Created by a Dutch company, Brickadoo is a building toy. Instead of providing an easy click-and-go system (like Lego), Brickadoo building kits come with little bags of mortar.

Children mix the mortar in a mixing tub and slap it on the bricks with a small trowel. If they want to build something else, they just dip the entire house in water, which dissolves the mortar and releases the bricks for another round of masonry. Each kit comes with enough mortar to rebuild a house three or four times.

Brickadoo bricks are made from natural materials and are free of artificial additives. Besides real bricks and mortar, building kits also come with wooden doors and window frames, and little foam figures of people, cars and animals. Currently available designs include houses, a pizzeria, supermarket, and flower shop – enough to begin construction of small brick city.

Considering how fascinated most children (and many of their parents) are with construction and building, this could well be a hit. Time to snap up regional distribution! And if you work for Fisher Price or Hasbro, you might want to add Brickadoo to your shopping list ;-)

Website: http://www.brickadoo.com
Contact: info@brickadoo.nl

Last month, we reported on ViTrue, a new type of ad agency that's building a platform to encourage consumers to create commercial videos for brands.

The Atlanta-based agency's first campaign is being launched later this week. A partnership with Moe's Southwest Grill (a fast casual Tex Mex chain of restaurants with over 200 locations in the United States) will help bring the "Moe's Burrito in Every Hand" campaign to online audiences, in combination with regular ads on radio, TV, and in print.

Makers of the customer-made ads will be asked to showcase how they are doing their part to put a Moe's burrito "in the hand of every woman, child and man across the nation." Ad creators will be rewarded through a contest. Submitted ads will be judged by Moe's customers, the Sharkle online video community and a panel of Moe's representatives, and the grand prize winner will win one free burrito every week for the rest of his/her life.

Moe's video community will be online here: moes.sharkle.com. For more examples of how companies are dipping their toes in the waters of co-creation, check out trendwatching.com's customer-made.

Website: moes.sharkle.com
Contact: pr@moes.com

The Coffee Office is built for business – meeting spaces, workstations, conference rooms and café are combined into a centre for mobile professionals.

Based in Windsor, Ontario, The Coffee Office was founded to offer business professionals everything they need to stay productive outside a traditional office, in what trendwatching.com calls a being space. A café section is open to everyone, and like the rest of the building, offers free high-speed wireless internet and plenty of power points.

The rest of the space is reserved for TCO members, who have access to private workstations and conference rooms. For CAD 90 per month, members have free use of the workstations and members lounge and (fuelling productivity) 25 complimentary coffees per month. Conference rooms can be rented for CAD 35 or 50 per hour (small or large), and private cubicles for CAD 5/hour. When it's time for a power nap, a sleep module is available for CAD 10/hour. Other thoughtful touches include noise diffusers that help keep conversations private, and access to a Nerd On Site.

We previously covered similar initiatives in New York, which offered work spaces to writers or parents. TCO, however, is focused exclusively on the 'mobile warrior'. The Yankee Group, a Boston-based research and consulting firm, estimates that 50 million people—about 38 percent of the working population in the United States—are mobile workers, defined as those who spend at least 20 percent of their time away from their primary workplace. These employees in the field, independent contractors, freelancers and minipreneurs all need a flexible base for doing business.

Plenty of opportunities for The Coffee Office (which is working on expansion through franchising) and other new entrants in this field. Hey, they may eventually even sell to Starbucks? ;-)

Website: http://www.thecoffeeoffice.com
Contact: john.millson@thecoffeeoffice.com

Regular readers know we're fond of saying that everything can be upgraded. Case in point? Worlds away from tawdry shops frequented by men in overcoats, Kiki de Montparnasse has turned the sex shop into an erotic boutique.

Adopting the stage name of Alice Prin, a nightclub singer/model/painter who was photographer Man Ray's muse and lover in 1920s Paris, Kiki's Lower Manhattan store is anything but sleazy. Described as 'Madame de Pompadour meets Monica Vitti', the store is luxuriously furnished and dimly lit. An inviting entrance resembles an upmarket lingerie boutique, and stylish creations in French lace and silk satin lead the way to sophisticated objects of desire.

Glass cases hold handmade whips and 'restraining arts' kits in crocodile leather with gold hardware; elegant Kiki-branded toys include a vibe bejewelled with Swarovski crystals, which also adorn tasselled pasties.

Opened last month, Kiki de Montparnasse isn't the first company to provide a luxurious take on sensual products. London's Coco de Mer, an erotic emporium founded by Anita 'Body Shop' Roddick's daughter Samantha, sells a host of decadent toys and undergarments, and works with craftsmen that are usually employed by haute couture designers.

Swedish Lelo crafts sculptural toys from luxurious materials, and San Francisco-based Jimmyjane sells a Little Something (an 'elegant and seductive accessory') that comes in gold and platinum and be personalized with etched words of love. Or lust. The limited edition features engravings inspired by 18th century sailor tattoos.

For those entrepreneurs who can create the right combination of playful, provocative, seductive and chic, this is a high-margin market ripe for the picking.

Website: http://www.kikidm.com
Contact: service@kikidm.com

EveryBody Special is a new, low-cost wooden coffin created to meet extreme demand during emergency situations.

Designed by Dutch EveryBody Coffins, the EveryBody Special is a modular coffin that's extremely easy to assemble. No tools, nails or screws are required – the pieces just click together. The standard material used is 12 mm multilayered wood, and more environmentally friendly options are also available.

Since they're lightweight and packaged in flat-packs (Ikea-style), transporting EveryBody coffins is very cost efficient: up to 570 extra large (XL) caskets fit into a 20 foot container. Combined with their easy assembly, this makes the coffins highly suitable for burial and cremation in disaster areas and epidemic situations. The company hopes to offer a more dignified, humane alternative to plastic body bags that are often the only option when large-scale disaster strikes.

Besides selling to governmental and aid organisations, EveryBody is also offering its product to commercial distributors in those regions where consumers will welcome a low-cost alternative to expensive caskets. As we've pointed out before, everything can be reinvented!

Website: http://www.everybodycoffins.com
Contact: gijs.zijlstra@everybodycoffins.com