Digital Frontiers

Our assignment: Create as much “value” in one hour using only Post-It notes.

When Adam told us our assignment, I thought he was kidding us. The assignment seemed too ridiculous for it to be real, but when he pulled out actual Post-It notes from his pocket, I started panicking inside. I am not generally a very creative or artistic person, and the idea of such an open-ended assignment scared me a little. As I looked around at the other groups, I saw that they were all smiling to each other because they already had ideas as to how to create that “value.”

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Panicking

As we left the classroom, I met up with my other two group members: Matt Garrett & Matt Mills, and they had the same reaction as I did: “What the hell?”

The other groups took off, some sitting on benches just outside to brainstorm, others that already had their ideas went to implement them, while we just stood there. None of us had thought of any ideas right away, so we started walking towards Turlington.

We tried thinking of ideas to bring value for Digital Frontiers, but we realized that Digital Frontiers was more of a vehicle that allowed us to bring value than something that needed value itself. Without this class, we would probably never have had an assignment like this. When we reached Turlington, I had an epiphany: Haiti.

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Eureka!

With the recent earthquakes in Haiti, the small country was in despair. Already recovering from the recent hurricanes, the earthquakes just put them into more misery.

There is a text-messaging fund designed to help those affected in Haiti: Text “HAITI” to 90999. Although it is heavily publicized on the news, there may still be people who don’t keep up with the news (like me), or may not know exactly what to do or what the program is all about.

The message of the program is simple: Text the word “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. What a perfect thing to promote and bring value to!

We decided to go to the tunnel under 13th by Norman Hall, and write “Text ‘HAITI’ to 90999″ on the graffiti wall to spread awareness.

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Execution

With our idea in our heads, we set off for Norman Hall. After about 45 minutes of posting and writing, we were finished. At one entrance of the tunnel, we had the word “HAITI” spelled out in Post-It notes, with messages such as “Text ‘HAITI’ to 90999″ and “To Donate Ten Dollars”, and the other side had “TEXT HAITI TO 90999″ spelled out in Post-It notes.

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Lessons

Having such an open-ended assignment thrust upon me with such a short time frame to complete it really challenged me to think of new and creative ways of expression. I learned that pressure can inspire someone to come up with the best ideas, and having our ideas restricted to using only Post-It notes forced us to be more creative with our marketing strategies.

I hope that at least one person will read our “graffiti” Post-It note messages and actually text their donations, because if one person donates, this effort will all have been worth it. I’m sure the people in Haiti will agree how valuable every donation can be.

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