Experience design is just that and far from just that. Dozens of man-years have been spent crafting a definition that still struggles with the difference between art and design, let alone the requirement we have to trap, cagoule and force down the edges of what it is to be experiential or to provide experience. The wooliness of the subject is refreshing and helping get my head out of the structured, problem/solution world that billable work often requires (especially on a Monday!).

From 5 senses, to 360 degree immersive sessions it’s clearly going to be an awesome 10 weeks.

My reading list is whizzing past Hegel, Marx, through terms as diverse as relational aesthetics and dystopian community. It’s been a while since I read something (Harvard biz review tends to pride itself on accessibility!) that had me rubbernecking to google this regularly. Blindingly good stuff, even this early session got me thinking like mad on a stack of plans/briefs/trickies I have in front of me.

In a world where ‘Brand is…’ is cumbersome and ‘brand does’ becomes more central to our planning model - experiential planning is pretty sexy for me. It channel planning with lipstick on, spinning on a table, air thick with perfume.

With HBR continuing to kick sand in the face of goods providers with yet another article on the worth of the experience economy. Joining the greying of the boundaries between sponsorship, co-branding, commissioned design, corporate installation etc. And Josephs Pine conforming that customer value has run away from all the  commodities and goods, towards tailored services or authentic experiences. It it  the time to try and consider how we offer these experiences, planned, proactive and of course with an audience insight bang in the centre.

With crossed fingers, in a dark, endless cold room . I am hoping that experience design and the time spent with the talent at CSM contributes a component  to me working on a structured approach to behavioural change achieved along a considered, multichannel, richer journey.

In the meantime – a rather nice Nokia experience, corporate installation, co-branded event, light show or Son et lumière (your choice).

Matt and I are heading up to Salford on the train, it’s pitch black, and dead depressing. This cheered me up somewhat and stirred a long gone memory.

I only just remember my sister being ill when I was about 6. A more distinct memory was her accompanying bear; Peri.  Peri pretty much was present all the way to health. Every now and then Peri is discovered still with his hospital wristband on and much smaller than I remember.  I now know that this little bear was named after a Heath Robinson looking yogurt pot, tube and bag gizmo that provided her with the peritoneal dialysis needed whilst her kidneys took a kicking,

This enterprising inspiring mum took her son’s similar requirement for a cancer companion to the next level. Just after his first birthday, Gabe’s mother, Lu Sipos, made the very first Chemo Duck for him. She thought he could use a companion to take to the hospital, one with whom he could share his journey back to health. Both Chemo Duck and Gabe finished treatment in November 2003 and have remained cancer free since.

Since then Lu along with a board of directors and a newly formed not for profit organisation have taken the chemo duck and made him fly. Chemo duck is now in production and the team are striving to give away 10,000 of these donated friends by Gabe’s 10 year birthday.

More than a companion chemo duck has become a vital part of ‘medical play’, a concept that allows children to communicate with parents and healthcare professionals, offering a window into their world midst the turmoil of cancer. Chemo duck is used time and time again as a powerful therapeutic and teaching tool used in medical facilities to familiarize children with cancer protocol and procedures.

Pretty cool eh?

We finished our session with tactical speed dating. Quick fire selling, demo’ing case studies that answered a question from the brief. We all left buzzing, having met everyone in the session in a more intimate setting and got to grips with some of the team’s specific issues. Emma’s Dynasty style ipad demo, Jas’ meeting in a box Russian doll, Ian’s Guess Who game and Kate’s NICE guidance documents lift challenge all led us to a much richer interaction.

It has been interesting seeing how each of us tackled demonstrating. It’s not really in the typical agency skill set, those of us who have sold stuff door to door  (Ian – paintings, me Pentium II chips) relished the chance to get down and dirty. The rest of the team spanked the task, stretching creativity and storytelling to the max. Some of the lessons learnt were;

• Keeping to 7 minutes is tough when the kitchen timer is split into indistinct minutes
• When cutting out hermit crabs in foamex you need loads of scalpel blades
• 6 boxes with ribbons are really hard to tie in a hurry between ‘dates’
• £90 buys you a very sexy demo film if you know where to go
• When stuck for a concept steal from your kids
• Presenting repeatedly makes it smoother (running counter to the ‘never fully rehearse’ a pitch before the day rule)

Last night a group of us headed back to the Dana centre to fill our brains with some more geek fulled knowledge. The talk this time was a bit closer to our hearts looking at how far patient empowerment and knowledge can be pushed and with what consequences.

The talk entitled ‘My beautiful genome’ explored the science behind genetic testing and its future roll out to the general population, and looked at the possible ethical and practical consequences of doing so.

Lorna Frank, the author of ‘My beautiful genome’ discussed her experiences getting her genome sequenced and learning the risk factors that her genetic profile predisposes her to. She likened the genetic revolution to that of the PC revolution – something that will take ours and the next generations by storm and become so widely accessible that in her view all individuals will be armed with their genetic profile.

But what are the consequences of this? Ethically is it right to be informing patients that they are predisposed to diseases like Alzheimer’s without firstly being able to directly predict that they will actually develop the disease and in full knowledge that currently there is no cure or possibility to prevent onset? Does this lead to greater anxiety, potentially lower quality of life and ultimately greater pressures on the medical system as patients armed with greater knowledge appear at far greater frequency in front of their GP? Lorna’s view was no and that the current studies underway are showing no negative impact of this nature. I would question the bias of the sample at the moment with only those truly interested and well informed individuals being tested. If the genetic revolution does explode in the way predicted then I think there would need to be a far more robust infrastructure of pre and post patient counselling as well as education and information on what the results actually mean – they do not correlate to a direct prediction and as such the general population would need to have their expectations managed or we would have an entire host of terrified hypochondriacs on our hands!

However it did raise a load of interesting questions and is something that once the science evolves a bit further could be quite tempting. Most interesting to me was the more psychological side of things – the thought that some of my more annoying personality traits maybe down to my genetic profile and so ‘not my fault!’ It would re-open the discussion of nature versus nurture – with the potential that far more of our personalities than we think are actually outside of our control.

Either way a fascinating debate and one that will only become more heated as the technology and availability of these tests increases.

The star of the film; Author Steven Johnson talks on the launch on his new book covering the myths and rules of innovation. The book spans a huge period in history, ranging from the invention of double entry accounting, and Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century, through to Tim Berners Lee and the world wide web, and ultimately YouTube.com.

If you have 5 mins, and are interested in innovation and history  its well worth a friday afternoon muse, I have the book on order, so will fill you in, when I am through it.

If you are interested – have a browse at www.howsmyfeedback.com

This focus of this column is pretty straightforward. It’s Apps – not just mobile apps, but also apps that live on social media platforms. It’s got to be healthcare, something in the wide realm of pharmaceuticals and medical services. It’s got to be targeting any one of the audiences we have in our world, whether that is internal, HCPs or patients. As most of us are marketeers, I am going to select those apps that interrupt the status quo, those that seek to change behaviour. What that means is no Angry Birds, no Mafia Wars, and no Shazam. Boring of me I know, but this is work. If you want to discuss any of the above apps email me. In fact scrap that – I want pitch invites from this baby!

This world isn’t complicated. If you are an online ostrich or you don’t have any app experience this isn’t for you (yet). Get your phone out, download a few from the relevant platform, play around and dive in. If you own a Blackberry, order a family bucket, sit down and talk to the kids (ideally your kids; “can I talk to you about what’s on your phone” – can come over as scary to strangers). Prepare yourselves to learn – these guys are the experts. It’s not worthwhile getting all ‘business’ until you have seen the fun side. Then consider your experiences and figure out how this new tactical channel fits into your work life. This is a channel you have to get comfortable with; it’s not an option to be hiding behind the regulations. It’s titanic time. The well mannered stayed behind, shiver and drown. You need to be pushing your way onto the boats.

When reviewing the dozens of apps for these columns four criteria were front and center. Firstly utility – it’s not difficult to plan an app. Third party developers are equipped with the minimum standards with which to make something function. Despite this it’s common to see crappy build quality and some shocking architecture. Secondly focus – confidence to concentrate on doing something properly, not pretending that adding a search engine and twitter client is useful. We don’t want apps that do everything – my phone’s got that covered and it’s just not the way we consume. We want dedication, defined remit and concentration. Thirdly comes insight – how does this app reflect one? Has it been built around an actionable audience requirement that’s taken a bit of rigor to get to? Will shortcutting a faxed form drive efficiency? Or is it lowest common denominator app strategy? Does it keep its customer front and center? Making sure that it’s going to add something beyond just a departmental requirement to get an app out there before the virology team does? These tools allow us to solve problems that we could never tackle in the past. We should be forcing our insight process to help feed them. And lastly, for this column Apples are not the only fruit. The App Store has stolen a march on the slow coaches at Google. But for me if it’s good enough, share the love across at least Android and if needed Facebook. Blackberries have been ignored here – thus far most of the healthcare apps for these devices have been missing key functionality, and the numbers are not big enough to warrant them being a destination. For similar reasons I am not going to be talking about Etch-A-Sketch as a platform either.

Enough of this. Thumbs at the ready lets start to dissect some of the recent offerings.

Medibabble

Imagine a world where the quality of a consultation depends on a physician’s ability to take a history. Where language and culture get in the way of the cornerstone of diagnosis. This app should make us sit up. Why didn’t we do it? It would have changed the space in which we could talk to prescribers. MediBabble is a robust history-taking and examination application designed to improve the safety, efficiency, and overall quality of care for non-English speaking patients. In a nutshell it’s a professional-grade medical translation tool containing an extensive database of clinical questions and instructions, ordered to fit within the typical consultation style. It’s written and reviewed by a panel of physicians, translated by professional medical translators and vetted by medical interpreters. What makes this a real killer app is that you, the physician, can tell them what you need to have amended – making it a genuinely organic resource. I gave it a go in two of its five languages (Mandarin and Russian) and it performed excellently, getting it right in both tone and content. What’s more it’s free, and currently works on the iPhone, with Android being an “exciting near term goal”.

Medical Educator

Here, the app itself is free in Apple’s App Store, and if you like it you can pay a one-off fee to get unlimited access to the website too. The app provides a good amount of digital content to provide UK medical students with a rich media revision resource. As well as having over 1000 multiple-choice questions, 40 video exam guides and audio case files, it hosts a forum to discuss online performance with other medical students. This is far from an aesthetic app, with its content having pretty low production values. It could also do with some structuring and categorization. But for me this gives it a real world feel – a little chaotic, and authentic enough to learn from. A good app, using rich media right, helping those with 90-hour weeks to learn efficiently. Android users must stick to the old ways of revising I am afraid.

NHS Drinks tracker

Quickly calculate units, keep on top of your drinking and get personalised feedback. It’s billed as

“a great iPhone app if you want to cut down on how much you drink.” The interface is clean and sensible, with the ability to select a drink using one of the four drink icons, then choose the strength, size and number of drinks. Mid session, tap on the ‘add drink’ button to calculate the number of units which is then automatically displayed. There is also a desktop version of the tracker, featuring a personal drinks diary and regular feedback.

You would have thought that a database of alcohol would have been within the app builder’s plan. At the very least, the flexibility to input varying strengths rather than be limited to a set of inflexible bands. It’s also not possible download your progress – to either share with an HCP, or keep offline. This is a big limitation.

With no fortified wines but alcopops galore, it looks like this is aimed at the younger app user – this feels strategically naïve. There doesn’t seem to be any understanding of what makes the user reduce their consumption, which is presumably the aim. Surely an awareness of consumed units is not the chief driver of a change of behaviour – especially in a young audience. When I contrast it against their quit smoking app, which has clear financial impact displayed, this seems to be devoid of any end benefit to reducing down your units. This smacks of an off-the-shelf database, and feels lazy. NHS drinks tracker has been primarily designed for the iPhone, but there is a broken down version for other smart phones.

iBody

If you are going to consider a behavioral change app your first port of call should be iBody. This market has been filled with dozens of little apps concentrating on specific sports, or diagnostic measures. It’s been crying out for a Swiss army knife of an app. iBody is one of the best health and fitness applications designed to help users get in shape and keep track of their progress. It doesn’t restrict itself to simple metrics like BMI, and basic exercise types. This app pushes it further, striving to be the whole dashboard of your health and fitness. Beyond BP, weight and exercise, it utilizes GPS functionality to calculate distance/calorie. Beyond this, the most impressive is the use of graphics to summarise progress, breaking down all the factors you are measuring into simple intuitive displays. It feels as if you have a real partner in your quest for perfection. Another lovely touch is an allowance of 4 password-protected accounts – healthy generosity from this very tidy app. All this is packaged up with exportable files, and regular updates including integration packages for various Bluetooth/Wi-Fi devices allowing everything ‘fitness’ to integrate. The one shame is the restriction in platforms with no plans to broaden this to Android. A German gem available in a load of supported languages.

I would welcome news of any app you love or one that you have developed to review in this column. Send it over and Beapart.

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Last year Georgetown University launched a program that uses iPads in operating rooms to assist doctors with complex operations. The iPad app offers surgeons real-time access to images and patient data during an operation, while the touch screen functionality works regardless of whether or not the user is wearing latex surgical gloves. The iPad can even be placed in a waterproof (blood proof) zip lock bag without losing any functionality.

Now the iPad has left the operating theatre and entered the consultation room ,with Stryker launching its first iPad primary care app  just last week. The suitably named  ‘Flipchart’ app is designed to help orthopedic specialists explain a hip, knee or shoulder replacement procedure to patients who are either scheduled for surgery or contemplating total joint replacement. Using graphics and x-rays, it gives an overview of a normal joint, arthritic joint and replacement joint. Surgeons are also able to customize and annotate the images to support patient discussion. The hope is that this app will help engage patients while educating them about procedures.

The Stryker app isn’t the first example of iPad technology being used for patient education. Last year the Florida Hospital for Children launched a pilot app called jLog which uses videos and animations to educate patients about the procedure they are about to have. The application features animated, relatable characters that visually demonstrate what a child will experience and answers questions in conversational dialogue.

Since its launch last year, the iPad has demonstrated its value not only as a data and diagnostic device but perhaps more importantly as a patient engagement tool. With the very first medical app approved this month by the FDA and predictions that 20% of healthcare professionals will be using iPads during their daily practice by the end of this year, it seems that the iPad is on its way to becoming a ubiquitous component of the healthcare experience.

We found out that the lectures were to be given in the Pecha Kucha style. Essentially there would be 10 different talks, each around 6 minutes along, directed by a slide show over which the speaker had no control. First was a talk on cosmology from a Cambridge guy who became increasingly attractive over the minutes as he wowed us with pictures of galaxies and planets.

He was very quickly followed by a lady from Bristol who was looking at science in story writing. This one we struggled to take seriously – her story of The Painter and the Physicist didn’t touch at all on the richness of the art-science mix.

The evening unveiled great talks on everything from CERN and the Large Hadron Collider to the future of cognitive neurology. My personal favourite was around stem cell research in blindness. It was a fascinating event, but it would have been good to hear from fewer speakers for longer to really get a feel of their area of specialism.

That said, our geeky brains are refueled. We have a further trip planned for the Horror in Dreams talk on the 9^th March. Let us know if you fancy it.