Archive for July, 2009

Fast Company:

The James Dyson Awards, a sprawling event that garners thousands of entries from design students the world over, is a pretty phenomenal wellspring of ideas–the short list runs into the hundreds.

Treehugger points us to one concept we hadn’t seen: A collapsible milk jug that makes the milk last longer.

The designer–who has to remain anonymous for now, since the contest isn’t over–points out that plastic milk jugs basically foment milk spoilage, because they trap air in the container.

And that’s what the concept, Fresh, fixes. As the milk level gets lower, you collapse the container bit by bit, to prevent undue air exposure. The designer claims that experiments show that the milk lasts a week longer as a result.

A product like this could be a huge boon to other countries: To save plastic, Canada and parts of Europe require offer milk sold in plastic bags, which the users take home dump into permanent containers.

And that, apparently, makes the milk go bad even faster than it would in a plastic container.

Photo by Final Design.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

The New York Times:

Few people can claim to have created an entire industry from scratch. But Greg Wittstock, who long ago labeled himself “The Pond Guy,” laid the foundation for the multi-million-dollar backyard water-feature industry in 1991 when he started Aquascape Designs, shortly after completing his sophomore year at Ohio State University.

From back-breaking beginnings digging his customer’s ponds by hand, Mr. Wittstock built his St. Charles, Ill.-based company, which now goes by Aquascape, into a juggernaut that employed more than 180 and produced almost $60 million in annual revenue at its peak. Over the last two years, however, business has been off and both of those numbers have declined — employment to 110 and revenue to an expected $40 million this year. Like many entrepreneurial pioneers, Mr. Wittstock has seen his success spawn much competition. That, along with the faltering economy and especially the collapse of the housing industry, has forced him to re-think much of what he does.

Q: What’s an example of a mistake you’ve learned from?

A: The biggest mistake we made was allowing third parties like distributors and retailers to communicate for us to our customers. I just assumed that everyone had the passion for building ponds that we did. I was wrong. Our sales have been down for two years as a result. And it’s not just because of the economy. We simply lost our focus. That’s why we have really embraced social networking as a way to start talking to our customers directly again.

Q: What are you doing?

A: We have something like 18,000 people using our chat room. We just landed a six-figure contract in Egypt because they found our page. But our big leap was the launch of our new community Web site called watergardening.com. We want our customers to post pictures of their ponds and gardens and to discuss them. That way we create templates for others to follow. Our goal is to have the largest and most dynamic site in the world for anyone interested in the water-gardening business.

Continue Reading: “The Trojan Frog Strategy”

Photo by frecuencia.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Fast Company:

For those of you who don’t like the taste of flat milk, Coca-Cola is coming to the rescue with Vio, a concoction made of skim milk mixed with sparkling water, fruit flavoring, and cane sugar. It sounds slightly nauseating, but Coke assures us that the milk won’t curdle in its aluminum bottle. Wonderful, but is this really a healthy alternative to regular milk?

While Coke says that Vio is healthy thanks to its “natural ingredients”, calcium, and vitamin C, these are questionable claims. Mother Nature News points out that Coke doesn’t reveal the complete list of ingredients in the drink anywhere on its Web site–it must contain more than just skim milk, sparkling water, fruit flavoring and cane sugar, because none of these ingredients contain fat and yet somehow Vio has 1.6 grams.

Nutritional claims aside, the lessons of history may prove detrimental for Vio. Cresta, a fizzy drink contained fruit flavors and milk-derived ingredients, was popular for a short period in the 1970s before disappearing. And British company BritVic tried to sell a carbonated milk drink six years ago before giving up on the idea. Don’t be surprised if the same thing happens to Vio.

Photo by Coca-Cola.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.