The I'm-Still-Wearing-That Clothes Tree

We’ve been told that there are two classes of clothing, clean and dirty, but that is simply not the case.  Take your jeans, for example.  The same pair of jeans can last as long as a week without needing to be cleaned, but something just doesn’t feel right about hanging an already worn pair back in the closet. 

So where does it end up?  The floor, of course, piled with that shirt you didn’t sweat in and the hoody you only wore around the house.

Enter the I’m-Still-Wearing-That Clothes Tree, whose arms and hooks will hold all your nearly clean apparel, keeping it wrinkle-free and ready to wear.

I’m ready to class up my pile of day-old clothes, but this product doesn’t exist yet.  That's why I'm giving this idea away.  Hopefully we'll all soon find it on the shelves of Bed Bath & Beyond.  But they'd better hurry, because I’ll buy my I’m-Still-Wearing-That Clothes Tree at the Container Store if they're first to market.

Until next time,

--

Jonathan Rozen

No Blog Deadlines

I’ve been neglectful.  I promised to deliver a new idea every Monday, and I haven’t.

It’s not that I’m out of ideas.  I am out of time.  I’ve been working on a couple of the ideas I’ve hoarded, but excuses are like toenails, everyone’s got plenty and nobody wants to talk about them, so I’ll spare you the particulars of what’s kept this blog postless.

Instead, I’ll make it today’s idea:  No blog deadlines. 

From now on, I’ll blog as often as I can.  It may be once a week.  Could be once a month, or occasionally every day.  It will be inconsistent.  But the ideas will start flowing again.  I promise.

Until next time,

--

Jon Rozen

Make this T-Shirt, Bulls

I have been informed that, due to certain trademark laws, I cannot produce this shirt myself. That is why I pass it along to the Chicago Bulls and the NBA. Make this shirt, preferably screen-printed, red and white on black 50/50 poly-cotton blends, and I will buy it.  If you don't, I may just make it myself.

Until next week,
--
Jonathan Rozen

Salary Structure for the NBA's next CBA

The NBA and the Players Union are currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. I’d like some input.

In the current CBA, there is a salary cap. This cap is set every year based on the revenue generated the year before. Players contracts are limited to a set percentage of this salary cap. However, players still sign contracts with dollar amounts.

This worked out fine until recently. Like home values, the salary cap had never gone down until two years ago. When it did, those set dollar figures made building a team near impossible. These massive contracts were taking up a far larger percentage of the salary cap than anyone intended.

For the next CBA, I recommend that all contracts be set as a percentage the salary cap, not a dollar amount based on the cap of the season in which the contract was signed. Call them Salary Cap Points.

Instead of getting 8% or 10.5% raises on their previous year’s salary, players can receive more Salary Cap Points. After all, when revenue shrinks for the league, shouldn’t its players share the burden?

Until next week,
--
Jonathan Rozen

ESPN 4 Women

I do not care about women's sports. There is no sense in hiding it. I don’t care who wins, and I’ll change the channel when their highlights interrupt SportsCenter.

I am not the only one. Remotes are grabbed across the country every time the day’s WNBA scores promise to consume the next five minutes of ESPN’s bottom line.

It spits in the face of the purpose of television: to attract an audience and sell access to advertisers. After all, ad money pays for everything. Fans of women’s sports cannot possibly be the same fans those advertisers are targeting with beer ads. The women's sports fan market is ignored and lost, but there is an opportunity to fix it and, more importantly, profit from it. If this niche market can be isolated, more targeted ads can be sold at a premium.

That’s why this week’s free idea is for ESPN. Give women’s sports their own network. ESPN 4 Women. Separate but equal may have an ugly history, but this time it means ka ching.

Until next week,
--
Jonathan Rozen

HDMI in Every Computer

I’ve been gone, or more accurately my computer has. But thanks to Apple, it’s back, and so am I with a special Tuesday idea giveaway.

For the last three generations of computers, I’ve been using TVs as monitors. Every generation has its own cables. VGA. S-Video. DVI. I thought I had them all, but, with my computer in the shop, I still couldn’t hook up a friend’s laptop to the television. I’ve got a drawer overflowing of wires and converters, and they were all obsolete.

It’s time for computers to commit to a standard video output format, HDMI. It’s small, all the TVs already use it and it outputs audio as well.

From here on, let every new computer ship with an HDMI port.

Until next week,
--
Jonathan Rozen

World Cup, Ban Vuvuzelas

This week’s free idea is more akin to what grinds Peter Griffin’s gears, but I can’t help it. If you’ve watched any of the World Cup, you probably already know what I’m talking about.

It’s those damn horns. The vuvuzelas. Their collective din makes every broadcast sound like rush hour at the bee hive. Even at the rare critical play, no waves of excitement can be heard pulsing through the crowd. All we ever hear is the constant drone of those obnoxious vuvuzelas.

World Cup, please ban vuvuzelas. They’re chasing away your viewers. And viewers equal money.


Until next week,
--
Jonathan Rozen