Iterative Publishing

Editorial from edition to edition is exclusively driven by on-line reader forums in between times. Articles and content are thus regular, yet dynamic and evolutionary, driven by reader thought, comment and inspiration. Journalistic control may be retained yet mediated, the editorial is about the curation and dissemination of audience acquired information as well as traditional research and investigation. Paper publishing and all its wonderful glory is retained yet is irrevocably integrated with on-line space. The popularity and immediacy of digital is married with the durability and grace of print. There’s a revenue stream.

Contributor credits are given in publications. The remit of the publication should be specific.

Event Map

An on-line dynamic map with time/period sliders and topic radio-buttons. Show festival, olympic, city, conference, seminar events by time, topic & location. Location and time sensitivity along with topics of interest would enable spectators to better plan their movements and schedules.

The same approach to history would be fantastic. Time and period sliders; subject buttons and a geographic map. See where historic events happened, when and for how long in relation to other events.

Reduce Retail Stock Levels

“Multiple outlet fashion retail: Centralise more stock and minimise POS SKUs by discounting “in-store web-sales”. Try, buy, get it delivered.”

This one is from my days in retail. Sales happen to clear overstock at the end of a season. A store needs overstock so they don’t run out of stock during the season. Over-stock gets sold at an progressing discount percentage to ensure it clears by the beginning of the new season. This discount has to be paid for by the original full price stock… And so on.

If you’re a single outlet store, there’s not a lot you can do about this.

On a macro level, multiple-outlet stores already move stock around to even out regional sales discrepancies. However, on a micro level, they have to keep a certain amount of overstock in every store. Also, they have to keep shipping stuff around – that is, if they bother.

So, when I get to the checkout, why not offer me the garment I’m about to buy at a discount if I accept free home delivery…? The garment stays in the store to be tried by another customer and the store gets to ship (with a valuable buffer lead time) from a centralised warehouse.  Overall stock levels are reduced and homogenised, and I don’t have to carry the stuff around with me.

Of course, if I need that pair of underwear immediately, I can take it away with me as well. It’ll just cost a bit more.

Download & Print Fancy Dress

Tweet: “Fancy-dress downloads: print, cut-out, stick together and stick on. Mustaches, badges, collar&cuff, 118, storm-trooper, spats, Gruffalos…”

And a bit more info:

At collage, a mate made a complete Star Wars Storm-Trooper outfit by cutting up sheets of white A4 paper and sticking them to himself. It worked brilliantly. So, I thought, why not other outfits?

I imagine a website selling pdf downloads combat the pirates by charging tiny money and targeting globally. Keep it vibrant by making it a commons thing – enable people to upload outfits they’ve designed for a bit of royalty payback.

Pretty-up your bookshelves

I tweeted: “Pretty-up your bookshelves. Printed book wrapping paper (dust covers). Uniform/complimentary colours, patterns, crop marks, name boxes, etc.” But reading it back, I think 140 characters is not enough. So:

I have a friend  who arranges his books by the colour of their covers. It sounds OCD, and perhaps it is, but it looks great. So good in fact, I have copied him. Although it would be impractical for a public library, on a domestic scale it works. Your average bookshelf is viewable all at once and, with a quick scan, it is possible to a recognise book by its size and colour.

Where it falls down is that some books are just too tatty / ugly and you need a collection and shelf of a reasonable size before you have enough colours to work with.

The idea then is simple: dust covers, much like a wrapping paper. Using complimentary colours and differing patterns. A sheet of paper could be being enough to wrap large books or multiple small ones. Blank areas for writing the book’s title, regular patterns to help cut and fold the paper square. Buy by the pack and wrap a shelf.

Anyone with a print business could make a go of it, surely!