PlaidAlert, innovative new software from Sparkly Technologies in Devens, will make its test-market debut in Harvard April 1, just in time for Town Meeting. The product, which is accessible via computer or smartphone, relies on pattern recognition algorithms to prevent an increasingly common conflict at local gatherings.
Harvard was chosen for the test because the town’s male residents appear to be inordinately attached to plaid shirts, and utterly oblivious to the probability that their particular tartan might clash with one worn by a fellow citizen.
Wayne Mosfit, product manager for Sparkly, said recently that plaid mismatch is a daily but largely unnoticed occurrence in town. Mosfit cited the General Store, town board meetings, local sporting events, and the fall flea market as common venues for battling plaids. The semiconscious choice of one’s shirt becomes an unwitting faux pas that catches men unaware, perilously adrift on a choppy sartorial sea. While the conflict between Athens and Sparta is being reenacted between two incompatible plaids, awareness of this issue escapes their wearers.
While skeptics might argue that PlaidAlert is a solution in search of a problem, Mosfit makes a convincing case that social harmony—even of the subconscious kind—has a real value, and never more so than at this year’s Town Meeting.
PlaidAlert tracks in real time where and what tartan is on public view. Wearers are then alerted in the event that, for example, a Clan Cranstoun is approaching the vicinity of a Clan Wemyss, a sartorial no-fly zone. Faraway servers quickly assess the threat level of the clash and a text message or email is sent to both wearers, advising them to quickly change course to avoid the impending collision. Mosfit acknowledged that PlaidAlert might cause a great deal of seat-shuffling at Town Meeting and urged plaid-wearers to avoid the bleachers if possible.
