Activity to prepare for my bit of the course

This is an activity to help get a stronger sense of what I mean by a soft technology, what one looks like and how it works. It is also quite good fun and might actually lead to some useful ideas and new (soft) technologies.

Designing a soft technology

Your mission

To provide at least one possible educational use for an unenhanced standard email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook Express that requires nothing more than that email client and its usual supporting infrastructure (such as computer, network connection, operating system etc). Your idea should involve no other distinct applications like web browsers, word processors, nor any other kind of server-based system such as a web server, shared storage, listservs, online schedulers or groupware. The point is to use the softness of the mail system: to fill the holes as manually as possible and to avoid complexifying the assembly.

Provide this in a form that may be aggregated with grsshopper and shared with others on the MOOC. 

The intention here is to focus on what phenomena are being orchestrated to what purpose in each case and (most importantly) how that orchestration occurs. The more complex, bizarre, interesting and ingenious the ways of using these better.