What's the toughest thing for a smoker to do? Breaking out of this habit. Yes, smoking is one habit hard to break. Ask a person who is going through it or has gone through it. Everyday is a test, this whole process becomes a personal battle and there is always a fear of going back to the old habit. But with Goalpost, this process is made easier. It's like a social networking site for people who are trying to quit smoking, lets you connect with friends, post your everyday experience, seek expert advice and motivates you to quit smoking. The best feature of Goalpost is the daily tasks that it offers the users or the challenges from invited friends.Goalpost owned by the Social Code Ltd. founded by Siobhan Bulfin, is an internet and mobile application that helps people quit smoking. There are two types of sign-up on Goalpost:
1) Join to quit smoking
2) Join to help someone
Once you sign-up, you get tips and information about how to quit smoking. From here you are taken to the news feed where you can read other people's stories or share your own experience along the way. You can even invite friends to support you or quit smoking. Goalpost challenges you with small gaming activities in the form of daily tasks or challenges, that help you kick out this habit better, thus begins your 12 week long journey towards a smoke free life. Read on to know more about Goalpost in our interview with Siobhan Bulfin:
1. How did you come up with the idea of creating Goalpost and specifically the idea of using game-play mechanisms to quit smoking?
My mother used to smoke and died of a smoking related illness when I was 12. She tried to quit several times but couldn't, so I've always been interested in trying to help people quit. I've worked a lot in the social marketing/behaviour change space and started specialising in social media and online communities back in 2006. At the same time I was learning about game design. And I thought if we combined all those things together: expert advice, social networks and game design it might give people what they need to succeed in quitting.
2. What were some of the difficulties that you faced in getting Goalpost up and running from the point that you originally conceived the idea and how long did it take?
The main difficulties was finding the right team. People who 'get' this stuff and are as passionate about it as I am and have the right skills. Finances continue to place stress on us but we're getting good interest and support from public health providers.
3. Being a start-up how are you promoting the site? Are you planning on leveraging social networks to promote your concept?
We're still in public beta so we're mainly relying on word of mouth and social networks and media coverage like this :) We have no advertising budget.
4. What sort of traction are you getting as far as the user base is concerned? What feedback are you getting from your users?
Not as much actual feedback as we'd like but we can tell how users like things by the level of engagement. We roll out new features fortnightly and we also measure closely what's happening on the site - the level of interaction, time on the app etc and we make changes based on these stats.
5. Is Goalpost a purely non profit website? If not what is your monetization model?
No it's not a non-profit but it will always be free to the user. We hope to get public health organisations to put some of their mass advertising (brochure etc) spend towards Goalpost. We have the advantage of being able to prove if it works or not :)
6. Your support on the site is awesome as I have witnessed it during the course of my user experience on the site. But do you have any qualified medical professionals as a part of your team to advise users, should some user face an extreme medical condition due to the process of quitting smoking?
Yes we've partnered with the NZ Health Promotion/Research Agency and also Quit.org.nz. Their research and information helped inform the design of the game, and we refer people to quitline (it's one of the tasks). We also have a representative from Quitline and Health Promotion agency on the site.
7. You claim that a person can be smoke free within 12 weeks. What percentage of your users have actually confirmed that they are turned smoke free in that duration?
It's early days. We're still in beta refining the application and finding out what works and what doesn't. Around 20-25%. It's not our claim. It's a fact that it takes at least 12 weeks before the nicotine receptors in a smoker's brain switches off.
8. Given that the name 'Goalpost' is generic, there are many more people out there looking to quit other kinds of unhealthy habits, are you planning to introduce therapies for habits other than smoking as well? Any other future plans for Goalpost?
Goalpost is a web and mobile application to help people achieve positive health outcomes through behaviour change. Our first goal is to help people quit smoking. We’ve teamed up with Quit Group and Smokefree (Health Sponsorship Council) to help make that happen.
Goalpost is owned by Social Code Ltd. Our goal is to develop web and mobile applications that help people stay focused and healthy through setting achievable goals, identifying their triggers, keeping them motivated and rewarding them. The goals we’re passionate about helping people with are those associated with: smoking, at-risk (binge) drinking, obesity, fitness, hypertension, rehabilitation, overcoming depression and medical adherence.
9. What golden advice would you like to offer to people who want to quit smoking?
Make a commitment and don't try and quit unless you really want to. Visualise yourself as a non-smoker then sign up to Goalpost and invite your friends and family to help you!
Thank you Siobhan for working with us and taking the time for this interview. We wish you the very best for the future.
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