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I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

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Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#171

Post by Keyframe »

joe_mamba wrote: post #170
Keyframe wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5000 kids asking you for a job per month is a nuisance. it's a great marketing platform, if anything. Strong brand loyalty going forward and costs you not much to do well, not to mention you can brighten a day or few for thousands of kids in all sorts of life situations.

You're severely mistaken if you think that's how businesses operate. Companies penny pinch on staff even for recruiting, they're not gonna increase headcount just to answer mail form kids just because you think it makes good marketing.

not sure where you work, but you might consider changing the company you work with.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#172

Post by nedt »

janwillemb wrote: post #25

As a 10y old, my father taught me about logical ports. I took a very large piece of paper and in a few days, I designed a tic tac toe "computer". It had LEDs that indicated the next computer move, based on the position of the pieces: every single possible state of the board led to a specific "next move" led. I do not think it actually would have worked, but of course I was very proud of my design at the time. Unfortu…

This sounds like this old xkcd comic https://xkcd.com/832/

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#173

Post by ngc248 »

zoeysmithe wrote: post #39
nogridbag wrote: post #15

These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games.…

Back then the working class was simply more powerful. Companies had to have good PR, hence feeling 'magical' or 'mysterious.' Of course now in the later stage of capitalism, these execs, investors, etc can just do full-on mask slips. I think some of this is definitely childhood nostalgia, but its also very different world today. I don't know any kid that sees Nintendo as magical as I did. The Legend of Zelda was this…

Exactly ... Used to play buggy games and used to absolutely love them, nowadays it seems like everything has to be beyond perfect.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#174

Post by ngc248 »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #89
ileonichwiesz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really hits home. I spent a couple weeks in primary school sketching my own blueprints for great inventions. Nothing that could've ever worked (I didn't know what a transistor actually was, but my machine certainly had a lot of them!), but in hindsight a good start for a curious tech-minded child - switches that opened/closed circuits, wires to connect the various imaginary lasers and electromagnets, and so on.…

Oh god, what’s the deal with horrendous people becoming teachers? Lately, I’ve been, uh, “reminiscing” about how terrible adults were to kids when I was a kid (I’m gen X.) It’s no wonder I turned my interest to the computer - it was only ever a jerk if I programmed it like that.

Kids come and go, whereas the teachers stay there. I feel a lot of school teachers are jealous of the kids and hence all the bullying by them.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#175

Post by cs02rm0 »

At the same age I was using the school's phone bill to phone beer companies and request they send me beer mats, so I could swap them with other kids in the playground. And they did, which seems a little off these days.

Reading this I wish I'd set my sights higher, figuratively and literally!

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#176

Post by bigDinosaur »

Keyframe wrote: post #171
joe_mamba wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're severely mistaken if you think that's how businesses operate. Companies penny pinch on staff even for recruiting, they're not gonna increase headcount just to answer mail form kids just because you think it makes good marketing.

not sure where you work, but you might consider changing the company you work with.

You can spin up any idea and claim it increases brand loyalty, but you have to have actual evidence that that either happens or actually matters in some way, and in this case it probably doesn't and isn't worth the expense once the scale exceeds >1 employee spending more than a few minutes a day. If you've got the data to prove otherwise so that you can actually make someone money, go ahead and sell people on the idea.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#177

Post by bigDinosaur »

guerrilla wrote: post #164
Nition wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is, they have to read the letters to check whether they're ones they can't read.

Fair enough. I think I cracked the case though: they probably have someone who isn't "them" read the letters though, a third party like another law firm or some contractor that offers that service specifically.

Someone has not read a book even if they read the opening paragraph, so the solution is likely far simpler.

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#178

Post by Kuyawa »

When I was a kid in the days of the discman, I came up with the idea of a cigarette-box-sized optical card reader that instead of spin the media it would scan the card and play the songs in it. I called it the "opticard" and thought that would be extremely cool to have some music cards in your pocket instead of carrying inconveniently sized CDs in your belt.

I wanted to write Sony about my idea but never got the balls. Years later they released the minidisc, still bulky, a total flop. The memory stick was a much better idea from them, I never knew why they didn't implement an iPod earlier than Apple

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#179

Post by guerrilla »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #177
guerrilla wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I think I cracked the case though: they probably have someone who isn't "them" read the letters though, a third party like another law firm or some contractor that offers that service specifically.

Someone has not read a book even if they read the opening paragraph, so the solution is likely far simpler.

Nope. The key sentence was at the end of the letter. At least we know one person who didn't read it. ;)

Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

#180

Post by Keyframe »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #176
Keyframe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not sure where you work, but you might consider changing the company you work with.

You can spin up any idea and claim it increases brand loyalty, but you have to have actual evidence that that either happens or actually matters in some way, and in this case it probably doesn't and isn't worth the expense once the scale exceeds >1 employee spending more than a few minutes a day. If you've got the data to prove otherwise so that you can actually make someone money, go ahead and sell people on the ide…

I don't have to - it's called image branding and is a well-known and established marketing discipline. Not direct ROI like hard sell techniques, but it lands you with higher margins, lower customer acqusition costs, longer customer lifetime value, etc. Apple was a master at that, Nike, and in this particular example LEGO regularly responds to children mail, Nintendo built a whole business channel around it with Nintendo Power and I'm sure I could pull out many more examples. Not everything is a hard sell technique.
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