This post has been written as an executive summary of SoccerNet, encapsulated in the video below:
A reasonable start is to ask, ‘why is SoccerNet innovative?’, as addressed in this post, ‘What does Innovation mean to SoccerNet?’. The online social networks market is undoubtedly reaching saturation point. Our research of existing tools reveals a number of applications already suitable for organising team sports. Nonetheless, our market research found intermittent uptake between leagues. This basic requirement to provide organisation to a season is in the first section of the video with each character enthused by the prospect of a more organised season. Players are also the first of the user community to be introduced, as every design decision must focus on them playing as much football as they would choose too with as low an administrative burden as is possible. Beyond players, parents and managers, however, SoccerNet’s innovation is found through the provision of new ways of working in community engagement and marketing.
Many aspects of the footballing community are represented in the video to form SoccerNet’s brand. As discussed by Simon Sinek, genuine and lasting adoption occurs when a person’s identity correlates with that of the innovation. The themes of love, pride and passion, are projected within the video to demonstrate the ethos. ‘For the love of the game’, ‘pride’ and ‘passion’ are words strongly associated with the footballing community. While probably a bit obvious, the video starts with reference to England’s 1966 world cup win and the background music is World In Motion, featuring the (in)famous John Barnes rap, also referenced. Match of the Day presenter, Gary Lineker, is also represented who once famously opened the show in his underwear after losing a bet. As the England team are a primary concern to the FA, the England Manager is also represented (with a nod towards England’s terrible reputation for penalty shootouts). It is around this existing footballing community ethos that SoccerNet seeks to build its brand.
The innovation of SoccerNet is in taking a community development approach to engaging with grassroots football. Reflected early in the video, the FA Chairman is seeking new ways to engage with grassroots communities, and his technology director feels the organisation is a bit behind the times. The online tool currently used to organise the league is called FULL-TIME, a short analysis of which can be found in the user stories post. While this application is suitable for league level, as reflected by league managers in the video, it does not connect down to players. Our user surveys revealed how teams and players organise themselves using more familiar applications such as Facebook and WhatsApp, as discussed in the user stories post. This is a risk to the FA, as their leagues are based on the assumption people are willing to use these apps. This assumption is presently being tested following numerous scandals surrounding social media applications. A collapse of this assumption may mean decreased participation in football. To replace FULL-TIME with an online social network, therefore, decreases risk to the operation of grassroots football.
In addition to identifying with SoccerNet’s brand is a central theme of Collaborative Innovation in the video. Roger’s views Collaborative Innovation as central to promoting adoption of an innovation. The video shows a series of conversations between the FA’s Chairman, his staff and the grassroots community to simulate what this means. This simulation is an attempt to elevate the meaning of Collaborative Innovation above what might be perceived to be a business buzzword. Collaborative Innovation starts with delivering a minimal viable product upon release, represented in the opening scene. This product should be good enough to satisfy the general requirements, in this case providing tools to better organise a season, with room to develop ideas. The minimal viable product for SoccerNet is to match the functionality of FULL-TIME. Collaborative Innovation enables people to participate in the application development, thereby providing a greater sense of community ownership. It is through this sense of ownership people are more likely to adopt through affinity with the innovation.
The difference SoccerNet will make when compared to other applications is to enable community development. We found that football has always had strong roots in local communities and has long been a force for good in social change. Its high value on inclusivity is emphasised early in the video. The point of including a reference to the W3C Accessibility Standards and the new Blind Football League was not to suggest that these standards solve all problems. The point is to evidence SoccerNet’s commitment to inclusivity through use of W3C’s Accessibility Standards. (It should be noted due to a low availability of female footballer icons in the editing software, it was not possible to truly represent gender diversity in the video). We found that SoccerNet has the potential for strong community engagement through the FA’s community engagement team, as reflected in the user stories and number of times in the video. Our research revealed a problem with many missed opportunities for council funding of grassroots football, which SoccerNet has the potential to overcome. With a community as passionate as grassroots footballers, there is incredible potential.
End users of SoccerNet within the grassroots community are broadly represented in the video by a position of authority, their category within the Diffusion of Innovation model and social roles. In the socio-technical relationship between people and technology, a strong focus on end users is important for this design process. It might be tempting to place technology at the centre of innovation manifest as a wide-ranging technical diagrams. User stories, however, put people at the centre of innovation, which is a central theme of Agile project management, and critical to the success of social networks. Positions are derived from research about league structures, categories are derived from Rogers and social roles from Gladwell, as discussed in this post. Additionally, to demonstrate inclusivity, people with disabilities are represented as are people with low digital literacy. End users from the user story post are characterised by each of these representations in the video (note the video is structured in time to emphasise priorities for ethos rather than position in Rogers’ model). These representations should be interpreted as ‘personas’ which means people in positions of authority can be any permutation of diffusion categories and social roles. For example, Financial Directors are most likely to be in Late Majority as they need to be convinced of community buy-in before committing funds, but this is a presumption, there could be particularly innovative finance directors with a greater appetite for risk. The End User personas are as follows:
- Innovators. The Marketing Manager, quickly adopts the idea and offers new ones, the FA Chairman.
- Early Adopters. The Team Managers, people in positions of leadership who seek positive change with their team.
- Early Majority. The Players, an important and large cohort in the social system to promote adoption. The league managers, lower in number but highly influential and are necessarily sceptical through a desire to protect the integrity of their league. The Referees, necessarily sceptical to protect their own reputation.
- Late Majority. The Parent, they have the scarce resource of time and choose to adopt out of necessity to regain some time. Despite being indirectly involved, however, they have strong influence through their children. Finance Director, must protect financial resources and will only likely choose to adopt once they are certain about community buy-in.
- Laggards. the Club Manager, very resistant to change, unless the benefit is overwhelming enough for them to learn about the innovation. While not in the video, the non-supporter or player of football is certainly a laggard, they are the most difficult person to reach, however, evidence of these people adopting is a measure of successful diffusion of the innovation.
- People with disabilities. The blind player.
- People with low digital literacy. The Club Chairman, most likely the reason for him being a laggard.
- Connectors. FA Community development team and local council worker, people most likely to organise social events.
- Mavens. The Technology Director, team ‘Work in Progress’ and Southampton University Academics, all have deep technical knowledge of online social networks.
- Salesperson. John Barnes, Gareth Southgate and Gary Lineker, both have extraordinary charisma, are notable in the community and have strong power to influence.
In engaging with social networks we also found its power as a communications channel over more familiar forms of media. The potential here is addressed through the marketing man in the video. He offers a number of ways to promote the FA’s ‘For All’ campaign and for professionals to engage with grassroots communities. Online social networks are both the innovation and communications medium to promote innovation. Similar to community engagement, there is much potential here.
Beyond promoting adoption, there is also potential to promote participation using gamification. Gamification could be used to complement how the FA presently upholds its Community Standards. These standards are codified in the FA’s Governance rules, presently enforced through marketing campaigns and by referees during matches. Our market research, however, revealed a number of people who do not believe these standards are sufficiently enforced and prefer to play other sports, thereby damaging the FA’s brand. Our research also revealed an objection to football as a money making machine, despite the FA’s strong social value and Community Interest Concern (CIC) status. To promote adoption, therefore, SoccerNet’s business model could only be a CIC. Taking a more proactive role in promoting high community standards, therefore, has strong potential to add brand value to the FA. An online referee, referred to in the video, may give out red and yellow cards to people who breach the rules in their online behaviour. There is also strong potential to publically reward people who strongly uphold these rules, such as with the Standard Charter Accreditation, also referred to in the video. It is through gamification using recognised standards that SoccerNet has the most potential to influence change.
Beyond a healthy dose of techno-optimism, however, there a number of issues for consideration that may restrict both adoption and participation. The primary issue is that of online abuse, which goes against the FA’s community standards. The video hypothetically suggests self-moderation between team mates, which seems reasonable, but not assured, alongside online content monitoring, which adds a degree of assurance. Online abuse is no easy problem to solve and is potentially SoccerNet’s biggest risk to adoption. The second issue is one of online security for children, which our research revealed was of great concern to parents. To manage this risk, as shown in the video, SoccerNet will initially be open to over-16s only. Nonetheless, an aspiration would be to develop solutions for younger children over time through Collaborative Innovation. The General Data Protection Regulation Act places a number of restrictions on how the network can be used, and only becomes a risk should those restrictions be breached. Finally is the problem of digital literacy within the grassroots community, as referred to in the video through the club manager. In deploying an online social network we are aware of an implicit assumption of digital literacy among the grassroots community. We are conscious of the limited uptake among older generations who are passionate about football, but not technology. For those who wish to adopt SoccerNet, there is the potential to deploy digital literacy training with local councils, but we are aware that this is more of an inclusivity that adoption issue, as we do not wish to exclude people from the community. The issues for consideration are either risks or design considerations.
The design considerations are captured in the User Stories, perhaps a critical post to the whole project. User stories are used for capturing design considerations and informing onward system design. The video is, in essence, a representation of these stories. The use case diagrams were derived from these stories from which the mock-ups were created. A review of existing technologies was then conducted to ensure design feasibility.
In funding SoccerNet, we seem driven towards funding from within existing finances. Our research revealed an objection to paying for an additional service, especially set against perceptions of profit over social purpose motives. This objection is reflected in the video. There are two potential ways to acquire the technology, either through the acquisition of an existing tool found in our research or through creating a new system from scratch. For the purposes of this project, we chose the latter as it would not be possible to estimate the value of existing applications. We received a quote for set up costs to be in the region of £2.2m based on technologies from our system design. Based on analysis from the FA’s 2016 financial statement, we reasonably suggest that SoccerNet is financially feasible within existing finances.
It should be noted our references to market research here are figurative. The ethical approval was submitted well in advance, however, due to circumstances beyond control, it was not possible to process in time. For the purposes of this project, comments provided throughout this project are based on our own knowledge of football and general feelings towards the game.
Following this research, we believe we have created a viable and innovative online social network.