EveryTaxi

Many years ago, long before the troubled  behemoth Uber, I bought a web domain:

www.everytaxi.com

I bought it because of a idea I had to set up a go between the customer and the taxi firms/drivers.  It was a time when I was developing ideas with a friend for potential digital business ideas. There were many and this did not make the grade. I found my notes on this recently and thought it is worth revisiting.

As you can see it was prior to iPhones and mobile web and was a txt based system.

Was thinking of how taxi cab companies juggle the customer/ location problem. I expect all use a basic manual system with GPS data thrown in to help the controller assign fares. But drivers can cheat these and other problems.

So, what about a one stop shop for a taxi - anywhere in the uk. everytaxi.com

You txt your location and destination and time you need the car to a single text number - same no mater which part of UK you are in. The job is posted on a site where cab companies can bid for the job. The more they pay the more likely they are to get the job. So a short job will cost them a few pence and a long one might cost more. The auction is only open for a short time - say 5 min.

Once a cab company has won the auction you get a txt message back giving the company details and when you will be picked up. If no one has bid in the auction then the customer is invited to place their job on the auction again. Users would have a free txt back service where they could register a complaint if their cab was late etc.

The aution site would be categorised by location and a company log in would track the location of won journeys so it would ensure the search location was dynamic and keep up with moving taxis etc.


It would not be a replacement for the standard company controller but a source of other taxi jobs.

Revenue from the txt by the customer and the bids for the journeys. Large up front marketing cost to both taxi companies and to general public.

This was first published in http://ideazfactory.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/txt-me-cab.html

Memories in a silent world

My daughter has special needs and her most profound difficulty is that she cannot talk. She uses symbols and a assisted communication device to talk. Through the wonderful program Proloquo2go she navigates pages of symbols to express her needs, wants, fears and desires. Sometimes she won't use it and just points to things in the room or in photographs, or relies on us, her parents understanding her needs.

She has always loved books and stories and photographs. One of her most used requests is "Can you show me the photos on your phone?". She pours over images and wants to know who they are. The best ones are about her and what she has done.

She needs us to provide a narrative for her life, to speak for her, to put words into her hands and mouth. Every week we record a story for her, which we then put on her iPad to listen to when ever she wants.

This is a poem about what it is like to be part of her memory process.

History makers

how does memory work without language to articulate it?

in a silent world outsiders words are the carriages of experiences

our words mollify potential fears, current events narrated

and history recorded

as her week revolves

we stumble through adventures and torments, banality and battles

moments of joy and of despair, with or without us

all of which to be remembered, for future reference

friday is history day

eagerly anticipated and demanded with rightous vigour

finger stabbing at the symbol

pleading and confirming, it is today, it should be now

the subject matter has to be agreed

there is little room for negotiation

repetition is the order of the day

hopes and anticipate events are also to be conjured up

egocentric recounts of daily activities

events we never witnessed are re-imagined 

minutia of encounter, actions, scares and outcomes

constructed as  claustrophobic  adventures with Ruby as the principle character

she is the heroine, or aggrieved  party

at once the wise observer, then the initiate

the happy participant, the leader, always playing her part

always the focus of our love. 

some stories spill like lego from a toy box

colourful, multi-shaped detail ridden

others, through weary parents, trudge forth, stubborn to be born

all must be produced, history must be recorded

round and round we go with the same same stories

the same places, the times and locations merge

a stream of average happenings

samples of a life's routine 

she devours the finished product, again and again

falling to sleep, MP3s burying it into her dreams

filled away in her growing collection, the catalogue of her life

as retold by us, for she who cannot recount