Purposive Drift

The Street has its own uses

I have always been fascinated by the way that people use technologies for their own purposes, often in ways unimagined by their creators. So I was please to find this one to add to my collection. Paul Skidmore of Demos reports:

"I came across an interesting spin on the idea of smart mobs while I was in New Zealand. Groups of casual workers who are employed picking fruit in areas like Hawke's Bay use mobile phones to gain leverage over employers. They will text each other the wage that different growers are offering per basket that day, and then go and work for whoever is paying best, leaving other growers in the lurch. It goes to show that even in industries like horticulture, technology can still have a very disruptive impact on ways of working."