"Wouldn't it be nice if". Acronym. I've been using it for years and I don't know where it came from; I suspect it's both my invention and that of others too; I claim in back to 1980.
WIBNIF lists are a great asset to an ongoing product or business. I have several - I keep short term ones in pieces of demo software that I'm writing, medium term ones for contract code, for course development notes and things to do to our training centre and longer term ones for "life, the universe and everything".
Things are added freely at brain dump times. Slips of paper on the passenger seat of my car get one or two word notes on them as I drive around the country (yes, I do pull over to make the notes safely) and then they get added back to electronic lists. Over time, many things get filtered out - the "light of day" and "after seeing what others think of the idea" reviews. And things that remain for a while will lead to a direction for the future.
If we're still thinking about an idea a week or two later / if we keep coming back to it / it's probably a good idea.
(written 2005-03-19, updated 2006-06-05)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
G500 - Well House Consultants - Running a training company [171] Skills and techniques of being a successful trainer - (2005-01-06)
[385] Feast or famine - (2005-07-21)
[402] Netless - (2005-08-05)
[470] I wanna be a Python trainer - (2005-10-20)
[545] Is training seasonal? - (2005-12-28)
[627] JIT or JAU - (2006-02-27)
[652] Morning Post - (2006-03-20)
[813] Monday Morning at Well House Consultants Melksham - (2006-07-24)
[838] Talking about other training companies. - (2006-08-19)
[926] Training rooms to learn Open Source programming - (2006-11-15)
[978] Wellhouse Manor, Hotel, Melksham - (2006-12-10)
[1022] No courses. No hotel guests. Rushed off our feet! - (2007-01-05)
[1040] What the customer is looking for - effective training - (2007-01-17)
[1369] One business, four different angles! - (2007-09-28)
[1393] First Alternative / what has happened there? - (2007-10-16)
[1433] Linux, PHP, Tcl, Ruby, C, C++ - last minute training course availability - (2007-11-16)
[1884] Recession? Depression? - (2008-11-14)
[1963] Best source to learn Java (or Perl or PHP or Python) - (2008-12-28)
[2003] Discount Training Courses - PHP, Perl, Python - (2009-01-21)
[2021] Short health and safety course - (2009-02-02)
[2049] Why Choose Well House Consultants for your course? - (2009-02-20)
[2074] Weekday or Weekend PHP, Python and Perl classes? - (2009-03-10)
[2084] Books and distance learning from Well House Consultants? - (2009-03-15)
[2144] Looking for a career change - Physician to Web Site Designer - (2009-04-28)
[2838] Respecting our customers anonimity - (2010-06-29)
[2924] Job applicants - wondering why they apply - (2010-08-16)
[2940] Training course locations - Melksham, UK; Buxton, UK; Lake Constance, Germany; Venice Italy, the USA and India - (2010-08-30)
[3361] Blowing our own trumpet - MySQL resources - (2011-07-18)
[3610] Training to do a job, or training to pass an exam? - (2012-02-13)
[3684] Once upon a Maundy Thursday - (2012-04-05)
[3824] Planned for a quiet period during the Olympics - but it is far from that! - (2012-08-02)
[4004] Annual Accounts - a big job for a small business - (2013-02-15)
[4135] Introducing your product to Well House Consultants - single, personally tuned email please - (2013-07-08)
Some other Articles
STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR and DATA - Perl file handlesx operator in PerlFinding the right holesA West End showWIBNIFWe dont stand stillAn easy way outUse me, but use me effectivelyExtreme trainingWhen to bless a Perl variable