REI's list

Here's the pic from the front page of REI's web site...

Number One Non-Essential!

www.rei.com has a feature on their front page today called The 10 Non-Essentials. Number one on the hit parade? The Camper's Dream Ice Cream Maker!

Interviewing

Today I dredged up the interviewing skills I learned at Boeing. We met a woman who will join us in about a month (after her wedding and honeymoon in Hawaii) to handle some of the office work. She had a good resume and she presented herself outstandingly. Technically she'll be a temporary employee. After 30-90 days of evaluation we'll bring her on full time if there's a good fit. I'd like to say I put together a formal interview plan, but I actually sketched it up while she waited in the parking lot (she was early so she didn't come in right away). Everything went swimmingly!

Recent ball requests

We receive a stream of requests from magazines and TV shows to get one or more balls to review on a given show. One I'm particularly excited about is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We've sent them two balls. I can't wait to see what they do with them.

Steve and I had some fun banter today concerning another couple of requests. Steve pointed out that I could get a write-off on a subscription to Penthouse magazine since they've requested a ball for their Christmas buying guide. That was pretty funny but I liked it even more when he wrote to me that "I also sent a ball to a Christian Ministries Magazine today so we truly have a cross-over product here."

Europe update

I'm back in Seattle after a week in Europe for the Outdoor Europe tradeshow. My audience (well, Grandpa, anyway) is clamoring for information. What happened? Here's a quick overview.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, Steve (Marketing and Sales guy) and I flew to Zurich and drove to our hotel in Konstanz, Germany. The next morning we took a ferry across Lake Konstanz to Meersberg and drove down the lake to Friedrichshafen, the town where the trade show took place. The conference center was enormous with 10 bays of several hundred thousand square feet each. They were all full of outdoor equipment: 2 bays of tents, 1 of climbing gear (ropes, shoes, pitons), several bays of apparel, several of gadgets, and so on. A zeppelin sponsored by one of the big outdoor companies in Europe was parked as the zeppelin field next door (and flew over several times each day). I will mention that I don't like this company since they're selling the cheap knockoff of our candle lantern.

Steve and I had three goals for the conference. First, get familiar with the trade show and the European outdoor market. Second, find more outlets for our products. Third, find new products that we can distribute in the United States.

I believe we succeeded on all three. Given that Steve and I know almost nothing about the European outdoor market, it was easy to succeed on the first one. We learned a tremendous amount, saw products, met people, and debated our present and future strategies. It was a very healthy exercise. We met with our existing distributors in England, Germany and Greece. Spiros, our Greek distributor, doesn't buy much product. However, he was very enthusiastic and helpful to us. He introduced us to 4-5 potential business partners. He's an old-timer who seemed to know everyone. It was fun to feel that we were brought under his wing.

On the second goal, we met with several distributors that cover areas of Europe into which we don't currently sell our products. Norway, Sweden, and Holland are all new possibilities. We talked with a French distributor (definitely a market we'd like to crack) but the meeting seemed like a disaster so we don't expect anything to come of it. It will take a few months to find out if any of these opportunities are going to become business realities. The reps at the shows will need to go back to headquarters and discuss everything they saw at the show. It will be interesting to see if and when new orders appear.

On the third goal, we also had some good luck. We found several products that match well with our existing competencies. Also, they're not currently distributed (or not well distributed) in the U.S. We looked at some portable chairs, a walking-stick/camera-tripod, fire starters (a good match with candle lanterns, right?), meal kits, and so on. Again, it will take some time to find out if these will turn into real business or if they were just nice conversations. I don't want to mention the specific companies until the deals are solidified.

On the cultural front, the whole trip was a good reminder that different parts of the world operate differently. Diet Coke was Coca Cola Light in Europe. And it was never served with ice. When the flight attendant poured my drink over ice on the return flight, it seemed odd! Ice cubes seem also to be a rarity, at least in Germany. That makes our ice cream maker a harder sell. However, the Norwegian distributor seemed excited about the product and said the ice cube shortage didn't exist in her country. Ice cream (Eis) was available on every street corner and we did extensive product testing. Single scoops were usually available for 0.60 euros or about 75 cents. Hard to pass up. I loved the weather, overcast and cool with occasional sun and occasional rain. Very nice.

Here's a novelty. In America, it's virtually impossible to find European television shows or music on the radio. In Germany at least, it seemed that about half of the TV shows and radio music came from America. Most of the TV shows were dubbed into German (I watched a lot of MTV since it was mostly in English with German subtitles). On the radio, I mostly heard the same music I would hear at home. Funny! No wonder the French fear cultural imperialism.

And, finally, a helpful cleaning tip. A certain traveling companion who shall remain unnamed (accidentally) spilled red wine on my nice new white tennis shoes. They seemed destined for a life of pinkness when the flight attendant appeared. She retrieved a little bottle of vodka and used it to clean the shoes. Almost like new! Magic! I knew that alcohol stuff had a use, I just never knew what it was!

Denver TV coverage

This one is interesting because it seems to be based on the Consumer Reports story. It looks like the news station got the story and the videotape from CR instead of making it themselves. The ball comes off looking great!

Click here.

Cubism For Fun

Well, I'm now a published author. I wrote an article which appears in the latest Cubism For Fun magazine of puzzles. Here's the table of contents. And here's the article I sent (I'm not sure yet if it's identical to what they published.

Some additional information on
3D-printed puzzles

By Keith S. Jackson

Background

In CFF-65 Oskar van Deventer wrote a wonderful article on his collaboration with George Miller to design and manufacture 3D-printed puzzles. George and Oskar have built an impressive collection of clever and novel puzzles. I’d like to offer some additional information on previous efforts to use similar technologies to manufacture puzzles. I’d also like to invite the puzzle community to add to this information.

Impossible Objects

There are a number of 3D-printed pu

zzles that pre-date the work of George and Oskar. The ball-in-cage and the rook are two impossible objects in my collection that have been available for many years. I believe I acquired mine around 2000. The rook is particularly delightful as it has an internal spiral staircase that can be seen through the windows. I am not able to offer specific dates for these items, except to note that an article from January 2002 about a new rapid prototyping system installed at the University of Manitoba (http://www.umanitoba.ca/manitoban/20020109/news_5.shtml) shows a slightly different version of the rook. It would be interesting to hear if anyone can more precisely date either of these pieces.

Dexterity Puzzles

More specifically, I did an internship with Pratt and Whitney’s Turbine Airfoil Product Center in North

Haven, Connecticut between June and December of 1996. My role was to investigate the possibility of using 3D-Printing (a different layered-manufacturing process) for the production of turbine airfoils. I worked with the tooling engineers who had an on-site stereolithography printer available to them. In addition to prototyping new tool designs, they found production applications for the machine, in one case replacing a $50,000 tool with a $2,000 epoxy-filled stereolithography-built part.

I had access to this machine and I was able to manufacture at least 3 puzzles. One was a classic double-dovetail made in homage to the Sandfield brothers’ dovetail puzzle designs. That one is in the collection of Robert Sandfield. The other two were simple dexterity puzzles which required the removal of a ball from an object with an uncertain internal structure. A pictures of both puzzles is included.

Conclusion

I have 3-D printed puzzles dating to 1996 but I suspect I wasn’t the first person to utilize the technology in this way. 3D Systems, the company which invented the first stereolithography rapid prototyping system, was founded in 1986, a full decade before I did my work. Can anyone offer earlier puzzles than mine?

Any blog readers have $20M they want to invest?

I received a funny call this afternoon. The caller initially asked for Greg, the previous owner. When I explained that Greg isn't around much since I bought the company, the caller almost immediately asked, "Do you want to buy another company?" "Maybe," I said. We talked for a while and he explained that he's trying to sell a company in Dallas (don't hold your breath, Mom). He said it's about a $30M company. No problem, I said, please tell me more. An email is on the way. Of course, that price is a hugemongous problem, but it was too early to tell him that. Besides, I'm comfortable that I'll be able to negotiate the price down to $20M or less and one of my faithful (and impressed) blog readers will stake me.

Right? I'm sitting by the phone. Please call immediately.

Funny ebay listing

Here's the text from someone selling a blue Original Candle Lantern. It's pretty funny if you read it closely.

You are bidding on one Original Candle Lantern by UCO. This is the standard that all others are measured by. This handle little Candle Lantern is the perfect camping companion where you carry everything in on your back or the truck of your car. It collapses into it's self for easy storage and to protect the glass chimney. With the attached chain and hook you can hang this lantern from almost anywhere, and it is even light enough to hang in your tent at the end of the evening.

Please send me stuff for free

It's somewhat remarkable to me how many people want something for nothing. No recognizable business name was included with this note and the return email address is at AOL. Not a whiff of professionalism in any of it.

I am interested in receiving a copy of your new The UCO Play & Freeze
Ice Cream MakerTM I heard about thru a manufac. rep. as one of the most cleaver new items made. We may be interested in carrying them in our retail division. Please send one to the above address for review and will be shown in our August managers meeting. ALSO, If you "think outside the box" like we do on carrying products.... please send ANY OTHER "unique", "fun", "inovative", "time-saving", or cleaver item. We may find more that just the ice cream freezer to carry.
Please include a break down of cost per number of units, etc. and any other details, brochures, or samples. We thank you....

Inside Bay Area review

A fun little review from Inside Bay Area:

Stop, drop and roll may be great advice when the house is on fire, but you can also try it with the new Industrial Revolution Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker. It's a plastic ball about the size of a soccer ball that makes you want to drop, kick and toss it all over the yard. The ball has two openings. On one side is the chamber into which you pour your ice cream ingredients. Opposite is the opening through which you add several cups of ice, and about 1/2 cup of rock salt.

At our house, I enlisted the help of my 12-year-old and three of her friends to test out the freezer. They mixed up the ingredients in about 10 minutes (remember, four cooks in the kitchen always takes longer), rolled the ball around outside for about 10 minutes, then opened it to see if it was ready. The contents were still liquid. They packed more ice and salt into the ball and continued to play, this time inside the house, with me pulling at both sides of my hair, hoping the ice cream contents would not spill.

No spills later, the group peeked at their ice cream again. It was foamy at the top, but as they fished around inside with a spoon, they discovered the edges were totally frozen hard. They stirred, then served what they admitted was the first ice cream they had ever made all by themselves. They loved it. The Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker makes a little over 2 cups of ice cream per batch. The balls come with recipes and are available for $34.95 at outdoor stores such as REI and L.L. Bean, and online at www.icecreamrevolution.com.

Seattle University

Today we met with two professors and an administrator from Seattle University's Engineering Projects Center. We're going to sponsor a project where 4-5 seniors in the Mechanical Engineering department will use a project (defined by our company) to apply their engineering learning. In June, Steve and I went to their annual open house to see the projects from last year. We've got a couple of potential projects that are good matches for the EPC and I'm looking forward to working with them.

Excellent TV coverage!

Check out this magnificent tv spot about the ice cream ball from Tyler, Texas.

Biz Update

Business is proceeding nicely. Sales of the ice cream maker are outstripping our ability to bring them in from overseas. We'll sell twice as many in the next six months as the company sold in the last twelve months. And I think we're still just getting started.

We continue to implement processes we've had in work for a long time. There are less than 15 of the 54 huge carts we started with. We've almost entirely replaced them with 25 more functional carts that take up half the floor space.

We printed our first UPS labels on our new label printer (dedicated to UPS) yesterday. Very exciting and a big improvement over the paper process.

I've finally got some shelves on the wall in my office. Much needed!

We've moved two customers from paper processes over to electronic web-based EDI (electronic data interchange). It's not a lot better for us, but it will be next year, because...

I've started the investigation into professional accounting systems. We're using a $299 off-the-shelf program called MYOB. It's somewhat buggy, counter-intuitive, slow, and generally clunky. I want to move to a higher-end system as of January 1, 2006. The good systems should not only be faster and more powerful, but they should directly interface with the EDI system we're using. That will eliminate many manual paper-based error-prone steps we currently take in our existing processes. There are another dozen or so customers that we could move to EDI if we had a better accounting system.

On the 19th, Steve and I head for Europe. We're going to the European Outdoor Retailers Show. We'd like to expand the export side of our business so this is a big step in the right direction. We already have distributors in Britain, Scandanavia, Germany, and elsewhere, but it's a big market and we're under-represented.

Latest firsts

I'm still having a great time with this company. And we're still plowing new ground every week.

Two days ago we processed our first shipment with UPS using their online system. Until now, everything had been done by hand in a book full of stickers. In a few days we'll get a label printer which will make the process even easier.

Yesterday we used the label printer (not the UPS one) for the first time to print new box labels to replace the ones we get from our antiquated PC. The old ones are generated using Word Perfect, Quattro Pro, and a decrepit dot-matrix printer. The new ones are a huge improvement not only in looks but in functionality. We've corrected a bunch of little problems the old ones had.

Today the shop guys came in to the office and installed three cabinets on the wall above my desk. Those have been in work for a couple of months so getting them up on the wall was a wonderful milestone!

And another new thing... today I started getting one of our biggest customers set up with an EDI link (that's Electronic Data Interchange). Until now we've done a lot of paperwork for them. The EDI setup will dramatically simplify our interactions as well as making them much less error-prone.

So, yes, I'm still having fun!

Burning Man

Here's a fun one from the online feedback form...

Hello! My husband and I came across your ice cream ball in the REI catalogue. As we are preparing to go to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man at the end of August, we thought this might be a viable product to try out in the survival mode of this event.

Tonight we began experimenting with different ingredients which we could bring into this harsh environment without spoilage, and find that it is quite possible to make a great ice cream product.

If you are not familiar with the Burning Man event, let me tell you that one of the main aspects of it is that nothing is sold. Everyone brings something to gift to the community. Some teach classes, others set up discotheques and bars, some produce wonderful and inspiring art pieces, others dance and drum. We thought it might be fun to make ice cream in the desert!

However, the balls that you manufacture cannot make a lot of quantity at a time. We cannot afford to buy a quantity of your balls.

So here is my proposal to you: Please consider gifting us some balls to take to Burning Man and we will advertise the ice cream making and promote your balls. I just bet that a lot of people will come to try them out and will want to purchase them. If you furnish us with the names of the distributors we will give them out to folks who are wanting to purchase them.

What do you think?

By the way, I have tried powdered goat's milk and maple syrup and have made a wonderful healthy ice cream. I can think of a number of interesting recipes that I will be trying out. As I write this missive, I am trying out a recipe for Mojito Sherbert. I'll let you know how it goes!

Thank you for your consideration of my idea. I will be waiting to hear from you!