Project Development

This week we were asked to put together a finalised draft of our personal business plan. I knew what I wanted to do, I had previously put together a brief budget for the project – so this bit should be easy, right? Wrong. As I began looking into all the different areas of my business plan template, my idea seemed to be getting more and more stretched. I began to question every element of my original idea.

Just to recap, my project idea was to design and implement a series of designs around train stations in hopes that this would act as a visual barrier to those that have come to the station with the intent of suicide. My idea was that by creating a ‘visual barrier’ at the frequently used areas, we could possibly interrupt a suicidal’s thoughts, slowly or even stopping their process. 

However, after speaking with Susanna and a few of my peers, they questioned; why did I think this would work? Is this enough? It seemed like I had a solution and that I had haphazardly found a problem where it could possibly help. Although it was hard to hear, some parts of it rang true. So I began to unpack my initial idea. Do I think a sensory interruption will help stop the suicidal process? Yes. But do I think using one sense alone, in one area, is enough to have a huge effect? I was unsure. 

I didn’t want to let go of my original concept, because I do think it could help someone, however perhaps I needed to broaden out how I was planning to deliver this idea. This is an idea that could be implemented in various areas, such as bridges, building rooftops, even shopping centres. Suicide happens in more than one location, and as this idea wasn’t specific to helping the ones that happens at train stations, it didn’t make sense to isolate it to one area. Next, I began to think about how I was going to deliver my idea of interrupting the process – was a visual design enough to get through? I could bring in other senses, touch, sound even smell. After considering all of these elements, I now know what it is I want to do, yet I’m still unsure on how this is going to be achieved.

Alec suggested using an app to implement my ideas – which I almost shut down immediately. There’s something incredibly in-human, distant and fake about technology, so I just couldn’t see how that could help such sensitive topic. When someone is in that kind of state, it’s hard to believe they would pick up their phones and go into an app. We discussed different ways in which an app could interact with the user, as if I didn’t want it to have to be activated manually, the app could recognise certain locations and begin to send out frequency to check up on the user. So basically, the app would remain dormant unless it believed the user was at risk in any way. This made it easier to consider, however I still wasn’t sure if an app alone was enough, it’s easy to throw away a phone, or simply leave it at home. What if they never had a phone to being with? Seeing as one of the most at risk groups of suicide are those from a poorer background, I didn’t want to exclude these by assuming everyone had a phone to help. I still wanted the environment to be a consistent factor to my project.

I think there are many different routes I could take this idea, if I continued to rely on needing the outcome to be set before I could write my business plan – I was never going to write it. So instead I wrote my business plan around the idea and included the research and development stages as a prime factor. I feel this was the best move for me as if I was to proceed with this idea, having the chance to work on this collaboratively could result in much more effective results. Having the chance to speak with professionals and like-minded charities would give me the chance to gain a wider range of perspectives which could uncover areas of my project I hadn’t even considered.

So my business plan is ultimately just based around the concept, I have written what kind of project and outcome I would like to accomplish and here I am simply asking for the time and funding to be able to explore and create various different outcomes to make this successful.

Although it’s based around a sensitive subject, I don’t have any worries in regards to law and ‘what would happen if it didn’t work’ as this project wouldn’t aim to take out an existing process and replace it with a new one, it would simply be putting something in place where nothing originally was to try and help a cause. As long as it continues to not impact any existing process of helpline, I believe this project is safe.

Environmental Influence

I’ve recently come across publicolor, a colour project put in place to try and engage their students and their community in education.

Publicolor is fantastic living proof that environments can have a major effect on our behaviours, moods and actions. Since implementing the colour into the school they have had such positive results and managed to keep thousands of high risk drop out students in school. Imagine if this type of thinking was put to use in other areas, such as mental health, high crime rate areas and even hospitals.

Happy Young Family Having Fun on Beach at Sunset

It’s projects like these that make me confident in my business plan, regardless of whether or not I have a final outcome thought out yet.