S.O.S is an application to leave audiovisual messages (offers, requests and citizen alerts) in public spaces and events. It is inspired by the traditional english Speaker's Corner and it is a following of other Platoniq's projects such as Burn Station or the Bank of Common Knowledge.
S.O.S aims to communicate people who have common interests, live in the same area and want to share information and resources. S.O.S users can record video-messages which are classified according to topics, tags and localization. Audiovisual messages can be consulted via local stations or an embedded S.O.S widget on people's blog. When the system finds out matches between messages and concrete answers, S.O.S automatically sends a text message (sms) to all parties' mobile phones, so a meeting or exchange between users can take place.
S.O.S is addressed to small communitites of users who share a problem, or who live close to each other but still don't know each other, or are looking to exchange something. S.O.S also applies the new paradigm born from the Internet and ICTs to organisations. By using creative processes, it seeks to solve problems by means of peer-to-peer cooperation and self-organisation.
Find out some more about S.O.S applications: S.O.S City, S.O.S ORG and S.O.S Speaker's Corner!
A project by Platoniq: info@platoniq.net
S.O.S CITY
WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH S.O.S CITIZEN MODE?
The S.O.S citizen mode is an application attached to a motorcycle (in the style of a home delivery pizza service) so it can work on the streets. A route around several points of the city is organised for every action. This route and the video recorded along it are available on the Internet.
- You can offer, search or exchange objects.
- You can offer your knowledge about something to whoever needs it.
- You can look for someone to teach you something.
- You can give your oppinion and spread an alert related to any issue in your town or neighbourhood.
- You can find and get together with people with shared interests to start a group.
S.O.S SPEAKER’S CORNER
CAMPAIGN IN YOUR CORNER!
A Speaker's Corner is an area where everybody is invited to speak in public. For more than 150 years, every Sunday morning at the meeting point located in Oxford Street and Hyde Park, everyone can give his/her oppinion on any issue, and everyone else can listen or refute.
As a symbol of freedom of speech, the Speaker's Corner has its origins in the 19th century, when the free communication of ideas was difficult.
S.O.S in Speaker's Corner mode becomes a space for transferring and exchanging information. It allows citizens to organise campaigns and to set-up meeting points on the street. You can publish an announcement and look for subscribers for your campaign.
Campaigns are “conditioned” promises, for instance: I would be willing to do something (donate books to a library, give my support to a local association, report a problem on my street, organise a collection, organise a meeting...) only if I find a certain number of people who also want to participate.
Once the minimum number of subscribers is achieved, you only have to book the motorized S.O.S and summon interested people to come to the selected meeting point in your town or neighbourhood. S.O.S brings the amplifiers!
S.O.S ORG
WHAT CAN S.O.S DO IN YOUR ORGANISATION?
S.O.S can be used to search for ideas and local collaborations which are really useful within organisations such as NGOs, cooperatives or social enterprises.
S.O.S helps to create new cross-sector relationships, projects and cooperations by having into account the offers and requests posted by citizens.
- Researchers looking for an application.
- Citizens ideas that can turn into new products or new cooperatives.
- Wasted machines and possible byproducts that can be used by other businesses.
- Unsolved organisation problems or challenges waiting to be achieved.
- Important experiences that can work as an example of best practices.
The S.O.S application can be embedded in the organisation's website or work as a “local station” located, for instance, in a university's or enterprise's cafeteria, in a city hall's reception, or in an event such as a market of ideas. All collected problems, challenges, solutions and profiles can be linked amongst each other.
- If you are a part of an organisation that needs to design a participatory processes, then use S.O.S.
- It will be useful if you are a neighbours association looking for people's opinion on an initiative run by the city hall and want those opinions to be automatically uploaded to the Internet.
- Or if you work for an enterprise which investigates how to innovate in its service starting from its workers' and customers' opinions.
- S.O.S can be a good public format for a university which wants to connect its researchers with local businesses.
- Or if you are a part of an NGO looking for volunteers to help in micro-tasks during short periods of time.
(Note) S.O.S in ORG mode was born from the collaboration between Platoniq and the Department for Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the Polytechnic School of University of Mondragon, aiming to start a lab where innovation and entrepreneurship between cooperatives and enterprises from the Urola Medio region (Basque Country) could be held (project Ideiazoka, 2009).
S.O.S HOTSPOTS
CONNECT VARIOUS S.O.S STATIONS INTO A NETWORK
The “hotspot” concept is used in the organisation of information. A hotspot can consist of a single S.O.S machine, or can be shaped by a group of S.O.S machines synchronized with each other. It can be related with an organisation or a thematic community. This system is helpful for organisations wanting to set up an internal or private network of geografically distributed S.O.S stations.
Sorry you've just missed S.O.S. public relaunch in Barcelona. Get in touch with us if you want to set up a S.O.S event in your city! info@platoniq.net
