Things I Love – Joy Incarnate

I‘ll admit it. I’m a dork and become giddy with joy when I see some things in this life. Some of these are predictable (and in no particular order, include):

 

• small dogs (chihuahuas, and puppies especially)
• frothy coffee drinks especially if they involve local tasty coffee brands (oh Bicycle Coffee, I’m lookin’ at you, sweet thing)
• finding that a person has the same cultural touchstones as me (someday, I will run into another Change of Heart fan and spontaneously combust)
• Some fairly popular standbys of old – including old movies like the Sound of Music (especially if they’re the Sing Along version – more on that later).
• And lately, WeatherMob (more on this one, in a second).

To wit, here will be a reoccurring feature on my blog – things that I love.  Most of the times in life we can focus on what doesn’t work – the technology we battle, the politics we fight over, the relentless and unending frustrations that occur in our accelerated culture.  This is especially true if you travel for a living as a consultant, or deal with many deadlines or high pressure situations.  But if we don’t stop to note the moments when things do work well, when we do experience joy, we can forget their importance, and that life is often abundant of such beautiful, simple moments of joy. It’s something I see in many community driven Web sites (Little Big Details is a great example), and something I want to continue to spread in my own little way.

Here’s the first in my installment of a recurring feature I’m calling ‘Things That I Love’ – in no particular order, here’s the Mob!

 

Problem – what it solves:

So this is a little tricky.  Some of the products or services I plan to write about have clear solutions or clear ways of measuring their success.   This one turns this ‘problem’ of finding out what the weather is like – and makes it a far more social experience than one might think.  In this sense, it’s making a solution out of a problem that’s already been solved in terms of a competitive landscape, but it has identified an opportunity to make something we all experience – the weather – into a social network.

Analysis – understanding the problem:

If I need to find out the weather, I will most likely use the Accuweather app on my phone – partly because it’s the first on my home screen because of its position in the alphabet, and partly because it gives me the geekworthy meterological data I love – like the UV, pressure, and wind – not to mention a bunch of incredibly useful variables by health, ourdoor conditions and sport.  So for accuracy and hollistic picture, I’ll go to Accuweather.  For sheer joy factor, when I need a pick me up, I’ll fire up Weather Mob.    And here’s why.

Solution – how it solves the problem:

Weathermob takes community to the next level, by allowing people to share their weather and in a sense share their lives, right at that moment. It has integrated with many of the usual features of SoLoMo (social, local and mobile), and it means that strangers will comment on each other’s weather reports – which are usually photos mixed with your mood and your choice of an icon (from serious to the always popular ‘it’s the weather for squirrels’).  With a global audience you’ll be able to comment and hopefully cheer up someone in the UK who’s dealing with even more rain, or marvel at the pictures of someone’s beach adventure in Asia.  All of it is encouraged by a stable, beautiful and cheerful app whose content is crafted to be fun and encouraging – ‘for crying out cloud! We’re waiting for your reports’! ‘rain in your excitement’, and a bunch of other corny plays on weather that I have yet to find.

Result – and why I love it:

What’s the result of something like this? Again, never underestimate the importance of joy.  As a reader might notice, I’m a huge fan of Mad Men, and while it’s a remarkable show, it’s also a testament to the sadness of people in modern life.  Not surprising considering it’s a drama, but still, the amount of sadness that pervades the lives of these often very successful, very creative people is palpable.  Even when there is triumph in winning a new account, or falling in love, or experiencing positive moments like professional recognition in an award, there are twinges of sadness that have one thinking more than once of Thoreau’s desperate advice that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.  The human condition can be fraught with moments of sadness and frustrating – and also of joy, and of a multitude of shades in between that make up our experiences, both positive and negative.  Those moments of joy, however, are entirely within our power to experience, and in sharing them and spreading the gratitude and happiness we feel in experiencing them, we can at least rage against the dying of the light by creating little sparks of new light elsewhere.

I’m far from a Pollyanna on many things, but while I am often very cynical about technology and business (and where they intersect), I’m smart enough to know to remember to stop and smell the roses, take photos of them, share the moment, and in the case of the weather, share something beautiful with my fellow ‘Mobbies’.  I am currently the Chief Bureau Correspondent for my zip code (20 and counting!) and while I’m under no illusion that I’ll be off to the National Weather Office to pick up where my high school geography classes and fascinating with clouds left off, it still gives me joy to talk about the weather – and in this case, to share about it.  After all, “there’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.”

Posted By: Rachel M. Murray · In: thingsilove