Denuo - denuology.com

(The following is courtesy of guest Denuologist Shaun Abrahamson of Mutopo)

“I’ll get it to go.”

You grab your coffee and head on to your destination, a brief pit-stop to refuel. Don’t forget the sleeve.

You may drink your coffee in one shot, or sip it over the next hour. But after providing its brief service, your cup is going in the garbage, heading off to join almost 60 billion other cups that find their way to landfills each year.

Is this really necessary?

Isn’t there a better way to do this, without the waste, but with the convenience?

We think there is. Our first challenge: what should we create? We had a few ideas, from collapsible cups to reusable cups that can be scanned for discounts (so you remember to bring them along). But as we thought about this we realized that 65% of us drink coffee. And in these caffeinated moments, more than a few of us must have thought about this issue – engineers, advertisers, lawyers, baristas, waste disposers – yeah, we’re guessing there are lots of thoughts on this. (want some supporting evidence? check out this thread including the links to the idea posts at mystarbucksidea.com.)

If this sounds like magic, it should. Over the last 10 years this magic has been used to create some of the most valuable brands including Google and Amazon. Some successful older brands like P&G, Starbucks and Apple are using it too. Younger companies like WordPress, Jovoto, Quirky and Local Motors are delivering everything from software and creative services to iPhone accessories and cars (yes, a $50,000 car) using this idea – invite your customers into your design and communications processes. Give up some control in return for more ideas, lower risks, better economics and karma.

We love MyStarbucksIdea, but we want to take it further. So we set up Betacup.

We are not asking people to participate for free – we are creating a prize for the best ideas because we think more people will join in or at least talk about it this way. It’s going to be at least $20,000. We are talking with sponsors to make the number bigger, but in the meanwhile, we are letting anyone help to fund the prize via Kickstarter.com.

Unlike most contests, lots of people will see your idea before the end of the deadline, if you want them to. They will be able to vote and comment on your idea, so you can learn and respond with changes. You’ll get feedback from different design  perspectives (like folks from IDEO and MIT), leading green thinkers (like Graham Hill, the founder of Treehugger) and the best communicators, who also appear to be publishing the post (funny how that works). They will also be on the jury to help pick a winner (there will be voting, too).

Perhaps most important, we’re not asking you to hand over your ideas. If you submit an idea or a prototype, you still own it. It’s that simple. Once the awards are done, we expect a range of outcomes for the winners – some people might want to license their designs, other might want to set up companies to commercialize them. We think this is another important incentive to participate.

You can join in right now funding the Betacup prize or letting someone know about thebetacup.com.

Our collective actions created the problem. Maybe we can work together to fix it.