A big thank you to the participants of our workshop at PICNIC! In the intimate setting of the Artists Studio at Amsterdam’s NDSM Wharf - an industrial site being converted to event space - we gave a couple of brief intro talks and then jumped straight into some conceptual prototyping.
Concretely, we split the group into two teams and handed each of them a variety of data sources: some with city data (smart meters, traffic, maps etc), some with body data (heart beat, Runkeeper etc), and some in between (like Foursquare). Then we asked the the teams to think of a problem they wanted to solve in the city, or a behavior they wanted to change - and combine the data sources to get there.
And here’s two fun projects the groups came up within under 30 minutes. I present to you:
The Trend Spotter
Team*:
@ton_zylstra, @elmine, @carsten_schulz, @robberthomburg, @ardelofswaard
Data Sources:
Foursquare, social media (Twitter, Facebook, …), Traffic
The product in one sentence:
Spotting trends and how to get there.
User activity:
checkin and return to a new place within 8 days.
What is the behavior in the city that you want to affect?
[I’m describing here what the team presented as the prototyping form didn’t allow for much space here.] The premise is that trendsetters learn about new, interesting places before everybody else; and that making that location information available more easily (by harvesting Foursquare checkins and network mapping to determine influence) these insider tipps could be made more accessible. This might diversify the audience in those locations, help local businesses and have the added bonus of annoying the hipsters. Note: This should be relatively easy to build, and a tongue-in-cheek approach is always good.
Moody Wheels
Team*:
@Frau_Feli, @janbruch, @wwverth, @wiebederidder, @RobertVane
Data Sources:
Weather, traffic, GPS & car speed, face detection, heart beat, finger movement
The product in one sentence:
Music that adapts to traffic conditions, mood, weather and the number of people in the car to relax the driver.
User activity:
Driving.
What is the behavior in the city that you want to affect?
[Again, I’m describing here what the team presented.] Relaxed driving leads to less accidents and happier people. This service takes a number of factors into account to determine the perfect music based on weather (sun or rain), number of people in the car and their personal preferences, stress level (via heartbeat etc), and then pulls the best music off the web.
I love both these ideas. (If you would like to code one of them, ping the team members.) More importantly, though, they show that this simple prototyping format works well in a group setting like this, particularly with a creative audience as the one at PICNIC.
Again, thanks everyone!
* I really hope I got the Twitter handles right. If anything’s wrong, let me know!
