At Large

I’m told that the previous entry was, typically I accept, somewhat obscure and overly arty such that, for some, apparently it fundamentally failed to convey enough clarity as to my precise circumstances.

So, for the avoidance of any doubt; I am available (or I will be from June), will work for for food, a free agent, I’m in that tricky ‘between jobs’ phase, open to (sensible) offers, going wanting, on the market, available, for rent, for hire. In other words I am at large and if you want to have a chat, I can be reached by email or phone, my contact details : garyturner [at] gmail.com or +44 7785 540834.

If nobody calls, then I’m considering putting myself up on eBay. It’s OK, I’ve had calls. eBay strategy on hold for now.

Seriously, though. Do ding me a note if you would like to talk, informally or otherwise.

The closest thing to a publicly visible résumé is here on LinkedIn, a more posh version is available upon request.

Keep Making New Mistakes

We make lots of decisions every day; some good, some bad. It’s about hit rate and, more importantly, it’s about actually making tough decisions, not procrastinating.

Indeed, the business haiku that Esther Dyson puts at the bottom of every email she sends is “Always make new mistakes!”, which is great advice - providing you take care to adhere to the subtext and not the literal meaning, of course.

And if you’re lucky, once in a while you get to make interesting decisions or mistakes about your own life. I’ll let you know if it was a mistake, but my plan kinda hinges on it not being. We’ll see.

PS. Thank-you to Dennis Howlett for the nice words.

eBay-o-Net

I had another game-changing, total barn-stormer of an idea tonight. It works like this; most households are either majority bayonet or majority screw-in when it comes to light fittings. Invariably, due to some mystical dark force (literally), most people tend forget which side of the fixture fence they sit on precisely at the same time they are purchasing new lightbulbs. This means most people buy the incorrect kind a little more often than the correct kind. In turn this means that most people have several boxes of perfect but fundamentally useless lightbulbs sitting around in cupboards and garages.

My idea goes roughly like this; every household in the country, nay world, registers their stock of unwanted screw-in or bayonet fitting lightbulbs on a website not unlike a lightbulb inventory equivalent of eBay - but for swapping rather than bidding. Let’s call it eBay-o-net, for now.

Working on the basis that out of the entire manufactured stock of lightbulbs of both kinds, approximately 50% of all produced end up being incorrectly purchased and therefore sit around unused, I reckon that for around eight years and four months, nobody need ever purchase a new lightbulb if they sign up with eBay-o-net where they can locate lightbulbs of the correct fitting and conveniently arrange to swap them with people in their area who also require to swap their bulbs for the correct fitting type.

I can’t begin to fathom the karmic upside of such a venture in terms of allowing people to recover their absent-minded losses and freeing up valuable cupboard storage space, but it will also bring down the global lightbulb business overnight but, let’s face it, those guys have had it easy for too long. How many other industries dine out on the fact that 50% of their total revenues and profits are derived from selling products that are knowingly never destined to be used. After all, who do you think came up with the dual fitting scam in the first place?

The game’s up, this is one lightbulb that just switched on above my head.