One billion dollars!  What if we did this....

1. Ads on school buses
Every morning I see waves of yellow racing up and down streets across the town in which I live. How about if the side of the bus had something like "our schools use iPads" or "we use Google Chromebooks."  Did you know that there almost 500,000 school buses in America that travel a combined 5 billion miles a year?  In fact, school buses are the LARGEST public transit system in the US.  If each bus had an ad worth $1000 a year that is $500 million dollars.  How about we ask Google to pay for ALL the ads and the school bus becomes The Google Bus.  Then Apple gets ticked and a bidding war starts.   Kaching.

2. Ads on postal trucks
Building off the school bus idea, this is an easy one, especially for an organization that LOST $5.5 billion dollars in 2014 (not to mention a lot of mail too....bada bing!)  Let's do some math.  The US Postal service has over 200,000 vehicles.  If each one had an ad for only an average of $1200 a year ($100 a month) that would bring in almost $250 million dollars.   Or, better yet, how about Amazon buys ALL the ads for every vehicle.  

3. Sponsors for the TSA at airports...at least the shoes.
I am completely serious.  If a state university athletic team can get paid by Nike to wear a certain type of sneaker, how about doing the same at the TSA.   Again, we have a bidding war and the result is another $250 million dollars.

Before anyone 'yeah buts' these ideas consider that your tax dollars are going to projects like watching shrimp walk on treadmills and video games for parents to help educate them on food fights.  Yes, those are actual projects that have been funded.

Personally, I think the three ideas above are just the start!

Price Waterhouse Coopers, IBM, and an assortment of other high profile companies have conducted executive surveys over the past few years and all have come to the same conclusion - innovation is a top priorities for companies.  However, The Innovation Company is not so sure companies really want innovation based on what it takes to become that type of organization.

What companies really want are the RESULTS from being innovative.  It is like someone who makes a New Year's resolution.  On January 1 there is commitment and focus.  Then the work begins and poof, the resolutions evaporate.

The ironic thing is that the work related to becoming innovative is actually easier than losing weight, running a road race, or saving or making more money.   Why do we say this?  Check out what we call Our Disclaimer by clicking here.  

​What do you think?