I’m currently teaching a new entrepreneurship class and have been brainstorming industries that are ripe for innovation. That includes trending ideas, or areas that haven’t seen change in a while. Think beyond what we see in the news tied to industries and markets that seem to be behind versus that that seem to be innovating at an alarming rate. I want to have a solid list before this class starts in a few weeks to help inspire these students. Something that will help them focus in on an area that they already care about or are passionate about it. Getting them on a solid path in the first few weeks gives them more time to narrow in on an idea. I had a few in the first class that weren’t really inspired until late in the semester. While their ideas still came together at the end of the class I want to help them make the most of the time we have.
This new class uses ideation techniques from Bryan Mattimore combined with design thinking. It’s meant to get more students to explore and apply basic entrepreneurial concepts in a general education format. Think that fun (or maybe annoying) class you had to take for your degree that didn’t have any actual ties to your degree. To help students really explore general ideation and the design thinking process of prototyping we also use our new makerspace in this class. This then teaches students the basics of tools like 3D printing, laser etching, sublimation, hand tools, sewing, and more.
Last semester was the first run of this class, and while it clearly wasn’t perfect these students and the ideas developed far exceeded my expectations. As I prepare for two sections of the class this spring semester (it’s gaining popularity fast!), I’m looking at key areas of improvement in content to inspire the next group of students even more. One area that was a struggle was service based ideas.
A few students came into the class with their own service based business ideas that they wanted to develop further. This wasn’t a bad thing, or hard to implement on the ideation side. But there was a struggle for these students when we tried to add in the makerspace. Both students ended up working on logo ideas with great final results. I have to admit though that I felt bad for them. I wanted them to get more than a shiny new logo out of the class.
So I pose my first question to you, my readers : What are your suggestions, or experience in developing service based ideas in a makerspace or with design thinking? What areas are ripe for innovation?
Trending Markets Ripe for Innovation and Change
As I shared this experience with a group of other regional instructors/professors focused on entrepreneurial education one suggested sharing the IDEO shopping cart project with students. While I like the video and idea you’d be amazed to know how many late-teens and early 20 somethings have never touched a shopping cart or just don’t care about the shopping cart (thanks Instacart, Amazon Fresh, Thrive, Blue Apron, and more for this).
It’s still a great example and got me wondering if including more examples like this in class would be helpful or inspiring for students. What if we explored industries or markets that have experienced large amounts of Innovation recently or could use some new ideas and innovation? Services was already high on my radar to help those specific students explore and innovate more this time around.
Services
Covid created multiple new services that continue to thrive and make life easier, but this was already a growing area before then. But it still helped me create a short list of trending areas of service that any of us could explore more with ideation and design thinking:
- Any service that saves us time or gives us back more time. We don’t ever have to go in a store again if we don’t want to, but I’m picky about my produce and meat. That might also be a great AI based service for someone like me, if it doesn’t already exist.
- Experiences that bring us joy, happiness, or life long memories. From concerts, to bungee jumping, racing cars, or just getting to drive an exotic car this list seems to grow for many of us as we get older.
- Education, learning, and certifications. Making in general fits well here with the growing trends in cooking, baking, crochet, sewing, etc. As much as some want to see the sourdough trend die down it’s a good thing when you think of other trends it could spark.
- Travel in general and making it easier. On this one I think of a few friends and family members constantly out and about seeing all the things I hope to see some day when I’m ready to slow down a bit. Then there’s all the travel influencers/bloggers that have me adding places to that list too.
Technology/Service
When I think services in this current world. I can’t help but combine services with technology and how they’re used to again make life simpler and easier.
- Apps, especially apps tied to tech or services. Thinking about smart homes/devices, IoT, etc.
- Smart devices and wearables. What else could we track of monitor that could drastically benefit society or a key group of people? My husband and I saw a device that tracked your metabolism. Neither of us could see why we would want this but there must be someone out there that does. I’d like a wearable that could track more than my heart rate, steps, or sleep. What about oxygen levels, insulin, or even thyroid levels. Maybe something that could detect allergens? This is a big one for me, but I also had a student that explored wearables in the first semester of this class. She wanted them to be prettier and something more would wear.
- AI. We’re just scratching the surface of what AI can do, but are we thinking at all about where AI could be the most helpful or have the greatest impact? I’ve been reading, listening, watching a lot of discussions about AI in business and education. While I’m excited about how it could/can help small business, and educational impact, I’ve also seen a lot of AI examples that I’m not impressed with. It’s obviously going to take some time but where could be using it better or smarter?
Sustainability
From there another area that could also look at services, while also including makerspaces and products, is the growing trend of sustainability and every thing that comes with it: reuse, recycle, and repurpose. We fortunately have a great example of this in our makerspace already with a device that takes plastic bottles and turns them into 3D printing filament. I also used this topic as an example in class as an ideation assignment that inspired a few students final projects. One of my grandfathers many sayings was to “save some for the next guy”. So sustainability and reusing whatever I can is something that’s near and dear to my heart. While it’s one area that interests me the most, and impacted a lot of students, we’ve barely scratched the surface of this growing trend. This market still has areas that aren’t being explored but the potential is ripe.
- Least sustainable materials and what we could do with them. It was in this class that I learned, and shared, that ceramics are one of the hardest and least sustainable items to recycle. Think Grandma’s antique plates and how many of them are sitting in thrift shops and hutches every where. My student that was originally looking at making wearables prettier ended up looking at ceramics for her final project and turned a $0.25 plate into a necklace and earrings with a mallet, Dremel tool, a little gold paint, and string.
- Jewelry is another that is often cast aside when cleaning out grandmas house. But some successful social media stars are sharing how they’re redesigning grandma’s old jewelry into something new and fresh creating heirlooms for the next generation. I also did this when I added one of my grandfathers old opal tie tacks to my hat.
- Furniture, wood, and other scrap materials. Flipping old furniture is popular right now and using old barn wood has been around for a while but what else could we do with these materials? When I was building my first makerspace on campus I got my hands on scrap materials anywhere I could and stock piled them in my office. It smelled like a leather shop for a while but having those materials on hand for students and community to test ideas and see what equipment could do has inspired many people.
- Clothing and Textiles. This is another area that inspired a student last semester. While we were covering laser etching and talking about all the materials that could or couldn’t be used on our laser etchers I mentioned denim as something we know works, according to the sales guy, but that we hadn’t tried yet. This student ended up testing both regular blue denim in different shades of wash, and colored denim. As we played around with laser strength and speed there was some trial and error so we mixed in fabric paint for a really cool final product on one test. And, all of the jeans, they all came from the thrift store getting a second life.
- This wasn’t new to me though as my great-grandmother made us all blankets out of denim scraps. My husbands grandmother did the same with old clothes turning them into quilts, stuffed animals, and more.
Food Industry
Another area that’s near and dear to me when looking at areas where innovation, creativity, and new ideas are needed is food. My husband was diagnosed with multiple food allergies in our first year of marriage. Talking about food allergies, sharing recipes, and how we live with all these dietary restrictions was my first successful blogging attempt.
As I had to start really paying attention to labels and ingredients I saw just how bad our food is, but also saw how many people just didn’t care. We’ve even had a few doctors that truly don’t believe us when we share how strictly we follow this allergy free diet and lifestyle. It seems that there are a large majority that refuse to follow a diet that would make them feel better whether it’s Celiac, lactose intolerance, or even non-IgE food allergies (an allergic reaction that doesn’t include anaphlyaxis).
- Healthier food in general. Fewer foods that include ingredients and preservatives that give foods a longer shelf life, along with those that we know are bad for us with decades of research. Looking at you red dye, high fructose corn syrup, and all those chemicals in processed foods that are only there to give it a longer shelf life.
- More education on gardening, grass fed meats, and making your own foods. So basically I want to see more sourdough type trends on social media, gardeners, farmers, and ranchers.
- Food Allergies. Yes, I already talked about this but there’s a big lack of awareness and empathy for those with food allergies. When you look at how Europe treats food allergies compared to the US we’re way behind.
Health Care Industry
Okay, last topic I promise! You can see where I’m going with this one after just getting on the food trends. I’ve found in higher education that a lot of areas fight entrepreneurship. They don’t think it belongs in “their area”. That it belongs in the business department and no where else. We couldn’t be more wrong about this, especially when I’ve had students from every program on my campus participate in the Entrepreneurship Program. Some are really open to entrepreneurship like the trades, agriculture, and art is really starting to take off. But one area that really could embrace entrepreneurship and all the great techniques that come with it is health care.
- Functional Medicine. I know that this one isn’t for everyone but it’s growing trend wise when you think about all of the companies out there trying to make it easier to take our vitamins. This all ties back to all of the nutrients we aren’t getting enough of anymore with our horrible diets and the food trends I ranted about above.
- Healthcare practices. I get that this is a life and death thing but I hear way to many in this field talking about “this is the way we’ve always done it.” That saying right there means that you’re in desperate need of innovation. Covid inspired a lot of people to find quicker, safer, new ways to do basic tasks in healthcare, but we seem to have grown stagnant again.
- Disability devices. I saw this one in action in my class last semester. A student living with his grandparents also had friends with mobility issues. The classic grabber was his area of focus and he wanted this device to be more user friendly and compact. We played around with a lot of ideas while prototyping and didn’t get to a good working model in our 16 week class but it was inspiring and he’s still working on it with a bigger team now. It got me thinking about other devices that are changing to be more user friendly right now like insulin testing, epi pens, etc. to make them faster, smaller, and easier to use.
Honorable Mentions
Sports could easily be it’s own section, but I’m saving this one. This new class is gaining so much interest they’ve already asked for a section next semester that fits with our student athletes schedules. So, I’m keeping my sports ideas under wraps to specifically save for this group. I won’t force them to focus on sports based ideas, but I can already see the potential for that group to specialize in that area given that they are already passionate in that field. If you haven’t looked at some of the cool technology trends in sport though it’s worth a look, especially hockey of all sports. RFID tags, beacons, etc. all have so much potential in data analysis and tracking across all sports and hockey was the inspiration for me to start noting all the amazing ways this could be applied to multiple sports. With NIL taking off this kind of data just adds to what these young athletes could be sharing to better market themselves.
Wrapping Up
I could go on, but these were the areas top of mind for me, and they gave me a good headline that allowed me to throw in one more reference to lemons; ripe. Get it? So I guess I’ll close this blog post and add with one more pun to close this first blog post:
There are a lot of areas ripe for innovation. Areas that are trending, or could use a little innovation, a splash of creativity. But we have to act now, we have to inspire minds young and old before these areas lose their potential and end up beyond saving. There will still be ideas that end up in the trash. That’s when we have to stop, take some time for a little lemonade, regroup, and try again.
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