Have you heard of Otto Rohwedder? He’s the guy
who perfected the bread slicer, back in 1928. Well, if you can come up with the best idea since
sliced bread, it could be worth $100,000 to you. That’s the top prize
being offered in a unique and useful competition sponsored by the Service
Employees International Union. SEIU is looking for fresh commonsense ideas
to improve the lives of everyday Americans. From health care and education
initiatives to policies on taxation and job creation — what idea do
you have for a better America? The beauty of the union’s approach is that it
is totally grassroots, asking ordinary folks to come up with ideas to help
ordinary folks. Nearly all of today’s policies come from the elites
— and you can see where that has gotten us! Their ideas are designed
to benefit — big surprise! — the elites. So SEIU wants to reverse the usual order by hearing
from you, drawing ideas from that great untapped pool of creativity outside
of the power structure. Go to the contest Web site (sinceslicedbread.com)
and, in 175 words or less, put forth your brainstorm. Hurry — entries
are due by Dec. 5. On the site, you can also read other people’s
ideas and comment on them. It’s a free-for-all national conversation
that you can join. Then comes the voting. A panel of judges will choose
21 finalists, and, beginning in January, all of America can vote on their
ideas. On Feb. 1, the top vote recipient will win $100,000, and two
runners-up will each get $50,000. The 21 finalists will be featured in a
book. In slicing through the usual top-down nature of
politics, this contest is an even better idea than Otto Rohwedder’s.
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2005.
