PickupPal Blog

PickupPal is the ridesharing partner of the London Symphony Orchestra. Yes, we are!

Many people think that ridesharing is something that other people are doing: those rock’n roll-ers, virgin festival going groupies, hippies and tree huggers - the fact is that everyone can be interested in ridesharing, really everyone.

There is no demographic hierarchy that applies here. All kinds of people all going all sorts of places, and they are all thinking about how to get there in a way that has the smallest impact on our planet and that does not cost them a lot of hard-earned money. We all care about these things, well most of us do. From Sydney to San Francisco, skaters to triathletes, commuters to farmers, rock ‘n rollers to Beethoven enthusiasts..there is a compelling reason to rideshare, to come together, right now. And I know Eric blogged recently that you can’t be be everything to everyone and I agree with that. But I think we can be something to a whole lot of people and that PickupPal can helps us all get there from here.

-Suesan (Community Relations)

Dabra Sinick, Kirkland, WA resident is definitely on our wavelength!

The bottom line for us in today’s world is to use the power of the internet and combine it with the people in a neighborhood to make changes and get things done. Carpooling/ride sharing seems a great place to start. (Source: Sometimes it’s the simple solutions)

And she also offers some smart advice on using sites like ours, if you’re concerned about privacy you can use a pseudonym, be selective about what information you provide and: “you can meet someone at an intersection and not in front of your home. (Source: Sometimes it’s the simple solutions)”

One of the great things about being in the eco sector, is the depth and variety of other like-minded companies and individuals that you encounter. Surely the most interesting we have talked to recently are the folks behind GreenNexxus a website dedicated to creating a community in which people can share, knowledge, ideas and projects in the green space.

We think the synergies are so close with what we are wanting to accomplish at PickupPal, that we’ve decided to form an alliance, and through that, create awareness for each other’s offering. On the surface, what GreenNexxus wants to do sounds similar to what others may be doing in green community building:

However, when you dig deeper, you get some perspective on the depth of knowledge within the organization….GreenNexxus provides the website and tools for all of the Al Gore Inconvenient Truth presenters globally (>2,000 people) to collaborate, sharing knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in giving the presentation and raising awareness for the dire situation the environment is in. In fact, one of the founders, Peter Corbyn, worked with Al Gore to train just over 250 Canadians to give the presentation.

Reach out to them – once there you can sign up and gain info about eco-projects, or start one. You can even donate to non-profit green organizations at their site and get discounts on green products.

If anyone gets it, and knows how to build/support a community in the eco space, it’s GreenNexxus, and we’re thrilled to be working with them.

Brent – EVP Business Development, PickupPal

Eric has blogged about this issue: trust/stranger/feeling safe…In my mind, there is no way to be 100% sure that someone you are interacting with, who you have not known for a certain amount of time, is a “safe” person (for lack of a better word). At work, at the grocery store, at the park, at Uni, driving in the other car on the highway, sitting next to you on the bus, at the movies or at the symphony for that matter, we are surrounded by people we do not know. We all decide individually what we feel comfortable doing and who we feel comfortable interacting with, sometimes even talking to. We make choices everyday based on a whole series of individually-set criteria to go in one direction or another, or to do one thing and not another.

Ridesharing is not for everyone. But I think it works for a lot of people whose criteria for making the choice to share a ride with someone are met within the PickupPal community model. There are a series of tools that PickupPal provides to meet a number of these criteria (not all, but some)…
Tools such as:

• member profiles with photo
• gender preference matching
• in-system messaging
• post-ride feedback/evaluation
• five-star rating
• drive/ride statistics tracking
• community support with like-minded people
• people going to the same event/concert/festival

So with these tools to satisfy some criteria, and other personal decision-making criteria, that members may have, being met by such things as telephone conversations and /or pre-drive meetings, a lot of people (Pickuppal members) are perfectly comfortable to accept or offer rides with others members going the same way.

It is a challenge to support people to trust others and feel safe with others. And we at PickupPal, would never presume (or even try) to convince a person to trust another solely by virtue of the online community that we have created. What PickupPal does is offer a box of useful tools for its members that may (or may not) help inform their decision regarding sharing a ride/drive, it does not decide for them.

We are challenged as a society and at PickupPal to understand the trust relationship. To understand what makes another person a “stranger” (and strange/not trustworthy) and what needs to happen for someone to go from such a “stranger” to a person who you just may not know, but is worthy of your trust. What is our default position as a society? These are very interesting questions and to understand them and address them is, as I said, certainly challenging but also inspiring… At least to me.

-Suesan

With recent media attention I thought I would compile a handy list of media mentions for PickupPal.

Television:

• CBS 5 News - May 8 2008 - (PickupPal and rising gas prices)
• GlobalTV News - May 2 2008 - (Introducing PickupPal)

Blogs:

• About.com - June 24 2008 - (The Warped Tour and PickupPal are helping you get to the show - and save the environment)
• Footprint - June 23 2008 - (Calgary virgin music festival keeps it green)
• The Green Journal - June 23 2008 - (Put that thumb away)
• Going Green - June 22 2008 - (Creative Carpooling)
• Giver Culture - June 21 2008 - (Beat those Fuel Prices & Reduce Consumption)
• Uncover the Internet - June 10 2008 - (PickupPal - Connecting Drivers, Passengers and Packages)
• Tech Vibes - June 6 2008 - (PickupPal Makes Ride Sharing Easy For A Green Planet)
• Breaking News - Hub Canada - June 4 2008 - (PickupPal Picking Up the Business)
• NEWS.com.au - May 15 2008 - (Hitching a ride online)
• Virtual Economics - May 7 2008 - (PickUpPal is a great idea)
• Earth First - May 8 2008 - (New Green Carpool Service Matches You Up with Rides to Concerts)
• Mashable.com - May 7 2008 - (PickupPal Pushes Green with Carpools to Concerts)
• Clean Break - April 28 2008 - (Greentech and Web 2.0 collide with PickupPal.com)
• Hit Search - April 23 2008 - (PickupPal aims to ease congestion, cut greenhouse gases, make money)
• Mashable.com - February 6 2008 - (PickupPal is eHarmony for Hitch-Hikers)
• Mikel - January 16 2008 - (Another launch… Ride sharing 2.0)

Newspapers:

• Boston Herald - May 22 2008 - (Bands reduce carbon footprints - but their fans’ cars pollute)
• Toronto Star - April 28 2008 - (Buddy can you spare a ride?)
• LA Times - April 22 2008 - (It’s not too late to plan for Coachella, this weekend)
• National Post - April 27 2008 - (Stranded TTC riders have little sympathy)
• The Westerly - April 27 2008 - (Marathon goes greener with new initiatives)

Radio:

It is coming - just have to get the podcast setup.

Triathlon season is upon us in North America! Some of you may be brand new to the sport, and some may be crafty veterans, who’ve trained diligently all through the off season. I don’t fit into either category unfortunately…while I’ve done several, I have yet to get into the groove of extended preparation…for me, it’s usually defined in days, not months!

The first race in the Trisport Subaru series season is coming up on Victoria Day weekend in less than 2 weeks, and the intense training regimen that I started *yesterday* is in full swing - YIKES! My chicken legs will be buckling about 15 minutes in to the race. A personal race favorite is the Orillia course, where we’ve even had our kids (both < 7 years old at the time) enter in the Kids of Steel competition, so Triathlon can be a great family outing as well.

The Trisport Subaru series is the original Triathlon series in Ontario, well-organized and very professionally run, with 9 events throughout the region. This year, the same organizers have also launched a 70.3 race in Muskoka (In 2005, WTC instituted the Ironman 70.3 race series. This shorter course, previously known as a half ironman, consists of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run).

I’m thrilled to say that we’ve teamed up together with the folks at Trisport! They are very interested in providing additional value to their racers. So…if you are interested in ridesharing to any of these Tri’s, while making new friends and reducing your emissions, log in here and sign up:
events.pickuppal.com/races/Trisport
events.pickuppal.com/muskoka-ironman

Soon we’ll post a listing of Eco-Rideshare Partners (ERP as we like to call the program) such as Trisport on our website, so that it will be very easy for our PickupPal community to find concerts, festivals and sports events in their area to rideshare to and from.

See you on the course…I’ll be the one with the legs that resemble those you usually see hanging out of a nest!

Brent - PickupPal Business Development

So many artists are going eco-friendly – whether they are responding to their fan base’s desires or using their own massive influence to drive the trend, it’s ALL good…the point is they are starting to make a difference…both in the eco-consciousness of the world and in the actual reduction of carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Bands like The Bare Naked Ladies and Dave Matthews have been really early, positive influencers.

One thing is for sure, when you really, really believe in something, it’s easy to be enthusiastic about it, just as so many musicians are about the eco-wave. And thankfully nowadays, when what you believe in is also very good for the planet, other people tend to get contagiously enthusiastic about it too. I believe everyone CAN make a difference in reducing car emissions in different ways for example, you don’t need to just drive a hybrid (especially like this one!), you can also choose to share rides.

Over the last several months, we’ve been working very hard at forming new rideshare partnerships for PickupPal. Let me say that it has been REALLY refreshing to see and hear the overwhelmingly positive response we are getting when we reach out to connect with new potential rideshare partners. Whether it’s concert and festival producers; sports series directors or corporate sustainability folks, time and time again I hear…”This is GREAT!!! Thanks so much for your call. Timing is perfect.” In most cases, I barely have a chance to talk about the benefits when I hear them say “parking is a nightmare; traffic is a headache; WE WANT TO GO GREEN!”

It is clear to me from these conversations that the eco-consciousness of the world is changing around us, and changing very rapidly… I just bought The 11th Hour and watched it last night…and more than ever I’m convinced we CAN fix the problems in time, and that EVERY little action helps to do this. We may be down 2 games in the Stanley Cup Final, but we can bring it back. The wave of momentum is here to stay and growing every day.

Brent - PickupPal Business Development

Ah the dreaded carpool…leaving your house at 5:20 AM to drive 20 minutes to a parking lot by the local Timmy’s to wait 10 minutes to meet five other people who work in your building downtown. It’s “Bill’s” turn to drive this week so you pile into his car. And you get on the road. 3.2 of you fall asleep and “Bill” plays this week’s audio-book for the other 1.8 who stay awake. There you are “carpooling” five days a week, 50 weeks a year.

Hmm. I can see why all those HOV lanes are practically empty. Yes-this is a bit of a rant, but tell me if this is not how you imagine carpooling.

Look, I love audio-books, I really do, I love people and I love HOV lanes so don’t get me wrong, and i love carpoolers, they are an awesome lot, they are. One thing I don’t love is letting people down, or having to call someone to say I can’t drive every day this week ’cause I want to work from home on Thursday. You know? And I don’t love getting up at 5:00 AM, I don’t love cleaning the snow off my car and warming it up only to leave it outside in a parking lot all day, four weeks out of five. Truth be told, I don’t love “Bill”…OK, I know, I know… I am getting to my point…

PickupPal is not 1990’s carpooling, it’s 2008 casual ridesharing, it is car-ocean-ing (if you will). It is saying hey, I love people, I love this planet, I love sleep. I will share my drive to work today, not tomorrow, but the next day for sure. I will take one person today and maybe two the next day. On Friday, I am hoping to catch a ride after work to the amphitheatre, I have tickets to see the Dave Matthews Band. I am going there but I am not coming back, well not today anyway. Tomorrow, when I return, I will hop in with someone going my way. I really do want to double up to cut down, but I need my “pool” to be an “ocean”. That is who I am, and PickupPal works for me.

- Suesan

Try this one on:

Halloween + Candy Apples = Ruining it for everyone

O.K. so I will admit that is a really weird thing to talk about in the Spring and just an odd statement in general - however hear me out. If you grew up in North America as a kid any time after 1967 you know that taking homemade candy from strangers at Halloween was enough to make your parents Freak OUT! The needle in the candy apple syndrome - all those kids harmed because of crazy loaner neighbours and compounded by parental negligence. However you have to have a little context here -we are talking some 20 million kids at Halloween with many years of not a single incident of this occurring - some of the highly publicized cases turned out that it was either a parent or an uncle that was the culprit by either intentionally tampering or a child coming across his uncles heroin stash and mistaking it for candy and overdosing. Now I am not saying that this is trivial - any harm to a anyone is a horrible thing - however my argument is this - what was the end result of this fear? Our perception of our neighbours changed from one of trust to one of suspicion. Ohh the Milford’s down the road they have those crazy teenagers - you can’t trust them - throw out the homemade cookies. This then leads to what we have now - you really can only give candy made by a known manufacturer and is sealed in a wrapper - if you don’t well it will be thrown out - even if you put your name/number/and credit card number on your homemade packaging. This is great business for candy companies - this fear is awesome - one that needs to be kept up because it is great for the bottom line. However I feel it has been a big contributing factor in the deterioration of our communities and our sense of safety amongst our neighbours. When you start to fear your neighbour your community no longer feels safe and safety is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Still not convinced then let me if you will spin this around and take a look at Swimming pools:

• A swimming pool is 14 times more likely than a motor vehicle to be involved in the death of a child age 4 and under.
• Each year, approximately 1,150 children ages 14 and under drown; more than half are preschoolers (ages 0-4).
• Each year, an estimated 5,000 children ages 14 and under are hospitalized due to near-drownings.
• Of children surviving near-drownings, 5-20 percent suffer severe and permanent disability.

(Source - Swimming Pool Safety)

O.K. I have nothing against swimming pools - really I don’t - however when a child goes over to a pool party do Parents Freak OUT!? As if they are playing Russian Roulette with a Gatling gun? Nope. But why not? Because it is swimming pool - fun and sun and all that - sure there are risks but hey man life is filled with risks. Who gains by people fearing swimming pools? Now I don’t have a tinfoil hat on my head and I don’t think that the candy manufacturers are perpetuating the fear of Halloween - however I do think that there has to be a balance here. Halloween is still one of my favourite times of year and it has this cloud over it of worrying about what my kids are eating and if it is safe and if I can trust my neighbours and that quite frankly is just not a good thing.

So this is my dilemma - why is it so easy to fear our neighbours and believe the worst in people and conveniently do it in the name of safety even if the numbers don’t add up. Clearly based on the statistics you really should just fill in those killing machines we call swimming pools for the sake of the children. I am fascinated by how we learn to trust others and why we have found ourselves in a society of fearing our neighbours and what is the root cause - I am going to keep digging here so expect more on this topic.

Cheers - Eric
P.S. I know - what does this have to do with PickupPal? It has everything to do with PickupPal - Fear and Safety are huge issues and I want to figure out how we begin to trust one another.