chasing the tweeture

One of the objectives of  the Tweeture was for it to be an object of permission. The kind of thing you could use as an excuse to talk to someone in the crowd. We wanted to do this not just because it would be fun  but because of the nature of the communications normally found at big tech conferences like this. The norm is: everyone sits around in hyperwired spaces live blogging and tweeting or just answering a few stray emails. Thats all well and good but what the hells the point in gathering so many like minds together if they don’t actually speak to each other?

So the Tweeture did that favorite trick of mine: inverting network technologies- so they aren’t used so much to connect people who already know each other across geographic spaces- but connect people who don’t know each other across social space.  A neat trick if you can pull it off. And in this the Tweeture rocks, to the point of exhaustion. Any time i had the Tweeture i discovered it was impossible to walk anywhere or sit anywhere for longer than 5 mins without meeting someone new  them:”hi what is that?” me: “this is the Tweeture, he’s a social robot…”.

Now this is great and at first i thought it was down to our huge genius and considerable skill in making a social robot that communicates via twitter,  is location aware via gps, does reverse geocoding and asks you questions about your current location like”tell me again why were at 11th and congress”,  uses its haptic sensors to update its mood and flashes cool coloured LED lit antenna to communicate this to the players.

But as the swanky batteries powereing his swanky services ran down each one failed in turn. Until i was left holding a very tired Tweeture. This however did not deter  the curiosity of the crowds. and the “hey what is that?” continued long after his electronic charms had faded out.

So could we have done what my friend Catherine Herdlick from COaP said ” Dont worrie about building it just tell people your building a Deluded Twittering Monster Robot”.

Well this Design fiction approach maybe right, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun for anyone. And we would never have been able to have the adventures we had Chasing the Tweeture across town from party to party (he is a Very social robot monster).

Looking up the Tweetures GPS location was super useful in getting  a bearing but the Carers tweets  were the most useful. Especially when combined with judicious use of the Tweetures own twitter voice to ask them questions like “hey i’m feeling a little lost where are we?”.

My favorite Carer moment was on the Tweetures first night out alone. Someone tweeted “hey the @thetweeture is getting tired where are his parents?”. Care. Care for a twitter puppet. Care for a concept, and care for a strangers project. There is a lot of dormant care out there. It doesn’t take much to trigger a stream of really caring behaviour.

Sometimes people are just looking for permission to care. Its nice to offer that.