With COVID-19 meaning social distancing is the new norm, we’re seeing profound effects on our lives. Face-to-face meetings, gatherings and events aren’t possible, making this a difficult time for the general population and most industries. For many businesses, budgets are under increasing pressure as revenue streams are cut and operational and marketing methods undergo huge upheaval.
As a society, we’re worried about our health, our families’ health, our wellbeing and our job security. Now is not the time for brands to choose a hard-sell approach, or to appear to be ‘cashing in’ on – or even preying on – social insecurity, as audiences become less receptive and more critical of insincere marketing.
So how can businesses maintain those physical interactions that are so vital to customer engagement, and promote their services in as effective and relevant a way as possible?
One option for connecting with your customers is through hosting a digital event.
Digital events have become more prominent in the last few years, and offer a range of benefits:
Two of the primary forms of digital events are webcasts and webinars. The terms are often used interchangeably, but in fact, they both feature a distinctly different approach to hosting an online event.
If you want to engage with a larger audience, featuring tens or even hundreds of participants, a webcast is an ideal way to broadcast your message.
Webcasts are typically a one-way flow of information shared over the internet, delivered like a lecture or speech. In cases where there are a large number of participants, a webcast gives you the opportunity to deliver a valuable presentation with minimum disruption.
If you’re looking for a higher level of engagement with your audience, a webinar might be a better option. A webinar more closely resembles a meeting, often with fewer participants who are more involved in the content. In this two-way, interactive option, your audience can ask questions, and there’s more opportunity for you to drive direct interaction.
For the very highest level of engagement where creativity and collaboration is needed most, virtual workshops create an effective environment within the digital sphere. In ‘real-life’ face-to-face creative workshops, structure is often more fluid, but this can be difficult to achieve in an online environment. To successfully deliver a virtual workshop, you should have a clearly-defined process for organising and managing participation, and use easy-to-implement, highly intuitive technology, to smooth the delivery process.
If you’re looking to fully replicate an existing conference or event, then a virtual tradeshow could be well suited for you. Virtual tradeshows can be hosted indefinitely, taking place online with on-demand information. By using live chat options and providing customer support, your visitors can experience the same feeling of instant, responsive communication as they would in a face-to-face expo.
In a virtual tradeshow, you can host digital exhibition halls, booths and auditoriums, helping you to replicate the immersive experience of a real-life event. However, it’s worth noting that this type of event the longest lead time, and can be costly to set up.
In this blog, we look at the different types of digital events, how you can build your audience for your events, and provide some top tips for success.
Different events will attract different audience sizes and levels of engagement. Its success will often rely on the quality and number of participants in the audience you manage to attract.
Traditionally, digital events are split into two audience segments; your existing database contacts, and audiences built through new lead generation.
Unless you have a well-managed and maintained database of contacts, GDPR and other data legislation, such as CCPA, can restrict the opportunity for direct email invitations to your event. So you’ll need to check this, and consider alternative lead-generation tactics if this is the case.
Social media is a great tool for driving lead generation when used creatively, and can be supplemented through media partnerships or other paid media channels – for example, search engine advertising.
One of the greatest benefits of a webinar or a webcast is that either one can be held live or made available on-demand, depending on the platform you choose to host your event. By making an event recording available after it’s taken place, you can make connections with customers and prospects who can’t necessarily attend in real-time, or who may be researching the subject after the event has already taken place.
In fact, with any online session you’ll want to consider post-webinar activity – just as you would with a live event. Your digital session is just the beginning of potential engagement, and with strategic follow-up activity you can continue to nurture leads and maintain interest. Repackaged content following a webinar can be an ideal way to sustain the conversation with customers, as can additional ‘exclusive’ materials.
With a combination of session playback and additional content, your sessions gain additional longevity – and that means maximum impact for your brand.
At P+S, we’ve been hosting digital events for years, both for our own brand, and for our clients too. Our top tips for success include:
When it comes to digital events, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and execution of lead generation campaigns, to designing and copywriting your presentations and content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet – and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of digital event would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing [email protected].
Paradigm shifts, the ‘next big thing’, world-changing, disruptive, next-generation, XYZ 2.0… superlatives are at home when it comes to digital technology. So, it’s not surprising that most people roll their eyes at the introduction of the next tech game-changer.
With the gift of hindsight, we can see which emerging technologies were worth the hype over the last few decades – but they’re few and far between. The home PC, and in turn the laptop, the internet, and the smartphone: for the general consumer, these are the few revolutionary technologies that have truly impacted the way we live, work, shop and socialise, paving the way for smaller evolutionary trends which dictate our behaviour.
But is it really possible to make predictions on the next big shift in tech?
Well, hold your eye-rolling for now. Because it’s likely already staring most of us in the face.
Virtual reality (VR) has the Ronseal factor: it’s a self-contained digital ‘reality’ which you can digitally interact with.
VR has been around since the late 70’s. The most commonly cited first incidence of its use is from NASA, when their artist-in-residence David Em created the first virtually navigable digital world. But today you’re more likely to find it used for a video game or perhaps a training simulation.
Augmented Reality (AR) is slightly different. Instead of being self-contained, AR superimposes virtual elements onto the real world: it augments our physical reality.
You’ll most often find AR used on smartphones and tablets, making use of the device’s camera. Those social media filters which give you dog ears or a drastic makeover? They’re a form of augmented reality. And ‘Pokémon Go’ uses AR too.
AR isn’t new, but it is being used in increasingly novel ways – and no, we don’t mean the new filters which make you look like an attractively chiselled supermodel.
AR has potential because while VR removes you from the real world, AR supplements your experience with reality – and can actually increase your engagement with the real world.
Imagine, for example, your VR headset didn’t block off your view of the real world. Instead, it’s a set of glasses, much like a normal set of eyeglasses, but provided a digital overlay of useful information. As a construction worker, you could look at a site and immediately be presented with spatial calculations which could help you cut materials to size without needing a measuring tape. As a surgeon, you’d be able to see your patients’ vitals in front of you, without even turning your head. As a consumer, you’d be presented with information about the materials which make up the clothing you’re about to buy.
All these are real examples – albeit mostly in their infancy. But they have incredible potential to become true game-changers with the right thinking, creativity and application.
Through a combination of enhanced engagement and the presentation of useful information, AR’s possibilities are limitless.
We could go on about the complexities, challenges and intricacies of AR, but instead we’ll keep it snappy, as you’re busy holding down the fort in the real world.
Instead, let’s do a quick summary of AR today:
· AR won’t replace computers
While AR may displace some computers, there’s merit keeping most of them. For example, while some companies have experimented with the addition of an AR dashboard in (mostly luxury) cars, this is unlikely to become the reality for the general public – who needs another distraction while trying to navigate rush-hour traffic? A satnav is plenty enough.
· AR is platform agnostic
AR isn’t owned by Apple, Android or Microsoft: its technology can be used in combination with any of the Big Three (and any other brand, for that matter) as long as the device itself is compatible.
• AR is still in its discovery phase
While we’re already using AR on smartphones, this is unlikely to be its final form – the screens simply aren’t big enough for us to appreciate its full potential. There’s so much scope for AR to play with all our senses: haptic feedback (pressure sensing) could be used for us to more accurately ‘interact’ with virtual elements; eye-tracking could ensure whatever information we need in our peripheral remains in constant view; geo-location and movement tracking can even further blur the lines between the physical and digital. In all likelihood, the vehicle for delivering AR experiences will depend on its context and use case – and that’s really exciting.
• AR could see new tech behemoths emerge
The companies who use AR to its full advantage could well usurp many of the larger, well-established players who ignore it. This may seem overzealous, but in 2000, who could have guessed where Microsoft, IBM, or even Facebook would be today?
If technology’s history has taught us anything, it’s that when a new piece of revolutionary technology comes along, it’s true magic is revealed when it collides with culture. It’s the crucial intersection between technology and the arts which offers the most potential.
Right now, the first wave of AR applications sit in two camps: utilitarian or ‘just for fun’. What we’re seeing today is not dissimilar to the very beginnings of an App Store.
The next wave will come when vehicles for delivering AR experiences gain traction, such as the AR glasses we mentioned above (Snapchat, in fact, launched ‘Spectacles’ as far back as 2016). Not only will we see utilitarian use cases strengthen, we’ll also see AR branch out into new markets.
From seeing how much fuel your car has left just by looking at it, or receiving real-time walking directions without ever having to look down at your screen; from your phone notifications appearing in your periphery, to shopping for new clothes seamlessly without ever having to try them on, thanks to a new AR mirror that superimposes new styles onto your live reflection.
These new applications will go beyond making life more convenient: they’ll start to build the standards behind the tech, and ignite discussions about how our technologies ‘talk’ to each other.
As for the third wave… That comes down to data.
Now is the perfect time for brands to get ahead of the game when it comes to using AR in ways that will truly inspire and engage their audiences.
There are limitless opportunities. Why not contact us today at [email protected] to discuss your goals with our team.
This experimental interactive short by filmmaker Ru Howe is one of the first films crafted with trailblazing technology from Bristol based start up stornaway.io which lets filmmakers create story game experiences easily and creatively without coding. Released at Immersive Encounters this week, you can watch it here.
Part funny vlog, part game, the viewer gets to follow Wolfie all over Bristol, on multiple paths through the city – encountering and re-encountering memorable characters across two timelines.
Behind Howe’s signature jump cut editing and Wolfie’s wide eyed vlogging are layered some wonderfully meditative moments and conversations.
Life Moves Pretty Fast was made hand in hand with the creation of Stornaway.io itself. Originally mapped out on Howe’s kitchen wall with pieces of paper, he and producer Kate Dimbleby used the creative production process to design and prototype an authoring tool which would put the creative process at the heart of stornaway.io‘s revolutionary drag and drop vision.
The film was shot in 2 days with a cast and crew of professional friends on a minimal budget.
Life Moves Pretty Fast is designed to be watched and replayed multiple times – there are over 40 minutes of gameplay (if you find all the secret paths!) but allow yourself 15-20 minutes to take Wolfie through 2-3 different journeys of discovery.
If you are a filmmaker or business interested in making your own interactive content, please contact [email protected] or go to the website and sign up for a free 30 day trial and discounted licenses
https://www.lifemovesprettyfast.io
Lawless and Inspired have combined to bring together the UK’s best emerging street-artists and their influencer networks, allowing agencies and brands to tap into visual culture. Artists include Jody Thomas who created the 15m high Greta Thunberg wall mura, which highlighted issues of climate change and was featured on the BBC, across national press and went viral on social media.
The Lawless Inspired partnership aims to harness the power of today’s creative pioneers, to deliver physical/digital projects that excite and inspire. Alex Kopfli, Director at Inspired notes ‘by joining forces, we essentially offer agencies and brands a turn key solution, delivering creativity through artistic talent, brought to life by impactful real-life productions merged with digital creativity. The concepts are then distributed to an authentic and sizable audience online through our network.’
Since Lawless launched during the Covid Pandemic, the niche influencer agency has started working with brands to deliver artist-led creative solutions, adding a stamp of cool and credibility to brand campaigns and executions. Lawless Studio has already built up an impressive roster of artists, with the likes of Jody Thomas, Jack Watts, Nerone, Bond Truluv and Shay Casanova, reaching a significantly growing audience of 760k followers as a combined network, quality audiences loyal to each artist they follow, and trend setters in their own right.
Josh Moore of Lawless Studio calls out Inspired’s ‘exceptional track record in delivering first-class brand experiences for the likes of Wavemaker, Mediacom, M&C Saatchi and Fuse’ is the missing piece to the puzzle of delivering stand out creative solutions.
‘We now have the production capacity and logistical know-how to give brands access to creative pioneers and allow them to create amazing content, to give credibility and authenticity to brands through their output, and also reach huge dedicated followings through their social channels.’
One of the tools we used during discovery were sacrificial concepts. They enhanced discussion with participants, and provided a foundation for the upcoming design sprints.
Here, we’ll explore what sacrificial concepts are, and why they are useful.
Sacrificial concepts are a tool originally developed by the design firm IDEO. They are used in early research as a stimulus for discussion, and are different from presenting prototypes later in the design process for the purposes of testing or validation.
Sacrificial concepts are:
Sacrificial concepts can be a powerful tool to enhance discovery. For the health and wellness project, they gave us a deeper understanding of people’s attitudes and needs, which enhanced the research insight, design principles, and set of personas from discovery.
We entered the design sprints with a better idea of how much information different people wanted and why, what type and depth of information they wanted, and how they might want to engage with the service.
Mace & Menter are specialists in service design, user research, discovery and prototyping for public services, health and the third sector.
To find out more, contact us on 020 7193 8952 or email [email protected].
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#HoodDocumentary writer/Director Tyrell Williams releases timely interactive short comedy “A Little Hungover” at Encounters Film Festival with pioneering Bristol-based interactive filmmaking creation platform Stornaway.io
Stornaway.io are incredibly proud to announce the release of Tyrell Williams’ A Little Hungover, the first independent short film to be created and delivered using our next generation interactive filmmaking platform Stornaway.io.
Directed and shot by Williams under lockdown with cast and crew in 4 remote locations, A Little Hungover is a hilariously awkward and timely interactive comedy in which naive employee Sam (Patrick Elue) takes a video work call with his boss Alex (Elizabeth Hammond) after a big night out.
By choosing how he responds, the audience get to navigate the thin line between being honest and being employed – and then to watch and replay as his boss’s mind games become increasingly toxic and unpredictable.
Should Sam fess up or keep telling lies to his boss? In 2020, the rules for young employees are more uncertain than ever.
Tyrell, famous for his viral Youtube and BBC3 mockumentary series #HoodDocumentary, had a vision of a crossover between film and game. To realise it, he partnered with Bristol based start-up Stornaway.io, whose trail-blazing interactive film-making platform aims to challenge Netflix for the ability to create highly entertaining interactive shows. The film was funded by a small grant from West of England Creative Scale Up.
“I learned about Stornaway.io at a moment when the future of storytelling was so uncertain. They’re pioneering a practical and affordable way to create exciting interactive narrative films, and importantly, they were continuing and evolving the relationship between artists and audiences.” says Tyrell.
Stornaway.io’s revolutionary drag and drop tools allowed Williams to work remotely writing and editing the interactive story collaboratively with Stornaway.io founders Ru Howe and Kate Dimbleby.
“Normally, an interactive production like this would be a hefty software development project requiring developers, large team and budget and some chunky hardware – and you wouldn’t get to test how it plays, until the very end, when it’s too late to change anything,” says Howe, Stornaway.io’s designer and co-founder.
“The really new thing about Stornaway.io is that you can do it all in a web browser without coding, and instantly edit and playtest your story from the idea stage right the way through to delivery. With interactive and immersive storytelling, that is powerful ”
Since their soft launch during lockdown in May, Stornaway.io has been working with high-end TV production companies like Plimsoll Productions (Netflix’s Night on Earth ) and Drummer TV ( Gymstars, The Boy on the Bicycle) developing programme ideas for streaming platforms.
However, one of Stornaway.io’s original aims was to put its technology in the hands of new generations of media-makers.
“We were delighted to be introduced to Tyrell, who had a topical idea that needed to be done in a fast turnaround low-budget independent way, under lockdown.” says Howe
It is fitting that Howe should open up this technology for young filmmakers. Alongside his day job working for broadcasters, Howe was one of the world’s first vloggers, whose online persona ‘Wolfie’ made Tik-Tok type videos (as far back 2003, even before YouTube) lip-synching to songs and movie scenes from his desk. His 2005-10 projects Fatgirlinohio and Twittervlog pioneered what we now recognise as the classic YouTube daily family vlog, playing with increasingly lo-fi mobile and pocket devices and the intimate connection with his audience – becoming the world’s first mobile vlogger to Twitter in 2007, and always working to enable other film and video makers to embrace affordable technology and workflows. Along the way, he created the first ever interactive film on YouTube (Indecision, 2008).
As he points out, “Until now, interactive production has been difficult and expensive. Charlie Brooker said that making Bandersnatch for Netflix was ‘like doing a Rubik’s cube inside your brain’ because there weren’t any tools aimed at professionals, so ‘everyone went a bit bananas.’ Stornaway.io changes all that.
We’re releasing discounted licenses and working with film schools to get this ground-breaking technology into the hands of the next generation while the high end market works through it’s long-lead times and post-Covid slowdown.”
Interactive trends are visible in the mainstream, Stornaway creative director Kate Dimbleby says,
“ Even in linear TV, you see this agency being given to the viewer with things like Fleabag talking to camera or I May Destroy You ’s multiple endings. This is going to be a decade of massive innovation in storytelling and narrative structure and a big blocker to that has been the lack of tools and outlets for creators.”
Having never worked on an interactive story before, Tyrell says :
“The software was easy to navigate and useful for me as a writer to have at hand. It made it easy to understand how the film would unfold in its interactive form. There’s something very immersive about doing this as a writer – an interesting relationship that forms between creatives and audience that shares qualities with immersive theatre.”
Stornaway.io’s simple creative-focused design unlocks the potential of this new form for the 2020s. It makes it really easy for creators to dream up otherwise impossible interactive ideas, to give their audiences agency and craft different paths and perspectives through their stories.
A Little Hungover will be released on September 18th at the Encounters Immersive festival, and will remain available there for a limited release this autumn. Stornaway.io will release their new version with a 30 day free trial and new features.
Stornaway.io’s second independent interactive short, founder Ru Howe’s Life Moves Pretty Fast, filmed in multiple locations across Bristol, will be released at the beginning of October, also at Immersive Encounters. For more information go to www.stornaway.io or contact [email protected]
By Rob Pellow, Digital Experience Director for Armadillo
As we are coming to the end of the financial year it is important that we re-discover the true meaning of innovation for the next financial year.
Having graced the world of digital design, marketing and email for over a decade, I’ve read lots of the prediction pieces that get shared at the end of every year, but over the past few years, I’ve noticed that the bit that keeps getting forgotten is the why.
Why are certain trends being put forward? If I was an email marketer, the number of shiny things I should be using in my day-to-day life, based on predictions articles and innovation conferences, would be overwhelming. And being told I should have dynamic content; interactive carousels, hyper-personalisation and countdown timers, doesn’t actually help me define what my challenges are, or how best to solve them.
Some things remain the same for email marketers:
1. People don’t treat email as a priority channel – despite regularly being the most popular form of communication (according to the DMA 2019 consumer email tracker report) and having one of the highest ROI of all channels.
2. Unclear or non-specific channel objectives.
3. A lack of long-term investment in moving email and CRM programs forward.
So, this year, I’m not going to predict. I’m going to hope. I’m hoping that we can revive the true meaning of innovation and start using email effectively again.
There are a number of questions to ask yourself before sending out any email. What do you want your users to do once you’ve sent that email? Are you including ‘innovative’ elements because you can or because you are clear on the effect you think it will have? Having answers to these questions will allow you to develop a more focused and purpose driven email marketing campaign, and get results.
You will be constantly fighting for consumer inbox time. With most of us spending 21 minutes a day over-checking our email inboxes and 77% of people turning to their email in moments of boredom, there are plenty of opportunities for consumers to read your emails but also thousands of competitors that may be lying in wait.
In the email marketing world, your competitors are not necessarily the standard business competitors, but any other brands in the inbox, and the average consumer is signed up to 12 mailing lists with each individual receiving up to 121 emails per day, 51% of these being regularly deleted without being opened. Why should the consumer open your email over anyone else’s?
There’s a difference between being ignored for a while and being unsubscribed from. Zettasphere and Emailmonday’s report shows over 50% of unengaged consumers are simply waiting for the right moment or offer in which they are more emotionally engaged.
The challenge is to deliver genuine value to your audience, not have just one successful email with a high open rate. If you want to start being able to build a relationship with your users, you need to send emails that tell you something about what they engage with.
This is a great reason to use interactivity – you can use tracking pixels to record what groups or individuals click on without asking too much of them. Presenting a ‘hard’ call to action such as ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Find out more’ is asking for a level of commitment from your users. An arrow in a carousel or drop down is only encouraging them to learn a bit more without starting a new journey. This means you have the opportunity to include more content and allow people to explore your offering in fun or engaging ways without asking too much of them. You might find fewer people click the hard link but those that do will be more committed to the conversion journey. If you’re using tracking pixels to understand how and what people are doing inside the email then you can not only add that to your overall CTO rate, but also begin to personalise the types of content you show to individuals based on actual data.
Emails can’t be a quick fix but they can be hugely effective when used correctly. Use the channel appropriately and respond to what people tell you through their behaviour. This will get you the best results when it comes to consumer engagement and satisfaction. I would love to be attending conferences next year and reading prediction pieces all centred around customers and their needs. It’s great to shout about what is possible in an email, but we need to use these as tools to complete a job, not as the goal itself.
My hope for 2020 is that brands will begin to be able to effectively articulate why they have an email program – both internally to the business AND to their potential users – and what is in it for the customer, then use all the attractive shiny tools at their disposal to live up to that promise over the long term. More importantly, they can measure more effectively whether or not it’s having the impact they expected and start to tailor the offering to what people actually tell you they are interested in.
Article originally published on Digital Doughnut on 9/01/2020
Join us and BIMA as the Head of Immersive Tech Council, Nicola Rosa, delivers a masterclass on Immersive Tech. Nicola will help attendees understand the possibilities of immersive technologies in this 2 hour masterclass.
This event is free for Bristol Media or BIMA members.
Nicola Rosa, Product Strategist, Accenture. Chair, BIMA Immersive Tech Council
Nicola is a Product strategist, experience designer, and digital transformation expert, Nicola is currently part of the Accenture Digital UKI where he is the Go-To Market Lead for XR (AR,VR, and MR). With more than 15 years of experience in the media and entertainment industry, Nicola worked for companies like Atari, Google, Spotify, Yahoo!, Virgin Radio and IBM iX designing B2E, B2B and B2C digital products and numerous App Store hits.
The mastercalss takes place on Wednesday 12th February, 3-5pm in the auditorium at Prophecy Unlimited, Glass Wharf, Bristol.
Tickets are free if you are a Bristol Media member or BIMA member, or £15 + VAT for non-members. To get your Member discount code email [email protected]
If you’re not a member, please BOOK HERE
A new user research and user experience (UX) lab has opened at Bristol’s Harbourside arts centre, the Arnolfini. It has been purpose-built for conducting and observing qualitative research and usability testing by UX and service design specialists Mace & Menter.
The lab consists of an interview room and a large observation room linked with high-quality audio and video streaming. Omnidirectional Shure studio microphones and speakers as well as 4k cameras, 65” screens help make up the comfortable and relaxed, researcher-designed environment.
Using a lab to observe how people use a digital product or service means companies can base decisions around future strategy and development on evidence rather than guesswork so the product has a higher chance of succeeding.
The space is available for use to Bristol’s growing technology sector. Mace & Menter will also use the space to run its own research – carrying out face-to-face depth interviews and usability tests – exploring a problem or a design concept with the people they are designing for.
Mace & Menter are specialists in service design and user experience for complex services. The team work with organisations, including the Government Cabinet Office, DCMS, Policy Lab, Scope, and V&A, that want to significantly improve the way people experience their services.
Bristol was also named the most important and productive tech cluster in the UK in Technation’s 2018 report with 225 start-ups and 35,924 digital jobs in the city.
Sam Menter, Mace & Menter’s Co-founder and Managing Director, says: “Our work is all about the experience of the people we design for, but also of the people we are working with. Experience is about so much more than what we deliver, it’s also about the journey. When we were designing and building the lab, we thought carefully about both the participant and the observer experience.”
He adds: “User research is fundamental to the way we work. We involve the users of a service in discovery and throughout the design process. Running research in a space where a wider group can observe means you get much more out of the work.
Charities are starting to innovate digitally. Innovation teams are spluttering into life, and some charities are building new digital products and services that will reach new audiences, create new potential income streams and increase their impact. But it’s slow, hard going. Why is this?
Do charities have the desire, the imagination? Do they have the vision at board level? Is risk-aversion the big blocker? Do funding models stymie innovation? Or do previous failed attempts mean they’re once burned, twice shy? Frankly, do they have the guts?
All of the above and more is probably the answer. But, here, I’ll focus on overcoming the barriers to charities adapting the type of modern, agile product development process that drives digital product innovation from the civil service to Silicon Valley.
Let’s kick this off with money. In charities, procurement teams and budget holders like to know what they’re buying. They like big specs, clear outcomes and fixed costs. They’re less keen on Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), iterative development, testing learning and pivoting – uncertainty. Unfortunately, that difficult stuff is at the heart of agile project development.
If you aren’t ready to totally change the way you procure, a starting point is to break projects into small, affordable chunks. Assuming you are working with an agency partner: start with an innovation workshop; if that works take an idea forward in a ‘design sprint’ (roughly £15k to £25k); iterate on it; run story mapping to build a roadmap. Make each stage a micro-tollgate like a mini government service standards assessment. This way projects actually get started so they can gather momentum, and they ‘fail fast’ if they aren’t worth pursuing.
An example of this in practice is MQ Mental Health who are building a new product to engage the public in mental health research. MQ leveraged the prototype we built with them in a design sprint – to attract funding to build an MVP. MQ have funded this whole product development one step at a time, using the quality outputs of each phase to help engage the funders of the next. This can be slow, but at least it’s moving.
Be creative with the process too. We recently ran a Design Sprint with Sue Ryder (who are building a new in-browser video service to provide bereavement counselling and support ) with a ‘money back guarantee ’ – if they weren’t completely satisfied with the design sprint, they wouldn’t pay a penny. This gave the procurement team the confidence to sign off the initial phases of the project, while both teams got stuck into it with extra enthusiasm.
Creating a product culture in the charity space is tough. There’s not much experience about, yet experience is a really valuable component. We believe that the critical piece of the puzzle, is an engaged, skilled, empowered, client-side product manager. A good product manager keeps development aligned to business objectives and holds delivery teams to account, whether internal or external (this is particularly important when working ‘agile-ly’.)
This may all sound challenging for most charities – accepting more risk, changing funding and procurement models, developing an effective product culture – so let’s make it simple.
Here is a formula that might help you kick start innovation in your organisation:
Finally, try to remember agile projects can (and do) fail. Particularly, if you don’t have the right processes, people and culture in place. And failure is scary in the charity sector; especially if it threatens your public image. Nevertheless, ‘fixed scope’ innovation is an oxymoron. Leaders need to be brave enough to be prepared to fail.
Well-run product development processes, as outlined above, fail early, which helps. Something that doesn’t help is annual budgets. Ben Holt said in his valedictory post about the Disruptive Innovation Lab at Cancer Research UK, “disruptive ideas need to impact strategy with an eye on the future, not the annual planning cycle” and that is something we should all try to keep in mind.
Innovation products need a new, flexible ‘as and when’ funding approach, one where funding is aligned to goals or outcomes, rather than ‘project scope’ and that is something the sector will have to keep working towards.
Torchbox run a free Charity Digital Innovation Series of breakfast events. Here you can see the details and video of their last one, for Heads and Directors of Digital – where the discussions were on this same topic of challenges and success of Digital Innovation. Keep up to date on all Torchbox events on Twitter.
This article first appeared in Charity Comms.
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