6 Product Mashups to Inspire Your Software Integration
Looking for Inspiration for Your Software Integration? Check out our 6 Successful Product Mashups!
Integrating software systems can be a huge benefit for any organization looking to streamline and expedite their processes.
When software programs work independent of one another, daily tasks turn into slow, repetitive, cumbersome activities. When software systems are unified via a software integration, those same bothersome tasks are instantly extinguished, as processes are simplified, consolidated & accelerated. To put it simply, a software integration will save you time and in turn, will save you money. As a business owner, any action that’s going to free up staff time and generate revenue for your company, is an opportunity worth investigating.
Still looking for motivation to spark your next software integration project? Here are 6 awesome product mashups to inspire your next software integration:
- Mop + Broom = The Swiffer Sweeper
- Coffee + Baileys = Baileys Irish Coffee (Yum!)
- Computer + Whiteboard = Smart Board
- Soccer + Baseball = “Soccer-Baseball”
- Shopping Mall + Website = E-commerce
- Computer + Cellphone = Smartphone
Originally known as the “Swiffer,” the “Swiffer Sweeper” is part of Proctor & Gamble’s Swiffer line of cleaning products. As the flagship product of the Swiffer enterprise, the “Swiffer Sweeper” entered the foray in 1999 as the one stop solution for all your mopping and sweeping needs. What the Swiffer Sweeper does so effectively, is it takes the idea of a mop and a broom and combines them into one new ingenious device, removing the need for both products - why have a mop and a broom when you can get it all in a Swiffer Sweeper?
In the past, all of my drips and spills involved a trip to the kitchen cupboard for a tango with the mop and the broom. Nowadays, I can spill my pretzels and fancy beverage wherever I please (my apologies to my wife who may be reading this) and with only one hand required, I can pick up my Swiffer Sweeper and say goodbye to my mess, while still maintaining full control of the television remote. How did humanity function in the pre-Swiffer era? Cleaning must have taken twice as long, that’s for sure!
Building on the ideas of the traditional Irish Coffee, a combination of coffee, whisky, cream & sugar, the Baileys Irish Coffee simplifies the process of creating an Irish Coffee, by paring it down to two necessary ingredients – Baileys Irish Cream and coffee. The Baileys essentially replaces the whisky, cream and sugar, so technically, it’s not exactly a “classic Irish Coffee,” but it’s certainly pretty close and man-oh-man, does it appeal to the palate! This stuff is it tasty!
Full disclosure - as much as we’d like to, we don’t drink Baileys and coffee throughout our workday - we wait until the second we arrive home from work. Mmm… Dear Baileys, you can reach us via our contact us form , a handy place on our website where you’ll find our direct mailing address.. Hint, hint..
Alright, it’s time to go all “Grandpa Simpson” on you – “back when I was your age, we didn’t have any fancy interactive whiteboards or smartboards, all we had was a chalkboard, a chalk brush, and a single piece of chalk that we had to share between 30 classmates… the only problem was that chalk only came in the shape of a “U,” which meant you had to write using both hands”… Okay, okay, you get the idea – technology has had a remarkable impact on the classroom and in particular, how students learn in school and how education lesson plans are being delivered.
With the advent of interactive whiteboards like the Smart Board, created by Smart Technologies, the teaching pedagogy changed dramatically and ever so quickly. Classrooms are far more interactive and engaging than they were 25 years ago, and a lot less dusty too! The amalgamation of the computer and whiteboard into what we now know as the interactive whiteboard, has not only caused a paradigm shift in the way we learn at educational institutions, but also how we share information and ideas in the workplace.
Let’s jump on the “Throwback Thursday” (see Twitter) bandwagon for #3 and take our product mashup way back to the good ‘ole days of the schoolyard. One of my fondest moments from grade school was playing sports during recess and then doing the same thing again in the afternoon for Physical Education (PE). One of those games that we played often during our schooldays was “soccer-baseball,” an ingenious combination of the best that both sports have to offer, all mashed together in one exciting (yet to be professional) sport.
For those of you unfamiliar with soccer-baseball, think of it as baseball with a soccer ball, in lieu of a baseball. A pitcher simply rolls the ball towards home plate, where the “batter” is ready and waiting to kick the ball back out into the field, thereafter attempting to make their way around the bases. The rules are basically the same as in baseball – three strikes and you’re out, three outs in an inning, a fly-ball caught is an immediate out, and so on. What is vastly different from an actual game of baseball are the dynamics of the game – the act of catching and the art of throwing are unique to the game of soccer-baseball and are part of what makes this hybrid sport so much fun. Anyone interested in starting up a soccer-baseball league?
This product mashup is a definite homerun! When the shopping mall met the website, the end result had a massive effect on how we do business and more or less, how we buy and sell. E-commerce has changed our lives forever and had a lot to do with the introduction of Amazon in 1994 and eBay the following year. We can now shop for gifts online and have them wrapped and delivered to the front doorstep, we can set up an online shopping page and sell our products and services, we can oversee finances with online banking, we can send and receive e-money transfers online, we can make charitable donations and we can even book a hotel on a lunch break at work.
From everyday people like the butcher, the banker and the drummer (kudos to you who caught the Sly and the Family Stone reference), to the business owner and CEO, e-commerce has opened up a whole new world of opportunities that have shaped the core of business. Unless you’re a Luddite (which means you’re not reading this) or an extreme pessimist, there has to be at least one facet of your life that has benefited from e-commerce. You can e-bet on that!
What a brilliant product for our mashup! Where would we be without the smartphone? Seriously, where the heck would we be? Honestly, it’s hard to imagine what life would be like in a world still dominated by the classic flip phone, but let’s give it a try. To start, everything would take that much longer to complete – I mean waaay longer to complete - searching for a phone number would involve sifting through the ancient artifact that is the yellow or whitepages phone book, finding an address would involve looking at this thing called a “map” or actually “asking for directions,” and accessing the weather forecast would mean opening a newspaper or turning on the TV and tuning into The Weather Network. In addition, the introduction of the smartphone caused a major shift in how we browse the internet, along with the way we send and receive information.
And then there’s everything else that was revolutionized by the smartphone – video games (who remembers Nokia’s “Snakes” game?), email programs, banking, accessing social media, reviewing news stories, translating text, opening your garage door, and even changing the channel on your television! It’s hard to argue that the smartphone hasn’t had a monumental impact on our day-to-day lives. To pay homage to Marshall McLuhan, “We shape our tools and our tools shape us.” We went from cellphone to smartphone by more or less, turning our handheld devices into mini computers with telephone capabilities, and in doing so we transformed so many different aspects of our lives.
The smartphone is the epitome of a product mashup success story that should inspire you to integrate your software. That’s why we’ve ranked the smartphone “hot at the top spot” of our chart.
Contact a Software Integration Expert
Have our 6 awesome product mashups motivated you to think about the many benefits of a software integration? Are you ready to take the next step? For those of you who answered, “Yes,” to both questions, the best move you can make right now is to contact us at 800-650-8882 and we’ll chat about how moving forward with a software integration with CoreSolutions will speed up your processes, free up staff hours to focus on more pressing matters, and will save you time and money.
For more information about software integrations at CoreSolutions, please visit the software integrations section of our website.
Thanks for reading!
Christopher Lawn
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