Groundcrew Blog

Cadre @YBCA

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:37:23 -0400

In San Francisco this weekend? On Friday, October 14th, Cadre will be running a new live game tailor-made for The Matter Within: New Contemporary Art of India, the newest exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

In addition to Cadre challenges, The Matter Within’s opening party will feature bhangra dancing lessons from Non-Stop Bhangra, and an interactive rangoli ceremony with Monica Henderson. Advance tickets are only $5, and you can grab them here. See you there!

Cadre @IndieCade!

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:57:00 -0400

Just in case any of you will be around Culver City on October 7-9, we’ll be at IndieCade. Our team will be running Cadre, a live game experience that works by sending players challenges—short sets of instructions that make up experiences, interactions, and situations. We’ll be running some custom challenges developed especially for IndieCade, and the festival itself has got a great line-up of conference sessions, big games, parties, and more!

You can sign up to participate in Cadre’s IndieCade challenges here, and you can learn more about IndieCade at their website. Hope to see you in Culver City!

Tristan T. Angeles: September's Challenge of the Month Winner!

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:12:00 -0400

Congratulations to September’s Challenge of the Month winner, Tristan T. Angeles! His challenge, “Turning Imaginary Places Into Reality” was selected from a bunch of awesome challenges submitted by Revel entrants:

Turning Imaginary Places Into Reality (3+):

First player writes a one-sentence description of a positive emotion he/she would like to experience (ex. relaxed, excited, satisfied).

This description is sent to other players, who are asked to find and photograph a location that evokes the emotion described by the first player.

All photographs are sent to the first player, who judges the images and locations based on their ability to evoke the emotion described at the beginning of the challenge. Players are encouraged to meet at the location where the “winning” photograph was taken, possibly to enjoy a coffee.

Why we love Tristan’s Challenge:

- It can work anywhere, any time.

- Players don’t need any additional materials or equipment to play.

- It involves and brings awareness to public spaces. Lots of them.

- Players are asked to pay attention to the ways different spaces feel, otherwise known as psychogeography.

- It helps us to connect as humans.

A few days ago, we caught up with our favorite September challenge writer to ask him a few questions:

CL: Hey, Tristan! Thanks for taking some time to talk to us. So…how did you hear about Revel?

Tristan: I heard about Revel from www.Gameful.org. I’m a member there and I was pretty excited when I saw the call for challenges.

CL: What do you do when you’re not designing awesome challenges for Revel?

Tristan: I just graduated from college a few months ago and I might go to law school sometime soon (if lucky). At present I’m learning game development on my own; teaching myself how to program and design games with the goal of making serious games someday. Together with a few friends I started a fiction writing club called Weavers for our town with the aim of getting people to write regardless of skill level.

CL: Have you ever designed a game or experience before? If so, what was it like?

Tristan: Yes! Most of my design experience comes from playing role-playing games in which I found out early on that I loved creating experiences for my players. It is very exciting and seeing people react to your work is really great. Its even better when the players surprise you with something unexpected.

CL: What are you going to do with your $500?

Tristan: I’ll probably get myself a new computer so I can develop more games!

CL: Awesome! Congratulations again, Tristan. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us!

Please keep submitting challenges! And for those who have already submitted challenges, all rewritten or revised challenges are re-eligible to become C.o.t.M. winners, so don’t be afraid to follow up with our challenge editors to make them the best they can possibly be.

Jason Eppink and Larissa Hayden: Challenge of the Month Winners!

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:56:00 -0400

Revel is thrilled to introduce the winner of its first Challenge of The Month contest, a competition where we feature new, awesome, challenges, and the person (or people) behind them. In addition to being featured on the Revel blog, Challenge of the Month winners receive a $500 prize, while still remaining eligible for our $5,000 grand prize and two $2,500 runner-up prizes.

This month’s winners are Jason Eppink and Larissa Hayden, whose challenge Play by the Rules, is for two or more players:

One player is deemed the Rule-Maker and the others are Rule-Abiders. The Rule Maker invents a rule that all players must follow. For example, the players must only cross streets when hopping on one leg. From there, the Rule-Abiders disperse to collect a Convert: a person who is not already part of the game and who agrees to follow the invented rule (e.g. to cross the street once while hopping on on leg). The Rule-Abider who acquires the Convert becomes the Rule-Maker and invents the next rule for all players.

Why we like Jason’s and Larissa’s challenge:
“Play by the Rules” clearly establishes relationships between players by setting up the separate roles of “Rule Maker” and “Rule Abiders,” and all players have their own clear objectives. We also like how the challenge invites new people to come and play. And the process of the Rule-Abider becoming the new Rule-Maker has a nice beginning, middle, and end structure.

Jason and Larissa were kind enough to to take some time to say hello, and to tell Citizen Logistics a little about their inspirations for their awesome challenge:

CL: Hi Guys! What do you do when you’re not writing awesome challenges?

Larissa: I’m an Engagement Planner, which is about creating strategies for branded experiences and not about weddings.

Jason: I’m the Assistant Curator of Digital Media at the Museum of the Moving Image.

CL: What’s something that you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t gottenthe chance to do yet?

Larissa: “I keep trying to learn new skills and then never finish them! Oh man I just remembered I have a harmonica.”

Jason: Yikes. Everything I haven’t already done! This is an existential crisis in a question. Next!

CL: What’s the most awesome thing you’ve ever done in public space?

Larissa: Jason- you probably have me beat for making things in public spaces. BUT I was thinking about awesome things that I’ve participated in public spaces and my favorite might involve riding the T in Boston late on Friday nights. Inevitable, someone would start singing something like “Don’t Stop Believing” or “The Captain Planet ThemeSong” and this entire train full of strangers would immediately join in. Every. Friday. Night.

Jason: I’ve done a lot of wacky stuff in public space - posting prank signs, turning video billboards into art, building an unauthorized bridge, producing an interactive theater experience with unwitting stars - but right now I’m stoked on an anti-advertising project I’m working on which will help eliminate corporate graffiti and consumption imperatives in public visual spaces. I like singing on the subway, too.

Thanks for your awesome challenge, Jason and Larissa! And don’t forget, our deadline for September’s Challenge of the Month is midnight (PST) on September 1st, so send in your challenges today!

Introducing Revel

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:07:45 -0400

Citizen Logistics is excited to introduce you to Revel, a new a contest that rewards people for writing awesome challenges for public space. Challenges are short sets of instructions that make up an experience or activity, that can be performed alone or in groups, with friends or with strangers. You can check out some examples here.

Every month, Revel will be awarding one $500 prize for the best challenge we’ve received that month, and we’ll share a little bit about the challenge authors, too. And at the end of the year, we’ll award one grand prize of $5,000 and two runners-up prizes of $2,500 to the authors of the best overall challenges.

Challenges will be featured in the Cadre app, which we’re currently testing and can’t wait to share with you!

In the meantime, stay tuned, and keep sending in your creative challenges!

Groundcrew Conquers East Coast Blizzard

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:19:17 -0500

Here at Groundcrew we frequently run pilots testing out new uses of our platform. So, when Joseph Porcelli of Neighbors for Neighbors asked us to help organize a neighborhood snow shoveling squad, we were excited to make it happen. After a day of preparation, a bit of dispatcher training, and an open call for volunteer signups, we were ready to go….

On February 12th, ‘SnowCrew’ dispatched a small crew of volunteers to shovel snow in Jamaica Plain, MA after a winter storm blanketed the city in 12-18 inches of snow. Joseph Porcelli and Roy Krantz led the team on a series of shoveling missions throughout the day. Despite a few initial hiccups — like how to check text messages while wearing full winter gear — people reported having lots of fun shoveling with their neighbors. By the end of the day, they’d shoveled 19 different locations including four crosswalks, the walkways and driveways of three elderly neighbors, and a couple of bus stops.

Not too bad for the first time out! Let’s turn it over to Joseph for his report of the events.

——-

Thanks Jordan. Let me start out by saying Groundcrew rocks, and so does the team. Joe, Chad, Jordan, we could not have done this in our short time period with out your help!

What rocks about Groundcrew is that it helps me, help people, help other people. Groundcrew allows our crew of neighbors to help others where and when they want to => Location + Availability + Interest = Engagement.

WGBH.org based in Boston, joined us as we went out and got some great quotes from our squad that I think sum it up the best. You can read the story and see the pictures here.

Loay Abdelkarim, a SnowCrew member, said “Technology made it possible for me to live in a village, as opposed to what I am in, a very large community.” He went on to say “[Groundcrew] took the headache out of trying to coordinate an unknown number of volunteers with an unknown number of shoveling sites during a storm of unknown duration.”

Tori Hatch, another SnowCrew member said “I’m able-bodied and I can, and it’s fun to do stuff with other people”

Laure Liebster, a neighbor who needed help shoveling said “It meant a lot to me, more than like a service, like, ‘You got my cars out’ “ Liebster said. “It’s like I’m part of a neighborhood that wants to give back and wants to be a part of something.”

Shoveling Successes:

5 Businesses (Egleston Square) to help owners who could not get in avoid the fine
4 Crosswalks
3 Elderly neighbors walkways, driveways, and porches
2 Bus stops
2 Vehicles
2 Community maintained parks
1 Injured neighbors walkway and porch

Volunteer Breakdown:

53 Neighbors signed up via groundcrew to help
34 Confirmed they were available to help
11 Neighbors were dispatched
An unknown number of neighbors went out and shoveled from the map we posted in the SnowCrew group
Roy was our primary dispatcher. I helped and so did Jordan from Groundcrew

Preliminary Observations:

Neighbors rock!
SnowCrew members reported enjoying shoveling together
Text messaging seemed to be the preferred choice vs. iPhone app
We need to train crew members how to use the system before we launch (we did not have time)
We need to do a thorough survey of the crew’s experience to gather feedback on the system and the program
We need to do strategic outreach through our partners to get the word out that this service exists
We are going to need more “dispatchers”

Your new mission control on iPhone

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:00:00 -0400

Today we’re launching v1 of our iPhone app. Go get it and try it out.

For those new to Groundcrew, it lets you start things. We call them missions: Start things in your neighborhood, ask questions of the people who live near you, run events, gather photos and reports, etc. In each case, Groundcrew finds people near you who have joined the same squad and are ready for action, and makes it happen. To start, we’re launching with four local squads that anyone can use:

Pick-Up Games - play sports and other games with people near you.
Neighborhood assistance - for trading favors in your own ‘hood.
Answering local questions - be an ambassador to your neighborhood, or get help when you’re in a new one.
Random Fun - other fun things you can try.

This is our first public version, so there may not be many people near you when you first download it, but invite some friends, your frisbee league, your church, and soon you’ll see enough “agents available” to start the things you want in your life and your neighborhood. We hope Groundcrew for iPhone becomes your new mission control.

You can read more about the web version of Groundcrew at our main site. If you’re organizing events or actions that involve mobile messaging, we wrote it for you. And of course, if you’d like to start your own squad, or have feedback about the app, drop us a note. Get in touch at info@citizenlogistics.com.

These are slides from PdF 2010. It’s about how to make a...

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:40:30 -0400

These are slides from PdF 2010. It’s about how to make a product that makes a difference.

Groundcrew: Organizing the Social Web on the Terra Firma

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:35:03 -0500

Groundcrew: Organizing the Social Web on the Terra Firma

Worldchanging: Bright Green: Why Our Bright Green Futures Will Be Weirder Than We Think

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:56:17 -0500

Worldchanging: Bright Green: Why Our Bright Green Futures Will Be Weirder Than We Think:

I want everyone to read this. Electric cars and local food production are distractions. The path to sustainability is a new world totally unlike our current civilization: a total re-imagination of work, leisure, and sustenance. We can do it, and Groundcrew is a key piece of infrastructure.

Is it possible to live a life without money? | Environment | The Guardian

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:28:06 -0500

Is it possible to live a life without money? | Environment | The Guardian:

The best description of the dumpster diving / squatting lifestyle we have read. And a powerful argument for creating a reputation system that motivates owners to leverage excess capacity for the public good.

Here’s the audio from a talk I gave at the Ethos...

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:16:00 -0500

Here’s the audio from a talk I gave at the Ethos Roundtable last week, covering both the big picture and the immediate usefulness of what we have.

I started out by asking the audience for examples of how their nonprofits connected people in communities, and then, working from their answers, talked about the community metrics we will track and reward:

Number of stranger-to-stranger real life connections
Number of positive experiences caused within these connections
Community assets made available to a larger circle
People who’s ongoing lives have access to more resources
Lasting trust created within a community

I explained how we can encourage community members to share resources with the organizations who do well on these metrics, and how simple that sharing can be using twitter and facebook, etc.

Finally, I got to the ground floor of demoing our availability and communications platform and how it can be used to make all this concrete and for both developers and community organizers to embrace.

Okay, this is way better than the DARPA thing. How many whales...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:11:44 -0500

Okay, this is way better than the DARPA thing. How many whales can we save with Groundcrew? I love it.

DARPA Network Challenge

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:49:00 -0500

DARPA Network Challenge:

Several people have mentioned that our real-time, location-based coordination service, Groundcrew, could be helpful in finding the DARPA Network Challenge balloons.

Groundcrew integrates with facebook, twitter, and SMS, and could be used to:

coordinate taking Aerial or roadside photos
coordinate verification squads on the ground
gather analyses and ideas about possible locations
plant fake balloons

Call us and we can work out how to set it all up.

My bet: with the right location-based messaging technology, and...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:24:12 -0500

My bet: with the right location-based messaging technology, and massive adoption, people like Jane McGonigal and Annette Mees can make even our walmart parking lot catastrophies interesting. It’s coming.

MadV does it again. I doubt that any large-scale transformation...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:43:14 -0500

MadV does it again. I doubt that any large-scale transformation of civil society can work unless it is beautiful and maybe also funny. Folks like MadV, Ze Frank, and Charlie Todd understand this. And we very much hope that as Citizen Logistics grows, we can get allies like those three to help make our movement as beautiful and as valuable.

What would you like to see done with Groundcrew?

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:23:10 -0400

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be gathering ideas for community coordination projects from all of you, and inviting some of you to post paragraphs or to guest blog about your ideas. Send your idea—make them beautiful and relevant to your experience or field—to joe at citizenlogistics dot com!

CEO Joe interviewed by Stowe Boyd

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:38:00 -0400

CEO Joe interviewed by Stowe Boyd:

“I am particularly impressed by the self-organizing qualities of Groundcrew, around ‘participation design’, where the volunteers are handed more control about how their involvement should be applied in some project or activity, instead of just being told what to do.

Groundcrew can also keep track of people’s contributions and then award reputation (what I call “swarmth” and they call “PosX”) without cash, without currency, simply by keeping track of results. Very interesting.” - from the article

An ignite talk on Groundcrew filmed by the good folks at ACTV....

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:27:00 -0400

An ignite talk on Groundcrew filmed by the good folks at ACTV. Tells the story of the first wish granted on Groundcrew! (full video)

New Blog Location

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:25:00 -0400

Hi folks, we’ve moved our blog over to tumblr to make it easier to communicate with you all. (Old blog entries are archived here.)