Zed War

Cities are full of interesting little tidbits. Things that only long-standing residents would know, and they like to keep it hidden form the prying eyes of tourists alike. Me? I’m curious about this information. The 4-stars of Zagats and Yelp’s of the world could, in theory, reveal these things. But I prefer to understand a city with a but more, bravado. I prefer the have the citizens discover it for me, and I prefer it to be playful. A nod of serious undertone, with a dash of wit, and intelligence. Mix briskly. So, in order to coax people into spilling their favorite spots, the premise is quite clear, the world is ending, where would you go?  Nothing gets people moderately interested more in the 2000-teen years than the walking dead, well, maybe vampires too (for those reading about this in the year 2125 I am praying this vampire thing has run it’s course). So after setting up our social-content gatherers by challenging them with “is it may be more is it better to be unprepared for the expected or prepared for the unexpected?” my partner and I supplied the scenario probabilities of a zombie outbreak in the city of Philadelphia (long before the release of WWZ) using CDC outbreak recommendations combined with military urban engagement maneuvers.

Posters for the viral campaign culled mobile numbers for participants. Picked up by local blogs, we quickly had over 250 registered phone numbers of willing survivors. Once initiated, the resulting information was then plotted into a map, along with all the predetermined survival strategies and turned into a Tyvek based e-chart. It’s both a system and a game that I would love to see other cities adopt to forge their own truly unique landmarks.