What happens when your product sucks?

And you only have 2 days left…

Today’s blog post starts with a simple question. We have two days left before the judging event. What happens when your product just doesn’t work.

Who us?

Today we got to interview the lovely Joanne Foland, One need only to look at her credentials to know she’s an expert in education related to those with special needs, and autism.

Prior to joining Opportunity Schools staff, Joanne Foland, formerly served as Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for the Los Alamitos Unified School District, and as their Director of Special Education. She received her Advanced Doctoral Degree in Education following a three year longitudinal study on the Effects of Positive Peer Intervention on Social Integration in Students with Autism. Joanne has well over thirty years experience in education. She has instructed at all grade levels before becoming an administrator in 1976.

Since 1998, Joanne has taught at Azusa Pacific University as an Adjunct Professor for the Master of Arts program in both the Educational Administration and Advanced Studies Department and continues in that role.

Joanne retired from the public school system in June 2008 and has refocused on a very active and meaningful new career role as the Director of Education and Satellite Support Services for Opportunity Schools.

In short she’s the perfect person to pre-judge what we have and our idea. We pitched the idea, a teddy bear that could detect autism in children, at least we thought that was the pitch, but it wasn’t. We’ve actually done research on it, and found out that autistic children don’t normally form bonds with teddy bears, they like different kinds of toys; and today Joanne said the same thing, a teddy bear probably won’t work.

…cool, now what? Two days left.

But wait…

Now there’s no way that’s the end of the story, so what to do when your product sucks, and you have two days left? Here’s the thing, it doesn’t suck, we’ve just been selling the wrong thing. The interview goes on, and then we get to talking about the technology behind the bear, and the research of using sensors. She’s excited, this is where our product shines, we’re not selling a teddy bear, we’re selling a platform.

What now? and what do you mean by platform?

Of course we can’t just change the whole trajectory of our course, especially with only two days left, and no hope of rebranding in time. So buckle down and finish what you got. The novelty of a teddy bear was incredibly charming, and a great marketing technique, that being said, the most important thing that we’re actually making, is we’re bringing together the right hardware, the right software, and the right people together. The arduino, and more specifically the lilypad arduino is open source, relatively cheap, and super cool. The lilypad arduino which we found out about, and were able to rent from Professor Hertz, are used in clothing, they use conductive thread to pass electricity between its pieces. They’re used in wearable computing, think shirts, and other clothes. They’ve been featured in fashion shows, and you can make cool things with them. They’re also really small, and can be easily sewn to someone’s clothes, or their favorite toy. That toy may not be a teddy bear, but it could be something else. Combine that with an easy to use web app for parents and caretakers that takes the data from the sensors and arduino, and turn it into meaningful information and applications. That’s what we have; it’s a bit harder to sell and get the point across then a “smart” bear, but that’s what it really is.

By platform, imagine your cellphone, tablet, or other devices; programmers, enthusiasts, and pretty much anyone can make an app with a little work. We’re piggybacking off of the arduino platform, and putting sensors and our software and applications on top of that. That’s our platform.

Ubiquitous computing

Even though the idea of the bear, doesn’t really work in our case, that doesn’t mean it’s a complete failure. What it really means is, we need to be focusing on the part that actually matters and makes a difference, the platform; and we have a great one.