An interesting idea from The Economist – Project Red Stripe:

Project Red Stripe is a six-member team comprised of The Economist Group’s employees that has been brought together with the task of creating an innovative and web-based product, service or business model by July 2007. In addition to the research which the team is conducting in-house, we are soliticing ideas from the outside world in an effort to attract submissions from a diverse group of people.

I much prefer Tom Shelley’s project description:

[…] We’ve got the chance to build something outrageous and we want your help. Think big. Think bigger than big. Send that idea in and we’ll try to make it happen. Our objective is to come up with “innovative web based product”, but that sounds a little staid. It doesn’t quite capture the true jaw dropping potential of our project.

Project Redstripe wants to start a new state in the U.S. of Awesome. Our ice cream flavour is Pralines and Ridonculousness. Project Redstripe is a Model T Ford in any colour as long as it’s smokin’. Think Elvis riding a unicorn through Area 51. Yep, think like that.

Now, if you’d like to tell us some cool things you’d like to see happen then please give us your ideas. We want ideas that rock. Ideas that make a difference. Ideas that you can make happen if you’ve got a global community of incredibly interesting people, amazing content, tons of data and six months to do it.

Gentlepeople, start your engines and submit ideas here.

If that doesn’t grab your attention and stimulate your emotions, what will?