Community Texting

FROM: Chris Ewels

What NEED does this meet?
Many people are community minded but often just need reminders. This is a way to bring many of the other ideas under one roof, providing a generic way that charity and public service groups can let people know of relevant time based local information.

What is the APPROACH?
It's not very different but brings several things under one roof. The web interface would be simple (could even sign up via a mobile phone). Enter your postcode, optionally postcode of place of work, and your mobile number. You're then presented with a page of things you could opt into, which can be expanded in future. This could include: receiving texts from local council the night before recycling collected from your house, receiving a text from the blood donation service the day before they are collecting near to your home / work, possibly receiving text about local produce markets / door to door delivery when it's running, etc. Could optionally add the choice to receive the information via text message, email, both. Could reduce paperwork and thus costs for blood donation service as they wouldn't have to send out letters to those who'd signed into this.

What are the BENEFITS to people?
Immediate relevant and timely information that's important for people at an extremely local level would be delivered directly to them. A system would be established which it would be easy for other organisations to 'opt into', so if other charitable/public spirited projects along these lines wanted to establish geographic based texting, the system would be already in place and it'd just be another click box. Users would remain in control since they'd only be texted about things they opted into.

What is the COMPETITION?
There's a few I suspect, the advantage of this is time saving in bringing it under one roof.

What BUDGET & LOGISTICS are required?
Should be pretty cheap, and I'm sure you could get some investment from the various public bodies that would benefit from this. Would need to interface with postcode recognition.