Leaving it all out on the field
The excitement generated by a good idea should be shared, writes David Slack.
It used to be there were just two award ceremonies: Sportsman of the Year and the Loxene Golden Disc. These days, there’s one for everybody: for pies, for illustrated pie books, for shredding your weight in pies, for pie delivery solutions.
But there’s just one I rate: the New Zealand Innovators Awards.
Loyal readers will know I’m always coming up with brilliant ideas. Insect farms! Cannabis plantations! A beautiful underwater travelator between Auckland and Devonport!
A little recognition would be nice. But they held the innovators awards this week and once again there was no trophy for me, no certificate, not even an invitation to pull on my dinner suit and join them.
Who cares? The real reward is sharing your excitement with the world, that’s what I tell myself. No-one can keep me from doing that.
This week I had an idea to build a better All Black jersey. Right away I shared it on breakfast television. Hilary Barry said: ‘‘Don’t tell everybody, David! Patent it! You’ll clean up!’’
As if. Do I look like a Brylcreemed bishop? I just want to help.
Naturally you’ll be wondering how it works. Glad you asked. Intellectual property lawyers, start your engines.
It involves LED technology, it involves fabric. It involves weaving LED technology right into the fabric of a rugby jersey and making lights flash, and stuff. Let’s not get too technical, just trust me when I say that using this technology you could turn a rugby jersey into a TV screen.
You could play a TV commercial on Kieran Read’s back. Or a message from John Key. Or some Lord of the Rings.
It could even be an 80-minute documentary about IAG, and that might be a good idea because I don’t know about you but I don’t really know what IAG is or does, other than it’s something to do with insurance and sticking letters all over the All Blacks.
But I have another idea: people say rugby puts New Zealand on the map. Assuming people know about rugby, that’s possibly true. But just to be sure, why don’t we get really specific? Why don’t we put an animation on the jersey that shows, Google Maps style, where exactly in the world New Zealand is?
It would show people how to get here from, say, Pittsburgh or Mumbai, and really make a meal of it. You’ve got 80 minutes, remember.
It’ll never happen? Don’t be so sure. Many of history’s greatest innovations sounded crackpot right up until the very moment it worked and then suddenly everybody was slapping their forehead and saying: ‘‘That’s so obvious! Why didn’t I think of that? I could have patented it and cleaned up.’’
Keep buying this newspaper, then. The tap never turns off. How about my electric real estate dog collar? You strap it onto anyone who works in a bank and lends money. You attach it to any Aucklander buying a house.
If the banker says: ‘‘We can lend you as much as you want,’’ the collar jolts him and keeps jolting him until he gets down to a responsible number. If you’re bidding at an auction, it jolts you as soon as your bid goes over four times your annual income, and keeps jolting you until you come to your senses.
I’m just sorry I didn’t have the idea in 2002, because that ship has sailed. That horse has bolted, and it’s more or less useless now. Although you could still put it on Nick Smith and make it go off whenever he says ‘‘I’ve got an idea’’.
It could go off on a few other people, too. Maybe you saw footage this week of cabinet ministers up north trying to dig a hole with a spade and not even managing to cut the turf. You may be wondering if a collar might help them.
You may be wishing you could strap one onto people before they vote, you may be wishing you could strap one onto them before they burn an unfeasibly catastrophic amount of fossil fuels.
I just feel sick as a parrot that I didn’t come up with this idea any sooner, though. According to a report this week, we’ve only got 10 years to sort it out before the planet chokes and there are no more awards for anything.