Darren Herman

I’m a big fan of Springwise, Iconoculture, and other trend watching/forecasters. While each of these sites are the opinion of the person writing, they recognize interesting things happening in the world that at a minimum, are interesting.

In my inbox on Monday Morning, Trendwatching sent it’s Special Edition: “Innovation Avalanche” 41 global business ideas begging to be copied. To an entrepreneur, the subject heading sounded intriguing so I opened it up and read all of the trends. While I don’t think I’ll be copying them, I did find a few that peeked my general interest:

1. Crowd clout meets eco-persuasion: Use the crowd to affect social change. Very interesting by the way CarrotMob has setup their organization. Carrotmob organizes consumers to make purchases that give financial rewards to those companies who agree to make environmentally friendly choices. You can watch a video of CarrotMob here.
2. SeatGuru for Hotel Rooms: I use SeatGuru before I fly, and TripAdvisor before I travel. Hotel rooms generally have a method for their numbering scheme and if you can understand what the numbers mean, you can potentially book a better room. Where this breaks apart is whenever I travel, I’m given my room assignment as I’m checking in.
3. Celeb4aDay: Ever wanted to be a celebrity? Check this company out.

Why did these 3 companies make the “Innovation Avalance” list? They represent hot areas of today’s cultural environment: green/social change, transparency, and celebs/fame.

Anyone like any of the other ideas?