Psychogreography and Advocacy

There is a new underground movement exploding among the trend setter crowd in big cities. The movement is based on acquiring "experiences" vs. acquiring goods. This is a great development for advocacy folks. It is a trend that is extended from the raves, flash-mobs and extreme sports junkys. It seems to be popping up in new ways all over the place.

I read an article in Smithsonian about "urban explorers" which essentially try to seek out abandon industrial age sites for the fun of visiting them. Tops on these list are abandon factories, subway stations that are decommissioned, sewer systems, abandon government road projects, old smelters and plants. There is a degree of danger from the site and the abandon neighborhood. Explors take photos and write essays as they run into rats, homeless folks, wondering dogs, etc. It is like a new gothham sport. Adventruetourism in our near spaces.

Now I read about this ...

This weekend New York City is seeing a number of activities representative of the urban reclamation trend we talked about last December (Urban Reclamation TC). The second annual Psy.Geo.Conflux is a conference and series of events dedicated to psychogeography (the study of the effects of the geographic environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals). Events include a human scale chess game in the Southside of Williamsburg, a love shrine scavenger hunt in Central Park (complete with recorded soundtracks for particpants), and a nomadic talk show with neighborhood locals and passerbyers as guests. -Trendsetter

Going with the flow of big city hunts you should look at the http://www.nike.com/operation6453/ They are not targeting mainstream yet they are using the promotion to get early adapters. ---" The top players will be eligible for prizes (think stickers, t-shirts, bags, shoes) and hundreds of players will qualify for the pre-buy of the Nike Air Force-X MID

HOW TO PLAY

1. Sign-up to participate on the site. Click the SIGN-UP button and send us your cell phone number and carrier.
2. You will receive a confirmation PIN number via your cell phone.
3. Click on CONFIRM and input your PIN number.
4. You will be prompted to input your player name and personal info. You will not be eligible for any prizes unless the form is completed.
5. Hit the streets of New York and wait for your first SMS alert. The alert will tell you the cross streets of the latest posting. Get there as fast as you can.
6. When you see a poster on the street dial 6453 and enter the code on the poster. You will receive a message telling you how many points your target was worth and how many overall points you have.
7. Check back at the site to see where you rank. The top players will qualify for prizes, but hundreds will qualify for the pre-buy. Don’t give up.
8. Continue searching for posters until you receive an alert that the game has ended.

SCORING
Each day a total of 4 posters each with unique codes will be placed in different parts of the city: 1 every 3 hours. Every time one is posted, you will get an SMS alert indicating that a posting just happened and the its general location.

Posters are “HOT” (worth more points) as soon as they are posted and “COOL” down (lose value) as time passes. For this purpose, the point system will be on a sliding scale as illustrated in the following table:

User typed poster code Points received
Within the 1st hour of posting 64
Within the 2nd hour 32
Within the 3rd hour 16
Within the 4th hour 8
Within the 5th hour & after 4

At the end of the mission, you will receive an SMS that tells you if are qualified for a pre-buy or not. If not, you can still buy the Nike Air Force-X MID when it goes on sale to the public. If you do qualify you will be told a time and place to go where you will be guaranteed a pre-buy of this exclusive shoe.

The best of the best will also qualify for more prizes. You will be notified if you are a winner and told where and how to collect your loot.

Always check back at the site for performance and mission updates.

" Slick.

Ok. so what is the drill for advocacy groups. Lets do an advocacy hunt to tell our story. Send people to sewer outflows, look for tree forts and places that kids play closest to superfund sites, wade inner city streams, wait in line at an shelter to secure a spot for the last family that comes in. How can we help a new "experience gneration" our story and make learning about our issues an adventure?