September's an interesting time for the academic. The divergent stage of early summer - when you dream up new ideas, new studies, new proposals, new modules and assignments - gives way to the convergent stages of actually finishing things, and deciding what will be kicked into next year, or given up on completely. It's been a good summer - a busy one (as the chaos in my office will attest!) but a good one. Lots of opportunities: the manipulandum brought to fruition, a mechanical systems catalogue written, a Playday event run, new links made, a proposal submitted, a new module designed, and a Hack the Home event attended. Plus three Open Days, two PhD students passed viva and corrections. Yeah, busy. But all good stuff - and all in good time.
I'll have a write up of the exciting Hack the Home event from last week soon. But first, I really should get the second part of my Playday Post Mortem up!
In essence: could we have done better?
The answer is: of course we could - but how? Well, here are my main thoughts:
1) Better External Branding: we had been warned by Breeze that we needed a snazzy stand to attract people in. And we put a fair bit of effort into this: horse cushions, banners, posters of the Bashians. And then, because of the rain, we posted them all at the back of the tent. They looked good, but you had to get quite close before you saw them. When you're competing with inflatables, dress up and craft sessions in a big space, it's difficult to be to be the centre of attention. If I were doing this again, I'd have a big roller banner at the front of the stand to say what we were, so people could see it from a distance. If people came looking for Button Bash, it wasn't easy to find us - until you'd found us, if that makes sense? So, that's one lesson learned.
2) A Snappy Message: How do you describe Button Bash in a few seconds? Accessible Videogame? Inclusive? Switch-based? It's all a bit jargon heavy. And if your core message is: Disabled Children, Here is a Game You Can Play, then the only hook you've got is patronising at best. I've yet to figure out the best way of selling this: I just know that we need a better-articulated message about what the game is and its selling points. One to muse over.
3) Going for the Relaxed Opening: Breeze offer Relaxed Opening on certain days, where they open early for disabled children to have a chance to try things out before things get too hectic. They did This on the 7th of August, and - logically - this would have been a good day for us to come on. However, we were fixated on Playday: so we went for the 6th. That had its advantages from a publicity perspective, but I still feel that we missed a trick by not going on the day most likely to attract disabled children.
So there you go: the three main messages, and next time we do this ( and there will be a next time, make no mistake! ), that's would I'd do differently!
