business

Which would you rather do:  pay $50 to overnight a package somewhere, or meet someone headed to that city who could drop off the package for you?  Well, one costs $50 and the other gives you the opportunity to make a connection with another human.

Introducing FlyMe, or JetEx, or Airbound, or some other reasonably creative name that will fit easily into some sort of bubble font with clouds around it as a logo.  There are two users of the site: people who have a package they need delivered, or a package-holder, and people who are going someplace with spare room in their luggage or carry-on, or courier.  The package-holder goes to the website to find a courier going to the place they need their package delivered.  They send the potential courier a message saying what they need delivered, where, when and any other details.  The courier either accepts or rejects the mission.  If the courier accepts the mission, the package-holder meets the courier, the package is handed off, and the courier goes on their trip to deliver the package to the appropriate person or place.  Once delivery is confirmed, the original package-holder gives points or badges or a tip or a gift or a like or tweet to the courier, raising his courier-ninja rating on the website, and earning the respect from all the other couriers.  Like couchsurfing, only with packages.

Pros: it uses the wasted space on planes, connects people with people, and relies on the trustworthiness of man.

Cons: it relies on the trustworthiness of man, a critical mass is needed in order to find not only the right destination but originating city, and coordinating a meet-up in some places – like Southeastern Michigan, might be difficult.

You know what’s missing on (most) business cards?  Pictures of the person.  How are you supposed to link the name and face?  And let’s say you have a bunch of applicants for a job you are filling, do you want to sort through reams of resumes?  Does anyone actually read a resume anymore?  It’s too long!  Just give me a list of where you’ve worked and a fancy title, and explain the rest in person!

While I’m in Africa, someone should make a business around these, baseball card business cards.  Now the picture is a quick mock-up.  A real designer should make the template.  On the back, I imagine a quick blurb, followed by a table of years and positions held at other companies.  Like the stuff already on your resume, but without all the filler.

Sure, some say that this will only advantage the beautiful more.  But in today’s society, people need to have the skill to fake looking good in a profile picture.  Take a picture from one of those angles that makes you look reasonable!  You know the one.  And chances are a beautiful person hasn’t even considered those kind of angles, let alone know they exist.  And making bad things look good is just another skill you can bring up to beat out the beautiful people in the interview.