On my recent trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, my eye caught the logo of company exhibiting in a small booth. There were about four people there, with stacks of small boxes all around the booth. How could I not stop and ask what a company called “Quirky” did?

Turns out, they have a very innovative business model for product design and development. On their website, they have created a community for designers/thinkers/makers who collaborate with the stated goal of creating a brand new consumer product every WEEK. Everyone who participates gets a piece of the revenue of the launched product, with the inventor or idea catalyst getting the lion’s share, while others who provide feedback, comments, etc. get a relative portion, based on their feedback.

Once everything is locked down on the design side, the product goes on pre-sale on the website to assure that tooling costs are covered. Once a certain threshold of sales is hit, then the product actually goes into production and revenues start to get distributed. Since launching last summer, the site has 6 products that have cleared the threshold with another 17 in line waiting. A very clever idea indeed, creating a collaborative space for inventors who up to now, usually labor/suffer as individuals.

Could this idea be applied to service design as well? Sure (and probably is in various forms on the Web) but it’s much more difficult, since service ideas and concepts are much more “portable” and easy to launch than the logistics involved in actually creating manufacturing molds, tools, packaging, shipping, etc. Still, a great model of innovative thinking. Here’s a quick video…

I was in the booth of one of the major electronics manufacturers, last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. They had a darkened area where you could compare the HDTV sets from last year with this year’s latest models. Apparently the point of this was to show us how much better these models were. The only thing is – it wasn’t any better. Yes, I’m sure from an engineering perspective it was better. But to my human eyes I could tell no difference. (Keep in mind, I am an A/V geek at heart.) I asked some other people (fellow A/V geeks I am sure) standing nearby who were looking at the monitors, "Do you see any difference?" They shrugged their shoulders and gave out a simple, "Nope." It was then that I realized that we have reached the point of diminishing returns as it relates to home electronics. How much sharper can razor sharp be, before I can’t tell the difference? At what point do my ears no longer distinguish between awesome sound and "awesomer" sound? This is why I am excited about next-gen HDTV being able to connect to the Internet. Getting new, unique and different content while I relax on my couch in front of a big sharp screen matters to me. The arms race for technological domination in home theatre is over. Now the manufacturers need to look to value-added services that consumers want, need or dream about.