Kickoff: 2011
Partner: Design Council / TSB / NESTA
Status: live
The story
The Amazings
A marketplace for over 50s to sell their amazing skills and knowledge as experiences. The Amazings earn. The world learns.
A Problem That Matters
We live in a society with a rapidly ageing population. With this comes the threat of more inactive people, with higher health costs, and a greater demand for social care services. At a time when the supply of money into public services is being cut. Our ambition was to find a way of building resilience within communities, enabling us to take better care of one another, and reducing the burden on the State.
The Little-Big Idea
As we began speaking to older people, we realised that whilst there were some who required care, the Baby Boom generation retiring today were deeply uncomfortable with the idea of being looked after. They wanted us to focus on what they can do, not what they can't do. Not least because they have assets which most people don't. Wisdom. Skills. Experience. Our flipped idea was that instead of society providing services to older people, older people should be providing services to society.
The Product Vision
In the same way that AirBnB, makes use of the spare capacity in people's homes, we saw The Amazings as a way to maximise the greatest untapped resource in the world today, the time and wisdom of older people. They would turn a lifetime's worth of skills, passion and knowledge into experiences that others could buy. The Amazings would earn. The world would learn. Along the way, we'd help make some social connections too.
The MVP
We set out to quickly test our two hypotheses. Firstly, that older people want to sell their skills as experiences. Secondly that there would be demand to buy tickets to these experiences. So we hit the streets wearing sandwich boards and hawking tickets to made-up events. Despite what this picture might suggest, people loved it. We recruited 10 Amazings in a month and sold out nearly every event we put on, with an average of 7 people paying £16 per each attending.
Growth
Based on our successful prototype, we ditched the Wordpress Hack for our own custom Rails application. Since then, we've been focused on finding new Amazings and putting on more events - from learning the Tango, to foraging in the park, to street photography. We were pleased to be selected as winners in two national social innovation competitions, which has enabled us the grow the team and we're planning to take The Amazings London-wide in 2012. And nationwide, and yes, global, not long after that. Come and get a ticket and be part of the movement at www.theamazings.com
Projects
Givr
User research, user experience design and product strategy to help Charities Aid Foundation activate the next generation of givers through mobile technology.
Jointly
Jointly is a mobile tool designed to support busy people who juggle working and looking after a loved one. Developed for CarersUK as part of the Sidekick School programme.
Flamingo Field Notes
We helped the worlds largest qualitative research agency build a new business unit around a revolutionary mobile research app.