Welcome to Tagnreaderville, a quaint village nestled near the metropolitan area of  Vancouver, BC.  It is here that our illustrative family of Suzy Shopper and Peter Procurer live with their two children — William the Wanderer and Betty Bookreader.  Tagnreaderville is a desirable living location for several reasons.  First, it has a wonderful climate for outdoor activities and boasts a beautiful golf and country club, as well as a ski resort.  Second, its public transportation system is rivaled by none, as it consists of bus, rail, subway, taxi and water shuttles.  Third, the local government is extremely focused and progressive, and includes elements such as a state of the art public library and an exceptional  K-12 public school.  Lastly, there are many fine shopping and dining options here as well.   

Suzy and Peter both have great health, a fact they attribute to their life in Tagnreaderville.   We’ll walk through a typical weekend in their lives.  Friday starts with Peter getting up and heading to work on the subway.  He uses his Tagnreaderville Ride and Commute Smartly (TRACS) card to zip through the turnstile and then uses it to express pay for a bagel and coffee to enjoy while he rides to the office.  During his comfortable ride, Peter reviews emails on his PDA and discovers that his favorite pub is having a Friday-night special on wines from his favorite vineyard and that his preferred Saturday morning golf tee time has been automatically booked for his foursome.  

Suzy starts her day by getting William and Betty up so they can get ready for school.  She then uses her PDA/auto list-maker to scan throughout the house for needed grocery, health and beauty care items.  All items are tagged, and when they are discarded in any trash receptacle, regularly consumed items are automatically added to her shopping list.   When the list is complete, she emails it to the local stores so that she can swing by after her morning yoga and pick up her purchases.  She gets a rapid response from the emails as to which items are: available (green); not available but have a substitute (yellow); or not available and have no substitute available (red). 

Suzy then makes sure both William and Betty have their school smart cards to use for any school supplies and for lunch purchases.  And, as long as they carry their smart cards, they will be tracked as they get on and off the bus and on school premises during the school day.  This safety measure is one that takes an enormous amount of stress off Suzy and Peter.   

Now that the kids are safely off to school and her yoga is complete, Suzy can gather up the laundry to drop off on her way to pick up the household items and groceries.  The trip to the laundry is quick and efficient.  Since each item of clothing is tagged, the drop-off is quick because all special care instructions are covered.  The pick up is equally efficient because she uses her Tagnreaderville United Merchant card (TUMs) for quick-pay.  It is the same card she will use at the grocery, pharmacy and home building supply store and most other errands she needs to run to get the family ready for a relaxing and invigorating weekend.  

While Peter is golfing with his regular foursome on Saturday, Suzy drops Betty off at the Public Library and takes William for a day of skiing up on Mount  Frequency.  She doesn’t worry about letting William ski alone while she relaxes by the fire because she and Peter purchased the skier care package.  This has the capability to track William’s movements throughout the resort and alert the ski patrol if he goes off premises or has an accident.  Suzy’s not worried about Betty being alone at the library all day either. Betty’s school smart card works as a safety measure in the library just as it does on the school premises.  In addition, Betty won’t spend extra time and frustration looking for books that haven’t been put back in their correct shelf location because the Tagnreaderville Library has smart shelves.  Betty can also create her own library web site that allows her to keep track of the books she has read, as well as read and write book reviews.  She will also get emails from the library alerting her of new additions she may find interesting, based on her reading history.  

All right, so Tagnreaderville is not a real place.  But all of the RFID technology and supporting business processes that made Suzy, Peter, William and Betty’s consumer experiences positive already DO exist and are implementable.  

Shall we begin that journey?