Google plus comunity

Trial Observations: First two weeks

Community Support:

The Breastfeeding Support Program's G+ Community.  The Breastfeeding Support Program’s G+ Community.

An active community has developed on Google+ to support all trial participants (both mothers and counsellors).  We started out using this to support the group with technical Q&As. Yet it has quickly grown into a very active community of support and sharing amongst all the participants.

Breastfeeding Support Project Team's instructional videos. Breastfeeding Support Project Team’s instructional videos.

Communication and Technical Troubleshooting:

We needed to simplify our approach when providing tech support. We started out using sophisticated introduction videos, when in fact many participants only needed to know basics e.g. How to download an app from the Apps Store.  We made several simple over the shoulder videos for the women and these met the participants needs a lot better.

New mum, Lauren Clarke uses Glass with a secondary battery source. New mum, Lauren Clarke uses Glass with a secondary battery source.

The Google Glass hardware in its current developer versions has limited battery life, with live video calls lasting no more than 20 mins.  A simple solution was to connect the device to a secondary battery source. There have also been some wireless connection difficulties, which the team have been able to work through individually.

Overall the approach looks to be working and the team feels it has the potential to significantly improve current methods of support and increase breastfeeding rates in Australia.

This week the team will review in more detail the content, support model and unmet needs from trial participants to see what can be rapidly improved for the next phase of the trial.