Payphone Project

 Interesting routes my latest project has taken me down during the last month.

It would appear the #RecodeThePhone payphone project is now going places. Not only is it designed to save the old phone boxes from extinction by repurposing the payphones within them, I have had such a great response from people helping me verify the telephone numbers of the payphones still out there, with a plan to ring them all at once at strategic times of the year when we know the number of suicides spike, to play messages of hope and reflection raising awareness of mental health causes. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to work all the payphones in Salisbury let alone reach boxes across the whole country! I even made the local paper here. This is both unbelievably fantastic and a little bit scary at the same time. I am now connecting with support organisations who will help develop the message.

The video I made a couple of months ago where I stepped through the options of the new phone system has had a significant number of views over the weeks, that, combined with the views to the blog page I wrote has in Google's eyes qualified me to start monetising my project write ups. This is a surprising added extra.

So I'm going to start using my hacked payphone at home to individually ring the numbers I'm collecting and talk with the people who pick up as a means to start this ball rolling. I am in the process of submitting the idea to a recent BBC call for new podcast ideas and have to record samples this weekend. I'm thinking of calling it Talking Telephone Numbers or Chatter Box but the title is still a work in progress. I'm to properly spec it up and submit a detailed proposal.