New Ideas thanks to a Public Toilet

It's 4:30 in the morning right now and I've been awake since two. I'm not sure if that's due to the fact that it's about 90 degrees in my house right now, or that I have raging allergies, or if it's because I can hear my roommate's boyfriend snoring through the wall. 

No matter...I was just thinking...

I had an accident a week and a half ago with my cell phone. To make a long story short, my cell phone had some bonding time with a (used...gag) public toilet and after some serious sanitization and a week of working, it up and died on me. 

So...I caved.

Up to this point I had a plain jane cell phone. Simple voice and text, it was all I needed. But I saw my opportunity here and I upgraded to a fancy new iPhone. And the transition has gone well. I've already told my boyfriend that unless he wants to start doing dishes and laundry he doesn't need to stick around anymore because the phone will literally do everything else for me (except sleep...).

But my dilemma and thus my idea came out of this switch...

I love being able to have the news at the tip of my finger, no matter where I am. 

BUT

KOMU's website takes about a billion years to load. So...what if we took a page out of CNN's book and had some kind of a re-direct for anyone accessing the website on a mobile device to a webpage without all the bells and whistles that take so long. 

If you go to visit CNN from any kind of smart phone you're met with a page with one picture from their main headline, and links with story slugs to their other main story. There's a banner at the top to display any kind of breaking news, and there's a tab area where you can navigate to their different categories. KOMU could have a weather, Your Health, etc. tab...and a small add running along to bottom to please advertisers...and boom. You have a whole new demographic. 

How hard is something like this to develop? No idea...I know the convergence school just did an application designing contest for iPhone in conjunction with the engineering school. I bet there's somebody on campus who could figure it out. 

Just a small idea...I'll tell you when I really get up for the day if I still think this is coherent...

...back to sleep (hopefully) for me. 

Trying My Best

If an idea is presented to you, and you have to get it cleared through one person before it goes to another person to also be cleared, but you know that 2nd person cleared it and you need to move fast....what do you do?

I did what I thought. I sent the idea to both people involved instead of just the first. 

I did what I thought would be best since time is running out on the idea. I don't feel like I stepped on person 1's toes because I sent it to both. 

So I skipped a step in the process. Is that ALWAYS a bad thing?

I got an e-mail from one of my professors outlining a ton of internships available in the journalism field right now. I'd like to think that's a good sign. No, it's not a paid job, but there are positions out there and experience to be gained. I can't help but think that's a tiny ray of sunshine in the clouds.

Or, it could be that fewer people are studying the field. If it's that, then I just don't know what I think about it.