Start thinking upside down

Amazing how the little moments in life can really bring a change in the way you look at things, and how questioning the small things can lead to BIG changes in the reality you live within.

This morning was one of these moments for me - confronted by paid parking at a hospital [I won't go into that now as its a whole other story] where the first 45 minutes was free and then you pay for time after that.

What first got me was that if a "customer" [aka patient in reality] is delayed through no fault of their own - why should they get penalised for this. After all, there must be cases where its actually beneficial to entice people to stay longer...

... shopping malls, for instance. Menlyn Park [in Pretoria] - the paid parking does disgruntle me somewhat. But what if they encouraged you to stay by reversing the rates. Still make the first 15 minutes free for sure. But then what about, for example, R10 for the first hour, R8 for 1 - 2 hours, R7 for 2 - 3 hours... working down to a flat R2 for over 6 hours.

Psychologically, couldn't this drastically impact a shoppers perceptions. To the point of encouraging people to spend another hour [and several hundred rand, probably] at a restuarant [or wherever] to "save" a buck or two on parking. Sounds crazy, but stranger things have happened.

Please, I'm not encouraging shopping malls to subconsciously rip off consumers.

All I'm trying to do is give an example of how turning your thinking upside down is sometimes a wonderful thing and can open a world of opportunities we were previously blind to. Not to mention that it could be substantially profitable at the same time.

Does anyone else have a good example of how turning our thinking upside down opens big windows of opportunity?