Thinking Inside a Box
How a structure can sometimes free the creativity
How it all started
I really didn’t know what to expect coming into the Innovation Box meeting. I knew everyone in the room, some better than others, but all seemed friendly, so all good. First, we played some games digitally so we could be anonymous in our wacky ideas, this made it a lot easier to speak more freely in front of each other when we got the pens and paper out.
After some discussion, we merged several ideas together and came up with one mobile app. Aimed at everyone on the Uni campus, the app would have two sections, “I am looking for” and “I have.”
In each of these sections there would be four categories:
- Accommodation
- Food
- Transport
- Hobbies
Users could advertise in “I am looking for” for things that they want e.g. A user may play the cello and want to start a string quartet. They would then advertise in “I am looking for” under the hobbies section for others to join them. Another example may be a student wanting a room in a shared house for the following year. They could advertise to find a house in “I am looking for” under accommodation.
Similarly, users would be able to advertise food etc that might be useful to some else. They may have fresh food and be leaving campus for several weeks or a user may have organised a taxi from the train station at the beginning of term and have several seats to share.
Safety at all times
We had several discussions about safety and how the app might be misused. We decided to make contact between users through anonymous messaging and to minimise abuse with unsuitable advertisements, text input would only be allowed from an authorised vocabulary.
Research
The team had lots of different skills and backgrounds so we divided up the tasks we needed to do. It made sense that the developers would create some mock up screens and another group member and I would do some research into how popular the app might be, what it should be called and how useful the categories would be.
We researched through surveys on campus and through a digital survey. 71% of those surveyed said that they were very likely to use the Accommodation, Transport and Hobby categories of the app. 50% of those who responded said they were likely to use the food category.
Those questioned also came up with some new suggested categories. These included student organised day trips and tutoring. These may be categories for future consideration after further research.
86% of respondents said they would rather have the service as a section of iLancaster (the Uni app used by students and staff) as opposed to a separate app. This was a change to what we had originally thought; research turns out to be useful.
LU Give and Take was born
Although the group had come up with some possible names originally, after the survey, we decided to amalgamate two of the suggestions that came up on the survey. LU Community Board and Lancaster give and take, became LU Give and Take.
We presented all that we had done to the organisers, who discussed with us about how we might move forward with the idea. This was very encouraging.
Post Box Ponderings
Taking part in the innovation box was not only enjoyable and creative, you can be free to suggest the craziest of ideas and not be frowned upon or ridiculed. You can get as much or as little support or guidance as you want and we could use a wide range of resources. You also have a team to go along the journey with you. Taking part has shown me how achievable it can be to come up with something new and do the research to see whether it would be possible or even wanted. Given the chance, would I do it again? Certainly. Would I recommend it? Definitely. Innovation box could be the box that sets you free. Crazy times!
