No Ordinary Joe.

Often, the best marketing tools are the simplest ones. With the number of meetings held on campus, I thought whomever came up with the idea to spice up coffee cups with comical information hit a home run. If caffeine wasn't enough, it's added incentive to stay awake as hours melt from the clock during back-to-back meetings. And a great branding effort to boot.

These cups were dreamt up by the Faculty of Science and include references to the chemical structure of caffeine, a chart showing the increasing risk of heart attack based on coffee consumption and -- my favourite -- the scientific basis behind the formation of a coffee stain. Brilliant. Also included are the scientific genus of the coffee plant, a discussion of fluid mechanics related to the mingling of coffee and milk, and the quote: "A mathematician is a device that turns coffee into theorems" (Alfréd Rényi).

Alas, for a university known for its environment-related research, these aren't exactly 'green'. Unlike me, who has envy wishing I had come up with the idea.