Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of haranguing you with messages from your boss, your BlackBerry, Palm or cellphone helped you to stop and smell the roses? It could happen soon enough. Computer programmers and artists are exploring new ways to use our portable digital devices to help us connect more deeply with our everyday world.

In the late 1990s, I co-founded a software company called Maptuit, which brought the integration of cyberspace and physical space to life. But we found that the technology and networks to deliver these “location-based services” was not mature. Rather than becoming another dot-com failure, we decided to focus on the trucking industry, where there was a burning need to give long-haul truckers good directions that would help them avoid low bridges and find the best place to buy gas.

Today Maptuit dominates the navigational-aid business and has expanded into the consumer marketplace. If you live in say, Washington D.C., Maptuit will help get you home fast by avoiding traffic jams. Nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

Now the world is ready for the next step. All of today’s personal gadgets – such as iPods, cellphones, BlackBerries, voice recorders, PDAs, digital cameras and GPS locators – will soon morph into a multifunctional über-gadget. It will know your geographical location and have a constant connection to the Internet. It will play the role of your digital co-pilot to life.

Much of the information this co-pilot will provide will be practical. If you work in a downtown office tower, your gadget will let you know how long the lineups are in the food court below or what the daily specials are in nearby restaurants. As you walk or drive about the city, your über-device will alert you to items of possible interest in the area. If you’re house hunting, it will tell you that you’re only two blocks away from a property that just went on the market.

However, imaginative people are also looking to exploit these technologies to enhance non-commercial ways to connect to our surroundings, such as through poetry or song.

Yellow Arrow is a clever global public art project that invites people to leave and discover messages pointing out what matters to them in their neighbourhood. Participants point small adhesive yellow arrows to different locations or objects, such as a favourite view of the city, a local park or a telephone pole. Subsequent visitors can send text messages to a unique e-mail address on the arrow. They then receive a response message telling them what the person who put the yellow arrow there feels about that location.

Responses can range from literary quotations to personal commentaries. The message itself can be annotated with photos and maps at the YellowArrow.net website, making the initiative a multimedia, grassroots tourist guide that constantly evolves. As one Yellow Arrow participant explains: “I live in a city whose beauty is ignored and gets a bad rap from people living in bigger, brighter ones. But this city reeks with nice spots and places.” Just follow the arrows to find out more.

Grafedia.net is much the same idea, created by New York University’s John Geraci. Budding artists around the world are encouraged to write an e-mail address – any word or phrase followed by “@grafedia.net” – that subsequent visitors can then contact. In response, they will receive rich media content, such as images, video and sound files.

The grafedia link can be written anywhere – on walls, in the streets, in bathroom stalls or even in a tattoo. The goal is the same: to let visitors know about a special place in the world and to explain what makes it so special. Just another example of connecting to our surroundings in bold new ways. 

ADD YOUR COMMENTS > letters@enroutemag.net

Don Tapscott is a leading international consultant, author and speaker on information technology in society and business and the CEO of strategy company New Paradigm. Visit www.nplc.com or write to him at dtapscott@enroutemag.net.