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Showcase: Built on Top of Mobile Commons

Agencies involved: Mal McKay

Do Something is an organization focused on using the power of technology to get young people to actively participate in local causes. They quickly realized that their target demographic doesn’t use much email, so they wanted to let everybody know about volunteer opportunities on their mobile phones. They teamed up with developer Mal McKay (now a Mobile Commons engineer) to build a web application using the Mobile Commons Messaging API.

“I signed up about two weeks ago for the DS Now text message alert. It works great! My friends and I were bored the other day and I got a text saying that the Children’s Learning Center in the neighboring town needed volunteers…aka no more boredom! It was awesome to have opportunities texted right to my phone!”
—Megan - age 18, Iowa

“the volunteer search database is the shiz. Absolutely wonderful! It gives you links to volunteer opportunities around the neighborhood that are suitable for teens. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon an entire field that I wasn’t aware of before. Last summer, I found a homeless shelter in Berkeley. I am interested in starting up there again. The text to volunteer feature is very convenient. Since most teens are never two feet away from their phones.”
—Serena - age 16, California

Using our web services, they were able to quickly put together an application that allows DoSomething to send out twice-monthly alerts that are geo-coded to their individual constituents location. In the body of the outgoing message, everyone gets a unique web-link to local opportunities. This allows the Do Something staff to easily track how many people are looking at local opportunities. The program has been a hit with great response rates and the following feedback from kids that participate:

“I had always thought that my area of interest would provide little opportunity for volunteer work in my own neighborhood. However I was happily proven wrong when I used the Do Something volunteer search database. I found opportunities closer to home than I could have imagined! I’ve already read about 5 opportunities that are less than 5 miles from my home (and I live in the suburbs!).”
—Leah - age 16, New York

It's Our Healthcare & Blackrock

Agencies involved: Blackrock Associates & Articulated Man
Awards: Pollie, 2008

Blackrock created the following 2008 Pollie Award Winning campaign for It’s Our Healthcare (IOH): they placed a large Jumbotron outside the California State House and encouraged Californians to text in their thoughts about healthcare. People could see it on the street or they could see it on the web. They encouraged people to take a Flash widget and embed it on their sites to get even further distribution for the messages streaming out of California. They also broadcast a live webcast of the event.

“The response rate was high; Lockshin said that about 47% of the people who had previously opted in to the campaign sent an SMS on Wednesday.”
—Mobile Active

This campaign was built on top of the Mobile Commons platform and our ability to easily moderate messages and push them out via RSS was crucial to the execution. You can read more about the campaign on Mobile Active.

CREDO Mobile, Paul Notzold, Tom Tomorrow, ss+k

Agencies involved: Paul Notzold, Tom Tomorrow, ss+k, neverstop
Awards: Cannes Cyber Lion, 2008

CREDO Mobile (formerly Working Assets), a long-time partner of Mobile Commons, wanted a high impact campaign as they transitioned their mobile brand to the name CREDO. They took to the streets with a van and projector, putting up images and encouraging crowd participation and feedback to fill in the thought bubbles of the various political characters appearing on the sides of buildings and other public places around major metropolitan areas. They used Mobile Commons to power the mobile infrastructure of the campaign and were able to easily run and manage everything by having someone with a laptop onsite at every event.