Here’s a controversial idea: a four day working week. It would work one day on, one day off. So every other day is a day off, meaning we have 3 days off a week instead of 2.

There’s lots of pros and cons to such an idea. People would argue that we only really have around 260 theoretical working days a year (excluding public holidays) and this would reduce that to around 208 working days.

Is that so bad?

One argument is that people might work harder and be more productive if they have more days of rest. On the flipside of that argument is that people will slack more, because they will be thinking and preparing for their day off.

Personally I think it’s a great idea, not because I’m lazy, but because I think that a person’s productivity goes down on every successive day of the week. By Friday, productivity is at an all-week low.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting a variation on this idea.

Even though we’re now in the age of cellular phones  and mobile devices, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we happen to actually be ‘near’ our phones. Ok if we’re out of the office  at a meeting, at lunch, or going for a walk then there’s a good chance that we’ll have our cell phones with us.

Sometimes, however, we’ll have stepped out of the room for a minute, gone for a quick bite in the cafeteria or in the lounge, and neglected to take our phones with us.

Wearable cell phones that we wear like a watch, haven’t made it to mainstream yet.

So my invention idea for today is quite basic: a cell phone or mobile device that ‘knows’ that you’re not near it. And you don’t have to actually ‘tell’ it that you’re away (like changing it to an ‘away’ or ‘not available’ profile - although that may be the first step),  it will be able to ’sniff or ’sense’ that you’re not near it.

The way this invention would need to work is a combination of sophisticated gadgetry and processing power. The simplest way it might work is using heat sensors to determine if a human body is near it. A more sophisticated (and ’smelly’) and wacky way would be to determine your distinctive body odour and use that to determine if you are near it.

And what happens when it senses that you’re away? Well based on settings you can choose, it could either have a busy signal, take a message, or simply ring silently so as not to waste battery power and annoy other people in the vicinity.

Wacky idea but it may have merit.

It seems vaguely old-fashioned to take a stick, put toothpaste on it, and put it in your mouth. Ok, it’s not as archaic as taking metal keys and opening a lock, but it’s old nonetheless. And it’s boring.

I mean brushing your teeth certainly isn’t fun.

However, chewing gum and is fun.

Imagine chewing some nice-tasting gum for 1-2 minutes as a substitute to brushing your teeth. The chewing gum has gum and tooth cleaning properties to remove plaque, tartar, and forms of bacteria.

The advantages to such a gum are obvious. The disadvantages, such as the gum not being able to ‘brush’ off bits of food in your teeth, can be overcome with time. For instance the gum could contain a property that attracts minature foodstuffs and causes them to dissolve or be broken down.

Personally I would prefer chewing gum twice a day than brushing my teeth. And imagine what a great seller it would be to children, who also hate the bi-daily brush.

Please remember that ideas and inventions in this blog are more of the ‘what’ than the ‘how’. I’m no expert in the hows to make cleaning chewing gum happen. I’m just giving some ideas to enable you to think more broadly and to hopefully get some of these in tangible form.

Let’s face it, while the Internet has dramatically improved our lives in almost every way (you can tell I’m a fan), it is still only available to us through limited senses: our eyes (through seeing the screen), our ears (through hearing sounds), and our touch (in the sense of controlling what to do and where to go).

Yet our noses, our enhanced touch and our taste buds are still not able to perceive the web.

My idea for today is a device that changes this. A device that is able to turn computerized code into something sensible to our noses and taste buds.

Every smell has what could be thought of as a genetic code, in other words a set with a bunch of finite properties that is able to describe mathematically what something smells or tastes like. That’s the first bit, the ability mathematically to record this ’sense code’.

The second bit is the ability to take this code and recreate it in sensible form, in other words to bring that code of properties back to life.

And it’s not limited to the web, imagine watching television or going to the movies where you can actually smell and taste what your eyes are seeing. Or playing a game with all the sense elements included.

For the web this could be used in multiple ways. For instance, imagine going to a perfume store online and being able to smell every single product in the catalog. Or going to an online deli and being able to taste all their offerings for the day without actually having to  get off your chair.  That would really bring this experience to life.

If you come up with regular ideas and inventions like myself, why not try get on the growingly popular show, Everyday Edisons?

They are now casting in several spots around the country. Visit the Everyday Edisons website for more information.

Shows like these are a great way to inspire you to work at your ideas, and to come up with new ones.

People are often afraid of telling people of their ideas, or showing their ideas in public like this. Let me tell you, however, that hoarding your ideas prevents that circulation of innovation that happens when you are confident about your own inventing ability to tell others your ideas.

Guess what, if you know you have the ability to come up with great ideas, then there’ll certainly be more where that idea came from. Also, it’s unlikely that the people you tell your idea to are going to steal it.

Disclaimer: If you take this advice, I am in no way to be held responsible if someone does copy, change, or steal your idea.  

Good luck to all those readers going for the casting!