New Ideas For Just a Few Bucks

Everyone benefits from fresh perspectives and new ideas. Here’s a fun way to get those benefits for the price of a couple of plate lunches.

With a few colleagues, choose a popular park near your workplace. On the way, pick up some healthy takeout plate lunches and drinks — but buy a couple of extras.

After you and your colleagues arrive, put on your best smile and invite a couple of folks enjoying the park to join you for lunch. Be polite and nonthreatening and tell the strangers that you ended up with some extra food. “No point in letting it go to waste,” you might say, and, just in case they are a bit leery, let them choose which plate they want.

Nothing fancy, just a chance to enjoy kau kau with someone you might otherwise never meet.

Too shy to invite strangers to lunch? Then invite a few people in the same line of work, but from a different office or company, to join you. You buy the lunch, pick it up and promise to get them back to the office in an hour or so.

What do you get? A break from the routine, perhaps some new contacts or ideas, and — who knows? — maybe some new business opportunities.

Just don’t forget to bring your business cards.