Sorry for the lack of posts lately but regular programming will resume shortly. If you’ve ever been to Hong Kong, you’ll realise that the this is an efficient self-contained city. From the moment you step off the plane at the airport, through immigration, to the MTR public transport system, it is the perfect example of how to move a lot of people around a city very quickly. Being used to the public disaster system over here, the precision never ceases to amaze me.

It did get me thinking about how a system like this could be further enhanced to serve a city in general. My first thought was the Octopus card. This RFID system of sorts is swiped by commuters as they walk through the turnstiles at the stations. Almost everyone in HK carries one because almost everyone uses the MTR. If this technology was utilised by companies to erect mechanisms that could poll or collate information from the people on local issues (similar to the JCDecaux interactive billboards), would we not have a more informed and in tune community? A ambient ‘wisdom of crowds’ application if you like, weaved into daily life about daily life. Just an idea. Judging by the state of marketing and communication in HK at the moment, we haven’t moved passed version 1.0 yet. People seem to be too busy talking into their mobile phones to take notice of anything else, but what do you expect when you have premium underground coverage!