Just curious-----partly due to the nature of drewshaver's recent comments-----have you two travelled the country and spent some meaningful time talking to communities, listening to what they want, and then seeing how your existing system could (practically) apply to their way of doing things?

"Social hacking" or "analyzing data", isn't the same as taking a worn down bus to the middle of nowhere, Northern New York(since it appears you and drewshaver are based around NYC?) and taking a few days, a week(however long it takes) learning about the communities and people there, their history(and by history I actually mean talking to the local waitress at a diner, learning her story and the story her town---------going to the only gas station in a 10-15 mile radius asking the only present employee about his job, his life, and the town he commutes from at 5am every morning; having real conversations, stuff you just can't learn from a Wikipedia article).

Towns like that inhabit all of Northern New York, and their geography is placed where they don't benefit from travelers to/from Canada, and many of them have been struggling for over half a century now----dating back to the economic collapses in the 60s.

I'm only commenting on this because I'm growing tired of ideas that have the potential of being salvaged inevitably imploding on themselves because of these ideas existing in hypothetics/in a vacuum, coupled with the naivety/idealism of their holder(read: drew's recent comments).

Maybe 1/10th of your ideas could apply to these small town's problems-----if you're lucky, maybe 1/9th. But even if a small, insignificant fragment of what you and drew are working on could meaningfully help even one person of this backwater town in the middle of nowhere, in my mind, it's worth the effort.

Every artist, yuppie, and apparently now "social hacker" is trying to reinvent the wheel in iconic places like NYC, and with all of those voices clamoring and shouting at each other, each trying to project their vision on a city of 8 million people, where they'd be lucky if even 10 took notice for more than a day or two.

For your and drew's on sakes---avoid their fate, get out of your comfort zone and see the country through the eyes many different people, in the places of the country no tourist cares to travel, but should. If it becomes obvious that 5% of your current philosophies could even have the chance of helping them, then gut the 95% and work with what's left. Even if it results in failure-----at least then you'd put in some effort.

If this post sounds over-critical I apologize, but it's coming from someone who has seen too many slow-moving train wrecks crash due to naivety/idealism/and a lack of willingness to compromise one's plan in the face of a turbulent environment.