University Funding Model – SOLVED

Now here is a completely new way to fund universities. The current pay per student per year, which is now heavily funded by the students themselves, still leads to degrees of varying quality and of various values. I, like you, are astounded at the lack of connection of industry and universities that we have. What we need in the UK is a fundamentally new approach to university funding.

So, how about, from now on, Universities are paid, by the Government, nothing for the years they are educating the students, but then 10% of the gross salaries of their graduates for their first ten years in employment? Surely this would:

1. Focus the universities on providing the most valuable degrees for society
2. Ensure that universities help students for the first ten years of their career as well during their degree
3. Students do not have to pay, nor owe money and be in horrible debt
4. Fits in with “pay per results” policy
5. Degrees will be more productive

I am sure there is much detail that would need to be thought out, especially cash flow and if there are some degrees of great value to society but not financially (although I can’t think of any) but you get my drift? Please leave your comments below, or write to your MP.

Four Day Working Week

Once upon a time, in a biblical land, the week was 6 days long with the Sabbath off. Now I haven’t been alive quite that long, but at some point, some bright spark asked the question, “Hey you guys, why don’t we also take off Saturday each week?”

My logical mind has come to the conclusion that now is the time to extend this thinking, and all of us have every Friday off too. “What!”, I hear you all scream, “The economy will grind to a halt! The shops would be closed all the time!” Utter nonsense. You see, shops open Saturday and Sunday now, the economy has done very well on 5 days a week. And if implemented properly, we would completely change the quality of life in the Western World, and if we are all smiling again, we buy more, do more etc etc. It would boost the Western World more than any other change I can think of.

What I suggest is this. From now on, all Fridays are classified as part of the weekend. To compensate, everyone has to work 30 mins more on the 4 remaining days. Because you will not need so much holiday, we can all reduce our holiday allowances down a bit, for example from 25 days to 15. This will not hurt so much as you think, as you only need to take of 4 days to have a week off and on bank holiday weeks 3. Lastly, we all sign a pledge to work focused that bit more in the 4 days, you know, stop chatting round the tea machine quite so much. These three things would almost completely compensate for the change and ensure output of the country is maintained.

But just imagine the joy, the ability to actually relax. The feeling you get on a Sunday night that you have only just unwound but now have to go back to work – that would no longer be there. After 3 days off you want to go back to work. You are rested. The natural length of time for a weekend is 3 days and the natural time for the working week is 4.

If enough of you comment below that you think this is a good idea, I’ll start the campaign.

Best Ever Microwave

OK. Every time I use a microwave, it’s for one thing. Heating up a mug of something. Could be soup, tea or milk, but mostly it’s a cup of coffee. Who really uses a microwave for cooking… Come on.

So, my question is, if most people, most of the time, use a microwave for heating up a mug, why does the handle always end up pointing the other way? Why don’t you, right now, patent a microwave that guarantees when you press the 10 or 30 second heat button, that the turntable is sure to spin round so the handle is pointing in the same direction as when you put the mug in, so it’s simple to pick it up?

Outside Temperature Forecast Controlled Thermostat

The person who patents this idea could end up very rich.  I am forever playing around with the thermostat and the timings of my central heating system.  The reason is simple; although the temperature can be set to a steady 22 centigrade inside, if it’s the middle of winter I may want it higher, and if its the middle of summer and going to be scorching hot outside by lunchtime, I’d rather not have it come on at all.  Why not have a WiFi connected service, like AccuWeather, and depending on what the day is forecast to be like, set the timings and temperature intelligently.  This wouldn’t take a rocket scientist with a PhD in Artificial Intelligence to make.

Not only would this save me from constantly fiddling with the controls, but it would also save money by reducing the times the heating is put on when the weather is forecast to be hotter later on.  The nearest device I can find that looks like this is the SilverPac SilverStat 7, shwon above, but from all the reviews is more focused on energy consumption monitoring rather than predictive thermostat setting.  I’ll wait for more info….

Logarithmic Proportional Representation – LogPR

The Alternative Vote (AV) is a complex way of attempting Proportional Representation.  The main idea of PR is to be fairer, as our parliamenarians will be more representative of the population, but the main critics of PR point out that this will lead to more hung parliaments and minority parties that may be unsavoury, getting key voting rights in the house of commons.  The solution to me seems really simple.  If we want every vote in the UK to count but to have a greater empahsis on the more serious parties, why not have PR on a logarithmic scale rather than a linear one, you know, like the Richter scale for earthquakes where 7 is a lot more than 6?  The table below shows the number of votes in 2010, the actual seats won, the seats that would be won if we had PR and the much more sensible and fair example of what LogPR could look like.

For those that are interested, the LogPR column is actually worked out here by exponential factor of 1.4 so really I should call this Exponential Proportional Representation, or ExpPR.

Convergence of Phone and Television

Much is spoken and hyped about technology convergence, but one I predict as next big thing is the convergence of television and telephone.  I think this is going to be a bigger driver for buying a new TV set than the currently more hyped 3D-TVs.  The reason will be the emergence this year of well designed internet televisions and once people see the ease at which the TV in their living room can suddenly can become a two-way device, an internet TV is going to be on everyone’s wish list.

Top of the list of apps to support this is going to be Skype, and almost certainly this will be followed by MSN.  The underlying concept here is that people today view a TV as a device to bring video into the house.  What will change this year is that the TV will also be the main device to broadcast video out of the house, thus turning the TV as we know it into a consumer video conferencing unit.

Issues will arise from wifi lag and the usual video quality issues of having video over internet.  More importantly will be the need of user friendly integration with the TV itself, such as the ability to pause the TV whilst you are on a call and to continue watching from where you left off when the call ends.

So where are the business ideas in all this you ask!  Well the TV manufacturers have the market for the hardware, and no one without a few billion dollars is going to take on Skype.  But what about education?  How about a guitar lesson via your TV with an amazing guitar tutor who may be on the other side of the world?  What you will be able to do is to conduct face to face transactions with other people in any business without having to travel to their office.  Ideas here could be a visit to your GP, your solicitor, local planning official, sales calls and so on. Where this will be especially useful is in global transactions.  How about that guitar teacher being in India, and you are paying a tenth of the amount as for a guitar teacher in London?  There will be huge off-shoring possibilities.

Another way this will change what we do will be the much greater ability for office workers to work from home.  Could this be the nail in the coffin for office based work?

Follow up links:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-tv/
http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/web-enabled-tvs-are-new-battleground/16iy0hzil