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…

Analysts are priming the pump for this week’s CTIA Wireless trade show in Las Vegas by shifting the focus away from handset design and toward innovative programs related to GPS, messaging, games and other services. Research in Motion plans to launch "App World," in response to Apple’s wildly successful "App Store." Not to be outdone, Google has their "Android Marketplace" and Microsoft unveiled their "Windows Marketplace for Mobile" last month.

We can’t wait for handsets, access plans and applications to all be unbundled, giving consumers the ability to buy "best of breed" of each. Can you imagine how different the personal computer market would have been if you could only use Microsoft Word on Dell computers, or if you could only get Verizon broadband access on Gateway computers?

Skype is launching iPhone software that will enable callers to use local wi-fi networks to make free calls to other Skype users, or low-cost (2.1 cents per minute) calls to any other user. In effect, this enables iPhone users to cancel their AT&T access plans (as long as they’re near an open wi-fi hotspot) and enables owners of Apple’s iTouch to make phone calls via wi-fi as long as they add a microphone to their device. (The iTouch has virtually all the features of an iPhone, without the phone