Chris and I had an interesting discussion today about my project. We talked about how the project could manifest itself and how to access data from different companies. It was decided that I needed to come up with a company to start working with and try to get data out of in order to make a prototype…it suddenly occurred to me that I could get data from my girlfriends florist shop as a starting point. It would prove interesting to map an aspect of flowers as they are an emotional gesture and could effectively give me a rich data set if I can get at it. The problem I face is that most of the transactions are analogue and as such they don’t have a digital interface that logs orders or stock control so there is no data to get at. There is a networked ordering system by flowersdirect that they use but it is such a large franchise that I cant really foresee getting my hands on the data. A solution that was suggested was to develop a system that can get at the non digital data and digitise it in a way that I could use for the project. Arduino boards were mentioned and I freaked out somewhat but the idea is great and is not beyond my reach…a bit more research methinks!