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Cheat Sheet for InnovatorsI’ve been an inventor for fifty years. I have many patents and have spent much of my life in R&D departments. My patents involve software, electronics, and mechanical devices. I have a cheat sheet that I refer to when I need ideas. Note that this is more of a train-of-thought than an outline. The ideas are not intended to be used as-is, but to spur other new ideas when considered.I try to add to this sheet when I need to think of something new or a new way to do something. But I don’t usually delete obsolete or used ideas from here, as they can still be used to spawn new ideas; so you will find some things listed here that have already been invented but that I wrote of many years ago. Quora’s text-input editor, of course, stripped all of the useful indentation from the document. Sorry.I hope this sheet can be useful to you…Idea Tree for InnovationSnippets to tickle your creative side...Lateral­-ThinkingIn each of the following situations, do not try to think of answers blindly. Instead visualize yourself in the scenarios and try to visit the described experiences. Do not try to second­-guess the commercial potential or business applications at this time. Just answer the questions – you aren’t being graded.1) You sometimes have to do a chore or do extra work that really frustrates you, so you avoid it. List two or more such instances.a) Clean up the flour that sticks to the counter top after making pastry.b) Spraying the house with pesticide. (Messy and dangerous)c) Preparing for a party or large gathering and cleaning up afterward.d) Cleaning up the yard, i.e. Fallen fruit (oranges), branches, etc.2) List at least two ways that people waste their time or expend extra effort to accomplish something that seems like it should be simpler.a) Putting up and taking down Christmas lights.b) Taking the day off and waiting all day for utility installation or a repairman to arrive.c) Washing the floors.d) Brushing the dog.3) When looking for a product or service, you often realize that some of them seem far too expensive. List two or more.a) Rocks for landscaping.b) Rubber liner for a garden pond.c) Lego toys. (Definitely worth the price, but still, they must have a huge markup.)d) HBA – especially beauty products.e) Paper products.f) Picture framing.g) Directory assistance – but not as annoying as the free ones now available.4) When looking for a product or service, you find that you avoid the best source because of inconvenience or driving distance. List two or more.a) Bait and tackle shop. (Goes where the fish are? Hot line?)b) Hallmark card shops. (Never nearby)5) Sometimes you go to the mall or a big box store to find something in particular only to be disappointed by size or availability. List two or more of these instances.a) A litter basket for my car for the backseat hump that doesn’t fall over. (1960’s era)b) Colorful luggage straps/tags to make my bags stand out on the baggage belt.c) Dress slippers to wear in an airport or waiting room.d) Microwave sauté pan – with a heavy nuke-pre-heatable basee) Generic but nice gifts in a certain price range – i.e. $30­, $40.6) In your line of work or a hobby there are certain things that are tedious or time consuming. At minimum, list two of them.a) Cleaning the screen of my monitorb) Holding up a book to read while lying in bed or sitting upright.c) Toting a fifty-­pound backpack while hiking.d) Watering plants – waiting for them to drain.7) You just found out about an exciting new product or service that makes you say: “I wish I had thought of that.” List at least two possibilities:a) Spring-­loaded clips for holding large extension cords (bulk at Home Depot)b) Disposable plastic razors, disposable pens, and disposable diapers.c) Plastic ice cubes.8) List two or more times that you have lost something, had something stolen, been cheated, or have been taken for too much money.a) I got sucked into buying home insulation without doing any comparison shopping.b) CD player and CD’s stolen from your car in a c-­store parking lot.c) Automobile with no haggling – cost too much.9) What two (or more) things go to waste most around your house because they expire before being used up or because they keep breaking or stop working?a) Chip clips. (Get lost or break.)b) Vertical blinds. (Get destroyed by the dog.)c) Frozen foods. (Get defrosted but not cooked, so get refrozen w/freezer burn.)d) Milk. (Goes bad)e) Lighters.f) Window spline tools – none are very practical.10) What items around the house or at work can you never seem find when you need them?a) Portable phone.b) Scissors.c) Pens or pencils.d) Playing cards.e) Tape.11) List at least two ideas that you have had in the past that were never brought to fruition by you, even if somebody else has since done so with the same idea.a) Car rear ­window marquee.b) Pneumatic woofers using voice-coil­ driven vents, powered by a gasoline engine.c) Bathtub drain with a catch­-strainer for hair.d) “Flypaper” to clean pine needles, etc. from screens.12) Try to think of at least two ways to take advantage of the susceptibility of certain potential customers.a) Toys, cereals, etc – Children scream until their parents buy what they want.b) Avoid embarrassment – Men often don’t know how to shop for clothes.c) Avoid being cheated – Women might buy a guide to getting a car repaired fairly.13) Can you come up with a couple of original ideas for products or services that fill a need?a) Iron-­in replacement pockets for trousers. (or iron-­in pocket protectors)b) Interactive photomorph kiosk for nightclubs, bowling alleys, and game arcades.c) When using a regular ignition key, odo shows mileage driven under valet key.d) Pageable (clapper?) TV remote control.e) Clips to replace the press­-lock­-tabs that usually break­off of RJ connectorsf) Article: How to create effective classified ads.14) Where might you unexpectedly find advertising, coupons, or marketing?a) Coupons in the classified sectionb) List at least two more that might be practical15) Can you thing of two or more computer programs or websites that might be useful, yet you have never seen offered?a) Print ­to ­file with printout browser and bulk/scheduled reprinter application.b) Slot machine designer and strategy program – slot exerciser and evaluator.c) Searchable local entertainment website where nightspots put up their own adsd) An HTML server ­based browser for ISPs to offer to users with slow connectionse) Online guide for dog owners, with localized pages as well.16) Where might people look around for something to spend money on? Can you think of two or more such places?a) At checkout counters, hence impulse racks.b) While waiting in line for an event.17) When you look in many homes, where is the clutter? Why? List two places and reasons.a) End tables, because many incidentals have no “designated” storage areab) Inside the door are shoes, umbrellas, bags, set their “for later”.c) Garage, closet, elsewhere?d) Junk drawers – bulls, mail, keyse) Under beds – Christmas decorations, obsolete (Goodwill) stuff18) In a business, where do managers least like to spend money? Where is money wasted? List at least two.a) Salary – because there are so many indirect costs. Contractors are preferred.b) Non­- or partial­-depreciable capital expenses such as office furniture?c) Travel (extra $ for last­minute)19) List two or more fads or avocations or trends that lack a quality supply.a) Games? Hobbies? Other?b) Manufacture fake memorabilia – reproductions.c) Games that can be played while traveling – on a road trip.20) Think of at least two marketable concepts that require very little upfront cost.a) Regional scratchpads/notepads printed with a background of an area road-mapb) Employee benefit/reward packages for HR to purchase. Sell local ads within it21) Come up with at least two ideas that tap the talents or skills of the principles.a) Write a book, target movie rights.b) Do Script Writing for Comedians.c) Book – Making Presentations Entertainingd) Book – Busting Out of Writer’s Block22) Sign up and browse the available jobs on guru, rent-a-coder, freelancer, etc.a) Most of the postings are underfunded, naïve, and/or dumb, but…b) The postings reveal gaps in software solutions, ponder those gapsc) Pay special attention to those by professionals who have already vetted solutionsd) Website – Collaborative whiteboard sketching, i.e. for architects23) Think about improvements to jobs/hobbies in which you already have expertisea) What are some of the biggest challenges?b) What might customers want or expect, yet is not available?c) Brainstorm – posit a scenario five years into the future…i) What news about a competitor might bring trepidation to you? ii) What changes in the field might impact the current state of the art?d) i.e. Major competitor comes out with a product that can put you out­-of­businessi) Not just easier, cheaper, faster ­­ but completely different and innovative ii) New related line of business – you wish you had thought of it firstSome of your answers might lead to ideas, imply solutions, or actually be good ideas in and of themselves. Look over the list repeatedly, trying to identify potential value in the answers. Highlight or underline those worth pursuing.Sample IdeasThese are not meant to ​be ​the ideas but rather to be the ​triggers​ that spur fresh ideas from your own experiences. Read these to get your mind in gear and to carry the inertia forward – uncharted territory combined with your own perspective on needs (necessity, after all, really is the mother of invention) will drive innovation. Get those gears turning…24) Leverage Your Own Talenta) Are you a good writer? Start an online business for writing resumes, composing advertising copy, or proofreading/editing/polishing for authors.b) Are you good with people and have some nice dress outfits? Become a sometimes local­ rep for companies that occasionally need local representation.c) Do you have experience and credentials in some specialty? Become a consultant by first writing a series of blogs and building your profile, then create an online presence that you can market.d) Do you have some creations that you are especially proud of, be they sculptures, woodcrafts, ceramics, or clothing? Don’t sell them but, instead, use them as a portfolio to advertise for custom work, as people often have very unique needs yet cannot find a qualified provider – and they are willing to pay for it.e) Maniac Mechanical Computer (Kit - fairly sophisticated) - Mechanical computer to be assembled. Probably plastic parts but maybe laser-cut wood. Base plates lock together as a back-plane – connected via address/data/control bus: probably 16-bit rotational but maybe multi-lever binary buses. 6x2 text display (5x7 font) for output, 20-key mechanical pad for input. (i.e. 0…F, Enter, Fn, BS, Esc)25) Curmudgeon App/Websitea) There are plenty of social sites such as Facebook and Twitter for sharing your day­-to­day experiences. But many people prefer to rant and have trouble finding victims to listen to them because people may not agree with them and are sick of listening to them.b) It would be great if a website/app allowed people with like minds to congregate, yet allowed those who disagreed to intervene as well. The rants could be relentless so the app would have to be able to make efficient use of screen real estate and direct the user’s eyes based on his/her interest and key factors.c) Ideally it would parse the ranter’s text to identify his/her topic and stance and then be able to route him/her automatically.d) Rants that were heavily liked or disliked ought to be saved and then automatically injected into future conversations as blasts from the past.e) It would be nice if it could chart public opinion versus rants as well.26) Soda Vend Mechanisma) It’s apparent from the plethora of mechanisms in soda vending machines that nobody has yet discovered the way these machines ought to work.b) A good solution will be reliable, low­-cost, have few moving parts, will not shake or break the bottles, accommodate all bottle/can size and shape variations, and be easy to load. Simple objectives – dreadful solutions.c) On the web, research the ways these machines operate, learn about common problems with them, get familiar with the patents related to their mechanisms, and try to think of a better way. For instance, if there are five rows of ten racks each then there should be no more than fifteen possible slides or pivots; ideally even fewer.27) Mobile Phone User Interface Improvementsa) What are the most annoying aspects of the user interface on a mobile phone?b) Does it bother people that they often are unsure of whether their tap was hard enough so they tap again only to have it go past the expected page?c) What about buttons and links that pop up just as the user taps, causing a different action that what was intended?d) And going back is often a problem when a user is deeply nested into pages, because they either have to wait for each to load or end up going too far back.e) What about images that are too small to see yet that won’t zoom when you pinch outward?f) There are many such issues on all type of smart phones and tablets.g) Would you expect to be able to amend these situations with an app or would you sell your solutions to the handset manufacturer?28) Outdoor Décora) Home improvement stores do a huge business and you could be wealthy if you invented even one product that they wanted to carry. Look around in your house or go outside and look around.b) See those ugly white risers that support the hedge sprinklers? Why can’t you buy an inexpensive breakaway sleeve to drop over the risers that was green and leafy and blended in with the bushes?c) Fingerprints and gunk all over the window in the storm door? You ought to be able to buy static-­stick patches to protect those areas, maybe with floral prints or sports team logos.d) Scratches and flaking paint on the window and door frames? The paint for those can be found but if you found a small bronze, white, or aluminum metal touch-­up kit right next to the checkout, you’d buy it in a heartbeat.e) Concrete chips and potholes? You don’t want to buy a big can of concrete adhesive and hefty bag of concrete. It’s too bad you can’t buy a really good kit for fixing small areas.f) Dry rot on your eaves? You need a strip of white L-­shaped plastic to cover it, but the ones you can find have inner gussets or staggered holes.29) Scan via Mobile Cameraa) Most people have a lot of items they want to scan, categorize, and often do character recognition on: records, checks, collectibles, business cards, and all of their old photos.b) There is a popular scanner that comes with software for this very purpose. The problem is that scanning is a slow operation and most people now use mobile devices and don’t want to carry their scanner around with them.c) It would be great if there were an application that would work similarly, ran in the background so you needn’t wait for it, and that would ingest images from the mobile device’s camera rather than a scanner.d) Large images could be snapped in multiple pieces and the app would stitch them together before processing them.e) What are you waiting for? Start coding!30) Leverage Disruptive Changesa) Adoption of smart phones means women will need their purses less. How might this disruptive change be taken advantage of?b) A "makeup mirror" phone app, uses the front camera, horizontally flips the image?c) A flat/sturdy pocket ­size makeup kit?d) Key chain makeup dongle?e) Disposable high ­quality makeup in vending machines?f) Skype plug-­in for makeup photo­-enhancement?31) Novelty Itemsa) Try to come up with clever novelty products such as an adapter that allows a beer tapper handle to be attached to a flush valve for use on urinals and toilets in bars and clubs.b) How about a cat litter box that prevents cats from tracking the litter particles all over the room.32) Easy Mobile Appsa) DealFinder ­ Monitors your e-­receipts and amazon purchases for items you buy often and then searches for deals on them when it is about time to buy more.b) Toxic Sewage ­ Interactive video game that involves gross acts, similar to those on fear factor but even crazier. It allows you to select an avatar/player/victim such as a politician, actress, or even a friend from your photos.c) Custom Group ­ A brandable/customizable app to be used for a bowling league, HOA, boy scout troop, small company, or church. Has chat, documents, news, roster, scheduling, reminders, map/nav, etc. Also with a website for setup/mgmt.d) Battery Saver ­ Dims your screen when you're not looking at it, turns off GPS or Bluetooth when it is not in use, Kills certain (configurable) apps when they are idle for so long, keeps track of which apps are killing the battery, notifies you, and is more aggressive with those.e) Plaint ­ Like Paint for mobile with the addition of some image processing, vector recognition and edge­-detection, and soft­-drawing with auto­-shading and textures.f) EdWord ­ An editor and word­-processor that keeps the text and the formatting in separate files so that it can be used with regular text files.g) DubDub ­ Sound recorder with metronome, MIDI accompaniment, mixer, rate­changer, ability to remotely share so that recordings from different places and times can be merged.h) FollowUp (App or Website) - A news aggregator with one significant difference: A [FollowUp] icon on each story can be tapped/clicked, in which case subsequent updates to that news story will be pushed to the user. If there was a crash, find out about the fate of those who were hospitalized. If a politician made a promise or threat, keep abreast of his/her progress thereafter.

Less known facts :The two cities with the most diplomats in the world are Washinton DC and Brussels (Belgium), which is really strange for such a little cityThe second most cosmopolitan city is in the world is Brussels in Belgium. The population here is 62% foreign born. The city has appealed to several multinational corporations which bring international employees with them. Dubai is of course the most cosmopolitan city in the world. The Most Cosmopolitan Cities in the WorldA lot of people think it always rains in Belgium, but official statistics show that it only rains 7% of the time.The first worlwide oral contraceptive pill (without side effects) was invented by a Belgian : Ferdinand Peeters Nand Peeters - WikipediaBelgium hosts the world’s largest sand sculpture festivalIn 1860 Étienne Lenoir used an electric spark plug in his gas engine, the first internal combustion piston engine. Lenoir is generally credited with the invention of the spark plug. 38 years later, Nikola Tesla files a US patent for a spark plug (in U.S. Patent 609,250 for an ignition timing system, 1898) Yeah…38 years later ! Tesla was pretty slow :)Neoprene by Reverend Julius Aloysius (Arthur) Nieuwland in 1920. Julius Nieuwland - WikipediaThe Belgian army is the only army from a country outside Commonwealth that is allowed to parade in uniform and carrying arms in UK. The parade at the Cenotaph near Whitehall is an annual tradition that goes back tot 1934. It takes place the Saturday before the Belgian national day on 21 July. The Belgian soldiers are allowed to march through the London streets wearing their arms, a privilege that was granted in 1934, the year when King Albert I died in a climbing accident in Marche-les-Dames. Albert I of the Belgians had gained popularity for assisting his troops and boosting their morale in the trenches during the First World War, an effort that earned him the nickname 'king-soldier'. After his unexpected death, which sent a shock wave through the country, Britain's King George V seized the opportunity to honour his relative, allowing an annual parade in the streets of London and granting the Belgian military the special privilege of wearing arms. Belgium is the only non-Commonwealth country to have this honour.The Belgian driving licence is the only foreign licence to be recognized by China. It does not allow to drive in China but it allows to get a Chinese driving licence through a simplified process. Based on the bilateral agreement, a Belgian driver’s license category B can be exchanged for a Chinese driver’s license category C. For more information click here: Beijing (NL - FR) - Shanghai (NL - FR) - Guangzhou (NL - FR).The highest point in Belgium (694m) is lower than the Burj Khalifa tower (828m).The first “plastic” : Bakelite The invention of Bakelite marks the beginning of the age of plastics Bakelite was the first plastic invented that retained its shape after being heated. Radios, telephones and electrical insulators were made of Bakelite because of its excellent electrical insulation and heat-resistance. Soon its applications spread to most branches of industryAlthough Belgium is considered a flat, grey and industrialized country, the biggest Fair on Agriculture and Forests in Europe is hosted in the village of Libramont (Belgium)Étienne Lenoir (see “Spark Plug above), also gets the credit for producing the first working internal combustion engine. He then converted it to a steam engine in 1859. At the time, it was capable of producing 1 horsepower and was rather inefficient. But since then, manufacturers have continuously redefined the basic design, creating the countless generations and billions of engines that have been built since. Étienne Lenoir - WikipediaAsphalt : Edward J. de Smedt invented modern road asphalt in 1870 at Columbia University in New York City after emigrating from Belgium. He patented it (U.S. Nos. 103,581; -2) and called it "sheet asphalt pavement" but it became known as French asphalt pavement.Belgium was the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia in 2002, a few months after the Netherlands decriminalised it.Belgium is the country with the most castles per square mile worldwide (no kidding! look it up) EDIT : If you consider Wales to be a “country”, Belgium comes in second place.“Fallen Astronaut” by the Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck is the only piece of art on the Moon.The Atomium was planned as a 6-month installation. 63 years later, we still didn’t uninstall it . The Atomium was built for the 1958 World's Fair. It stands 102 metres tall and features nine spheres representing an elementary iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Make sure you make it all the way up top, where you can enjoy a 360° view of the capital.JPEG Yes, thanks to Belgian physicist and mathematician Baroness Ingrid Daubechies, today we can save thousands of images without blocking tons of hard disk space. Daubechies’ ground-breaking creation of mathematical formulas, known as Daubechies Wavelets, led to the creation of the JPEG2000 standard for image compression. Today Daubechies Wavelets are one of the most common types used in applications, and without them we might not have digital cameras or fast scanning of fingerprints. Interestingly, Daubechies never patented her invention.The Big Bang theory originated in Belgium : It was a Belgian priest and physicist (apparently not a contradiction in terms) Georges Lemaitre, who first came up with what is now called the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927. The theory is often attributed to Edwin Hubble, although records show Lemaitre published a similar theory two years before Hubble. (Fun fact : the actor who plays Leonard in the series “The Big Bang Theory” is born in Belgium Johnny Galecki - Wikipedia)The V sign was invented by Victor de Laveleye (Victor de Laveleye - Wikipedia) The V sign means victory in French(victoire) and freedom in Dutch(vrijheid). On january 14 1941, Victor was presenting a radio show on BBC for the Belgian people and suggested to use the V sign for the resistance (Verzet in Dutch). After a few weeks, the V signs started appearing on houses and buildings from North France to South Netherlands. In july 1941, Churchill made the V sign as a secret sign to show support for the resistance. (That was also the day the Germans realized that the painted V signs had something to do with the resistance and intensified their search for resistance members). Thank you Nicole Hagan for the information !You love the saxophone ? thank you Belgium ! Adolphe Sax - WikipediaThe first International Soccer Game was in Brussels (May 1st, 1904) Some years before, Scotland and England also played an ‘international’ game, but since they are not separate countries, I ignored this fact. Twenty days later in Paris, Belgium and France would found the international association football federation FIFA together with five other Western European football associationsThe biggest sales of chocolate worldwide, is in Brussels AirportThere is a 3 km pipeline running from a brewery in the center of Bruges to transport beer to a bottling plant. This brewery, Halve Maan has been a family business in the historical center for five centuries. Because production has grown so much, too many trucks had to drive in the narrow streets of the old city center. One solution could have been to move the brewery out of the center, but in Belgium we don’t take our beer tradition lightly. So they built a 3 km pipeline instead.The first newspapers in the world were printed in the same year (1605) in Strassbourg and Antwerp (Belgium)In 1759 Joseph Merlin skated into a ballroom playing a violin. Unfortunately he had not thought of a way to stop and so crashed into the large ballroom mirrors and broke his violin. His introduction of the roller skate was a success however as the first pair of roller skates were sold in Belgium in 1760. Roller Skates !Imodium If you’ve ever experienced an upset stomach, you may be familiar with the drug Imodium. Thanks to Belgian doctor Paul Janssen. Imodium was first synthesised in his company Jannsen Pharmaceutica in 1969. The fast-acting medicine is used to decrease the frequency of symptoms for patients suffering gastroenteritis and bowel issues, and has been listed on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) list of essential medicines.The first railroad in continental Europe was in Belgium (Brussels - Mechelen) 1835Body Mass Index Yes, despite their proclivity for creating indulging treats such as speculoos spread and pralines, Belgians are also the ones responsible for the Body Mass Index. It was mathematician Adolphe Quetelet - Wikipedia who designed the easiest way to calculate whether your adult body weight is more or less where it should be: weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. Any result between 18.5 and 25 should indicate a ‘healthy’ BMI.Neanderthal skulls were first discovered in the Belgian village of Engis ( a suburb of Liege), in 1829, although the name comes from the Neander Valley in Germany (the site of a later find in 1856).The music cassette tape was invented by the Belgian division of Philips.“Peter Pan” is burried in Belgium. (the author James Barrie based the character on his adopted son, George Llewelyn Davies, who died in the trenches of WW1 in Flanders and was burried in Belgium)The Law Courts of Brussels is the largest court of justice in the world. More than 3000 houses had to be torn down for the construction. (160 by 150 meters). It has a built land area of 26,000 m² at ground level, which makes it bigger than the Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome (21,000 m²).The uranium needed for the US nuclear bomb on Hiroshima… came from Belgium. (from the Congo Colony that was still part of Belgium back then )A Dog of Flanders is an 1872 novel by English author Marie Louise de la Ramée published with her pseudonym "Ouida". It is about a Flemish boy named Nello and his dog, Patrasche and is set in Antwerp. In Japan, Korea and the Philippines, the novel has been an extremely popular children's classic for decades and has been adapted into several Japanese films and anime. In Belgium, the story is almost unknown. There is a small statue of Nello and Patrasche at the Kapelstraat in the Antwerp suburb of Hoboken, and a commemorative plaque in front of the Antwerp Cathedral donated by Toyota that was later replaced by a marble statue of the two characters covered by a cobblestone blanket, created by the artist Batist Vermeulen. (thank you Kurt Van den Broeck)The world’s first recorded (radio) lottery took place in Belgium. It was held to raise money for the poor. The lottery game itself is of course older : Chinese Han Dynasty between 205 and 187 BC.Baarle is a village whose territory is divided into a patchwork of Belgian and Dutch territories. The Belgian parts of the village are called Baarle-Hertog and the Dutch elements are called Baarle-Nassau. The Belgian part includes 16 exclaves within Dutch territory. The exclaves, in turn, surround seven Dutch areas.The five Olympic rings (logo) of the Olympic games were invented just before WWI began in 1914, and they were introduced during the Antwerp Olympic Games after WW1 (on a white flag in the stadium) in 1920. (Thank you Koen Goderis)The biggest Freemasonery Temple : Brussels (Detroit has the biggest in usable space, since it’s higher)Most comic artists per square mile : Belgium (yes, more than Japan!)The word “spa” (wellness) comes from the Belgian city Spa, where they already had wellness centers more than 1000 years agoBiggest Electronic Festival in the world : Tomorrowland (the festival takes place in a town called “Boom”)The Belgian flag is ‘unconstitutional’ by law Today’s Belgian tricolour flag of black, yellow and red contradicts the Belgian Constitution that states the ‘Belgian Nation adopts red, yellow and black for its colours’. The original Belgian flag did indeed go through a few shuffles after the Belgian revolution of 1830, starting out as red over yellow over black, with horizontal lines rather than today’s vertical ones, but later was rotated with a changed colour order for various reasons (one including to distance itself from the horizontal Dutch flag and align more with the vertical French one). What didn’t happen, however, was an update of the draft Constitution, leading to almost two centuries of a constitution contradictionCooking books top book bestsellers lists for years. Belgians love to cook. And to eat.Belgium has three official languages and none of them is called Belgian. People speak Dutch, French, and German in different parts of the country.Cricket : When thinking of cricket, lush green lawns with Brits in crisp white outfits usually comes to mind; however, a recent academic study shows that the English pastime probably was invented across the pond. After discovering a 1533 poem by John Skelton in which Flemish (Belgian) immigrants are called ‘kings of crekettes,’ many experts now believe that weavers brought the game over with them as they settled in Britain and played it in the fields next to the ones where their sheep stood grazing.1700 beers and counting…Every single Belgian beer has its own special glass ! If you want to taste them, go to Café Délirium in Brussels…they have almost 1700 in stock…with the glass that goes with that beer of course !Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels (yep!)Robert Cailliau, co-inventor of the World Wide Web (with Tim Berners-Lee), is a Belgian… Thanks to him, you can use Quora :)The “Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx was written in Brussels (mostly in the reastaurant “Le Cygne” located at the Grand-Place)Victor Hugo also lived in Brussels and wrote Le Misérables in 1861. (Thank you Fred Yung). Alexandre Dumas, who was a friend of Victor Hugo, also lived in Brussels, but it is not known where he wrote his masterpiece The Three MusketeersUntil the 1970’s, children drank light beer with their food (“Tafelbier”). Later, this was replaced by soft drinks… and now we also have obese kids.Duffel Bag (or Duffle bag) The name comes from Duffel,a town in Flanders, Belgium, where the thick duffel cloth was invented. The bag originated in the 17th century (starting around 1670). (info Wikipedia and The Ultimate Guide to the World's Best Duffel Bags - Carryology - Exploring better ways to carry) And yes : Duffel Coat also comes from there :) (Thank you David Sanders)Aside from Spain, Belgium is the only country in the world to have two living kings. Current King Philippe’s father Albert continues carrying the title “king” after his abdication.Albert Einstein, lived in Belgium on and off between 1902 and 1933. His last trip to Belgium was of the most significance. In 1933, Adolph Hitler was elected German Chancellor. While the Jews suffered from the first discriminatory measures, Albert Einstein, who was living in California, decided not to come back to Germany. He headed to Belgium, and stayed in Knokke for six months with his wife, before going back to the USA indefinitely.The Belgian coastal tram is the longest tram line in the world, being 68 km long. It opened in 1885 and operates between De Panne and Knokke-Heist, which is from the French border to the Dutch border.80% of billiard players in the world use the Aramith pool balls made in Belgium Saluc - Aramith billiard ballsThe first stock exchange building in the world was built in Bruges. Since it was local it didn’t last long and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange took over.New York City was founded by the Belgian Pierre Minuit (1589-1638). He bought the island of Manhattan in 1626 from its original inhabitants. Peter Minuit - WikipediaThe Queens of Belgium (Belgium has 2), Italy, Spain, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, and the Princess of Monaco are the only women permitted to wear white when visiting the pope. (il privilegio del bianco). (Thank you Gert Van Camp)I can go on and on … and I’ll edit this post every time I find a new fact :)Thanks to comments, I’m able to correct and add facts (after verification of course). So, it’s kind of a group effort :)

I’m going to divide up the success model into smaller chunks that could be reviewed separately.A successful profitable blog requires two main elements:TrafficA business model that allows for monetizationIn terms of traffic, the main reason people visit blogs in the first place is content. This could include different forms:Blog postsEducational articlesA membership platform, forum, or another engagement engineInfographicsWhitepapersResearch studiesPodcast episodesEbooksThat said, why would people subscribe to or even browse a blog regularly in order to facilitate the profitability in the blog in the long run?It comes down to market need and penetration.Before starting a blog or when molding a young website into a profitable engine, there are several considerations that would tailor the content strategy toward the right business model:What is the target market that the blog would serve?What is the estimated volume of readers (locally or worldwide) that would benefit from a given online resource on the subject?Which are the pain points of your target viewers?What does the competitive space look like (other blogs covering similar topics)?Are there other relevant content approaches which would be unique and cater to the needs of visitors who would prefer consuming content in a different way (video, audio, visually)?The overly saturated markets are harder to penetrate due to the large volume of blogs and magazines that have already covered most of the educational aspects. However, the number of potential readers is also higher, which hides promising opportunities in the future.Very niche markets may have a limited number prospects who would enjoy your content. The traffic will be low and won’t allow for advertisement profit or any other revenue model that depends on large audiences. However, there are other monetization opportunities related to consulting or reselling high-end services and products for that niche audience (especially for B2B markets).Here’s an actionable approach by Moz on keyword valuation and estimates:There are also ways to penetrate an existing market by innovating in terms of content. If your field of interest is flooded by magazines writing brief articles of 500-words each, consider crafting long-form content that is more detailed and discusses problems in depth. Otherwise, if everyone aims for large studies and whitepapers online, think about a “Quick tip of the day” format that would cater to busy readers who want to assimilate content one step at a time.Textual content-driven competitors could also be tackled using other formats such as YouTube videos, webinars, podcasts or other areas that aren’t as widely used. Maybe your target market is busy and travels a lot and would benefit from subscribing to a podcast or a video course that they can watch at the airport or listen to while driving to a conference?Traffic sourcesGoogle Analytics breaks down incoming traffic in four main actionable categories:Organic searchSocial trafficReferral trafficDirect visitsA. Organic searchOrganic visitors come through search engines such as Google or Bing. That’s where SEO comes into play as your goal is identifying the pain points of your customers, what are they looking up online while figuring out how to position yourself among the first results online.The current utilization of Google is quite proactive, hence the great potential for landing ongoing traffic through search engines:Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average (visualize them here), which translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide.Generally, when planning for content after analyzing the target audience and their needs, focusing on certain keywords is an important part of the process. Most people target short keywords (1–2 words) in hope that customers would look for these and land on their website.However, shorter keywords are harder to rank for. There are likely tens of millions of results for most combinations (if not over 100M) and customers are aware of the polluted space with inefficient results. One of the key strategies nowadays is focusing on long-tail keywords:An example being the real estate space, if you’re looking for a flat in New York, you may fail to filter the right results as going for “NY flat”. Possible combinations that may yield better results would be:“Two bedroom apartment in Manhattan”“Cheap apartment rentals New York City”“How can I find a one bedroom flat in the Brooklyn area”“What are the best rental websites for New York City”Note the different variants that you could use while looking for the very same thing. When catering to the customer needs and the plenty of targeted options, the ranking opportunity is far more rewarding and will still give precedence to your results in the long term for people looking for shorter key phrases.That comes in combination with writing high-quality content on relevant subjects and helping out with relevant results.With regards to high quality content and professional content marketing, Neil Patel’s Advanced Guide to Content Marketing is a perfect go-to resource (among his thousands of blog posts and answers here on Quora as well).B: Social TrafficSocial traffic is all incoming traffic from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and other social networks where tens of millions of potential users may browse.When reviewing your target market and defining buyer personas for your ideal readers, you can evaluate the most promising social networks for your type of business. B2C products are often best promoted on Facebook while more conservative niche resources may be best suited for LinkedIn.If you have the time and resources to maintain pages or groups in several channels, go for it. There are plenty of studies about different niches and what are the best promotional mediums for them - here’s one targeting 2800 marketers in 2014 and what they say:Other than that you can leverage your targeted and valuable content and share it on your feed, on your brand/blog page and in other relevant groups online. Be careful about spamming - no one likes intruders joining a community and posting a myriad of self-promotional links.There are different formulas that work but participating for a few weeks with comments and other helpful resources first would be highly beneficial and warm up the mood. Then, you can apply the 80–20 rule by posting several relevant and helpful sources from other websites and pitch one of your stories in-between.Social traffic can be utilized through partnerships with other entrepreneurs running blogs or business websites. You can do cross-promotions and pitch content in each others’ groups in order to share and grow your traffic accordingly.C: Referral TrafficReferral traffic is quite important as well since it revolves around links to your website in other online resources.Since Ramit Sethi has already joined the conversation here, I’ll post one of his charts from How to get 150,000 people to read your blog in 1 week:While numbers may massively vary as Ramit has noted himself, the importance of crafting outstanding content is indisputable. This branches off into two different areas:Content for your own blogPitching other sources for guest postsWhen you land publications of your content in other magazines and blogs, this will also help with your referral traffic. However, there’s another important aspect that may very well help out.Backlinks are one of the key trust factors that Google takes into account when ranking results for a Google Search. Content quality, length, and potential usefulness for customers is also super important. But receiving trustworthy links back to your piece is a testimonial for quality as high-profile sites would not accept random and fishy links if they want to continue maintaining a good volume of traffic.That said, backlinks will increase the domain authority of your website and the page authority of various resources that you link within your guest stories whenever possible and applicable.Guest posting is a successful strategy utilized by plenty of successful entrepreneurs, bloggers, marketers over the past years.Brian Dean has been notorious in coming up with genuine strategies for building links back to your website. His definitive guide to guest blogging is a great go-to resource:The Definitive Guide to Guest BloggingConducting regular outreach and providing invaluable content for your readers and those of the outlets you’re promoting yourself on is key. Consider focusing on other forms of content like infographics that may get additional exposure or cross-promoting products which would allow you to grow your email list and utilize it for all sorts of promotions, upsells, and general brand awareness.D: Direct trafficDirect traffic are visitors who type in the domain name of your website in their address bars. For starting blogs, that’s usually you and your friends - but later on passionate fans and advocates of your writing would likely go straight to your website without having to look for it online.Okay, in terms of traffic, that covers most of it. What about monetization?Blog Monetization OpportunitiesDepending on your niche, there are different ways to profit from your blogging efforts. Using traditional and emerging marketing strategies together will provide the stability of the proven results with some groundbreaking innovation in certain areas of marketing and business development.#1. ConsultingConsulting is one of the common approaches used by starting bloggers who have already initiated their outreach and consulting activities prior to jumping to proactive blogging.Providing consulting activities through a well-maintained blog is certainly helpful. There are millions of consultants online and there is no formal requirement for placing “Consultant” before your name or job title. As a result, finding an industry expert among the pool of self-proclaimed consultants may be a challenging task.Bloggers, who have successfully identified their business needs, manage to bring a steady and growing flow of traffic to their blog. As a result, selling consulting services resonates with readers who can value free advice and this ensures that you are knowledgeable and involved in the best community practices.#2. Advertising optionsAside from the standard advertising networks, you can offer paid sponsorship/ad models for businesses that would like to purchase a banner or any form of placement on your website.This may also be extended to other paid revenue options - if you start a podcast, you can feature your sponsors with a 20–30 seconds promo intro or when featuring a product. Writing an ebook or conducting detailed research can also launch a collaboration with another party - who pays for the heavy lifting in exchange for a logo and link.This model may not be massively successful for you, but it still works quite well in some cases.#3. Affiliate resourcesJoining an affiliate network may provide you with some upselling opportunities for your readers. Many bloggers fail to build a successful affiliate model that doesn’t come off as too spammy, although this may very well work if you receive steady traffic and cherry-pick the possible options.For example, Amazon has an affiliate program where you can resell featured books in your stores or even embed a search widget listing books by a predefined keyword.Various tools and services provide partnership, reseller and affiliate programs for hosting plans, marketing tools for small businesses, or anything related to your field.Often times there is a win-win-win deal when a company pitches their product for promotional activities on your blog:The product owner/brand generates more traffic and sales.You receive a percentage of each deal from your affiliate or coupon code.Clients may also receive an additional discount if they use your code (i.e. 10% or 20% off the base price when using your code).That model is quite lucrative for product businesses and the higher your traffic and reader engagement, the better the results.#4. Selling your own products/servicesYou can create new products under your brand and sell them to your audience, or create a designated page (or a set of landing pages) for different buyer personas.#5: Product reviewsWriting product reviews can also be monetized in different ways - through affiliates, charging for paid reviews, building comparison charts and categories and more.#6: Featured and Paid bloggingSome bloggers are “writers by heart” and would love the opportunity to write for a living.Running a well-established blog would allow you to find clients easily willing to pay for freelance content, ebooks, or other content resources. You can also write and post copy on your blog in exchange for a fee. Full-time or consulting writing or editing jobs are available if you’re great at what you do.Some successful bloggers land publishing deals for books, others start selling on Amazon as solo entrepreneurs.On top of that after growing a successful business and publishing at various outlets, some of the largest magazines and blogs may be willing to work with you. Some of them pay their regular writers or contributors, but even if they don’t, you can generate some solid exposure and grow your brand immensely - which could lead to other paid gigs.#7: Training programsAs an industry expert and reputable blogger, you’re uniquely qualified for teaching, coaching, and mentoring opportunities.You can start personalized or group training programs or membership-based coaching services. Opportunities can vary a lot but if you have at least a hundred dedicated readers, who engage with your content all the time, a good percentage of them would line up for added coaching and inspirational advice for a fee.#8: Speaking gigsSuccessful blogs are somewhat rare to find and are a great source of information, data, and advice.In addition to the training aspect, you can pitch a case study-based talk at various events. Generating millions of hits a month or even hundreds of thousands would be something that starting bloggers and writers are eager to learn more about while also studying your techniques and numbers.If you spend a lot of time experimenting with Internet marketing and implement different strategies all the time, those results could be invaluable to others. Once you gain some traction, you can start charging or organize training events yourself - including cooperation with other successful entrepreneurs around you.#9: Influencer MarketingSince digital ads are no longer “the holy grail”, Influencer marketing is a popular trend in 2017.The more you write, rank higher and grow your monthly traffic, the more you will boost your reputation and credibility in the space. You can partner up with large industry players who want to get closer to consumers, interact directly with them and use trustworthy methods of brand promotion.Influence marketing is a fairly new field, although it’s been around for decades - using actors, sport players or other VIPs for brand promotion. Some companies also pay for brand ambassadors and company advocates promoting their brands in their official company roles.#10: Email MarketingSome marketers would say that email is the most valuable instrument of ’em all, despite of all the rants against email with the rise of other collaboration tools over the past years.Email marketing ROI is higher than other promotional sources. It’s been here for decades. Everyone has an email nowadays. People use it for work which justifies spending a lot of time in their inbox.And so on.Email marketing could combine all of the strategies enumerated above and then some more, while engaging with a group of users who deliberately chose to read your stories. Use it wisely and help your audience at all times - and see what sort of profitable opportunities would be available in the meantime.In a nutshell, building a successful blog revolves around growing its traffic and customer base and implementing monetization strategies suitable to the blog model and the customer market.Research your audience properly, define your buyer personas, and see what your competitors do.Find out a model that’s unique yet still valuable, and start producing content on a regular basis.Think about SEO - don’t robotize your content, utilize tools such as BuzzSumo, SEMrush or Ahrefs in order to see what goes viral and what keywords generate a higher volume of traffic and hits.Build outstanding content - ultimate guides, industry reports, whitepapers, large How to or “Step by step” walk-throughs. Talk to prospects first, browse social media groups and find out what are the common problems that clients deal with in the field. Then write the cheat sheet and distribute it across the web.Start pitching other blogs and magazines and publish some outstanding guest posts there as well. Don’t forget to share it across your social media channels and other social directories.Keep an eye on monetization opportunities along the way. Try to keep your traffic growing at all times, and convert some of it to your email list with some freebies as an incentive.Keep in touch with other industry leaders and organizations - or even bloggers - that you can collaborate with. Could be a partnership for traffic share, or a business deal.Offer your consulting services in the meantime. Keep in mind that working with different clients will expand your horizons by building expertise in different markets which you can translate to actionable advice as well.Lather, rinse, repeat.A revenue model should be planned in advance, but it should not be the sole reason you should start blogging.Nobody has the time to educate for free if they are unemployed. Free advice comes as a byproduct of a successful business run by the brand. Which is why you have to be truly committed to helping and educating your prospects and giving them the best content and deals possible. The more determined and persistent you are, the larger your audience will be and it will reveal different revenue models as you grow.