We've finished up Pat's workshop with a discussion of potential future projects, working on a Citizen 2.0 basis.
Three we discussed are listed below...
Future project ideas
Save me
Personal safety initiative – a smartphone application with a single red button 'save me'.
If you believe you are in danger you press the button. It is linked to your friends (via Facebook, etc) and sends an alert out to all your friends via Facebook or SMS so they can come and help you, providing mapped GPS coordinates.
Also allow people to opt-in to receive nearby 'Save me' alerts – to become a 'saver'.
When the button is pressed it should also makes a really loud noise.
Rate my employer
Website people can go to to rate their employer, report bad experiences and talk about good ones.
Personal transport tracker
Mobile app that people can click when boarding a bus, train or tram, to let people know it has come. So that people know if they've missed it or not, like a mobile 4Square.
(Apparently one of the originators of this last idea is Mark Pesce, who is not in the room.)
It would be interesting to see "Rate my employer" funded if it got enough traction to become like a BBB of HR that would investigate and rate these reports. Surely there are some companies that have perennial bad policies and experiences that could be reintegratively-shamed back into compliance with societal norms as happened with Electronic Arts.
ReplyDeleteThe "Personal transport tracker" idea is interesting in that it could be a "Fix my street" of public transport systems. Too often published timetables reflect a perfect world that is never achievable under real life conditions. I'd also be interested to see reports of overcrowding with a photo. These negative experiences would probably be more interesting to the users than the simple game mechanics of being the one reporting mostly when things go right.
Note there is a US 'rate my employer' equivalent - http://www.glassdoor.com
ReplyDeleteNo doubt this was covered in the Workshop, but I can think of occasions when you'd want the "save me" button to be silent.
ReplyDelete