Health minister Ben Bradshaw proposes a system for patients where they can comment on the experiences they have when they see their doctor, to be implemented already next year. Somewhat unfortunate, he likens his vision to the rating system of Amazon and Tripadvisor and this seems to alienate the leaders of the British Medical Association, who sees this as a “meaningless popularity” contest” where patients will “slander and praise irresponsibly”. Says chairman Laurence Buckman:

“I think this has everything to do with consumerism and it has not been thought through well. I am happy for people to praise or criticise their doctor, but this is not the way professionals should interact with their patients. It has a great potential to be misleading.”

While I was struck by his defensive approach, I can understand that no GP would enjoy negative comments from patients on the services they provide. But Buckman is equally concerned abut the GPs ability to stay focused on their job and not see this as a “gaming” opportunity where they encourage their patients to leave positive comments to avoid loosing patients.

There is a huge design challenge here. First of all - after reading the article, I’m still asking myself what exactly is the main purpose of the system? Is it to help patients pick a GP they can trust to take care of their health issues? To help the GP to improve? Is it a way for NHS to gather data about the current state of the practices in the UK?

Designing a system that takes all this into account and is capable of providing meaningful feedback to all parts involved needs someone to bring all the different groups together and involve them jointly in the effort. As a patient, what do I really want to know about my doctor? As a GP, what do I want the patients to know about me? If you examine these questions, you will often find that different perspectives often leads to the same goal: “I want to know that my GP is able and willing to help me get better” is not that different from “I want my patients to know that I have the skills and willingness work with them to find a solution to their problems”.  Picking a doctor that is best for me is not always about picking the most popular one - for the system to be a success, it needs to carefully consider all the issues that comes with crowd rating on sites such as Tripadvisor and Amazon. Instead of becoming a popularity show, this tool should aid every patient in finding the doctor that they will communicate best with.

Bradshaw’s big challenge is to get the BMA on his side.  He needs to show them how interacting with patients in such a system can be a huge resource for any doctor.  If they are ready and willing, they are not subject to become “public failures” as much as they will be sitting on an incredible resource of information on to win new patients and improve their existing relationships. This could be a win win for everybody.

At Made by Many, young as we are, a tradition has emerged. This involves heaps of driftwood, the sound of wet, salty waves, mud that sticks like glue to your boots and pants, a terrifying death slide and a frying pan with attitude. Not necessarily in that order.

It must be obvious to you by now that I am talking about the annual Christmas bash. Yes, that one - THE party of office parties – the day when anything is possible and everything becomes legal since on the next morning, people usually don’t remember exactly what happened anyway.

Well. You won’t forget a Christmas party on the beach in late December! We started early and had a lovely train ride down to a pittoresque village called Worth Matravers, where we visited  the Square and Compass Pub, a “pub so olde that they don’t even have a bar, just a hole in the wall” (Tim’s quote). From there, we walked through beautiful scenery, past a duck pound, a farm, a scary looking ox (and some friendlier cows), until we reached the infamous and terrifying death slide leading down to the beach.

Safely down, we collected driftwood and put together a bon fire, which Flint the dog almost caught fire from but Chef Oli then tamed with a noisy frying pan, masterfully dishing up the most amazingly superb dishes. On the menu was:

Various pork saussages, + some lovely chorizo that David supplied
Bifa Ana (mozambique style) - Marinated rump steak: parsley; garlic; chili; bay leaf; olive oil and a little red wine
Grilled leg of lamb - Marinated in: Olive paste; garlic; anchovy and rosemary
Lentils -  onion; leak; carrots; bay leaf; garlic and toasted cumin seeds

Also (although nobody ate it cause we were too cold by now)

Cous cous - grilled veg (courgette; aubergine; onion; pepper); roasted cherry tomatoes; pomegranate and parsley

Julia served Polish mulled beer with honey and Tim made the best ever mulled wine. Stuart, adding to the atmosphere, braved the cold by playing Hallelujah on his guitar.

In spite of the December cold, we all had a fantastic time together. But I must admit that my fave moment came on the train back, when Tim suggested we’d add a new and different spin to our Christmas beach tradition by spending five days on a beach in the Caribbean next year…

Isaac’s photos

William’s photos

Matt’s photos

Simon’s photos

Tim’s photos

My photos

… and if you’re like me, this means you’re now extremely busy opening as many calendar windows as possible (several times every day).

As much as I love chocolate figures and tiny little neon plastic gifts, I’ve acquired a taste for the online versions. One of my favourite calendars on the web this year is The Words’ musical calendar which brings you a little surprise you tube movie everyday. Much better for my diet and who can resist a clip of Princess Leia singing…?

I’m also addicted to Vinspired’s Festive Favours. Yesterday’s task was to download and cut out Christmas decorations and decorate a colleague’s desk. Not as easy as it seemed, but I hope Stuart enjoyed his beautiful Christmas three…

At the Dconstruct conference on the social web earlier this year, Alex Krotoski spoke about building a bridge between the game and web communities. The difference between these two, she claims, is mainly that while game developers get to design products that target people like themselves, the web community designs solutions targeted towards very different people than themselves. But as games become main stream (Nicole Kidman appearing in the Nitendo DS lite ads for instance), and room for play is more accepted as a way of enhancing the user experience in web applications, the two communities definitely have something to learn from each other.

So, largely agreeing with Alex I spent last Friday at Playful, a one day event about games and play hosted by Pixel-Lab here in London. There were many great speakers on the program and although a few of these came disappointingly unprepared, the atmosphere in Conway Hall was warm, fun and engaging.

To me, the most interesting talks revolved around the notion of “freeplay” - the bit of the user experience that can’t be designed or controlled by designers in advance.
Interaction designer Kars Alfrink (Leapfrog) stressed that meaning and value is created by the user. Designers will take this away from people by presuming play in advance. To allow a “possibility space” to emerge, you have to “under-specify” and create tools rather than trying to define a specific experience.

Eric Zimmerman of GameLab’s talk was also about “free play”, and how “systems literacy” is the new defining form of literacy in the coming years. So many aspects in our life are mediated by interfaces and systems, and game play is a model for understanding systems because games have rules. “Problem solving does not only require an understanding of the system,” Zimmerman said, “but also the ability to play with it.” Systems does not understand play, or emotions -  they enforce rules. Designers who create amazing user experiences and drive innovation make sure that the rules of the system allow a little bit of “freeplay” - movement within the rigid structure. Eric used the game of wriggling the steering wheel or playing with the gear stake when you’re driving as an example - the gear/steering wheel is there because of the system, but freeplay is the free movement within this system. Flickr is a great web example of this - members use the groups and pools as tools to create games around photography.

Architect Eric Clogh (212box) gave us another example of a “system” within the system. While renovating the Klinsky residence on upper Fifth Avenue NY, they were asked to do a little “something” for their four kids. Combining architectural elements with history and puzzles, he created an incredible story that the kids would unravel via 18 clues embedded in the apartment, which got progressively more difficult to solve. Read more about “The Mystery on Fifth Avenue” at the Herald Tribune.

In tune with all of this, designer Matt Brown from Last.fm urged us to “draw more dots - people will join them”. Last.fm have released an API to their service so that people can create their own stuff around the listening and sharing experience. Matt is especially interested in how games can help teach us how to play an instrument and demoed some fun little games based on finger exercises for brass instruments. As an old Trombone player, my favourite must be the “Breath Control Car” although the Singing sock puppets are hilarious…

Well done to Pixel Lab for hosting this event - it will be interesting to see how it progress next year.