...A complete new platform and site in just two months...
London – 18th August 2010 – Unboxed Consulting, a leading Agile consulting and web development consultancy, has today announced that it has completed work on a new website and platform for Mindapples.org, an independent non-profit organisation promoting mentally healthy living for everyone through simple, daily activities.
Mindapples.org is a social enterprise, born in 2008, that asks each of us to share a ‘5-a-day for our mind’ by indentifying five activities that we do to exercise our minds and improve our mental wellbeing. These activities - called ‘mindapples’ - are then shared with the world using the Internet to build a thriving community of people supporting each other to make their minds healthier.
Mindapples were previously harvested from the community through an online survey tool and the founders used free tools for the development of the original web site. The team realised that to deal with the rapid growth of its community, socialising its content, and giving its members the chance to share ideas and thoughts freely as a conversation, would require a new platform.
Founder and Head Gardener, Andy Gibson explained; “Since forming Mindapples we have harvested and shared over 10,000 ideas for activities to look after our minds via online tools and public events, to inspire the nation to exercise their minds for better mental wellbeing. The community is growing all the time, and wants to start a conversation on the many issues around mental wellbeing and the mindapples activities themselves. Our campaign is about enabling those conversations, so a new platform and site was essential to start to give our members that freedom.”
A series of hackdays were run by Mindapples.org, in which some Unboxed Consulting developers were involved as volunteers. Once Mindapples.org received funding from social enterprise body UnLtd and the Nominet Trust, to support the development of a new web platform, Unboxed Consulting was formally appointed to work on the project. The new site was built over two months using Agile methodologies and Ruby on Rails technology.
Gibson continued; “I’ve worked with a lot of web and development agencies over the years. Unboxed Consulting is a great company that not only really breathes Agile, but understands not for profit and social enterprises. Their approach to Agile and Ruby on Rails meant we got maximum ‘bang for our buck’, and were able to package up work based on the budget we had available at any one time, before and after we received funding.
“It was a fun and flexible partnership with lots of creativity. The designers put a lot of their own ideas into the brand, and the whole team gave input on the functionality. I’ve been part of that team as in-house client – it’s been one of the most efficient projects I have ever worked on and I don’t believe we’ve wasted a penny.”
Features of the new site include:
Registration and user profiles
All users can share their five ‘mindapples’ publicly or privately
Ability to ‘like’ mindapples, which enables other users to gauge their popularity
Realtime list of the top mindapples that have been harvested
Ability to share mindapples through social networking sites Facebook and Twitter
Searchable content allows users to explore the ever growing list of harvested Mindapples (currently over 6,500 suggestions available online)
Richard Stobart, managing director at Unboxed Consulting, added; “When clients are closely involved with the development team on a project that is when the real magic happens. Ideas are shared and discussed from all sides, and then improved or dropped. This closeness and agility is one of the real benefits of Agile methodologies. The way everyone has worked together on this project is the reason the final result is so good.”
About Unboxed Consulting
Formed in 2005, Unboxed Consulting is a UK Agile and software development consultancy producing exciting consumer and business facing applications for some of the largest brands in the UK across sectors as diverse as new media and financial services. It specialises in Ruby on Rails and uses the latest Agile development methodologies to inspire customers and development teams to bring creativity and innovation to every project large or small. For more information on Unboxed Consulting please visit
http://www.unboxedconsulting.com/About Mindapples.org
Formed in 2008, Mindapples is an independent organisation promoting mentally healthy living for everyone through simple, daily activities. They want to make looking after our minds as natural as brushing our teeth, simply by asking everyone: “What's the 5-a-day for your mind?” Their “5-a-day for your mind” campaign has already attracted over 2,000 responses, and their summer event programme has included a brand partnership event with Courvoisier and Crussh and installations at the Secret Garden Party festival and Camp Bestival, and they will also be attending The Big Chill (5-8 Aug) and Brighton Playgroup (13-15 Aug) festivals this month. The new website was funded by donations from the Mindapples community and a Better Net Level 1 Award from UnLtd and the Nominet Trust. Find out more at
http://www.mindapples.org/For PR enquries, please contact:
Duncan Gurney
The PR Network
Email:
[email protected]
