As the Labs end of endings approaches we’ve nudged each of the project teams to very honestly reflect on their achievements.
The good and the bad, including the ugly.
We asked each team to identify one hit and one miss from their product and to candidly describe it. This could be a feature, a process or an outcome.
They didn’t pull any punches….
Moodbug
We talked to Andy Gibson, CEO Mind Apples
The Hit
We built something of value that has not behaved as a fad. Usage stats show that Moodbug has a loyal user base of people who use it to talk to partners and share with friends. In the competitive space of mood apps this is difficult so its our hit so far.
The Miss
The lack of an android version. Half the people using Moodbug want to invite their android device using friends but they cant use. We knew an android version would be needed but we have (so far) failed to get the follow up funding.
HeadMeds
Lucie Russell, Deputy Chief Executive, YoungMinds
The Hit
Its got to be the sheer number of visitors to HeadMeds. The site is less than a year old but it already gets 30-40,000 visitors per month, that’s a third of the monthly visitors that the YoungMinds main website attracts. We did a lot of heavy pushing it up the marketing mountain but it seems that now a lot of people know about it and are having conversations with others. Its almost like its become part of the common parlance of mental health professionals and is rolling along by itself.
The Miss
Not having a sustainable business model. Every three months the site’s content needs to be reviewed by the College of Mental Health Pharmacy to ensure its medically accurate. It costs £3000 to add accurate information about a new medication to the site and there’s ten more well used medications that our expert reference group believes should be on the site. Understandably the group have turned down the idea of seeking advertising from pharmaceutical companies. Grant funding for a content website that is already running seems incredibly difficult to achieve.
In Hand
The Hit
Although In Hand’s been well used and reviewed the biggest hit has been the opportunities it has created for us to engage health organisations in conversation about using creativity and technology to tackle stigma and change policy and attitudes towards mental health. Instead of us trying to raise these issues and opportunities we are being asked to help them explore how they could use creativity and tech in a similar way.
The Miss
The miss was how we tried to take on too many people’s advice in the first few months. We took a lot of the advice as gospel, even when it conflicted with other advice or our project plan. At the same time we were trying to make an app that did everything that people wanted it to. All of this slowed us down. But in the end, after we made a few difficult decisions and moments of trusting our original instincts, it all came together. Since then we’ve had a a lot of interest and good feedback on how we made In Hand.
Find Get Give
Mark Cull, Project Manager, Downs YMCA Link Group
The Hit
Definitely it’s FGG’s service user feedback function. This was a feature that came from young people to help others give a true account of their service experience. We’re excited by the potential for services and commissioners to make use of it, to respond to feedback and use its transparency to drive service improvement.
The Miss
Underestimating the amount of time it takes to make a product sustainable. We haven’t yet managed to secure any sponsorhip or advertising and though we’ve started generating a small amount of revenue from listing services in Sheffield and Newham it looks like there’s a lot of work ahead persuading local mental health services to understand the value of FGG and invest in a site that isn’t yet populated. we haven’t yet got a sponsor any advertising.
Well Informed
Yvonne Anderson, Director, sixteen25
The Hit
The presence of Well Informed in other places online and offline, in particular the physical products it has created a market for. The best of these is the Well Informed Caring Cards whihc hold the site’s information in a twin sided format: one side to help start a conversation with co-workers or young people, and the other side’s a checklist. The Foyer Federation has just commissioned 1000 packs for its housing association staff working with homeless young people. Its built a very engaged Twitter following and has over a thousand youth workers signed up to its newsletter.<
The Miss
Having a dispersed team when building Well Informed. We had five people working part time across the country. It made it hard to generate focus, maintain momentum and iterate ideas, features and site versions. The team members were great and I’ve had virtual teams for other projects but for building this product it did not work. I’d never do it that way again.
Doc Ready
Harry Harrold, Neontribe
The Hit
The Miss
We didn’t engage the Royal College of GPs early or successfully enough, failing to challenge our assumptions about Doc Ready’s business model in a timely fashion. Our assumptions were wrong which wouldn’t have been a problem as we had other ideas for generating sustainable levels of revenue, apart from that we didn’t find out quick enough. We’re now working on another, validated, model.
Madly in Love
Helen Williams, Project Manager, YouthNet
The Hit
The user generated content feature. Every week we receive new stories about young people’s experience of having a mental health issue while being in a relationship or being in one with someone with an issue. The stories come though the shared experiences section of Madly in Love and tell about how people manage themselves or their partner. They are incredibly authentic. Young people often say they just want to hear that there are other people having similar experiences and to know how they cope with it.
The Miss
Madly in Love’s branding! Sometimes people are still confused about whether it’s a dating site. Also, we’re not yet sure how to engage people who don’t want to share a story but do want to read them. Each story offers a call to join a discussion on Thesite.org’s sex and relationships forum but we’re not seeing many people follow this call.
It’s not all happy endings…
Thankyou to all the teams for sharing so honestly. It will really help those who follow in their footsteps through Comic Relief’s new Tech for Good Programme. While each of the seven Labs projects is doing its best to move forward without Labs grant funding we know that statistically its likely that some of them will progress no further. Long may all the value generated from their learning continue.
