BetaCup

The Finale

justin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:54:33 +0000

We were able to bring together great creative minds from around the world to tackle a complex and important challenge. We’ve been absolutely floored by both the process and the winning submissions.

There were 430 submissions and these were updated on average of at least 3 times in response to more than 5,000 ratings and 13,000 comments. We believed that good ideas might come from anywhere, but now we also believe the same is true of great feedback that helps make ideas better.

We’d like to thank our partners, our jurors, the participants and everyone who contributed their time and energy to writing about the project, creating submissions, and rating and commenting on ideas. We’re looking forward to helping these ideas into action.

Jury Winners:

Winner:

Karma Cup (Mira Holley, Nick Partridge, Gillian Langor, Mira Lynn, Zarla Ludin, Ruth Prentice)
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/4751

Special Mentions:

The Betacup & The Betacup Campaign (Jesko Stoetzer)
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/4646

Champion Cup (Raph D’Amico) -
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5357

Band of Honor (Scott Moorhead) -
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5028

Community Rating Winners:

1. The Betacup & The Betacup Campaign (Jesko Stoetzer) Berlin
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/4646

2. Cuptokeep (Katarina Mattsson & Angelica Lindgren) Stockholm
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/4608

3. The NextCup (Wouter Middendorf) Rotterdam
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5267

4. The Neutral Resource Coffee Cup (Aaronn Levine) Solomon Islands
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5358

5. Networked Loyalty (joshbg2k) Brooklyn
http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5364

Announcing the winners of the betacup challenge

justin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:51:15 +0000

On Thursday, June 17 2010 we will be announcing the winners of the betacup contest.

We’ll be streaming live at 3:00pm EST (21:00 CEST) at http://bit.ly/betacuplive.

We’ll be announcing:

+ the top 5 ideas as selected by the community
+ the top submissions and overall winner selected by the jury

We’ll review what has happened so far and explain what happens next. And there are lots of people to thank, so we’d like to do that too.

If you are in New York City and would like to join us for the event, please contact us.

The betacup LOVES Collaboration

Toby Daniels — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:48:32 +0000

We’re very proud and privileged to be working with a number of incredibly smart and creative folks, who are helping us bring the important message behind the betacup challenge to the masses.

Completely on their own dime and by their own making, Threadless, Denuo, Good Day Monsters and Waveplant Studios have each created a stunning selection of companion pieces to compliment and support our campaign to reduce paper cup waste.

Each of these pieces are designed to raise awareness around the issue and drive people towards the Jovoto contest to rate and review ideas ahead of the June 15th deadline, where the winning ideas will be chosen and awarded $20,000 in prize money. Please take a few minutes to check out, absorb and share their incredible work and also take a moment to review the ideas submitted to the betacup challenge contest.

Threadless Loves Coffee – T-Shirt Design Contest

Created by Threadless

Coffee. Delicious coffee. It’s fueled the creation of many artistic works for centuries. It’s also fueling the creation of this challenge. (Pause for a sip) One might also say that coffee has fueled the creation of Threadless itself! From early mornings to long nights, it’s always there to comfort us and keep us chuggin’. It’s time to give back, my jittery friends.

Your challenge is to design an amazing tee inspired by COFFEE!

Our friends at Betacup are coffee lovers, too, but they want to reduce the number of non-recyclable cups that are thrown away every year. And so in conjunction with their Drink-In Week and idea submission contest, we’re happy to add some sweetener. In addition to the awesome Threadless loot, they’ve rounded Starbucks up to provide a $1000 gift card and a sweet recycled tumbler! You better love coffee.. a LOT!

60 Seconds To Save The World

Created by Good Day Monsters in partnership with Denuo, and Waveplant Studios

Every second there is more waste as a result of the non-recyclable paper coffee cup problem. And every second there are more resources misused in their creation. But take heart, because every second is also an opportunity for change. An opportunity to solve the problem and save the world. Please share this video (created for the betacup by Good Day Monsters in partnership with Denuo, and Waveplant Studios). Together we can find a solution, it can’t wait another second.

The Worldsaver

Created by Good Day Monsters & Denuo

At The Betacup, we think saving the world can start with something small. Like, say, your morning coffee. You know, that white paper non-recycleable thingie with the plastic lid and wasteful cardboard wrap around it. Yeah, that. Well, (together with Denuo, Good Day Monsters) we created something to help change all that. It’s a little something that will serve as both a reminder about every cup’s wastefulness every second, and an opportunity to create change. To make a better cup. All by starting small. With something like, say, your screensaver. Or as we like to call it, The Worldsaver.

About the creators:

Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store run by skinnyCorp of Chicago, Illinois, since 2000.

Denuo instigates, invents, and inspires new forms of creativity to solve the marketing challenges of modern marketplaces. They also love the betacup – their website even says so.

Good Day Monsters crushes digital projects 24 hours a day, from Chicago and Bangkok by night, to build killer websites, applications, and motion graphics.

The original music for 60 Seconds To Save The World was written and performed by Waveplant Studios. Run by Joel Corelitz, this personal brand is one of the top audio houses as picked by Motionographer.

Feedback and thanks from Heidi Durham at Starbucks

shaunabe — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:52:46 +0000

guest post by Heidi Durham from the Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ team

It is hard to believe the betacup challenge will soon be over. The betacup team encouraged me to share some of our own thoughts about how things are progressing and what we hope to do next.

We have been surprised and delighted not only by the number of ideas, but by the originality and diversity of submissions. We have seen a number of ideas we like, from incentive and reuse schemes to new types of cups. We think it will take a mix of approaches to succeed so I’d like to encourage you to continue to explore a wide range of approaches from new reusable and disposable cups to incentive and reuse schemes.

In many cases, we cannot know how well ideas will work, until we try them, so we hope to try a number of different approaches in the next 6-12 months. Many of the ideas submitted have been long standing, passion-laden ideas from a committed group here at our headquarters in Seattle. When the submission phase is over we will begin to review ideas and determine which ones we might be able to pilot.

We are excited to see the community and jury selections in the coming week. Good luck and thank you for your tremendously creative efforts.

Heidi Durham
on behalf of the Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ team

Live from the 2010 Cup Summit: Interview with Starbucks Director of Environmental Policy, Jim Hanna

admin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:02:03 +0000

Live video chat by Ustream

Starting Thursday, April 22, Starbucks is convening their second cup summit. In order to reach their goal of ensuring that 100% of Starbucks cups are reusable or recyclable by 2015, they’ve invited people from all over the industry to discuss potential solutions.

They’re including city recyclers, government leaders, raw material suppliers, NGOs, academic experts, cup manufacturers, and other retail and beverage businesses.

The plan is to have an open and honest discussion about the entire paper and plastic cup ecosystem. Starbucks believe waste from the paper cup can be considerably reduced if we all work together on this issue.

To encourage an open discussion among attendees, they are keeping the meeting closed. However, they want to incorporate your questions and ideas in the dialogue.

To do so, they are hosting a live chat with Jim Hanna, their recycling expert at Starbucks, and Peter Senge, senior lecturer at MIT and founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning.

The live chat will take place at 4:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, April 22. To watch and participate, join us on our ustream channel. You can either see it above or click this link.

To ask a question, include this in your tweet: #cupsummit2010
Follow the commentary on Twitter here: @StarbucksLive

Enter the Instructables Coffee Cup Challenge to win a Voltaic Systems solar backpack!

justin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:32:34 +0000

Repurposing and re-use are important components of waste reduction. Most recycling requires a great deal of energy or resources; melting down glass or aluminum or hydropulping paper are expensive and wasteful in their own ways. Re-use uses the waste product essentially as-is, requiring far less energy and reprocessing to create something useful out of a product that would ordinarily end up in the landfill: turning innertubes into wallets or drink pouches into backpacks just takes a little time and ingenuity.

The Instructables community is full of smart people who are great at transforming waste products into clever inventions, so we’re teaming up with them to bring you the Coffee Cup Challenge. Right now, we’re working with you to generate ideas to reduce paper coffee cup waste, but there are still a lot of paper cups being thrown away. The Coffee Cup Challenge is all about repurposing those paper cups into something new; they could be made into laptop speakers, umbrellas, or giant robots – we need your creativity. Great ideas will earn themselves a solar backpack from Voltaic Systems or $25 to use at Starbucks.

And a little re-use bonus for all you true DIYers who make their own coffee at home: 10 uses for coffee grounds instead of dumping them in the trash.

the betacup challenge: how are we doing?

Toby Daniels — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:11:23 +0000

Originally posted on Mutopo.com

How are we doing after 1 week?

+ 65 ideas

+ over 300 comments

+ almost 30,000 views of ideas

+ almost 1,000 registrations to submit ideas

In addition, the contest has good press and is the subject of steady twitter conversation all of which is helping to move the numbers above.

But how good are the ideas?

Here are some good examples:

+ new cups – some are created from existing waste materials, some while you wait and others are designed to disappear when not in use (while also checking into foursquare)

+ new recycling or reuse options – cups can be used to distribute seed or if we had more ways to collect used reusable mugs, perhaps more people could use them.

+ new behavior – these ideas explore ways to encourage behavior to reduce or eliminate the use of paper cups.

I personally believe this last category is where the best solutions will be found (I’m not a juror, but I will be voting with everyone else for the community prizes).

One of the big changes in recycling is the cost of tracking. For example barcode scanners are ubiquitous, so barcodes can be used to track and reward reuse. In fact the cup (or the lid) can become the more valuable kind of plastic (the kind you buy stuff with).

Going one step further, loyalty card programs result in interesting data for segmenting customers for selling more stuff, but they can also be used to cause better behavior.

Beyond the ideas, we’re excited to see how the process unfolds

Because submissions are public some interesting things are happening.

+ comments – feedback is already resulting in iterations, so we think some of the submitters are benefitting and enjoying the feedback

+ teaming up – it has happend once already and there seem to be some discussions already (this is how the netflix prize was won, so this is interesting, for sure).

+ juror expert feedback – we have already seen some of the jurors weigh in with their particular expertise, so we’re looking forward to seeing how this helps submitters to identify and address prospective issues with their submissions.

We’ve just started, so why not submit an idea or encourage other people to check out the betacup challenge.

Vacuum Flasks – A good start

justin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:45:21 +0000

One of the approaches to the paper cup issue we’re seeing at the betacup is that of product redesign. Some submissions are suggesting stainless steel or aluminum reusable cups, and for good reason: plastic tends to leach taste (and chemicals) into your drink and discolor rapidly when holding liquids like coffee or juice. The issue with putting coffee in a steel or aluminum container is that of temperature: metal is, obviously, an excellent conductor of heat and will rapidly become as hot as the beverage inside.

Companies like Thermos and Hydroflask have stepped around this problem with vacuum flasks: a double wall of stainless steel with a vacuum in between, then sealed at the top. The technology works well: Hydroflask and Thermos claim hot liquids will stay hot for 12 hours and the layer of air means you won’t burn your hands trying to drink out of the container.

There’s a bigger issue here than product design, however. Consumers know these products are out there but adoption is low (see Why we don’t switch to reusable). Vacuum flasks are still bulky, although Thermos includes a cup and Hydroflask has slimmed theirs down to a more standard sports-bottle profile.

In my mind, though the biggest issue is cleaning them – particularly if you put milk or cream in your coffee. The mouths of the bottles tend to be too small to get a sponge or dishcloth into them, and they’re deep enough to usually require a bottle brush or the ‘fill-with-soapy-water-and-shake-and-rinse-and-rinse-and-rinse’ method. Vacuum flasks are not dishwasher safe; the seam that connects the two stainless layers can crack in the dishwasher and ruin the insulating properties of the vacuum layer.

How can we overcome these problems? Submit your ideas at http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/landing

the betacup challenge is live: Time to help us reduce paper cup waste!

Toby Daniels — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:43:02 +0000

Today is a momentous day. After almost one year since its conception, the betacup challenge is now open for ideas and submissions via our contest platform Jovoto.

In case you’re not familiar, the betacup’s goal is find the best ideas to reduce paper cup consumption and help bring these ideas to life. Below is some more background on the initiative and a detailed task definition, which outlines how to approach the contest and specifically what to think about in regard to your submission.

Huge thanks to all our partners for helping us get to this point, including our main sponsor Starbucks, our media partner Core77 and to all our other supporters who are listed here.

Briefing
Help reduce waste from coffee-to-go paper cups and come up with sustainable solutions!

Background

The betacup challenge was founded in May 2009 by Toby Daniels and Colaboratorie Mutopo in an effort to reduce the 58 billion paper coffee cups go to waste each year. (More details on the thebetacup.com).

The project began when Toby brought up some ideas he had for a more convenient reusable cup. As the team discussed the issue, they realized the betacup might be an ideal project for a larger creative community because there seemed to be many ways to address the issue.

betacup teamed up with sponsors Starbucks, Core77, Denuo and Good Day Monsters to seek your help because they believe this is an issue that impacts so many people and that many of us may have already thought about as we go about our coffee drinking each day.

Special Features

In this contest, the betacup invites you to submit ideas, but also to comment on and rate others’ ideas, and engage in discussions with other community members and contest jurors. The jury is made up of the betacup’s board of advisors and will offer professional feedback and guidance throughout the contest.

There are two prizes: A prize awarded by the jury after the contest closes (jury prize

$10.000), and community awarded prize money for the top 5 ideas as rated by the community ($2.000)

The betacup is a Public Contest, which means as you submit your ideas, they will be visible to non-community members and people can Sign Up to comment and rate. This feedback process will help make ideas even better, so you are encouraged to submit ideas early to benefit from the feedback and improve your ideas.

Don’t have an idea? No problem, you can still help out by offering feedback to others.

Tonality

Relevant
Fun
Convenient
Useful
Engaging
Behavior changing
Inclusive

Target Group

People aged 18 to 50
Consume multiple cups of coffee per day, away from home
Convenience driven
Living consciously
Living in the city & in the suburbs

Mandatories

There are no mandatory requirements in terms of visualization or format of your submission, but keep in mind that a clear, appealing presentation and precise written description of your idea helps the community and jurors understand and rate it appropriately.

Entries will be judged on a variety of qualities, including how they reduce waste, what resources they require, new or existing capabilities for implementation, and the overall user experience.

Exchange your used cup for a reusable mug

Marcel Botha — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:41:42 +0000

Our friends from Starbucks are doing something fun today. They are constructing a coffee cup tree artwork next to Madison Square Park in New York. It is hard to perceive the overall effect at ground level, but I am sure there will be plenty of opportunity to see documentation of the completed project. We also liked the Mona Lisa, made for the Aroma Festival in 2009. (Video)

If you are in New York today, walk over and exchange a used paper cup for a reusable mug. Starbucks are handing these out while supplies last. This initiative is an easy way for the you to be engaged and start changing your coffee drinking habits. I include here a photo of my paper cup transaction. You will notice that the cup is in fact a Holiday Season cup (we collect paper cups), since betacup members incur a $10 fine when using paper cups. This is our internal challenge to make sure that we do our bit as we transition to a better outcome through the betacup challenge.

Do your part and start exploring alternative solutions today. All you need is one used paper cup to participate. More images can found here.

Thanks to Elspeth Rountree (@elspethjane) for pointing us to this.