Observation Day 6: I never knew I wanted vintage butter dish

Observation: Hundreds of people braving biting winds and an early weekend morning to trawl through piles, tables, racks and stacks of stuff at a car boot sale.

Somehow, most people end up walking away with something they never knew they wanted. In my case, a vintage butter dish. Asking people why they loved it, they responded that it is the prospect of a bargain, the joy of finding something to add to their collection, the amusement of finding so many strange things and the slightly voyeuristic interest in seeing people's lives on sale.

There is so much to take from this simple experience - from the raving fans that hunt for years for their favourite pieces, the creation of a satisfying and inspiring hunt for a bargain and the creative inspiration that comes from the unexpected.

For now, I'll focus on one opportunity, the notion of creating a delightful rummage.

Opportunities:

- Create a virtual rummage sale. Each page is 50-100 images (a cross between google images with iPhone functionality). People can quickly scan what is available, maybe location limited, click through to price, live text-haggling and standard buy-now facilities.

- Create a virtual job-lot / car boot dump (maybe in addition to the above). People literally dump the contents of what they have to sell, take a pic, people get to 'rummage' through the images, tag what they are interested in and live-chat or email to finalise the purchase.

- Marketing idea - if you have a strong brand that people re-sell or trade, be it jeans or memorabilia, why not create a virtual meet-up or a virtual flash-sale for them all to meet and trade?

Observation Day 5: Community noticeboards are crap

Observation: Community noticeboards are in general, rubbish. Tatty, ill-maintainted, bad locations and even worse content. This is a prime example slapped to the side a a building.

By all accounts, it is healthy for the community and individuals themselves to be involved with others in the community. So how do we get to this goodness with such woeful tools?

Opportunities:

- Co-source subsidised community wi-fi for the neighbourhood, gaining discounts for people and importantly a central, literal, home page where people can organise events, lobby for change or discuss isssues.

- Have a community van. Like an old-fashioned ice cream van, it comes round with music playing, but people can come learn about things in the hood, meet with others there and it can even sell things to be self funding or more. This could be extended into a business where this concept is run across multiple councils.

- Create easily programable and extremely robust digital versions to increase engagement and updates. Could include on location at popular local bus stops.

Observation Day 4: Portion Control

Observation: Small grocers often sell using bowls, not kilograms.

It gives them a clear minimum sale, speeds up the transaction and creates a colourful and impactful display that almost becomes an impulse purchase via the enticingly easy to grab bowl.

It's smart and leaves me with the question, what else could we portion control?

Opportunities:

- Portion control your service business. No more small value, high admin transactions - make your minimum sale a day, a week, $500. If you set the terms up front and show why you are worth it, people will accept it as good business practice.

- Start a fully portion controlled restaurant / eatery - all meals served come in 100cal, 200, 400cal sizes so you can easily manage a healthy diet. Builds on the 100 calorie snack bar trend.

- Make your product or service a deliciously appealing impulse purchase. For example, add a tick box for 5 hours consulting + 1 hour free to your next invoice. Bundle your product with a complimentary one and pitch the bundle to a retailer. Examples include drinks and a snack bar for convenience outlets (a proven successful sales driver), umbrellas + tissues, ice creams + a cooler bag or perhaps you can bundle small business tax advice with doing their personal advice too.

How can you make your product a deliciously bite sized morsel?

Observation Day 3: Can my bag sit here?

Observation: Half of the seats in a cafe are taken up by bags.

Yes, this may be an effective social technique to keep some distance from others and a clean, convenient and safe spot to be able to reach it. But it also takes up seating space and is not necessarily safe.

Opportunities:

- Create a new type of chair with an extra 'shelf' under it for your Stuff.

- Create a chair that has an in-built storage box in it, similar to the old-fashioned school desk. In fact, why not make the table a hinged box similar to the old fashioned school desk? You could even leave secret messages in there for customers to find.

- Marketing / business ideas:

- Are you a high-end fashion retailer? Why not have a cafe or champagne lounge with special padded seats just for beloved handbags, or handbag dogs!

- Are you a retailer or f&b outlet near an airport or train station? Why not create a safe corral space for people's luggage so they can relax in comfort and traffic flows smoothly (and quickly, allowing you to serve more people).

- Similar concept, but in a high retail area - why not have fun with it and call it the trophy table, where people can proudly display their purchases. It could even be an elevated addition to the table where people can display their favourite purchase of the day - be it shoes, a vase, pot plants?

Imagine the PR and word of mouth opportunities it would bring.

Observation Day 2: How to shop when you can barely walk?

Observation: An old man pausing with his shopping on a bench outside the supermarket. Standing there with his eyes closed clearly marshalling himself for the next stage in the journey home.

How to get food when you can barely walk, have a tight budget and are from an era that pre-dates popular use of the net?

Opportunities:

- A meet your neighbour community programme where you get to know your elderly neighbours and once a week walk with them or drive them to get their groceries. Get sponsorship from a major retailer so you both get 10% off and they get more traffic.

- Retailers to create a specific community support programme for the seniors in their area, offering free home delivery and on pension days arranging a volunteer roster to shop and walk home with them. Heck, why not make it an outing day, going for a picnic or sight seeing once a month followed by a shop for heavier items with all people dropped off home at the end.

- Have a limited-time window concierge service each week so all those in the area with limited mobility can have a pick-up or at least a drop off with their groceries.

- Design a super-light weight, inexpensive and easy to operate shopping buggy (cross between child buggy and A frame) that requires limited finger mobility and requires limited bending over to use.

- Retailer to offer loyalty shopping carts (the fabric covered kind) for senior customers - they get a stamp per shop and from 20 stamps they get a branded cart.

Imagine the good, the publicity and the brand loyalty.

Image credit: Amelia PS

Observation Day 1: My BFF

Observation: School children always seem to walk home in twos. Girls, boys. Girls in particular start dressing like each other, doing their hair like each other.

The opportunities:

- Promotional idea - for tween brands such as fashion, make-up and media - create a BFF day, limited entry - people can only come in twos! The entire day has two for one offers. Could also be harnessed by products with more emotive moments, from cards to baking mixes and teas - why not create and then own that event each year, tied with a major media partner to make it big?

- New Business idea - A BFF market to teach younger girls and boys entrepreneurial principles, with their own in-built support team?

- Brand learnings - BFFs are great because they celebrate the person we are. How can you celebrate the person your customers are and at least go some way to them liking your brand that little bit more?

Image credit: XO laptops

Observation to creation: 30 days of new ideas

What to do with a window of opportunity? Create.

So here goes, 30 days, 30 new ideas entirely based on the day's observation. Inspired by a useful exercise recommended by IDEO to train yourself to really observe the world around you and see the opportunities for improvement all around. This is also an exercise that innovation trainers often use.

The ideas here are free for you to take and run with and ideally to act as a catalyst to see new opportunities in your own business. I hope they can be a daily spark of inspiration.

Try it and let me know what you come up with.