Our projects
Client work, innovation projects and spin-outs
Our social spin-off that asks “what’s the 5-a-day for your mind?” and encourages everyone to take better care of their mental health. Mindapples started in 2008 in response to the lack of public interest and understanding of our minds. Now Mindapples is a thriving non-profit working with charitable funders like Comic Relief and Kings Health Partners, and major commercial clients including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, L'Oreal, News UK and the Wellcome Trust.
In 2007, the Royal Society for Arts engaged Sociability to encourage its 27,000 fellows to collaborate on social innovation projects. We designed a new collaboration platform with Fellows, and created the technical and engagement strategy to help the Fellowship connect and create together. The tool was quickly adopted by 1000 active fellows, and the RSA has implemented many of the recommendations from that strategy today, as it reinvents itself as a platform for 21st century social change.
In 2010, Sociability co-wrote the NSPCC's digital strategy and business processes. The work drew on best practice research from the non-profit sector to outline quick wins and long-term strategic goals for fundraising, customer service and service delivery. It has informed the Society’s digital strategy ever since, and two months after the delivery of the report, the NSPCC conducted its most successful viral campaign to date.
Social by Social (2009) was the UK’s first practical guide to using social technologies for social impact, from starting digital projects to promoting charities online. It was commissioned by NESTA and co-authored by Andy Gibson, Amy Sample Ward, David Wilcox, and Dr Nigel Courtney and Professor Clive Holtham of Cass Business School. “if you’re interested in using social media in your organization, and you should be, Social by Social is the real deal." - Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist
A media experiment co-hosted by Jack Klaff and Andrew Gibson, to create a long-form interactive TV format. Guests were filmed having a free-form, social, which viewers could discuss online via Twitter. There are now plans for further Lock-ins in collaboration with other events and media companies.
An experimental project to build a simple web and mobile application to help people organise and manage their volunteers. We aim to do for volunteering what Mailchimp and Basecamp have done for mailouts and project management: to make it as simple as possible for anyone to organise a voluntary group.
Andy Gibson’s influential pamphlet on social media in local authorities, Local by Social, was published by NESTA and the IDeA in 2010. It showcased cutting edge activities and signposted the way ahead for local government, and has influenced public policy and local government technology strategies for many years since. “a call to arms for local authorities to effectively use social media to improve local engagement and promote efficient communication” - Public Technology review
We've worked extensively with the public innovation body NESTA to help them pioneer digital approaches to tackling society's toughest problems. We've evaluated several innovation projects for them, including their ambitions Reboot Britain digital services programme, and Jailbrake, a project to develop mobile app services to help young offenders rebuild their lives. We also helped them with their early thought leadership work in digital innovation, including writing a number of think-pieces.
Sociability's founder Andrew Gibson was an early associate at the public sector reform practice, Futuregov, and helped with some of their projects, including designing the UK framework for government e-petitions, which became the best practice for Europe and beyond.