General thoughts and ideas, and I think we should have a face-to-face meeting, I'll put something out there for next week and see who can attend.

>>[ should we also have an ordinary phone number they could call? ]<<

We can, but that might be adding a closed part to an open system. It does seem like there would be ways to build in using other technologies (phone, flickr, wiki, etc) but perhaps keep in very focused on Twitter at launch and see how it builds from there.

>>i guess the restaurant staff have to get the twitter via sms right? ]>>

I think the restaurant (and farm, food source) would need to be given a 15 minute Twitter training, that would also include setting up a Twitter account.

>>Pickup confirmation: Provider publishes that somebody is getting the food. [ hmmm, can we remove this stage? or shift the burden to the fetcher? ]<<

We might be able to remove or shift burden to fetcher, needs testing I think.

>>[ I actually don't care what happens at this point and onwards myself... I figure it is something to look at later on. ]<<

While I'm not a concerned either, I think the Provider would want to know where it is headed.

>>How to really test this - what is the praxis? How can we do something this week, or within 2 weeks to actually try the idea in the real world?<<

Perhaps getting 12-ish food source locations (restaurants, grocery stores, farms) willing to participate and trained on Twitter.

>>Maybe a dial in number at some point?<<

Perhaps, for now I think let Twitter do all the heavy lifting, and let's plug the food sources into the @portlandhunger Twitter stream. We will also need a wiki/index of some sorts for food pantries, and such ... that are throughout Portland Metro and able to receive deliveries.

>>Is the total public nature and visibility a good idea? I would advise ignoring such issues for now and stay totally public.<<

Total transparency seems fine and the best way to share openly and keep things as decentralized as possible.

>>In the second round - folks from the sunshine food pantry (?) suggested a window sticker for restaurants.<<

Great idea. Maybe farms can have Twitter @portlandhunger political-like yard signs. Visible to people driving buy, people who would be inclined to pickup unused but edible produce.

>>Are there any other incentives we can create for participants? For example the fetchers (aka delivery people aka runners) how can we create incentive for them?<<

Perhaps something like once Delivery People/Fetchers do 1, 5, 10 deliveries they get a free Twitter @portlandhunger t-shirt. Everyone loves t-shirts.

Research helpful too Anselm, anything that helps constructively solve problems is just welcome and fantastic.

>>meet with Urban Gleaners. They will have some ideas for us as far as working with local restaurants. I think we should start out targeting only a few restaurants in a localized area, like backspace, pearl bakery, blossoming lotus. Personally, I like the idea of not having a middle man at all---is there some way to get it from provider to eater directly?<<

Seems like there are three types of action/groups needed: 1/Food Source, which can be restaurants, grocery stores, & farms, and 2/Delivery/Fetchers people willing to transport food to 3/Distribution Point which could be food pantry, soup kitchen and various orgs.

Food Sources want to help out and get food to people that are hungry.

Delivery/Fetcher is available to help, maybe once, maybe regularly and may or may not be inclined to deliver food to a specific distribution point.

Distribution Points want an easy influx of various nutritious food sources.

The glue that may well hold this together is the Delivery/Fetchers that are the largest and most decentralized group of the three. The most "heavy lifting" seems like it will be the quick Twitter training and setup for Food Sources. Luckily, Twitter/TXT messaging is just so simple. If it's keep just so simply for Food Sources, this might help get much more food to the food pantries and related organizations. A win for everyone, all just using existing networks and technologies.