Exploratory or Exploitative?

We sure live in a crazy world nowadays. I'm going to blame it (at least a large part of it) on The Jersey Shore. I don't even know if that show is really on any more, considering that everyone that was on their original show is cashing in and selling out as fast as humanly possible, but I'm pretty sure we can blame that show for everything that is wrong with the world today. Just sayin'.  (I mean, c'mon. Snookie wrote a book? The guy who looks on steroids is trying to be some sort of talking head for Italian cooking? Why are they constantly guests on daytime television? Everyone knows they didn't actually do anything, right?... I'm not counting getting falling down drunk and being promiscuous as "doing" anything. No pun intended.)

So, once again, I've failed to properly plan my life around attending SXSW. Every year, I promise myself that I'm going to go and delight in the hipster-y mix of silicon valley-ites and indie-band-loving youths, and every year I fail. (I even have feather earrings and flowing, flowery dresses ready!) Either way though, a marketing firm called BBH Labs is getting a lot of flak this year at the festival because they've decided to use homeless people as hot spots. Yup. You heard that right.

They argue that this project is legitimate charity work, where the homeless would get paid $20 a day and get to keep any additional donations that festival-go-ers decide to give. Their job is to walk around and offer wireless to people in exchange for a donation (much like the Streetwise model that we see in cities like Chicago). BBH justifies this idea because, as the ever-connected crowd tweets, Facebooks and streams information, the surrounding cell towers get overwhelmed, often resulting in poor network quality for users. They argue that providing wireless not only improves the festival experience, but also provides a legitimate way for the homeless to make some money.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. Tim Carmody, a blogger at Wired, described the situation as "completely problematic" and sounding like "something out of a darkly satirical science-fiction dystopia". The actual participants though don't seem to have a problem with it-- in an interview, Clarence Jones said "I love talking to people and it's a job. An honest day of work and pay".

It's hard to disagree with that. Having been displaced after Katrina, I can understand that a job's a job. However, I think that there could a little more sensitivity. The shirts (see above), are provocative sure, but if this truly is a "charitable experiment", I feel like there could be a higher base pay (I mean $20? Really? That's not really living wages for a day's work.) and there should be some copy (er.... marketing language) around how BBH will additionally provide educational/housing/job placement services after the festival. If the argument is that they want to draw attention to the homeless issue (apparently this project was based off of another project where they gave homeless people cell phones to tweet about their daily lives), then there really should be more education wrapped up in this. Otherwise, unfortunately, I would agree that it seems to be a little more exploitative than exploratory or progressive.