View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Business
1 October 2012updated 17 Jan 2024 6:25am

Nonstarters: this week’s worst kickstarter video

The Ostrich Pillow.

By Fred Crawley

This week’s Nonstarter betrays the name of the column: it’s a clever idea executed well, and has already smashed its funding target like Geoff Capes bursting through a fake brick wall. It is, however, a damning indictment of the world that made it necessary.

And I say necessary because people have grasped for it with desperate, shaking hands – this is not a flourish of technological frippery like the Notice, but the promise of refuge from the information hurricane of modern work.

The Ostrich Pillow is a soft bag you pull over your head and jam your hands into when things get weird and you need a hole to cry in. You slip it on during brief moments of workplace respite and lie face-down, looking like some sort of crap alien that is eating its own hands.

Yet despite how defeated and weird you look from the seat next to you, you drift off to sleep with a happy smile on your face and a fading image of a rotating cake demonstrating how your power nap will make you 34 per cent more productive.* 

At least, according to the adorably soporific pitch video. The reality is more likely to involve 10 minutes of anxiety with your lower face pressed against breath-moistened desktop, breathing your own stale coffee reek and enduring sleepless visions of spreadsheets like a depressive’s reworking of Tron.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

Then there is a tap on your shoulder. You flop up helplessly with your hands pressed to your bulbous grey head like Munch’s Scream, flailing to pull the damn thing off as your MD asks you when you’ll be able to send feedback on his last email. 

With this product, it matters little whether the end result actually gives people their promised shelter. More impressive is the fact the makers have, quite literally, sold a dream.

* since I am not Ben Goldacre, I will simply leave this without comment and turn to the reader with raised eyebrows and mouth set in a cynical line.

Fred Crawley is group editor for asset finance & accounting at VRL Financial News.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU