The Lesson from the Sex App

They got it – phewf.

For those of your poised at the edge of your seats wondering what the hell I was on about yesterday when I introduced the Sex App Video.

It was this:

The campaign is brilliant and was genuinely successful. This group in Stokholm wanted to improve sexual health among young people and the campaign led to a 39% increase in the number intending to use condoms. Excellent.

But what really struck me was the willingness of these people to share this amount of data. 5,900 people went through this process:

1. find out about app
2. download app
3. fill in personal information about yourself
4. find a partner willing to use it with you
5. Use the app during sex
6. remember to turn on before sex
7. remember to turn off at the end of sex
8. upload highly personal information to a public website
9. compare and contrast their sexual virility with their peers

I find that fascinating and very inspiring. Not because I have any interest whatsoever in the sexual behaviour of young Swedes, but because that amount of people were THAT willing and practically eager to share that amount of highly personal data.

It was for a good cause and a is an excellent case study in budge theory, because it achieved its main aim.

This interests me because I wonder how much this principle could be used by Universities. We are extremely keen to get data and information from students, we are infinitely eager to know and understand more about the highly complex and diverse student body that exists on our campuses. But we have hit a wall on surveys and focus groups. Students just don’t take part any more, they are not interested.

This app shows that if you work on something, put a bit of creativity into it, make it fun, interesting and convenient people are willing to share all sorts of information about themselves. Time to get our thinking caps. What sort of app could be created to gather intelligence from our students, so that we can understand them better.