Made it in the paper
There was a nice article in The Daily Oklahoman today about me and my Shower Memos on the front page of The Metro section.
Shower thinkers find perfect match in inventor's idea:
You stand in the shower in all your natural glory, soap and water pouring over you, steam billowing around you. Perhaps you're singing along with the waterproof radio hanging from the shower head...
...and you think of your own lyrics; it's a soon-to-be-classic composition.
Or you create one great line of poetry for the ode that's been floating around your bathtub for a while. You finally come up with the perfect put-down for the jerk at the office. You remember your out of bread. You forgot a birthday you shouldn't have forgotten. Suddenly, you know how to solve all the world's problems.
Or you have a message for the next person who will take a shower. "Leave some hot water," for instance, or something more intimate.
For J.D. Woods, it was always a poem in progress or a film scene he was working on. A great idea or a deep thought would rise up through the steam and float precariously around. He would have to "get out and dry off and write it down" or else "totally forget."
We've all had brilliant moments, bright ideas and fleeting memories in the shower. Some of us may even have imagined a waterproof memo pad and pen to hang in the shower stall so we could write them down. Woods, an Edmond resident, did something about it.
The fact that he is 23 years old, an on-and-off college student, an aspiring screenwriter and a first-time inventor makes this story even better.
That the Shower Memo is so obvious, so simple and so easy to make that he sells them for $5 -- that's priceless.
It's a thin plastic sheet on a clipboard-type backing with suction cups that stick to the shower walls. With it is a Sharpie pen selected for its underwater and long-lasting capabilities. It can be removed and carried outside the bathroom. Woods suggests it is functional aboard boats, by kitchen sinks and at poolside, among other uses, but it will work while the shower is running; you can be clean and creative at the same time.
The business has become a family project. Woods' father is an international business consultant. He found a manufacturer in China to produce the underwater notepad. J.D.'s office headquarters are a cell phone and a Web page -- www.showermemo.net.
He took a prototype to a trade show in Los Angeles and got a few orders. He's had a booth in the last two Affair of the Heart craft shows in Oklahoma City. He's working on a patnet. People who buy them look for him to buy more, he said.
It's an idea he didn't let go down the drain.
Written by Ann Defrange
Already had order for 20 because of it. Sweet.
Shower thinkers find perfect match in inventor's idea:
You stand in the shower in all your natural glory, soap and water pouring over you, steam billowing around you. Perhaps you're singing along with the waterproof radio hanging from the shower head...
...and you think of your own lyrics; it's a soon-to-be-classic composition.
Or you create one great line of poetry for the ode that's been floating around your bathtub for a while. You finally come up with the perfect put-down for the jerk at the office. You remember your out of bread. You forgot a birthday you shouldn't have forgotten. Suddenly, you know how to solve all the world's problems.
Or you have a message for the next person who will take a shower. "Leave some hot water," for instance, or something more intimate.
For J.D. Woods, it was always a poem in progress or a film scene he was working on. A great idea or a deep thought would rise up through the steam and float precariously around. He would have to "get out and dry off and write it down" or else "totally forget."
We've all had brilliant moments, bright ideas and fleeting memories in the shower. Some of us may even have imagined a waterproof memo pad and pen to hang in the shower stall so we could write them down. Woods, an Edmond resident, did something about it.
The fact that he is 23 years old, an on-and-off college student, an aspiring screenwriter and a first-time inventor makes this story even better.
That the Shower Memo is so obvious, so simple and so easy to make that he sells them for $5 -- that's priceless.
It's a thin plastic sheet on a clipboard-type backing with suction cups that stick to the shower walls. With it is a Sharpie pen selected for its underwater and long-lasting capabilities. It can be removed and carried outside the bathroom. Woods suggests it is functional aboard boats, by kitchen sinks and at poolside, among other uses, but it will work while the shower is running; you can be clean and creative at the same time.
The business has become a family project. Woods' father is an international business consultant. He found a manufacturer in China to produce the underwater notepad. J.D.'s office headquarters are a cell phone and a Web page -- www.showermemo.net.
He took a prototype to a trade show in Los Angeles and got a few orders. He's had a booth in the last two Affair of the Heart craft shows in Oklahoma City. He's working on a patnet. People who buy them look for him to buy more, he said.
It's an idea he didn't let go down the drain.
Written by Ann Defrange
Already had order for 20 because of it. Sweet.