Whats Your Canvas?

We read about a baker who can design and make a cookie into anything that you can imagine. In fact Cookie Boy can make cookies into things that you have not ever imagined! We have even included Cookie Boy's website link at the bottom so that you can check out his website as it's very, very cool. But it has made us think about the idea of each of us having a canvas on which to express creativity. For Cookie Boy, it's cookies. You see an artist stand in front of a blank canvas and see a world of possibilities. Builders see a block of dirt as their canvas. Entrepreneurs see a world full of possibilities, providing someone will bankroll them. A gardener sees their patch of canvas on the dirt in front of them. Car enthusiasts can see their canvas in a rusted out, broken down shell of a Mustang. 

The problem today is that we have forgotten to create a canvas. We are so busy taking care of our day to day chores, looking after family and rushing around, multi-taking in this digital world that we have forgotten how to take a step back and ask, 'What's my canvas?' In 2011 each of us must have our own canvas. Whether it be a ball of dough from which to cook, a piece of fabric from which to sew something, some dirt to cultivate a garden, a blog on which to express our ideas, a computer on which to design a programme or an old school journal and pencil with no agenda in mind and nothing more than the beauty of collecting dreams. If you are starting this year without a canvas then you are certainly not fostering your creative spirit and you are missing an opportunity. If you don't have a canvas on which to express your own creativity, then you can be sure that your family who look to you for inspiration will also not have their own canvas. So, what's your canvas?

Cookie Boy

What Do You Think?

One of the hardest issues for anyone starting a new business is getting reliable, unbiased, fair advice about your concept. Last year, The Espresso talked a lot about crowd sourcing. This is the trend where you actually get your target audience to create or even contribute to your product. Startup Lift is a crowd sourced approach to providing entrepreneurs with some truly useful and objective advice about their startup. If you want an opinion about your idea, you post it on the website. You have the option of rewarding people for their contributions and in some cases this is done through you choosing your top submissions. It's all done so everyone can see it and because it's on a website, you can get ongoing thoughts and concepts from those people who wish to contribute. This could be a terrific idea for even mature businesses to use to run ideas by their target audience before full investment. It looks like this crowd sourcing thing is here to stay. 

Google Goggles

This has got to be the coolest idea for 2011 so far. GPS enabled ski goggles with a head mounted display system. Designed by Canadian owned Ricon Instruments, their transcend goggles provide real time feedback for skiers and other snow sport enthusiasts including speed, latitude, longitude, altitude, vertical distance travelled, total distance travelled, stopwatch, run counter, thermo readings and even....the time. The goggles also have GPS capabilities with USB charging and data transfer. Who cares what they cost but they just sound too cool to be true. Makes you wonder where technology will lead us in the next 12 to 48 months? The information displayed in the micro LCD appears to hang six feet in front of the user, meanwhile glove friendly buttons help navigate the full coloured dashboard and user screens. These were launched last year so if you want them I guess now is the time to go online and check them out. If you get some, remember to report back to The Espresso as we are fascinated to know what they are like. 

True Take Out

Have you ever wondered what the Michelin Star chefs would cook themselves for dinner on a Friday night? Well now you can find out. Frank Hannon, a freelance chef in East London, has launched his own service where food enthusiasts can purchase weekly servings of his home cooked creations. Hannon has a pretty good pedigree, having worked at the famous River Cafe and Morrow. Now, once a week on a Friday night he buys the best locally sourced produce he can find, and cooks the Friday night 'take out'. The Friday night take out service is available to anyone in his local area. He cooks a casserole style dish or two each Friday night and you can place your order by text or email. The meals are all priced at less than ten pounds which means they are cost effective as well as using the best fresh produce and being cooked by a well pedigreed professional cook. This is sure to have big appeal to anyone living in the right area and surely something that will be picked up by other well heeled professionals around the world.