[Why not pretend you're blind and read this post with the Webanywhere Screenreader?]

A few months ago, I tried to go blind for a day, although I had the idea at about six in the evening. Still, going blind for a few hours is difficult if you aren’t asleep. The lowlight of my particular experience was taking a nightmarish shower during which a rat jumped on my back disguised as the feeling of a loofah that usually hangs from a hook on the wall. After the shower, I spent most of my time reflecting on what it is like to keep your eyes closed for more than a few minutes, the chief feeling I noticed being just eyelid strain. A largely fruitless experience.

I’ll go blind again for a full day when I pluck up the courage to venture around Shanghai using only my weaker senses. Or perhaps I’ll wait until I’m in a country where the attitude to pneumatic drilling isn’t so…relaxed…  Still, it will be a largely masochistic endeavour – not the kind of thing that’ll make anybody feel any better, not me, nor blind people, nor you. It’s a far cry from the standard of social enterprise ideas that made this blog famous…

Perhaps wiser to spend more time on a social enterprise idea that legitimises stumbling around a field in a state of sensory confusion to the sounds of the Killers? How about the greatest social enterprise idea yet to grace these pages? How about…

Idea #18: Blind music festival

Organise a music festival in support of the blind.

Ah ha, but there’s more…

The key idea is that everyone must wear a blindfold – i.e. both those who can normally see, and those who can’t. Registered blind people get free tickets; everyone else has to pay. You could make a poster like this (but a nicer version, with genuine raised braille bits please!):

Why is this a great social enterprise idea? It would be

1. a tremendous show of solidarity between the sighted and blind communities.
2. a unique environment where blind people could cease to feel disabled for a while (they’d even have the upper hand, as they are used to being blind!)
3. an enlightening experience for those who can normally see, raising awareness and probably giving people a better (or at least different) experience of music. This is how dark restaurants get their appeal, right?
4. an easy way to raise money!
5. a barrel of hearty laughs

"Has anyone seen my shoe?"

There are loads of variations on the theme of a blind music festival, but the paper-thin attention span you sport and/or your growing irritation at the screenreader’s robot voice has forced me to reduce it all to a series of points:

Blindfold bands – Bands could also be required to wear blindfolds, giving them a chance to really show off their talent.

No peeking! – How are we going to make sure people don’t take a sly peek, thus ruining everything for everyone? Perhaps hold the festival in an indoor arena in the dark? Or just have loads of Peek Police patrolling and throwing people out? Have sirens attached to the blindfolds that blare painfully in the offender’s ear if they lift their blindfold? Or just trust people?

Security – To you and I it just sounds like a jolly good time, but enterprising scumbags see past this to an orgy of pickpocketing opportunities and rape. So let’s not make the security guards wear blindfolds, ok? I’m sure the blind people won’t object either.

Market – There are around 150,000 blind people in the UK. Get even 50,000 of them on board, plus another 50,000 of your regulars, and you’re bigger than the Reading festival. Use a lot of radio adverts.

If you’re interested in organising this, why not contact me and we’ll see if we can find some other people (Bono) to do the work.

Don’t feel ready to jump in to the sex-crazed world of music festival organising? Click here to donate to the RNIB (UK) or email volunteering@rnib.org.uk to volunteer for a few hours.

He's getting the idea...

Since we were on the theme of advertising in Idea #2, I thought I’d continue 15 ideas later with another idea designed to harness businesses’ lust for exposure: make yourself into a walking advert.
“Ha!” I can hear you saying, “Sell out!” But hold your tongue a minute. You have sold out yourself and got NIENTE [...]

The best singer, the best dancer, the fastest runner, the best at business – can’t we just stop beating about the bush and find out who is the ultimate and best person in the world? I’ve got plenty ideas about who it’s not (Simon Cowell), but unfortunately precious little evidence as to who it, in fact, is. Read this and find out (how to find out)…

Whenever I go out into the world, my consciousness – my soul – finds itself squashed at the bottom of a “Pile on!” of options. Like a lot of other people, I would pay to have this weight of decision taken off my mind. Can no-one other than Father Christmas make a business out of surprises?

In about 20 years the ice caps are going to melt, flooding all the world’s major cities, leaving everyone homeless. Get a house on high ground while you can and at least make sure everyone can receive their post!

iPhone, iBrain, iRemember, iAlarmed, iLost, iMaps, iFound, iFusion, iConfusion… If this sounds familiar, read this post.

Why do I continue to give away ideas that will definitely be earthshatteringly successful, while I remain a modestly poor man? We should not pretend to understand such things. Let’s just get together with thousands of other people and order our favourite band to come and play in the nearest village hall, while the 20th century music industry charges furiously through the empty streets outside.

Sick of being surrounded by strangers with whom you are unable to play Mafia Wars? Rest easy, the problem is solved. Oh, and you no longer have any privacy either. Your personal sphere is a burst bubble on the breaking wave of augmented reality.

To celebrate reaching Idea #10 – a global experiment! Ever feel frustrated at the amount of self-publicity the leaders of your nation get on bank notes. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it…

Get out the closet and let me see your hand. Not that one, the other one. Ha – what’s that?! A marker pen?? Look at the inside of this closet! I always knew you were a frustrated graffitist. Here, have a look at this idea. You can go out and play tag with all the other boys and girls, but you don’t even have to leave the house…