Honest Mail by Spidere, K prime
October 5th, 2007 1:56 AMWhile we were buying postcards from a DC tourist shop, we kept seeing the president's face. So we decided to try a little experiment. Instead of 20 random postcards, we got 10 different DC postcards...and 10 copies of the George W. Bush postcard. On the 10 DC postcards, we wrote "Who are you?" and on the Bush postcards, "What do you think?" On both, we added the Warmice address and a little bit of explanation: "This is part of a collaborative postcard project. Please write something about yourself, mail it, and see the results online. http://sfzero.org/tasks/Honest-Mail"
Kprime did all the handwriting, because we wanted them to be legible (Spidere's handwriting looks like a kindergartener's or a psychopath's). While she was doing that, Spidere got two packs of blue pens, to leave with the postcards. The idea, by adding instructions, plenty of open space, and leaving a pen right with each one, was to make it as easy as possible for people to respond. The fewer barriers to doing something, I've found, the more people you can actually get to do it. It's sort of surprising, but it's more important than how interesting it is, or how good...making something easy to participate in makes a huge difference.
After we'd prepared them, we started placing the postcards at various places around town, where we hoped people would pick them up and give interesting responses.
The first was left in the ice cream shop where we'd prepared the cards. Two in an independent movie theater. Most were left in a bookstore, hidden in various interesting books for people to find. One in a nearby international hotel. One at FedEx. One at McDonald's. The last three on the metro.
We wanted to strike a balance...between making them easy to find, where people would quickly see them and give us a response (but they could also be cleaned up and thrown away by the normal staff) and being more hidden (where they might sit for months, but were less likely to be noticed by people who might not care). So we may yet get more responses as people find some of the more hidden bookstore postcards--we'll scan them in and post them if we do.
The only Bush postcard we've received was blank, received the day after we left the cards (probably not even examined, just a good samaritan dropping the card in the mail). Maybe it's a harder question that people don't have an easy answer to? Or something they don't want to publicize on a postcard?
In any case, the three filled-out "Who are you?" postcards were each interesting, and a real treat to receive. Great task!
First received
The one Bush postcard. Empty. Makes a nice thumbnail, though.
Filled out cards and pens
Almost done preparing...
Who are you?
What do you think?
10 George W. Bush Postcards
They look almost eerie.
Left one
A Bush postcard, left in the ice cream shop window.
Left two
A Bush postcard, in an independent movie theater
The White House
Left three
The White House postcard was left in an independent movie theater (downstairs from a Bush postcard)
The Air and Space Museum
Left four
The Air and Space Museum, left in the Terry Pratchett section.
Left five
A Bush postcard, left in with the manga.
Left six
We the People postcard, left with The Princess Bride.
Left seven
The Capitol at Night (Kprime's favorite of the cards), left in the architecture section (her favorite section). We actually hid it away between two of the books after taking the photo.
Left eight
A Bush postcard, left in the "Teens" section.
The Jefferson Memorial
Left nine
The Jefferson Memorial (Spidere's favorite), left with Dr. Seuss (one of Spidere's favorites). We got this one back!
Left ten
A Bush postcard, left in a stack of George W. Bush Voodoo Doll kits.
Left eleven
A Bush postcard, left in a stack of Hillary Clinton Voodoo Doll kits.
Left twelve
A Bush postcard, left in America: The Book.
The National Cathedral
Left thirteen
Lucky number thirteen, left in a leather journal. This one came back!
The WWII Memorial
Left fourteen
The World War Ii memorial; we tried to find the most interesting magazine we could to leave it in. This one seemed promising.
Left fifteen
A Bush postcard, left in the lobby of the Hotel Harrington, "Washington's international hotel". also known as the Bat Hotel because of its logo.
Left sixteen
A Bush postcard, left in FedEx. We tried to be subtle in placing postcards, but the FedEx guy had his eye on us.
Left seventeen
A Bush postcard was left in this McDonald's.
The Pentagon
Left eighteen
The Pentagon postcard, left in the Gallery Pl. Metro stop.
The Capitol Building and Garden
Left nineteen
The Capitol Garden postcard, left on a green line metro train. We saw a guy pick it up and look at it, but he'd seen us leave it there, and the fact that we kept staring at him didn't seem to help. in fact, I think Spidere may have creeped him out a little. Someone else must have eventually picked it up, though, because we got this one back!
The Capitol Building
Left twenty
The Capitol postcard, the final card, also left on a green line metro train.
Second received
Picked up on the metro. Neat to see.
Third received
Found in a journal. Our personal favorite. Not quite sure we've deciphered what it says, but it seems to be: "I am the real emailer(?). Started last summer when I was stuck in California. I have spent all my life, and now living w/o being openly acknowledged. Nakesh st. (F) Kennedy"
Fourth received
Found in Dr. Seuss. A nice letter.
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(none yet)10 comment(s)
Absolutely lovely. Giving out blanks with a prompt is a brilliant take on the task, and I love the drop locations.
Also, extra cool points for a rigorous statistical analysis. Hooray for precision in all things. Even silly things.
Hope some of your correspondents show up here. I'd rather like to meet (and acknowledge) the REAL emailer.
Ohhh...this is making me miss home. Did they ever open up the newseum again? I really hope you guys get some of the mailed back to you!!
What a lovely completon. If only we had thought about including biros with our postcards in our completion. We only recieved one out of 6 back and that was blank :(
Leaving the pens was an excellent idea. I bet you'll get a GW one back. If I saw one of those, I'd be way too tempted to not to do it.
I really like! Wish i would find a postcard like that somewhere...
Damn the Royal Mail postal strike. I wanna do this task.
Fisher's two-sided exact test....NERDS! Anyway, i actually appreciate it. It'd be interesting if you got a statistical result (although your starting n=20 makes that probably unlikely). Nice task. I don't really know if it fits the exact spirit of the task in its original inception, but your take makes it all that more interesting. Good job thinking this one through!
Beautiful work, guys. Such a great narrative, too! I'm showing this completion to friends because it has such potential to inspire others to play, since I have no fellow players near me. Thank you!
By the way, a statistical test of significance indicates that given the replies, there is not enough evidence to show a correlation between the type of postcard (DC vs. Bush) and whether or not people send it in. P-value of 0.582 (0.2105 if you count the empty Bush card as a no-reply), using Fisher's two-sided exact test for categorical data.