Secret Scout
A gift exchange where nobody has to guess.
Draw names, then talk to your person’s Scout instead of guessing. It knows what they are into, and whatever it does not know, it asks them for you. They answer without ever finding out it was you who wanted to know.
Takes about a minute. The person running it does not need the app.
How it runs
- 01
Name everyone and draw
Type the names, say what everyone is spending, pick the day. Names are drawn the moment you finish, before anybody has opened a link.
- 02
Send each person their link
One link each, good for one person. Drop them in the group chat or text them one at a time. That is the whole job of running it.
- 03
Everyone meets who they drew
The first thing a person does is find out who they have, and start asking about them. Nobody waits on the rest of the group to get around to it.
The relay
Ask anything. Stay a secret.
Once you have drawn somebody you can talk to their Scout about them for as long as you like. What they wear, what they already own, the thing they said they wanted in March and forgot about.
When it reaches something it does not know, it asks them. The question turns up with no name on it, and it does not turn up straight away, because when a question lands would tell them something too. They answer in a sentence and it comes back to you.
What they see
Your Santa wants to know
Cosy neutrals, or loud patterns?
Three questions open at a time, so nobody gets interviewed. Three days to answer before it gives up and tells you to stop waiting.
They pick what gets shared
Before any of this, each person opens a card of things Scout already knows about them and ticks what it may pass on. Health, money and anything about somebody else never reach the card at all. Whatever they leave unticked, the other person’s Scout never hears.
Ideas that come with a reason
Scout brings back things inside the budget the group agreed on, and each one says which thing they told you it came from. “Because you said you swim outdoors,” rather than a pleasant sentence written afterwards to justify a guess.
Start one now, send the links later
Names are drawn as soon as you type them, and every link waits until the person you made it for opens it. Nobody has to be signed up first.
- To run one
- This page. No app.
- To be in one
- The Scout app, free.
- How many people
- Two or more.
Everybody else joins from the app.
