We all have ideas that we think can make us millionaires. Those light bulb moments when you dream up an invention that no else has yet imagined. In truth very few ideas prove to be successful and for every new creation that turns out to be a big hit, there are countless others that fail spectacularly. But amongst the failures are some incredibly simple and often unconventional ideas that have made their developers hugely wealthy, and sometimes for very little effort.
Which are the best of the best? That’s what we’ll be looking at in this episode of The Infographics Show: Unlikely inventions that made millions. We’ve researched some of the craziest ideas that made people richer than they could have imaged. Some of these inventions are weird, wacky or simply did well because of the fun factor, and others turned out to address a real need https://www.casinoslots.co.nz/nightrush. But what they all have in common is they hit the top of the sales list, as customers couldn’t get enough of them. We’ve filtered what we think are the most interesting ones worth talking about, to bring you our top ten list. Let’s jump straight in and take a look. 10. Doggles - Roni and Ken Di Lullo knew something wasn’t right when their dog MidKnight kept missing the Frisbee during a game of fetch. In 1997, during a visit to their local dog park San Jose, California, the couple noticed that their pooch was squinting. "He seemed to be sensitive to sunlight," Roni recalls. And so was born an idea for doggy shades - goggle-style sunglasses that they named Doggles. Initially Roni used a pair of sports goggles and altered them to fit the border collie. Midknight’s frisbee performance improved and he became the talk of the dog park. Roni created a website to showcase photos of the pooch modeling his eyewear. "People love to see a dog wearing glasses," she says. To her surprise people started contacting Roni asking if they could purchase a pair of these cool doggy shades, which led her and he husband to explore manufacturing. And Doggles do more than protect your pet from the sun's glare, they also keep out dust, debris and wind, and block UV rays and that can lead to medical conditions in the dog’s eyes. By 2012 Doggles reached revenue of $3 million in a single year! Not bad for a pair of shady Rover Ray-Bans. 9. The Pet Rock - Pet Rock is a collectible that was dreamt up in 1975 by advertising executive Gary Dahl. Pet Rocks are smooth stones from Mexico's Rosarito Beach. Yes, a big pebble sold like a real living pet. Each Pet Rock came in it’s own custom cardboard box, with a straw and breathing holes. It was a short-lived fad that lasted about six months and Dahl’s crazy rocks were sold for $3.95, profiting him $3 per sale. It’s estimated that he sold more than 1.5 million of them, making him a millionaire in a very short period of time. Dahl passed away in March 2015, at age 78.
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Or put another way, the most it could inflate to is 120 third of an ounce of gold. Now in the real world, there's all sorts of problems and complications with this that involve the limit on the gold supply and how hard it is to respond to economic shocks when you have declared your currency worth a certain amount of gold, but we don't have to deal with any of that in games. And this form of currency reserve was really really good at one thing: keeping inflation down. Now, because money is still being perpetually printed in your game, you are still gonna need money sinks.
And even with those, because there are items that simply can't be bought with diamonds, some inflation is going to occur. But, with these systems in place, instead of hitting hyperinflation, you'll get something much closer to the rational real-world inflation that comes with an expanding economy. And while there are a million other complexities with reserve currencies that I've not been able to even scratch the surface of in this 10-minute video, and because there's other weirdness with MMOs that throws a bit of a wrench into the whole thing, this stuff isn't a magic bullet. It's not a perfect solution. But by stealing one of the quintessential economic tools that makes our real-world run, we are one huge step closer to solving one of the oldest problems in MMO design. See you next time! And even if you could get close, well that could hurt your economy, too. And honestly, it might make your game less engaging to play if the player feels like they're spending all of their time just paying fees. It's not really why we play games.
But lately it seems like designers have discovered another solution. A reserve currency. In the real world, almost every nation holds onto a bunch of currency from other countries to serve as a reserve currency. This reserve currency is used for international transactions, but far more importantly to us, it's used to anchor the local currency. Because, after all, if you have 500 billion dollars in the bank and you tell everybody that they can trade 50 of your currency for one u.s. dollar well then the least your currency is worth is 2 cents. It can't go below that so long as you've got some of your reserve currency left. If your currency starts to inflate, then people start to trade in your local money for the reserve currency, effectively creating a floor for what your currency is worth so long as you still have a supply of the reserve currency. So how does this work in MMOs? Well of late, many MMOs have started to allow players to buy things of real-world value with in-game currency, like Plex in EVE Online. Many of the free-to-play MMOs have gone one step even further and let players buy their microtransaction currency -- the currency that has to be bought with real money -- from other players for currency earned in game. By tying the in-game currency to real world currency, which has real value, the in-game currency now can't lose all of its value. But that alone didn't end up being enough to prevent hyperinflation in a lot of these games, so two other aspects, somewhat lifted from how real world reserve currencies work, were put into place in order to overcome the infinite money printing that MMOs naturally engage in. The first is illiquidity. In the real world, reserve currencies can't really be traded among the local populace. Like if you go to China, even though the Chinese keep huge amounts of US dollars as reserve currency, you can't really simply trade US dollars for things on the street. You usually need to convert your money into yuan first. And while clearly this is not a hundred percent true in the real world because the real world basically breaks every rule at some point, you can make it a hundred percent true in games because you set the rules of that world. You can prevent players from trading the purchased currency. Players can convert their earned currency to purchased currency, but that currency can't then be traded to players except by converting it back to earn currency through the same system. The purchased currency can only ever be spent. You know what, this would actually probably be easier to follow if I had named these currencies and gave some examples or something. So, let's call the currency you earn in-game by killing monsters and stuff silver pieces, and the currency that you've gotta pay real money for, those are diamonds. In our hypothetical game, you can use the game's currency exchange to, let's say, pay 10,000 silver pieces to buy a hundred diamonds. Once you've done that, you either have to spend those 100 diamonds in the in-game store, thereby permanently removing those diamonds from the economy, or you can just sell the diamonds to somebody else for 10,000 silver to get your money back. You can't ever use diamonds to buy things from players. Like, you can't offer to buy somebody's Epic Sword of Awesomeness using your newly acquired diamonds because if you could do that, diamonds would just become the new currency and people would abandon silver entirely. But, because there's a whole host of items that you can't buy with diamonds, even players with a lot of money to spend on the game still need to earn that in-game silver, and thus will trade their diamonds for it. In our real-world analog, buying something with diamonds is basically like buying something from a foreign market. That money leaves the economy, but in return you get a good or a service that you couldn't purchase locally. But clearly in this scenario, if silver is added to the world faster than diamonds, the price of silver to diamonds will inflate. Creating a reserve currency might help you avoid the problem of silver becoming totally worthless, but you haven't yet prevented crippling inflation. To do that, you need to take one more step. And that is setting a maximum limit on how much a diamond can cost. Back when we used the gold standard in the real world which we talked about a little bit in this Extra History series on paper money, and gold was used as the reserve currency internationally, nations would just set a fixed price for how much an ounce of gold was worth. They would say, alright the government says you can always trade 23 US dollars for an ounce of gold. And all of a sudden, the very least a dollar could be worth. It’s that time of year again. The school year is winding down to a close, summer is beginning and high school seniors are on their way out the door and are making their journey onward towards bigger and better things: college.
As students reflect on their educational experiences and memories of years past, universities are already in full swing of pursuing recruitment for next year’s freshmen class. College marketing is an art in itself. A true marketing machine that when operated correctly by the individuals that make up a university’s admissions department, has the ability to receive accolades and notoriety from its student body and the population in general. Many students initially gather interest in a university based upon a few factors. These include: family and friends who have attended, reputation and recognition, athletics, academics and finances. However, it can be argued that the final decision really comes down to the degree of which the admissions department reaches out to them as an incoming student, and more so, a prospect. Universities will first acquire your information via some sort of marketing activity. Whether it be through a campus visit, a college fair, a targeted direct mail piece, or by social media, they now have you in their system and you have a decision to make. You ask yourself, “Is this a good fit? Do I see myself going to this university?” Either way, your interest is now piqued and if you find that it’s somewhere you would like to be for the next four years, you apply. After you send in your application, then comes the actual recruitment process. This is where you become your university’s new best friend. A mass-mail receiving, pen-pal of sorts. You will start receiving monthly, perhaps even weekly e-mails, direct mail and promotional freebies from the universities you have applied to. While this can start to seem over-whelming at times, it’s all a part of the process to convince you that this university is the university for you. The goal of the recruitment process of universities is to make you feel like you belong on their campus, in their classrooms and as a contributing part of their student body. They want you to come to their university, and they will make sure they take every action to get you to do so. Then it’s the waiting game. For months, you wait patiently before you hear back from the universities you have applied to. Some you’ll get into, others you won’t, and in the end, you’ll most likely have a decision to make between choosing from a few different schools. This is when the university’s admissions department has to work extra hard to be sure that you’ll attend their university instead of the others you have been accepted to. Some universities will offer financial aid incentives, full-rides, academic and athletic scholarships or simply the promise of a wonderful education. Regardless, the decision is now in your hands and yours alone. So, as the year is coming to a close, here is your to-do list before you venture off into the world. First, make your final college decision. National Decision Day is May 1st, and the deadline is quickly approaching! Second, get all of your paperwork in order. Attend some courses. I learned how to write my essay with tutor to prepare for exams. Once you decide on a university you have housing applications, FAFSA applications and plenty of other paperwork to complete. Third, try to find a small circle of individuals that you can befriend before heading off to college. Knowing a few familiar faces once you get there helps to make the few days before classes a lot less nerve-wracking. And last, get involved as soon as possible. Make it a point to attend meetings, join clubs and take classes you are super-enthusiastic about.
According to the National Center for Education Studies, there are 17.6 million undergraduate students, thirty-eight percent of those enrolled are over the age of 25 and a quarter of those are over the age of 30. Non-traditional student enrollment is expected to increase another twenty three percent in the next 7 years. This upward trend means that admission counselors must help alumni navigate the challenges they face when returning as non-traditional students. Taking a proactive role in the admission process while directing alumni to appropriate resources, will save admission counselors time and work. Receiving Financial Aid One obstacle in the way of non-traditional students is the complicated task of applying for and receiving financial aid. Admission counselors will need to work closely with their financial aid office, preferably one that is adapted to the nontraditional student’s unique financial situation, to assist alumni. Some alumni will have access to employer tuition reimbursement programs as well as any assistance they may be eligible for through military service. Admission Counselors will need to be educated in the variety of options their particular institute employs when it comes to financial aid and flexible tuition payments. Offering career counseling services to non-traditional students will help to alleviate some of the apprehension that comes with returning to school. Career advancement is one of the main reasons that people go back to school or begin postsecondary programs. Helping to provide resources that will assist with resume writing, interviewing and job searching are items to address with prospective students. Arranging job fairs can be one way to reach out and target non-traditional alumni students and bring visibility to your institution. The GRE When returning to complete a postsecondary program, students will need to be familiar with the GRE process. Knowing of the resources available for non-traditional students ahead of time will help them navigate the multitude of information currently available on the internet. Creating a guide tailored to non-traditional alumni students should also be considered. Offering information on childcare resources, flexible class schedules, university apartments or family housing, academic resources and veteran resources, will not only help them feel welcome but will also make their transition to returning student go more smoothly. Another unique way that Admission Counselors can attract non-traditional students is to suggest the university recognize non-traditional students in their mission statement. If attracting and retaining alumni students is important to the university, the success of it will depend on whether or not non-traditional students are recognized and represented in the overall miss I’ll never forget the story of a friend who was graduating from college – cum laude with a degree in anthropology. She went to a small state school on the east coast with a small, but powerful football team that was well-recognized at that time. Friends and family were all there, and a few thousand other people received their diplomas at the ceremony. In the program, a word or two from the alumni association was listed and expected – just a quick word or two before the names ceremony began. When it came time for the alumni association representative to speak, she started out by talking about the university’s history and strong commitment to education, then read out a list of how alumni association donations could be paid – online, by check in the mail, or via credit card over the phone. She then quipped about how it could be a great idea to spend some of that graduation check supporting the university that “supported all of you for all these years.” It Didn’t Go Down Too Well Students and parents at the graduation spent the next week calling into the alumni office to complain. “At the very least,” my friend’s mother said, “She could have congratulated the graduates.” This begs the question – is the graduation ceremony an appropriate place to solicit donations for the alumni fund? Could these kinds of actions from the alumni association staff cause issues with alumni admissions in the future? The answer is yes and no. There’s a right and a wrong way to ask people for money, regardless of the situation. Many students don’t know the alumni association is there – for activities, reunions, job support and future admissions, there is no better resource than a university’s alumni association. Many graduating students are more than willing to pay – under the right circumstances. Asking for Donations Alumni associates should consider a tasteful mail or social media campaign checking in on post-graduation plans for an online database while politely requesting donations. Alumni associations should also be letting graduates know the full scope of the services they help alumni with – and asking for a donation via mail at that time certainly is not unreasonable or out of line. As with anything else in life, the subject of money is always a touchy one. It’s important for college alumni associations to approach potential donations in a way that won’t eliminate the possibility of future funding. A graduate’s big day may not be the best time to solicit a donation – but post graduate mailers could be a great way to let graduates know both support and the potential to donate are there. |
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