Sunday, April 21, 2002

Calendaring


One of the huge advantages of local area network for a borough would be shared messaging services.

A simple application would be public calendars - password protected - manage by both groups (eg. lift schemes, football practice, young mothers meetings) and sole proprietors who run an appointment based business (eg. hairdresser, plumber, repiar and installation).

Current portal applications - Yahoo, MSN and AOL - go someway down the line but a council would surely be an ideal place to drive local consistency from.

Supporting viewing and reminder alerts through cell phones (SMS and 3G), PDAs, Web and iTV should be a design requirement for any CMS system used to deliver this kind of a service.

Going loco for local?

For the sake of argument, let's just say local is anywhere that is less than 30 minutes travel - walking, bike, bus, train, car or taxi - from where you live

How much does local transport account for in annual expenses?

For most people, living in an urban setting, local means all the places you might go to for entertainment - pub, sports, cinema, theatre, sports centre, parks - and receive public services - council, post office, police, GP, Hospital

How well do local transport routes map to local entertainment and public services?

How much do entertainment and public services accounf for in annual expenses?

What are the major entertainment services offered in local area?

For many people, local also means where they work, shop and go to school. The binding factor in everything local is its social element. Engagement in a local area entails becoming part of public space