it….waaaait for it…Remote controlled washers and dryers. Read all about it in the press release.

Now, the reason for talking about “ideas” on this blog is that the ideas we conceive, and how we look at other people’s ideas are indications of our Business Vision. Not an airy mission statement - but our ability to see and exploit opportunity. It’s where you look to find ideas to improve your products and services. It’s how you analyze the ideas you find. It’s how you execute the ideas you like.

The Internet Home Alliance, just by their name, has hamstringed themselves. Their mission is to find ways to wedge the internet and internet enabled devices into the home. Will they find valuable ideas? Sure. But how many lucrative ideas in the home will they not “see” because they’re so focused on the “internet”?

Back to the iWasher. What can you do when you combine the power of the Internet with your washing machine? Quoth the Internet Home Alliance:

You decide to do your laundry while the family is watching TV. After you start the washer (the system will allow you to implement the process remotely), you relax in front of the TV. Thirty minutes later, an alert pops up on your TV screen saying, “Wash Complete,” so you put the load in the dryer and put another load in the washer. You get a similar alert on your TV when the dryer is done, so you never forget about your laundry and can fold your clothes before they get wrinkled.

Did you see it? When the load is done, it pops up a message on your TV screen. This is similar to the audible beep that your washer already emits but this version requires that your washing machine understand Ethernet, TCP/IP among other fancy networking vocabulary. And it requires some new device next to your TV, or an entirely new TV.

This is freedom? Washing machines of the future require new home entertainment equipment? And surely we aren’t buying this new machine just so we can watch TV…

You settle down to do some Web surfing after a busy day. When you start up your browser, you get an Instant Message alert telling you that the dryer did not start its cycle. You realize that you forgot to press the start button. Laundry Time asks you in the IM whether you would like to start the cycle. With your mouse, you select “yes,” which starts the dryer, and you continue Web surfing without interruption.

Now this is just lazy. Pause your life affirming web browsing for a moment, and go push the start button on the dryer.

While running errands, you get an alert on your cell phone that the dryer is done. You don’t want your clothes to sit in the dryer and wrinkle so you use a key on your cell phone to tell the dryer to “fluff” the load for an additional 15 minutes, the time it will take you to finish your errands and return home.

How different is this from a dryer that keeps “fluffing” the load until you stop it? How valuable is the difference between the two? And look at the list of technologies we’re interfacing here: TV, Instant Messaging, and Cellular. All to tell your Washer/Dryer: START, STOP. And for your appliances to tell you: DONE.

Now I’m not saying there’s no value to these features. Surely we’ve all been in a situation where we’d like to remotely start the washer because we forgot. Or for the dryer to notify you because you’re out of earshot of the bell.

But this convergence of technologies, this mashing of high tech problems like networking, cabling, sychronization, interference, wireless, bad reception, crashes, and reboots with a simple machine that just works is aiming way too low.

There is Vision and there is Execution. Too often we want to be “doing something” so we just execute, execute, execute without seeking an idea, a Vision to create through execution.

So should Washers and Dryers be internet enabled? Maybe. But the task is not, take the internet and take a washing machine and come up with a great product. The task is to look and see a valuable problem to solve, an opportunity to seize.

And what do we find in the same press release? Check it out:

“Generally, most people tend to ‘batch’ their laundry — washing and drying at the same time — and they stay home during the hours it takes to manage the laundry process,” said Carol Priefert, Senior Product Development Manager, Whirlpool Corporation. “Whirlpool research shows that the average consumer ‘batches’ about six and a half loads one day per week, while heavy users may ‘batch’ as many as 15 loads. Laundry Time will test ways to make it easier for people to manage the process remotely or while doing other things around the home.”

Solve the batching problem. Currently the consumer needs to be around the machine to wash all 6-15 loads of clothes. Even with complex internet technologies, you still have to come back to the machine for each and every load. How can we aleviate this burden?

Let’s start with what we have in the laundry room. We can make the washer and dryer bigger, doing 2, 3 or even 4 loads at once. We can make the wash and dry cycles faster, lessening the time required to batch process all the loads.

But the washer and the dryer are simple mature tools. They work. And the more effort expended to squeeze more out of the same machine will yeild fewer and fewer benefits.

So instead of mashing more into washers and dryers, let’s just look for something new. Now I’m not trying to solve this problem, I only want to point out that, with the right tools and a lot of practice new solutions are easier to “see”.

So instead of being hamstrung by having really, really good washing machines and killing ourselves to make them better. We’ll cast a wider net and see what we find.

I’m thinking of farming. What about you?

I’m thinking of machines that take hay and put it into neat little bales. Why? Because hay is a pain to move around unless it’s in a baled form - Think pitch forks and hay going everywhere. I’m also thinking of how easy it is for machines to handle box shaped objects like bales.

6-15 loads of laundry in 3 or 4 sorted piles is a pain. Suppose we converted these piles into 6-15 very lightly packed bales of laundry - would these bales be easy for a machine to, say, load into a washer? Perhaps. Could each bale be tagged with specific instructions as to how it should be washed and dryed? Maybe. Could we then spend 30 minutes to an hour preparing the laundry for batch processing, ignoring the system completely until it’s finished?

Instead of converging complex technologies into the washer dryer, why not diverge and create an entirely new product - I don’t know…call it a Laundry Baler - it can’t be worse than the “Laundry Time” project.

It bales your laundry into nice little 1 load bundles. In sequence it drops them into the washer to be washed. For simplicity, put the washer directly above the dryer and drop the wet clothes into the dryer. And we’ll leave handling 15 loads of dry clothes and keeping them from getting wrinkled as an exercise for the reader.

In my opinion, when the Internet Home Alliance says they want to create the future of washing and drying at home, they really only mean to connect these appliances to the internet and search for the benefits of this after the fact.

It’s unfortunate, because while not as sexy, popular or trendy, the future could be on a farm in Kansas.

Coming full circle, here are three easy routes to a good idea:

1. Take a simple reliable tool and build a complementary simple reliable tool.
2. Find a benefit your product could provide, then use the most appropriate technology to implement it.
3. Divergence over Convergence: Create new products, services, categories that solve specific problems.

Via: New Scientist Technology Blog