Mapping is an application to which the crowds are eminently well-suited, geographically dispersed as they tend to be. Not only have we seen the masses contributing to maps of hot music gigs and filming locations, but now they're helping to create a map of San Francisco's urban forest too.

Now in beta, The Urban Forest Map is “a collaboration of government, nonprofits, businesses and you to map every tree in San Francisco,” in the project's own words. Starting with a database from public records, the project aims to communicate the value of the urban forest and engage communities in creating greener, more livable urban environments. Toward that end, citizen participants can not only search for particular types of trees in the San Francisco area, they can also add new ones that haven't yet been mapped by simply putting a dot on the map where they're located and then providing as much information about them as they can, including photos and factors such as species, size and trunk diameter. Citizens can verify the facts about the trees near them as well, updating as necessary to help track changes as the urban forest grows. The information added to the Urban Forest Map will be used by urban forest managers, landscape architects and planners to estimate future growth and planting opportunities, improve wildlife habitat, maximize ecosystem services, and grow a strong and healthy urban forest.

Perhaps even more interesting, however, is that for each and every tree, the Urban Forest Map taps a US Forest Service model to calculate the environmental benefits it's providing: how many gallons of stormwater it's helping to filter, how many pounds of air pollutants it's capturing, how many kilowatt-hours of energy it's conserving and how many tons of carbon dioxide it's removing from the atmosphere. The open-source project is available for use by any community; time to start “missing” the forest for the trees near you....? ;-)

Website: www.urbanforestmap.org
Contact: www.urbanforestmap.org/contact/

Spotted by: Anna Brones

In the United States, more than 40 cents of every dollar patients spend on health care goes toward insurance billing and overhead. That means clinicians must see more patients each day just to make ends meet, resulting in longer wait times, shorter appointments and higher costs. Aiming to apply some fresh thinking to an area that sorely needs it, Qliance has developed a new model for health care that works like a health-club membership and excludes insurance from the process.

Qliance reminds us of Hello Health for the way it aims to make medical services friendlier and more accessible for everyone. With three clinics in the Seattle area, Qliance gives its members unrestricted access to its clinicians and services for a monthly fee of between USD 44 and USD 129. No long-term contract is required; rather, members simply pay a registration fee of USD 99 and choose from two types of service plans—one with remote hospital coordination, or one with bedside hospital coordination by Qliance clinicians. Services include checkups, vaccinations, pneumonia, minor fractures, routine women’s health exams, and ongoing care for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension or obesity—the primary and preventive care, in other words, that accounts for 90 percent of the medical issues that drive people to the doctor, according to Qliance. For more serious problems, Qliance recommends that patients have wrap-around insurance plans; the company's providers also coordinate any necessary outside specialist or hospital care for their patients. The overall result? Shorter wait times, longer appointments (an hour for physicals, for example) and savings of up to 50 percent for patients and employers alike over traditional insurance plans. Open seven days a week, Qliance also reinvests in its clinics, electronic medical records and patient services the 40 cents of each dollar that would have been lost to billing and overhead, it says.

Qliance has already received USD 13.5 million in funding, including investments from Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell, and it's aiming to expand outside Washington as early as next year. One to get in on early? (Related: Doctor 2.0 uses IM & sticks to house calls — A simpler way to make a doctor's appointment.)

Website: www.qliance.com
Contact: info@qliance.com

Spotted by Susanna Haynie

Tourism agencies have become innovators in the arts of promotion—witness last year's job contest spotlighting the Great Barrier Reef Islands, for example—but lately we've seen several new efforts aimed at the influx of international visitors expected for a particular global event. Shanghai's AtYourSide service was launched to coincide with Expo 2010, for example; Africa Talking, similarly, is ideally positioned to benefit from the World Cup. The latest along those lines? Pass It On, an initiative to turn the nearly million New Zealanders who live overseas into a network of virtual ambassadors in anticipation of the Rugby World Cup 2011 event.

Kicked off last month by the Kiwi Expat Association, Pass It On aims to get expat New Zealanders to spread the word about everything the country has to offer. With funding, distribution and content support from a variety of New Zealand partners, the effort offers monthly prize draws for participants with Kiwi-centric prizes for the winners. Participants begin by signing up with the effort and then sharing stories from the Pass It On site with friends, family and colleagues—sharable videos focus on travel and cuisine, creative talent, and business and innovation. When the recipients of those stories follow the sender's link back to Pass It On and sign up, the sender earns “pass points.” Those points then become entries in a prize draw that takes place on the second Monday of each month; prizes range from locally focused T-shirts and ice cream to the Expat Reconnaissance Tour, an opportunity for four Kiwis living overseas to bring their best non-Kiwi mates home for a week of “money-can't-buy” experiences. Using the Pass Navigator, meanwhile, participants can view their “chain of passes,” including upstream and downstream statistics, the number of people reached, and the countries spanned.

As we've noted on so many occasions before, advertising can no longer hold a candle to the unstoppable force that is peer-to-peer promotion. How can your brand tap the power of crowdsourcing and social media for its own promotional gain...? (Related: Crowdsourcing the sales force — Referral program helps landlords find tenants on Facebook — Crowdsourced chocolate bar promotes Yellow Pages — InterContinental hotels get staff to share mates' rates.)

Website: www.passiton.co.nz
Contact: www.passiton.co.nz/About/Contact-Us/

Spotted by: Scott Riddle

Emergency rooms and health clinics are notorious for the long waits visits typically entail. That's why InQuickER—which we covered last year—emerged to let patients reserve a spot ahead of time, and it's also apparently why Singapore's Ministry of Health has developed a service to give citizens a real-time view from home of how crowded clinics are likely to be.

Part of the Ministry of Health's eCitizen effort, Queue Watch is designed to provide health patients with timely information to plan their visit to any of Singapore's many health clinics. A map on the site marks each of those clinics with two symbols—a red circle and a yellow triangle. Clicking on the red circle for any given clinic reveals not just the number of patients waiting for registration and consultation, but also live webcam images showing the waiting areas for registration, consultation and pharmacy/payment. Webcam images are intentionally out of focus to protect patients' confidentiality, the site notes. Clicking on the yellow triangle for a clinic, meanwhile, brings up information about its peak and non-peak periods.

By giving patients the information they need to plan which clinic to visit and when, Queue Watch promises to help them minimize the time they'll have to wait—and, at least as important—the frustration they'll experience. Time to bring that type of transparency to clinics and government offices all over the world!

Website: he.ecitizen.gov.sg/hecorp/qwatch.aspx?id=646
Contact: moh_info@moh.gov.sg

Spotted by: Sharon Sng

Potholes, stray garbage, broken street lamps? Citizens of Eindhoven can now report local issues by iPhone, using the BuitenBeter app that was launched today. After spotting something that needs to be fixed, residents can use the app to take a picture, select an appropriate category and send their complaint directly through to the city council. A combination of GPS and maps lets users pinpoint the exact location of the problem, providing city workers with all the information they need to identify and resolve the problem.

The application covers a wide range of familiar nuisances, from broken sidewalks to loitering youth (who will hopefully respond favourably to having their picture taken by concerned citizens). Compared with lodging a complaint by phone or in writing, BuitenBeter creates a nearly frictionless experience and will no doubt prompt a wider group of people to become active reporters of issues that need the city's attention.

Besides giving people an easy way to send through detailed reports, city officials also believe the concept will create shorter lines of communication, and will facilitate quicker feedback from local government to citizens. Developed by mobile solutions provider Yucat, the BuitenBeter app will soon be available for Android and Windows Mobile phones, too. Eindhoven has signed on for a twelve-month trial, and Yucat hopes to roll out the system to other cities in the near future. (Related: In San Francisco, civic complaints via Twitter — NYC challenges developers to create apps using city data — Tagging repairs for local government.)

Website: www.buitenbeter.nl
Contact: info@buitenbeter.nl