Case Study: Man — Mini Hack
Suicide Prevention — Mini Hack
Synopsis
Man is a not for profit to combat the suicide rate of men aged between 15 and 45. The idea to begin Man came from Omar de-Silva and Ben Roulston after both of them had experienced depression and struggles within both their personal life and professional life.
Our team was tasked with developing and applications within 2 days that would act as a preventative measure towards combating the high suicide rate for young men. They want this app to act as a tool to give advice, tools, metrics, inspiration and education to get our physical, mental and professional health in peak form. Ultimately they wanted men to be proactive towards their mental help.
The Team
Strategy
When we first began working on this project we ran into a few issues. One issue was how do you make people want to use this app? Also is developing an app going to be the best solutions to dealing with suicide?
With these questions in mind we developed a hunt statement which read as followed:
With this new hunt statement in mind we began delving into doing research into different studies on the topic of suicide in Australia and also into who is currently dealing with this issue and offering help. We found the following competitors:
Smiling Mind:
Smiling Mind exists to help build individual mental health and wellbeing through positive, pre-emptive tools based on mindfulness meditation. Co-developed with psychologists and health professionals Smiling Mind is accessible to everyone, irrespective of geographic location or socio-economic status.
Focus on: wellbeing, education, preventative measures
Headspace
Headspace is the National Youth Mental Health Foundation providing early intervention mental health services to 12–25 year olds, along with assistance in promoting young people’s’ wellbeing. This covers four core areas: mental health, physical health, work and study support and alcohol and other drug services.
Focus on: mental health, physical health, alcohol and drugs, work and study
Beyondblue
‘Beyondblue provides information and support to help everyone in Australia achieve their best possible mental health, whatever their age and wherever they live.’
Focus on: Providing support, lifelines, resources with regards to managing and dealing with depression.
Discovery & Planning
Next we moved onto conducting 5 possible user interviews which was tough within the short time frame we had! From all of these users we found one very strong trend that kept coming up within all of the interviews, and that was the desire for community and the importance of community that all 5 interviewees expressed within the interview. Also those within the interview who felt lost at one time in their life, re-found themselves through some form of community or learning (whether it was university, immersive courses or even just small workshops).
These answers gave us some interesting insights which allowed us to create the following 2 personas:
Persona: Tim
Tim’s life is going ok, but he feels it could be better, he wants to improve his abilities to cope with different adversities that life can through at him. He would like this support group to be seperate from his normal social circle so he doesn’t feel any pressure or feel that they are biased towards him and his issues that he is currently facing.
Persona: Will
To help others, and to help guide others through difficult times. Not so much as to be a driving force but to be someone who listens and gives advice. He is keen to get involved with an organisation that will allow him to help build up others who have had similar troubles as him. He doesn’t have any training though so he is looking to be trained up into this position as well. As he wants to be able to be the best possible mentor he can be.
Once we had completed our personas it became clear to myself and my team that developing a self help app was not the best solution but this left us with another question, what was the best solution? This is where we came up with the Man Campaign.
The Man Campaign
The Man Campaign is a grassroots campaign that focuses on building friendship between men of all backgrounds. Man campaign does this through mentor led Man nights where real life issues are discussed whilst creating long lasting mate-ship and trust. Our vision is to see Men grow in purpose, relationship, life and career success.
So what resources does the Man Campaign offer?
The Man Approach
We’ve tried to go at this from a proactive approach as opposed to a reactionary approach. This means creating an environment and framework for small communities to grow in their own way and to their own needs.
Man Nights
So what does that look like? It looks like 6–12 men and a facilitator, maybe even a mentor in training (we’re about growth mindset, advancement and education) getting together twice a month to hang out, eat, drink, share stories, get to know one another, meet new friends and build strong community. Our purpose is that no one would be isolated in this busy and intense city.
Man Resources
In order for personal growth to happen we’re suggesting that they create or source podcasts about topics that pertain to men.
- How do I be a great husband or father?
- How do I advance in my career whilst maintaining a healthy personal life balance?
- How can I excel in my professional life?
- How do I find out my why, my purpose?
- How do I communicate with my wife and kids?
- How can I better communicate with my peers?
All of these resources will be available on your app which the men will access and listen to prior to each man night so then there’s a discussion topic.
Facilitators will have gone through a mentor program in order to best lead their Man group. Because we don’t know it all facilitators will be connected to people who they can seek advice from in the event an issue it out of their league.
For the training you already have the infrastructure, you know how to lead and you know how to train leaders. With your existing connections we believe you can create a facilitator training course that will cover your values, culture and purpose.
By doing this you’ll be able to impart these men with healthy core values and mindsets along with community culture who then go on to impart the MAN WAY into those they are leading, creating a healthier society.
The Power of Story
Stories have the power to change people’s decisions, to renew hope and bring people together. We’ve created a story page where men can read and share stories, whether their own or others. We believe men need to know they’re not alone and that they have a voice worth listening to. It’s about empowering and encouraging men into their full potential.
The Web App
As team we also decided to instead of developing an OS based app we would create a web based app. The reasoning behind this where:
- Having a web app, this would mean that it opened man up to a wider audience. Therefor having a greater impact on lowering the suicide rate of men.
- Lastly a web app best met the needs of our users. As this would mean they could view the Man site and its resources on any device.
Final Stages
In the final stages of the Man Campaign we focused on developing a strong feel for the brand by curating selected images that would best communicate the feel of what the Man Campaign is to our client. These images would focus on a feeling of being included, part of something, of bonding with friends, growing within a community and ultimately having a support network to call upon if needed.
We also developed a very simple, logo design as well. To go with this imagery.
End Result
An easy and simple to use web app that would allow men to sign up to be part of a community that would help support them and learn how to to be the best man they could be.
Moving Forward
With the limited timeframe of 2 days to work on this project there where a few areas that I would personally like to explore further and refine:
- I would like to explore developing and evolving the brand further (developing a full brand mark and visual identity). As well as look further into the visual language that would be used with this branding as well.
- I would also like to explore developing a sister movement that focuses more on woman and how they deal with this issue. As I feel this approach may work for both woman and men.
