FBI MOST WANTED / AMBER ALERTS?

Here's a lunch break blog post for ya...

I've been thinking a lot about ways we can use the system. In doing so, I recently reviewed some old notes, and came across two early ideas that I still think are very valid...

1) FBI MOST WANTED
2) AMBER ALERTS

Probably the two most emotional / scary things in our society are the concepts of a murderer or a missing child, and these scenarios are two of Hollywood's favorite plots. Police in our society are often overworked, underpaid, and only human. But what if we could offer 100,000 more eyes on the streets across the country? We could even use the phone's GPS to segment by geographic region -- meaning that Extraordinaries in Indiana would get Indiana-related "amber alerts" or "fugitive wanted alerts," and the people in New York would get something different, maximizing impact. It would seem to me, that one of the biggest obstacle to the jobs of police officers, is getting enough people to know about the fugitive or the missing child. TV shows like America's Most Wanted, Amber Alerts on highway overpass signs, and Truck Drivers have all teamed up to put more eyes on the street. Why can't WE help?

This is just another example of how our system is well outside the realm of traditional volunteering, but can offer tremendous good to society, and since people are using their time for free, they ARE technically, volunteering. And frankly, it feels good to get bad guys off the streets and bring kids safely home. Talk about the quintessential job of a super hero, or rather, of one of The Extraordinaries.

Comments

[Ben]

The thing is, this kind of "push" based request falls outside of our model of using spare time - when the volunteer deems that they've got spare time. I think it's important, psychologically, that the application doesn't interrupt the user - that it's a polite app, only talking when spoken to. I agree that this use case is a good one, but it seems off-focus.

I wouldn't be opposed to simply listing Amber Alert as one of the tasks, when an Amber Alert is in effect... but without the pushed alert, it becomes less valuable overall...

-ben