A rather unique concept dating back to 2004, we worked on the idea of using the fridge front real estate in a more rich fashion than with magnets. This concept was first launched on the idea of a universal charging station, which I described in late 2003.

John Knight took this idea and made it fly. Now it is available in stores as "Centralpark", precisely at the usual time of 5 years after inception:

My role in this? Making sure the right people work on it, provide and protect the funding, and make sure the right people hear about this in the right way to make the right "clicks" happen.

Unfortunately, this idea also fell to the great recession of 2008/09, out of many reasons. Nancy Snyder even dedicated the first chapter of her book "Unleashing Innovation", which was published in 2008, on how Centralpark went to market. Funny that the people mentioned are all still working for Whirlpool, while those that left fell by the wayside. Does not change the fact that I had the idea, wrote the first idea description (IDS) and kept it alife against severe pressure until my departure and beyond.