Click on an image here to see a very low-tech proof of a concept: turning SMS messages into news flow. With the help of people from several companies, including Mitre, 2SMS.com and Google, we've created a small demonstration of how citizen journalists could create location- and time-based data that might be useful in any number of ways.
The idea, in this case, was part of a scenario involving a major disaster. We assumed people would be telling each other what was happening in their communities and neighborhoods, and that if they could post such information straight into maps they'd have better information to work with.

Creating content for bottom-up map...

strongangel3

We're part of an experiment called Strong Angel III, the third in a series of collaborations among many different organizations -- government, nonprofit, corporate and citizen-based -- to improve responses to disasters. You can learn more at the Strong Angel website:

http://www.strongangel3.net

and we hope you'll take a look.

This "Flash Mob" was designed to see whether we could mobilize people like all of us, in a disaster, to help each other get food.

We're not sure how you got the word. But we told people, via many different methods of communication, that we hoped they might bring food in a can, bottle or bag to a location in downtown San Diego or near "the Pyramid" on Thursday at noon. For exact instructions about the time and location, we asked them to text the word "soup" to a short message number -- 35842 -- by 11 a.m. today.

I've been in San Diego this week at something called Strong Angel III, a project/demonstration/exercise designed to improve responses to emergencies and catastrophes, both those which are natural and caused by humans. Several hundred smart folks looking at technology and its applications in this kind of situation, and as with the last Strong Angel exercise (which took place two years ago on a lava bed in Hawaii), this one is proving immensely educational.

I have nothing but sympathy for the networking folks here at Strong Angel. They've worked incredibly hard on providing Internet access but have encountered a classic tragedy of the commons.

Which is fascinating, when you think about it. Because this is an exercise filled with smart-to-brilliant technology folks, who all surely realized that when everyone banged on the available wifi network at the same time, it would not hold up.

Yesterday, Eric Rasmussen finally put down the hammer on the access problem. He ordered everyone off the system and told the network guys to make it work. It got up, sort of, by late yesterday afternoon.