Archive for March, 2009
March 29th, 2009 | Tags: Focus Group, Product Development
On Thursday, we held a focus group session with youth from the Lower Northside of Pittsburgh, PA, at Jefferson Recreation Center. The site is a program location for the after-school program YouthPlaces, which also helped us organize a focus group with adult after-school providers on last Wednesday. YouthPlaces, led by director Lori Schaller and supported by Director of Education Tyra Good, continues to be a major supporter and partner as we move forward.
The focus group with the youth was remarkable in too many ways to count. Too often, we’re cooped up in our office like mad scientists or on the road pitching potential investors and partners. It’s easy to lose sight of the certainty that kids are the ultimate judge of what we do. If they don’t like the product we’re developing and become more financially savvy as a result of it, then our product and our business have failed.
Well, I’m happy to report that we seem to be very much on the right road. We’re in a bit of stealth mode right now — so I can’t get too deeply into particular responses the youth had to different features. It’s more than fair to say that some of their comments and reactions caught us by surprise. Kids are funny that way, you know. We spend so much time debating a particular point that their words immediately put to rest in a way that goes almost entirely against the grain. We were particularly pleased with how well this group, which ranged in age from 15-18, responded to the look and feel of the experience. Even more, we gave a short assessment of the youth’s financial skills after taking them through a “quest” on Checking vs. Savings Accounts and wouldn’t you know that it seemed as if they had learned a thing or two.
On Monday, we have a focus group scheduled with teenagers at YouthPlaces Beltzhoover site. We’re also presently setting up focus groups with youth from the Pittsburgh Project and Mount Lebanon School District. We’ll try to get in all on video and share a few pics down the road.
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March 22nd, 2009 | Tags: 360KID, Add new tag, Financial Education, Financial Literacy, Game Development
The third time is the charm.
We just completed our third (actually our third.5) design document. Two years ago, we worked with Sidehatch Studios to complete our first design doc. One year ago, Semiotic Technologies completed our second. And, as you may remember from an earlier blog posting, we collaborated with 360KID back in December on a preliminary design doc.
Continuing to work with 360KID over the last three months, we have just wrapped up work on a more extensive design, easily the most extensive thus far. It’s a place we could not have reached without having gone through our earlier efforts at planning the user experience and art direction. The product has evolved tremendously in just a short time. It’s a very different experience than what we developed in our prototype and what we have yet to reveal on this site. Yet, we could not have possibly reached this point without having gone through earlier iterations.
As I wrote in an email to a potential funder, we have been thinking deeply about the issue of financial education, and considering how best to provide youth and adults an exciting financial education product, for some time. In recent months, since our economy has gone wild, we’ve noticed an increasing number of competitors and rising interest in this area. We’re more ready than ever to confront the challenge and seize the opportunity.
Over the next two weeks, we expect to settle on a developer with which to collaborate toward launching our Beta this summer. We have engaged in extensive dialogue with three development houses, and more recently a fourth, to turn this new design document into a real product that youth and adults acoss the country can enjoy and benefit from. Again, we’ve learned so much from the work put in over the last two years. The road ahead will be deeply informed by the journey thus far.
Stay tuned.
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March 15th, 2009
A little history to start.
Skill-Life, Inc. began two years ago as a company called CentsCity, LLC. Last year, when we formally established our corporate status, we took on our present name. We chose Skill-Life, Inc. largely because it gives us a larger umbrella to work under — after all, we’re not just talking about building financial literacy, we’re talking about giving youth, families, and communities tools with which to develop critical life skills.
At present, CentsCity remains the name of the financial literacy product we’re building now — a virtual world packed with cool games and videos that teach kids about money! I came up with the name CentsCity almost three years ago in one of those “Ah hah!” moments that felt just right. However, since taking the name out into the real world, there’s been a significant obstacle that we didn’t before anticipate — people often think we’re saying “Sin City”. Now, ain’t that something — Sin City is pretty much the complete antithesis of CentsCity’s mission.
So, as we get closer to an actual launch of our Beta for live customers, we’re having to look again at the name CentsCity and determine if we indeed want to make it our central brand. For the last week or so, we’ve been throwing around all sorts of names — waiting for that “Ah hah” — but nothing has come to mind that really sticks.
Most of all, we’re looking for a name that is cool and exciting to tweens and teenagers. That, by itself, is a mighty tall order. Then, we want something that says what we’re doing (i.e. financial literacy) and how we’re doing it (i.e. virtual world). I’ve been wondering lately if the financial literacy part has been holding us back, forcing us into words like economics, money, bucks, and such, that may not quite get at the FUN that we consider first and foremost. Perhaps, we need to go a different route all together.
We’ll keep working at it. All options on the table, as always, including simply sticking with CentsCity. We’ll end up somewhere good as gold eventually. If you have any thoughts to help get us there, we’d love to hear from you.
For now, we know this much — at Skill-Life, Inc., we’re creating a one-of-a-kind experience that will make money make sense at a time when just that is needed more than ever.
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March 13th, 2009 | Tags: 360KID, Game Development
Over the past few weeks, we have been working closely with 360KID to develop a new art style and game mechanics for our release this summer. The goal is to strip away frivolous features that would get in the way of the experience. While we have not yet finalized our designs, the progress has been fantastic.
Stella Mae Fly is one of six mentors the player may choose as a guide in the game.
This is the new world of CentsCity, where players can explore financial secrets.
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