David Feldt Proud father. Entrepreneur. Builder. Catalyst. Accelerator. Guide.

Visited NYC recently or work in the city? Have you ever noticed the myriad of unused and decaying payphones on every block in Manhattan?

They are everywhere and everyone on the street seems to have their  mobile phone or Bluetooth device permanently attached to their ears.  Does anyone ever use these payphones?

Enter Payphone Warriors - a recent real-world mashup of the Flash Mob, Capture the Flag and MMOGs  - envisioned by Abe Burmeister, Gregory Trefry and Cory Forsyth and an excellent example of a "Big Game":

"Big Games are large-scale, multiplayer games that transform the physical space around us into a shared gameworld, brought to life by the choices, actions, and experiences of the players."

In this example, teams equipped with handfuls of quarters set out to capture (by dialing a number and the team's extension) pay phones within a three-block radius and control them for longer than other teams. Most of the players are young professionals, artists and technology enthusiasts. News of the games spread online, mostly on blog sites such as What's Up: NYC and digg.com just days before the festival.

The event, reported on CBS News and ZDNet, has been repeated several times.  If you're interested in participating, register here.

David Feldt

Many of us are attempting to eat more healthy foods.  I recently started on a weight-loss/health campaign and I have started examining the label on products to ensure that it doesn’t contain too much sodium and that it doesn’t contain any transfats.  Well, I’m starting to discover that not all manufacturers are above-board and many products that are labeled “Healthy” are actually not.  So, what to do? A New England grocery chain is coming to my rescue by acting as a trusted advisor to its customers by rating all so-called health products using a star system.

Their efforts are reported in the New York Times: “The Package May Say Healthy, but This Grocer Begs to Differ”.

“The chain, Hannaford Brothers, developed a system called Guiding Stars that rated the nutritional value of nearly all the food and drinks at its stores from zero to three stars. Of the 27,000 products that were plugged into Hannaford’s formula, 77 percent received no stars, including many, if not most, of the processed foods that advertise themselves as good for you.

These included V8 vegetable juice (too much sodium), Campbell’s Healthy Request Tomato soup (ditto), most Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice frozen dinners (ditto) and nearly all yogurt with fruit (too much sugar). Whole milk?  Too much fat — no stars. Predictably, most fruits and vegetables did earn three stars, as did things like salmon and Post Grape-Nuts cereal.”

It’s time for the Krogers of the world to pay attention and take similar customer-centric approaches.

David Feldt