This is a description of how a person might get involved in the Solution Exchange. (Note that some of the features mentioned here have not yet been implemented -- if you sign up as a registered user, you'll be notified when new features like this get introduced.)

Day 1

Ann gets her monthly e-newsletter from an organization she belongs to (let’s call it Travel Agents for Peace -- or TAP). One of the articles announces that TAP has recently posted its proposed solution to the Darfur crisis on the Solution Exchange. It describes the project briefly, and then invites its members to take a look at the site, being sure to stop by and respond to the TAP solution.

Ann follows the link in the newsletter, which opens up the TAP profile page on the Solution Exchange. In addition to a brief description of TAP and other basic info, the profile page has a list of TAP’s posts on the Solution Exchange. At this point there is only the one mentioned in the newsletter. Ann goes to the TAP solution on Darfur: “Send in a muscular UN peacekeeping force.” The solution page describes how the UN force will be organized, how the Darfur government could be convinced to accept the force, etc. There are links to the problem page, which briefly describes the Darfur crisis.

Beneath the solution are links to Forum topics that have been introduced in relation to it. Ann doesn’t think that the language is specific enough, and decides she wants to add suggest some revisions. The site informs her that she has to register first. She fills out a profile, chooses a username, etc. She checks off the option “email me if someone responds to something I write.” (There is also an option to set up an RSS feed, but Ann doesn’t know what that means so she declines. There are also a number of optional fields that Ann could fill in, in order to flesh out her personal profile, but she doesn’t choose to do so now.) After submitting her profile information (and responding to the confirmation email she gets), Ann is taken back to the TAP Darfur solution page, where she writes and posts her forum topic. She leaves the site.

Day 2

Ann has three emails from the Solution Exchange. Two indicate that she has gotten responses to her suggested revision Forum topic. Following the link in one of these, she goes directly back to the discussion of the TAP Darfur solution. She reads what has been written in response to her forum topic, and writes back. She reads some of the other new comments and Forum topics that have been posted to this section of the solution, adding her own comment to one of them. She leaves the site.

She notices the third email from Activist Solutions, which welcomes her as a participant on the site. It invites her to customize her personal page. She follows the link. Her personal page will be both her primary portal to the site and a way for participants to find out about more about her. It will have the basic demographic data she submitted the day before. She decides to add a picture and short description of herself. She’s invited to browse through categories of problems and solutions. She browses through some of the solutions that have been posted to the Iraq War and African AIDS pandemic, but doesn’t choose to post a Forum topic or a new solution of her own. Back on her personal page, she puts a checkmark next to both of those problems, as well as to the category “environment,” indicating that she wants to get current updates on the activity in those areas on her personal page.

Her personal page also has a series of blurbs from the Solution Exchange. One urges her to tell her friends about the site (she personalizes the email presented and sends it off to six people). Other blurbs offer a series of snapshots of recent activity on the site. Each snapshot includes an invitation to participate.

The first snapshot shows a sample of five recently posted solutions. The second snapshot lists a sample of five finalized solutions that are currently being rated. The third snapshot announces problems with solutions currently being circulated on petitions. Finally, the fourth snapshot features five problems with solutions that are currently being acted upon.

One of the problems with solutions being circulated on petitions reads: The Medicare trust fund is expected to fall short by 2018. Ann is intrigued, so she opens it up. She sees a brief description of the problem, followed by five brief solution descriptions. She reads through them quickly. One appeals to her – it’s called “Millionaires don’t need Medicare.” It calls for a sharp reduction in Medicare benefits for seniors with incomes over $1 million a year. She gives her electronic signature. She leaves the site.

Day 7

Ann has gotten email notifications on most days, pointing her to new responses to her posts in the discussion around the TAP Darfur solution. Today, one of the responses is from the author of the proposal, the communications director of TAP. He agrees with her that the TAP Darfur solution is too vague about the authority it would grant to the UN force. He asks her to re-write that section so it can be added to the next revised draft. She writes a new version as a Forum topic and posts it for him to read and consider.

Ann’s personal page on the site shows the latest activity on issues and problems that Ann has indicated an interest in (the Iraq War, the African AIDS pandemic, Environment). She notices that a new write-up of the climate change problem is going to be posted in a few days – people are currently discussing how best to frame the issue, including a breakdown of the different aspects of the problem.

Her personal page also has updates on the status of the “Millionaires don’t need Medicare” petition that she signed early in the week, showing her a constantly updated ticker of the number of signatures it’s received.

Day 14

Ann continues to get emails most days that notify her of comments to her various posts in the TAP Darfur solution. She learns from her personal page that “Millionaires don’t need Medicare” has gotten over a thousand signatures – its authors are now asking people who signed the petition to circulate it to their contact lists. Ann does so.

The climate change problem has been officially listed, and Ann decides to post a solution. She goes to the climate change problem page. The problem statement briefly describes the issue. There are a number of Open Forum pieces that are linked to the problem, as well, which describe the root causes of the problem in more detail, from a variety of points of view. Ann gives her solution a title (“Cut auto emissions by raising CAFÉ standards”) and then writes up a “solution summary.” (If she needs more space, she can write more under “further description,” but the summary space allotment is plenty for Ann.)

Before posting her solution, Ann has the option of attaching some labels to it that will help classify her solution with similar ones, and will tell other users at a glance what she is calling for. These labels – called “tags” – are shorthand descriptions of her solution in a number of different dimensions. One of the tag categories is “Outcomes Pursued,” so Ann types “lower auto emissions.” A window informs Ann that others have used the phrase “reduced auto emissions” instead, so she replaces her typed phrase with this one. Under “Actions Called For,” Ann puts in “raise CAFÉ standards,” and “build more hybrid cars,” using a similar process.

After previewing her solution, she decides to post it. (She knows that she will be able to revise it after it is posted, and will be able to keep revising it until the Selection Phase begins and she chooses to submit a final version).

Day 21

Ann has gotten a steady flow of responses to her climate change solution – too many to manage through her email account. She decides to discontinue email notification. Instead, she can see a list of these new responses on her personal page of the Solution Exchange. She makes the Solution Exchange her home page on her browser so she can keep track of the various discussions she is participating in.

In addition to the discussion of her own climate change solution and the Darfur TAP solution, which she has contributed to, Ann has also commented on several solutions to the “Iranian nuclear program” issue and the “Electoral College instead of popular vote” problem.

“Millionaires don’t need Medicare” has now accumulated over 7000 signatures nationwide. Its authors have initiated a new round of discussions about ways to publicize the solution further and build support for it. They have posted a series of goals: to collect another 10,000 signatures; to identify legislators who might be supportive; to identify organizations that might be supportive, to stage public events to attract more attention to the problem of Medicare funding and their solution, etc. They are asking for comments on these goals, as well as suggestions of other goals that they might want to add. Ann posts several comments.

Day 42

Ann has merged her solution to climate change, which called for raising CAFE standards, with another solution that called for subsidizing alternative fuel research. The new combined solution was submitted for the Selection Phase, where it got responses that were overwhelmingly positive, but not enthusiastic. In the end it wasn’t one of the five top solutions that began to circulate in petition form. However, one of the solutions that did make the top five called for raising CAFE standards as part of a larger long-term plan to reduce auto use. Ann signed onto this solution in petition form, and she is now discussing how to promote this approach to the public at large.

Ann has also become involved in the implementation of the “Medicare Benefits to Those That Need Them” solution. The solution has now gathered over 20,000 signatures nationwide, including over 400 in her own congressional district. Her congressman’s staff has agreed to meet with a small group representing the idea, and she has volunteered to be a part of that group.