If you’re an Idea Person like me, you might regularly wish that you had the concentration, attention span, skills, and resources to turn at least some of your frequent, brilliant ideas into reality.  After all, if you suck at bringing your ideas to fruition, they’re not going to make you wealthy or famous are they?

I recently discovered Ponoko, and though I have yet to actually play with it, I think this could be the ticket to helping me finally execute on a few of my ideas.  It’s only really relevant to a subset of my ideas (the ones that I can design in Photoshop or Illustrator, and that are some sort of simple manufactured physical object).  That’s okay though…it will help me focus.

The basic premise of Ponoko is that they have this awesome laser-cutting machine that takes an EPS file you create, and cuts it into a flat sheet of your material of choice, sort of like a giant superfancy stencil or puzzle.  They have a wide variety of acrylics and woods for you to choose from right now, and apparently plan to introduce additional materials in the future.

The really smart angle of Ponoko is that they’ve built their service to enable small businesses.  You can use them in a couple of ways: to produce cut sheets for you to assemble your product and sell it as finished, or to ship your cut sheets directly to an end consumer who then self-assembles your product as if it were a kit. They have even been smart enough to build an online marketplace that users can leverage to promote designs and finished products for sale in their own Showroom.

So if you’re itching to try building that wine rack/bookshelf/keyholder/mobile/laptop stand you dreamed up in the shower this morning, head on over to Ponoko.

If you’re a little less ambitious, but want to check out the designs and kits that other more creative minds are selling in the Marketplace, you might just find a really cool birthday or Father’s Day gift.

I will hang it with pride next to the 629 painting I’ve purchased from Max’s inspiration, Sala, as soon as that one arrives later this month.  Thank you Max!

If you thought the One Thousand Paintings website was a cool idea, I promise you that you’ll get quite a kick out of 8-year-old Max’s related project entitled "Another Thousand Paintings". 

Even more exciting for me, Max and his father have documented Max’s creative process online as he worked on my painting for the number 629, which means I can see the work in progress.  Very cool Max!

The thing I love most about this art project is that the entire experience and package is part of the art itself.  The concept, the website, the way in which each buyer decides on the number he or she wants to buy.  Brilliant stuff.

[Update: The viral marketing behind the sudden insane growth in Sala's sales over the past week is fascinating to me.  Or is it just a spike?  Two days of nearly 200/day, and now back down to a relative daily trickle of orders.  He is kind enough to be transparent in his blog about the pace of sales since he started back in early 2006, and some recent blog posts by boingboing, Seth Godin, and Brian explore the story behind the story.]