Here is an amazing example of the power of getting into the workflow of your target audience.
It is actually very network based approach to gathering information and data. It gathers data on a pull rather than proactive basis. This example is a bit creepy but the thinking behind it fascinates me. Setting up laundry mats to gather data is really smart.
What does this type of thinking inspire in our context? What are the "tells" in the way the public operates on opinions and personal behavior that will offer you tons of information that would be impossible to actively go out and collect and filter? What are the transactional data points in a network of people working together on a campaign that might be worth monitoring to reveal what is going on deep out of site? What are the "shadows" and "traces" of new campaigns and collaboration starting to take hold in a network? How many of these types of data gathering transactions do we need to set up across the environmental, peace or social justice movements to reveal sector wide trends?
Thinking like this would enable us to capture feedback that would be to difficult or to expensive to gather in traditional ways. What if you could offer financial and budget services (see trends in budgeting) or event planning and logistics services to see trends in organizing? Or phonebank lists to reveal organizing strength?
In our sector, allies horde so much of the data that they should collaborate on that it will take "embracing the Meshugganah" to get around the organizational impedimates to createing collaboration and syncronization mechanisms on the network level.
Link: www.washingtonpost.com.
One of the most interesting operations was the laundry mat [sic]. Having lost many troops and civilians to bombings, the Brits decided they needed to determine who was making the bombs and where they were being manufactured. One bright fellow recommended they operate a laundry and when asked "what the hell he was talking about," he explained the plan and it was incorporated -- to much success.
The plan was simple: Build a laundry and staff it with locals and a few of their own. The laundry would then send out "color coded" special discount tickets, to the effect of "get two loads for the price of one," etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry, it was easy to determine the general location from which a city map was coded.
While the laundry was indeed being washed, pressed and dry cleaned, it had one additional cycle -- every garment, sheet, glove, pair of pants, was first sent through an analyzer, located in the basement, that checked for bomb-making residue. The analyzer was disguised as just another piece of the laundry equipment; good OPSEC [operational security]. Within a few weeks, multiple positives had shown up, indicating the ingredients of bomb residue, and intelligence had determined which areas of the city were involved. To narrow their target list, [the laundry] simply sent out more specific coupons [numbered] to all houses in the area, and before long they had good addresses. After confirming addresses, authorities with the SAS teams swooped down on the multiple homes and arrested multiple personnel and confiscated numerous assembled bombs, weapons and ingredients. During the entire operation, no one was injured or killed.
