By Worldchanging Seattle contributor Deepak Singh:
Brian Dorsey likes lunch. He also likes meeting people. People not part of his usual circle, potentially those who think differently and have different interests. Like every self-respecting Seattle-based developer, Brian has built a simple, but useful service that allows us to build community, literally over lunch.
NoonHat is a simple website. All it contains is a map, a little circle, and a box where you can enter your email , and a calendar. You choose a location by moving the circle, which can be re-sized, to an appropriate place on the map, pick a date, and enter your email. Voila, on the date of interest, you get an email in the morning telling you who is also available (I believe the minimum is three) and you make mutually convenient arrangements.
Why is this so important? As Brian demonstrates so well in any talk on NoonHat, we are not talking to each other. We spend our time with our peers and people who think like us and do many of the same things we do. While the web provides us a wonderful medium to meet like minded people on the other end of the world, NoonHat demonstrates that we can leverage the web at the local level. We can change the world.
