“Ha!” I can hear you saying, “Sell out!” But hold your tongue a minute. You have sold out yourself and got NIENTE in return. Have a look at the logos crawling around inside your wardrobe. You’re already advertising for companies. Worse, you’ve paid them for the priviledge! It’s time the tables were turned.

Idea #17: The Walking Advert

So how do you become a walking advert? Actually, with this idea I have some personal experience to draw on. Last winter I was working at the Green Tortoise Hostel, San Francisco. A bit short of cash, I devised the devious plan of creating an Ad Jacket.

Here’s how to make one:

1. Stick a sign on the back of your favourite jacket that reads:
   

…thus creating the Ad Jacket BASIC.

2. Walk around your chosen highly frequented venue as if you are going about your normal business (although secretely you are waiting for an approach).
3. Strike deals with advertisers who approach you, placing their adverts on another part of the jacket while leaving the original sign in place so as to attract more advertisers. The result is the Ad Jacket MAX:


Modelled by a real French girl

4. Find out further details about whatever you are advertising so you can inform interested parties.
5. You are now a fully-fledged walking advertisement. Move around your chosen venue wearing the Ad Jacket MAX as if you are going about your normal business.
6. When people stop to read what it says on your back, or just laugh at you, take the opportunity to inform them further about what on earth you are doing, moving slyly into a sales pitch for products you’ll earn a commission off.
7. Reap the rewards.

I found my personal experience of being a walking advert entirely fulfilling. From the moment I donned the Ad Jacket BASIC people were shooting subtle glances, making polite inquiries. It wasn’t long before I made my first deal, a sign that read:

Ask me about weed

That was a sign put on there by a gardener, but so excited was I by having struck my first commission-based deal, I ran off before he got a chance to write ‘ing’. Still, as it was, the sign made me a significant profit, for a negligible amount of work. I’d recommend it to everyone.

Here is a run down of the other ads I can recall having on my back by the time the ad jacket developed into an Ad Jacket MAX, and how I profited:

• “Genuine Limited Edition San Francisco Space Brownies” – commission-based, $1 per brownie referral
• “Ask me about haircuts” – a free haircut
• “Ask me about a gourmet dinner by a top chef” – a free gourmet dinner by a top chef
• “Martin S Gardea is the Greatest Living Artist on the Face of the Earth” - $22 advance placement fee
• “I’ll comb your hair till it’s so very, very soft” - approx. $5 for a limited period
• “Ask me about cheap beer and vodka” - an endless stream of income

Now these may look like slim pickings, but do not for a moment take the potential of the ad jacket lightly. If you truly have no shame, you could make a really big deal out of making yourself into a walking advert. Why not create a full ensemble of wacky ad clothes? Better still, do it with tattoos! Spread the word to the media that you are selling your whole body as advertising space, pull a few publicity stunts (more about these in a later post) and before you know it, you are THE AD MAN! Thereafter, all you need to do is make public appearances and watch the sponsorship money roll in…

If you fear embarking on such a harebrained project would be one of the biggest mistakes you could possibly make, why not make a sensible business out of it, like the gentlemen who developed the Ad Walker:

(Thanks Cool Business Ideas for finding this.)

You know what I mean?

To celebrate the milestone of reaching Idea #10, I’ve had a team of global allies in this enemyless war of ideas advertise the post on banknotes with the denomination of 10:

From Sunny Scotland; released in St. Andrews

From my motherland; released in Surrey

The exception that proves the rule; released somewhere in Holland (it's not that big)

Is this risky? Released in Shanghai anyway

(We’re still awaiting a picture of the US offering, although it may already be in circulation around San Francisco.)

I got inspiration for this idea – to advertise on money – from the highly recommendable book 365 Ways to Change the World by Michael Norton (as featured on the Ideas Exist Bookshelf). There, the idea proposed is to write a provocative fact on the banknote in order to promote a social cause. Ok, so I’ve made the idea a little more self-serving, but I want to investigate how effective advertising on banknotes really is, by directing recipients of the money to this page.

Anyway, just so I’m doing my bit to change the world, here are the suggestions for messages from the book plus links to relevant sites:

• 842 million people across the world will go to bed hungry  tonight.
• Guns kill 34,000 Americans every year.
• Wear a condom. Today 14,000 people will become infected with HIV/AIDS.
• One in five women experience rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. [Makes this anti-rape jacket  look like a good investment.]
• Perform a random act of kindness today.
• Give this money to someone who really needs it.
• Make amends to someone. Say sorry.
• Spread a little happiness. Smile at a stranger.

Given the amount of hands money passes through, using it was a way to advertise websites could be quite effective. Let’s just hope the people who daily spam this website don’t catch on or we’ll be forever dealing in notes covered in adverts for Russian Xanax. Ah well, the end of money  is nigh, anyway.

If you want to take part in this experiment, just send me a pic of a note like those above and I’ll put it on the site with a link to you.

Remember! If you got this address off a banknote, please leave a comment to let us know you were here! Let’s try to track where they go. I’ll put a map up if we get enough people. A map!

Last week I posted about Fab Labs and why they are such a great idea. To my ecstasy, it received four comments (inc. one from me) – the first post in the explosive short life of this blog of ideas to receive such a monumental response.

But this blog is about action, not mere volume of words, so to celebrate the success of the Fab Lab post I’ve cooked up the first wild and unlikely project…

Project #1: Buy a Fab Lab

I’ve put up the following pledge on PledgeBank.com:

So, basically, if you think it would be a cool project to chip in $200 with 100 other random people and buy a Fab Lab for Christmas, follow these steps:

1. Sign the pledge.
2. Get other people to sign.
3. Once 100 people have signed, we arrange a safe way to collect the money.
4. We vote on where to put the Fab Lab (e.g. a school in Mongolia).
5. Maybe some of us take a trip there to see it set up, make great inventions for a couple of weeks and have parties.

The main idea, as I wrote in the Fab Labs post, is that a Fab Lab in an underpriviledged community can help locals innovate solutions to their problems and create spin-off business opportunities.

A reasonable thing to buy for $200, is it not? Especially if we get to play with it whenever we want!

This idea is the solution to a problem. As individuals we all suffer from this problem, and as a society it holds us back. The problem is wasted creativity. The problem is the death of great and original ideas.

Personally, I’ve experienced this all too often since I started having ideas at the age of two. You know what it’s like – you’re getting on the bus, fumbling your ticket, bag and phone as you try to finish your text message while one arm flails wildly for a handrail before the bus moves off. Failing, in the end, to locate the handrail in time, you are pitched backwards into the lap of an elderly lady. Embarrassing. She begins to beat you about the head with her handbag. You notice your fly is open. Then it hits you – a texting glove! This would never have happened if only I’d been using a texting glove! Why on earth hasn’t someone invented this yet? You fall unconscious.

And when you come to, that great idea – that great, world-changing, original idea! – has completely gone from your head. No sooner was it born, than it died. It has happened to us all.

What a tragedy! So much wasted creativity! Think how many great and original ideas are dying every day, every minute. Why do we let this happen? Are so many people really falling unconscious at the hands of the elderly? I say to you no. Probably, in fact, most of us are lacking one of the key ingredients needed to sustain an idea after it is born:

• Money
• Time
• Relevant expertise

But do not distress, there is a simple solution to these woes, and that is: SHARE IDEAS.

That’s what this blog is all about. From now on, instead of keeping all my ideas to myself in the vain hope that one day I’ll have enough time, money and knowledge to make them happen, I’m just going to post them on here for everybody to read. I’d also like to invite you to do the same  - submit ideas here. I’ll give you the credit.

Ideas are not limited to any particular category. They might be inventions, projects, business models, experiments. Some of them may have already been put into practice and just be in here for inspiration.

You can rate the ideas, or just leave a comment to say what you think. Comments are particularly encouraged if you’ve seen a similar idea elsewhere, or if you want to suggest refinements to an idea.

I will also be aiming to get some of these ideas going, hopefully with the help of readers, and will report on progress in this blog. Potentially many of these ideas could be successful. Some of them could even make a lot of money. If you want to use any of these ideas yourself, feel free to do so, and good luck. And if you make a lot of money, please give me some.