Olivia Hickey - 57521561 Susan Blake - 57383088 Laurence McEntee - 58609471

Olivia Hickey - 57521561
Susan Blake - 57383088
Laurence McEntee - 58609471
M.Sc. in Electronic Commerce
‘Taking Action for a Greener Future’
Business Advisor: PJ Byrne
Technical Advisor: Joe Morris
School of Computing/DCUBS
August 2012
DCU Business School
Assignment Submission
Student Names:
Susan Blake, Olivia Hickey, Laurence McEntee
Student Numbers:
57383088, 57521561, 58609471
Programme:
MECB1 - MSc in Electronic Commerce (Business)
Project Title:
MECB Practicum
Module code:
CA550
Lecturer:
Cathal Gurrin
Project Due Date:
20-AUG-2012
Declaration
I hereby certify that this material, which I submit for assessment on the programme of
study leading to the award of M.Sc. in Electronic Commerce is entirely my own work
and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work
has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. I also certify that I have
read, understand and am in compliance with the DCU Guidelines on Best Practice in
Research Ethics.
Signed:
_______________________________________
_______________________________________
_______________________________________
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Acknowledgments
We would like to take an opportunity to extend our gratitude to all the people that took time
out of their own busy schedules to assist us with our research. Your guidance and support
have helped us immensely throughout this process.
We would like to give particular thanks to the following individuals;
Joe Morris – Technical Advisor, DCU
PJ Byrne – Business Advisor, DCU
Antonio Ruzelli – Wattics
Alan Smeaton, Clarity Centre, DCU
We would also like to acknowledge all of the Primary School Teachers who take part in our
study. Without you all we could not have gotten the valuable insight we required.
Thank you all,
Olivia, Susan and Laurence
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Contents
Section 1: Executive Summary .............................................................................................. 6
Mission Statement: ............................................................................................................. 6
Company Background: ....................................................................................................... 6
Concept:............................................................................................................................. 6
Market: ............................................................................................................................... 7
Technology Overview: ........................................................................................................ 7
Financial Overview: ............................................................................................................ 7
Section 2: The Product .......................................................................................................... 9
Concept.............................................................................................................................. 9
Novelty of Concept ............................................................................................................10
Motivation for the concept .................................................................................................11
Potential of the concept .....................................................................................................12
Section 3: Industry Analysis ..................................................................................................13
Analysis of Irish & UK Market ............................................................................................13
Analysis of European Market .............................................................................................15
Competitor Analysis ..........................................................................................................18
Electricity Suppliers ...........................................................................................................22
Section 4: Strategy ...............................................................................................................24
PESTLE Analysis ..............................................................................................................24
PORTERS 5 Forces ..........................................................................................................26
Business Model .................................................................................................................30
Partners ............................................................................................................................33
Revenue............................................................................................................................37
Value Chain.......................................................................................................................42
Section 5: Marketing .............................................................................................................44
SWOT Analysis .................................................................................................................44
Key Issues ........................................................................................................................46
Objectives .........................................................................................................................46
The Marketing Mix .............................................................................................................48
Section 6: Technology ..........................................................................................................53
Smart Meters.....................................................................................................................53
How Smart Meters will be used in the game ......................................................................59
Technology Roadmap .......................................................................................................62
Systems Architecture ........................................................................................................65
Storage .............................................................................................................................65
The website: ......................................................................................................................67
Design ...............................................................................................................................69
Usability ............................................................................................................................73
Section 7: Finance ................................................................................................................76
Sales Projections ..............................................................................................................76
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Profit and loss Account ......................................................................................................80
Balance Sheet ...................................................................................................................78
CashFlow Statement .........................................................................................................79
Section 8: Primary Research ................................................................................................82
Summary Interview with Alan Smeaton ( DCU Clarity Center): ..........................................82
Summary of Webinar Interview with Dr Antonio Ruzzelli of Wattics Smart Metering ..........83
The Green Schools Programme: .......................................................................................85
Game Developer (Affinity Tech): .......................................................................................85
Survey Results from Primary School Teachers: ................................................................86
Focus Group with Primary School Teachers:.....................................................................87
Section 9: Electric Action Game Overview ............................................................................89
Game Play ........................................................................................................................89
Section 10: Risk Assessment................................................................................................93
Financial risks: ..................................................................................................................93
Organisational Risk: ..........................................................................................................94
Risk management: ............................................................................................................94
Section 11: The Organisation Team......................................................................................95
Team composition: ............................................................................................................95
Management Team Background: ......................................................................................95
Strengths and Weaknesses...............................................................................................95
Section 11: Legal Requirements ...........................................................................................98
Register Business Name ...................................................................................................98
Company Registration .......................................................................................................98
Regulation of Limited Liability Companies .........................................................................99
Section 12: Bibliography .....................................................................................................100
Section 13: Appendix ..........................................................................................................107
Appendix Number 1: Email to Alan Smeaton ......................................................................107
Appendix Number 2: Email to Green Schools .....................................................................107
Appendix Number 3: Email to Game Developer ..................................................................109
Appendix Number 4: Email to RedBrick ..............................................................................110
Appendix Number 5: Email to Wattics .................................................................................111
Appendix Number 6: Questionnaires for Schools ................................................................112
Appendix Number 7: Transcription of Focus Group ............................................................114
Appendix Number 8: Team CV‘s .........................................................................................117
Appendix Number 9: Blog ...................................................................................................123
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Section 1: Executive Summary
Mission Statement:
Our objective is to take action for a greener future; we plan to do this by educating today‘s
primary school children on their school‘s energy usage, providing them with an engaging
method of learning about electricity conservation.
Company Background:
We are a team of three recent graduates of Masters in E-Commerce in DCU. We are
passionate about energy conservation and encouraging principles of ‗being green‘. We have
a deep focus in education and want to combine these two areas to develop an energy
education game for young children. Electric Action is the company name and also the name
of our first product. www.electricaction.com is a website that hosts our energy saving game
that will be played in primary schools.
Concept:
The concept is based around the Electric Action game that will be played in primary schools,
initially in Ireland. The game will be based on a school's actual energy consumption with the
goal of reducing it to save money and also teach children about their carbon footprint.
Children will be able to see the energy their school has used in real time via smart meter
technology. Schools will compete against each other to reduce their overall energy
consumption.
The basic concept for the game is a character called ‗bolt‘ in a classroom whose main
objective is to save electricity by turning off appliances, closing windows etc. The character
must avoid energy hungry monsters in order to stay green and retain a high energy level.
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Market:
Initially, the product will be launched in Ireland and targeted at primary school children aged
7-8 years. There are approximately 3,300 primary schools in Ireland at present. Although the
children are the target end users, we are targeting electricity companies to license the
product. We will only be licensing to one electricity company, giving them the competitive
advantage in the marketplace. Both EU legislation and the commission for energy regulation
(CER) have demonstrated support for the introduction of smart meters in a recent CER paper
based around a national rollout programme of electricity smart metering. We want to give
schools the first insight into how exactly the electricity smart meters work. Our expansion
plans involve launching the product in the UK market after year three in Ireland; the UK offers
a larger market of 16,971 primary schools.
Technology Overview:
The smart meter we have selected to use is the Efegy Elite 1.0; this system comes with all
the specific requirements needed. It gives an electricity meter reading at 6 second intervals, it
gives a cost analysis for each reading and it includes an accumulator to add up readings over
a number of days/weeks. Data will be transferred via wifi; the game itself will be accessed on
the Electric Action website. The game incorporates the meter reading, which can be seen on
the screen. All data generated will be stored securely in a cloud computing system.
Financial Overview:
Funding
Each charter member of Electric Ireland will invest €10,000 each to establish the business
and create an account to cover initial costs, such as start-up costs, game development costs
and smart meters to cover Quarter one (150 schools; €6,900).
This investment will be repaid after year one, with no effect on profits.
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Sales Forecast
Profits
Year
2013
2014
2015
Gross Profit
€31,962.50
€ 10,862.50
€ 10,862.50
Expenses & Tax
€3,995.31
€1,357.81
€ 1,357.81
Net Profit after Tax
€27,967.19
€9,504.69
€ 9,504.69
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Section 2: The Product
Concept
The concept for our practicum idea is an energy saving game that will be played by children
in primary schools. The target audience will initially be 7 - 8 year olds in Ireland. The game is
called ‗Electric Action‘ and will be based on a school's actual energy consumption through a
smart meter that will provide a reading into the game. The reading will be simple for children
to understand and the game will provide a context and meaning for the reading. There will be
a goal of reducing this number to save money and also teach children about the significance
of a carbon footprint from a young age. Children will be able to see the energy their school
has used and will compete against other schools in their area to reduce their energy
consumption. Electric Action will have an interactive element as it will provide tips to the
children such as turning off lights and closing windows. The children will then have to
translate these tips into everyday actions over the course of the school day when they are
logged out of the game. These activities will still be related to the game and reducing the
overall carbon footprint.
Good computer games incorporate a whole set of fundamentally sound learning principles,
principles that can be used in other settings. For example, our game will teach pupils how to
be environmentally conscious in school and at home. This game gives information about
schools actual energy consumption on demand and will help them to set goals to reduce it
(Gee 2003). Educational computer games provide a positive context for engaging children in
activities that bring them educational content and feedback. To take full advantage of the
medium of gaming, we will fully integrate the educational content into the game. The
educational context which is central to the game is intended to engage children with the real
world issue of carbon footprints which makes them environmentally conscious while they are
playing the game and afterwards (Fisch 2005). Electric Action will be a free to play game with
funding for it not coming from the players. It will be played online through a website.
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The integration with the smart meter will be central to the game which shows children their
schools energy usage. There will also be additional environmental issues addressed in
further versions of the game including transport and renewable energy as we have identified
these as being growing areas of concern for the future and linking topics still related to
energy.
Novelty of Concept
We are confident about the novelty of this concept as our unique selling point is the fact that
we will use a school's actual energy data through a smart meter. As explained in the
competitor‘s analysis, this is something that our competition is not currently doing as they are
using fictional scenarios and data.
Jane McGonigal gave a TED talk in 2010 about the importance of online gaming. She said
that 3 billion hours a week spent playing online games and she thinks this number should
grow to solve world issues. Her logic behind games being so essential to the future survival
to the human species is that when players are in a gaming mind-set, they have a sense of
urgency, fear and a deep focus to tackle a problem. Players are generally optimistic during
game play. In a game we are the best version of ourselves and are willing to try again when
we fail. We are convinced that we can achieve a win. She goes on to describe the situation of
‗an epic win‘. Players are shocked to see what they are truly capable of. We need more of
this for real world situations such as climate change (McGonigal 2010).
Electric Action takes online gaming to a new level by assessing monotonous real world
everyday situations and turning them into an exciting game that is personal to each school
based on their energy consumption. The competitive element, playing against your previous
reading and trying to reduce it, as well as playing against other schools in your area is
something new and exciting for children.
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Motivation for the concept
The motivation behind creating an educational energy game for school children is so that
young people can learn about being socially responsible from a young age when it comes to
energy consumption. Our group of three are all passionate about energy conservation. We
consider it to be an important area for the future as fossil fuels reduce and greenhouse gases
and global warming become more prevalent.
When we initially decided that the game would be aimed at school children, we soon thought
about the possibility of incorporating the game play into achieving the Green Schools Energy
Flag. The Green Schools flag programme is in place in an attempt to instil a strong sense of
citizenship and leadership among participants that spreads far outside the school and into the
wider community (Green Schools, 1 2012).
We will be targeting the age group of 7 - 8 year olds initially. Our main motivation is to inspire
and educate Ireland's youth when it comes to energy conservation, but do it in a fun and
exciting environment. The theme of energy will provide positive opportunities for children to
focus on attitudes, behaviour and sustainable lifestyles (Bright Sparks 2001). An aim of
positive adoption of the game would be that children will continue with their energy
conservation at home and not just confine it to school. We want to educate them to learn that
energy conservation can and should be done in a whole range of places such as school,
home, in deciding upon transportation etc.
Our mission statement and tagline for the game is ‗Taking Action for a Greener Future‘. We
feel that it is important to define what we want the children to have achieved at the end of
playing the game. The goal is that we will have instilled a sense of social consciousness
when it comes to the topic of energy. Children will understand what is meant by ‗wasting
energy‘ and they will understand spending and saving on energy in monetary terms.
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Potential of the concept
Gilgeous and D‘Cruz (1996, pg. 32) discuss business and management games and the
effects that these can have on participants. We see our game as management oriented,
where children will have the opportunity to manage their schools electricity. ―Management
games have shown themselves to be a valuable and enjoyable teaching tool. They allow
active participation so that, instead of just seeing or hearing how to do something, they offer a
way of practising what to do yourself. They can be used to develop new skills or as an
adjunct to traditional methods of teaching‖. Considering these findings, we think it is clear that
our game has potential moving forward, not only is our game informative, creating energy
awareness for young children, it is also providing management skills.
An issue that we have highlighted as being important is sustaining enthusiasm in the long
run. In an attempt to achieve longevity within the product, we will attempt to expand the
brand. We plan to do this by incorporating a range of mini games alongside the main game,
which is based around the smart meter. In the future we plan to expand the range further to
sell Electric Action merchandise, which would feature the main character ‗Bolt‘. This strategy
has been very successful for the ‗moshi monsters‘ brand. What started off as a computer
game now includes trading cards, figurines, toys, sweets, bags, stationery etc. all of which
are available from a range of suppliers both online and offline.
Electric Action are different in the sense that the emphasis must always be on saving energy
therefore we feel a brand expansion plan would need to base around this. Growing Tree Toys
are one website that provides toys made from renewable resources, such as bamboo. We
would hope to combine moshi monster and growing tree toys to provide an attractive and
affordable product range that stays true to its original mission statement, ‗Taking Action for a
Greener Future‘.
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Section 3: Industry Analysis
Analysis of Irish & UK Market
―Ireland can become a global epicentre for the green economy‖ (Doyle 2012). These were the
thoughts that emerged from a sustainability summit in Galway in July 2012. The conference
was organised by the Green IFSC initiative and was opened by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
The Taoiseach saw the summit as being an opportunity for Ireland to show what we can offer
in terms of our green-economy assets. He spoke about how Ireland has the chance to
become a global centre of excellence for green finance but pointed out that we need to
stimulate investment into our own green economy. Almost 18% of the country's energy was
generated from renewable sources last year and continuous investment in this area will be
integral to shaping Ireland‘s future (Tech 2012).
The Department for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources released a detailed
Action Plan in 2009 regarding Ireland‘s energy usage. One of the principal measures outlined
in the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan 2009-2012 was to; ―introduce energy efficiency
programmes for Government Departments, State Agencies, Local Authorities, the Health
Service and all other areas of the public sector‖. The clear demand for a programme such as
ours is illustrated in this plan. The informative game that we have designed provides an
insight into energy efficiency in a simple understandable manner.
The purpose of the Energy Efficiency Action Plan is to chart a path towards achieving a 33%
(public sector) reduction in energy demand by 2020. The Action Plan also re-affirms Ireland‘s
commitment to contributing to the 20% energy savings target set out in the EU Energy
Efficiency Action Plan. Meeting these targets is extremely important for Ireland and we are
assisting in this process. Through a variety of enjoyable tasks, children will learn from an
early age about energy conservation and energy efficiency, this knowledge can be
transferred to both the home and the workplace.
The Government also has a strategy for Renewable Energy 2012-2020. Renewable energy
reduces dependence on fossil fuels such as oil and gas. It improves security of supply of
energy which is a major issue for the future. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions which
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brings environmental benefits (DCENR 2012). Ireland‘s target for renewable energy is 16% of
gross final consumption by 2020. The EU as a whole has a target of 20% of all energy to
come from renewable sources (SEAI 2012). For these reasons we feel it is important to
incorporate the topic of renewable energy into the game even though it is not directly related
to the smart meter. As detailed further in the game description, renewable energy will be
incorporated into later versions of Electric Action.
Our game is based around the concept of energy management, and the effects of choosing
to use energy in a particular way. Energy management can help minimise energy use, reduce
costs and make a difference for primary school students. In Ireland there are approximately
3,300 primary schools (schooldays.ie).
The natural progression into the British market is already being established through other
energy based projects, in particular the proposed electricity interconnector. ―A very significant
development for renewable energy is the proposed electricity interconnector between Ireland
and the UK. This will allow for the export of electricity from Ireland to the much larger UK
market‖ (Minogue 2010). The prospect of expanding to the United Kingdom is an attractive
one; this market offers a larger market of approximately 16,971 primary schools (cilt.org.uk).
There are five main electricity providers in Ireland that are potential partners for our product.
These are; Airtricity, ESB, Bord Gais Energy, Electric Ireland and Prepay Power. Airtricity
have developed smart meter technology to measure electricity usage, they brand themselves
as ―Ireland‘s fastest-growing, greenest and largest independent energy provider‖.
Considering this, Airtricity provide an ideal partnership for our product, we will also investigate
the opportunity that exists in partnering with the other providers listed. The United Kingdom
offers even more choice in terms of electricity providers, the current leading providers are
British Gas, Sainsbury‘s Energy, EDF Energy, Npower, First Utility, Southern Electric,
Scottish Power and E.On.
The 2009 Renewable Energy Directive set a target for the UK to achieve 15% of its energy
consumption from renewables by 2020. This is in comparison to 3% in 2009. The Department
of Energy and Climate Change have highlighted that achieving these targets will be
challenging and will require strong contributions from all three sectors of electricity, heat and
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transport (DECC 2012). This again shows us that it is important to tackle the areas of
transport and renewable energy within the Electric Action Game.
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in the UK released an
Energy Efficiency Action Plan in 2007. This Action Plan set out the measures put in place to
deliver improvements in energy efficiency in the UK in order to contribute to the achievement
of the climate and energy policy objectives and to meet the 9% energy saving target by 2016
under the European Union‘s Energy End-Use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive
(DEFRA 2007). These measures included zero carbon homes, providing loans for companies
to invest in their own energy efficiency and to commit to research and development in this
area.
Analysis of European Market
We have also examined the European market to establish if there would be potential for
Electric Action outside the UK and Ireland. As has been highlighted above, many of Ireland
and the UK‘s targets have been set by the EU, so we were confident that expansion into
other European countries would be possible as all member states will have their own
individual targets.
Reuters reported in August 2012 that the EU was struggling to keep up with their 2020 green
goals (Lewis 2012). In March 2007, EU's leaders put forward a set of 2020 green energy
targets. The aim was to transform the 27 member states into a low carbon economy with
secure and affordable fuel supplies.
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The three main targets are:
●
to reduce EU greenhouse gas emissions to at least 20 percent below 1990 levels
●
to draw 20 percent of energy consumption from renewable sources
●
to cut primary energy use by 20 percent compared with projected levels
(Lewis 2012)
The progress has been varied. Currently, the EU looks to be on track to meet the two binding
targets of a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gases and of drawing 20 percent of the energy
supply from renewable sources. The target for fuel efficiency was not binding and the EU is
expected to achieve only about half of this goal (Lewis 2012). Electric Action could be
promoted as a game across European schools to make progress with this goal and keep
children, their parents and teachers engaged.
There is a European Greenlight Organisation which is a voluntary programme where private
and public organisations commit towards the European Commission to reducing their lighting
energy use. This has been on-going since the year 2000 and has the support of the
European Union (Green Light 2012). This shows us that there are positive energy initiatives
in place in Europe and that there could be a market for our product.
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www.energy.eu (2012) is ―Europe‘s Energy Portal‖. They have launched a Green EU Initiative
to support reforestation projects worldwide. Planting trees and the concept of tree‘s taking in
CO2 is something that we intend to incorporate into later stages of Electric Action. Taking
these factors into consideration we feel that expansion into other European countries is a
serious option for the future.
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Competitor Analysis
We have researched other companies who are in the area of energy games with young
people. The following table shows the findings of the three companies who we believe to be
our biggest competitors:
1.
IBM City One:
Overview: In this game, players must make decisions in order to run a city most effectively.
The aim of the game is to make positive changes in a virtual city in the areas of energy,
traffic, water, banking and retail management through a series of scenarios. Players make
decisions in an attempt to improve the city by earning money for taking an appropriate course
of action which would lead to increasing citizen‘s satisfaction and making the environment
greener and a better place to live. While playing this game, the aim is to teach players about
business process management and making ‗green‘ choices (Kolodny 2010). IBM markets this
as being a ―serious game‖ which is also meant to serve as a conversation starter about the
future. IBM foresees that the players will focus on how making changes today prepare
businesses for what is to come tomorrow (IBM 2010). It has been compared to Sim City for
the real world (VanHemert 2010).
Threat: City One was launched in 2010 and has the backing of IBM who are a company that
ranked nineteenth on the fortune 500 top companies in 2012 (CNN 2012). We do not have
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the resources and finances that are available to City One from such a large company like
IBM. We will have to focus on our USP‘s to emphasise how we differ and to establish a
customer base.
Our Strength: City One is closely aligned with how we envision the school children to think
about the future by playing Electric Action. We want them to think about what the future will
be like if they do not make green choices and what the benefits of living in a sustainable
town, city or country would be. The City One game however, targets adults, has a large focus
on business and is industry based. The difference with Electric Action game is that it will be
child-centred, thinking about how the child‘s future will be affected instead of having a
business perspective. We must consider that in the future, IBM could potentially create an
adapted version of their game to target younger people. An advantage that we have is that
we will work of actual data of schools energy consumption and not just fictional scenarios.
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2. Oceanopolis:
Overview: Oceanopolis is an interactive and educational game which encourages minimising
waste, recycling and upcycling. Oceanopolis is based on a tropical island where the
challenge is to keep your island, its surrounding ocean and other islands green (Laur 2012).
The game comes from parent company Greenopolis and runs as a Facebook app where
players earn virtual points which can be redeemed as coupons. The coupons can then be
used at certain cinemas, restaurants and shops. Another option is that they can be used as
cash donations (Wauters 2012). Physical recycling kiosks are located around the USA where
users can scan and deposit cans and bottles for recycling and then receive points (IGN
2010). Additional points can be earned through real life recycling or by blogging on the
Oceanopolis site (Wauters 2012). The goal of Oceanopolis is to use both digital and physical
platforms to create awareness and increase recycling (IGN 2010).
Threat: This site offers cash incentives which are something that we must compete with.
Currently they only operate in the American market but we must remain aware of the threat
that they could enter into the European market.
Strength: A large focus in the Oceanopolis games is around being green around the ocean.
Again, our specific unique selling point is that we will use a school's actual data. Our biggest
strength is the fact that this is based in the USA and currently has no Irish or European
presence. Establishing themselves in new markets to the same standards that they are
currently operating would mean capital investment into recycling and getting partners to
agree to accept these points as payment. Oceanopolis runs on Facebook, so it is unlikely that
it would be used as an educational tool for the age group we are targeting as you must be at
least 13 years old to have a Facebook account. Often, Facebook is not encouraged during
school hours.
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3.
Enercities:
Overview: Similar to City One, the goal of Enercities is to create and expand virtual cities
dealing with issues such as pollution, energy shortages and renewable energy. There is a
choice of playing the game independently or else it can be played on Facebook. The target
age for this game is 15-20 years (Games for change 2010). It is an online e-learning game for
players to experience energy-related implications. Players begin with a small plot of land and
a limited choice of buildings. They then place industrial plots and residential areas into the
space. If this is done well, the city levels up and it grows in size. Each level gets progressively
more complex. Players must learn to balance the triangle of people, planet, and profit
(Paladin 2009). The game is currently played across various European countries. Over 110
schools across Europe have played the EnerCities game (Enercities 2012) and it is free to
play (Games for change 2010).
Threat: EnerCities is a project that is funded by The EU's Intelligent Energy Europe
programme, so there are lots of resources available to the company. The project has a €1.4M
budget. Roughly 20% of that money is allocated to the game itself. The other 80% is divided
between educational material, marketing and impact research and the roll-out of the game
(Paladin 2009). This is a vast amount of investment and we do not feel that we will be able to
raise capital to a level that will be close to this figure of €1.4M. Another threat is that
Enercities is available to play in Ireland. The company also provide teachers with a detailed
teacher's toolbox to guide them while they are playing the game (Paladin 2009). We have
now considered that this is an element that we should add to our own game as an additional
resource.
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Our Strength: The target audience for this game is people from 15 – 20 years (Games for
change 2010). We plan to initially target primary school children from the age of 7 – 8 years
so will be in a younger bracket of gaming age. Real time data through the smart meters will
continue to be our unique selling point.
Electricity Suppliers
As Ireland is a member of the EU, it must abide by the competition directives. Since 2000,
member states have gradually opened up their electricity markets to competition (ESB 2011).
All business markets were deregulated in October 2010. From April 2011, the domestic
market was deregulated with all suppliers free to set their own tariffs (Citizens Information
2010). We must consider that each school that signs up for the Electric Action game will not
all be with the same electricity provider. Our objective is to licence this to one provider to
encourage schools to change over and access the Electric Action game free of charge.
What Irish Electricity Companies are providing:
At present, Irish electricity providers are supplying the following games:
1. Airtricity Schools initiatives
Operation Energy is a new education programme from Airtricity which was launched in
Northern Ireland in October 2011; it is aimed at inspiring teachers, children, parents and
communities to become more aware of energy-use reduction, awareness and efficiency. The
programme is available online and is a free resource for children and teachers. operation
energy has over 40 hours of activities, campaigns, over 60 games, 10 energy focused lesson
plans, videos and competitions. This airtricity initiative can be seen as a way for schools on
their Green Flag journey. The game is unique in that it tries to include parents with a
specially-dedicated zone for parents so that everyone in the family can be educated in the
advantages of energy conservation. Operation Energy has over 110 schools registered to the
programme, with the potential to influence over 10,000 students. On top of this, almost 4000
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lessons plans and activities have been downloaded, resulting in well above 2000 hours of
teaching time.
2. Baid Gas
In 2009/2010 Bord Gáis supported the European Energy Saving Award (EESA) competition
for secondary schools in Ireland and the related Intelligent Use of Energy at School initiative
(IUSES). The IUES project and EESA competition were coordinated by the Clean
Technology Centre at Cork Institute of Technology, in association with the Intelligent Energy
Europe programme and Sustainable Energy Europe (Bord Gais 2012).
Theses IUSES project are created to educate secondary school students on the basic
principles of energy efficiency and to outline guidelines on saving energy in their everyday
lives. The European Energy Saving Award (EESA) is aimed at schools and students who are
highly interested and active in bringing about reduced energy consumption. These
programmes encouraged students to reflect on their everyday activities and make small
adjustments to become more environmentally aware. The competition showcased students‘
talent and ability as they competed nationally. The EESA National Award Ceremony for Irish
winners was held in October 2010 at CIT Cork with Minister Batt O'Keeffe in attendance and
the 9 winning schools (Bord Gais 2012).
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Section 4: Strategy
PESTLE Analysis
Political
●
Energy efficiency is internationally recognised as one of the central pillars of modern
energy policy. Ireland has been set a challenging target of delivering 20% energy
efficiency savings by 2020. It has been recognised that the Government must take a
lead role in this process, so a higher target of 33% has been set for the public sector.
The Government‘s energy policy framework for the period 2007 – 2020 incorporates
energy conservation as a main aim and is designed to steer Ireland towards a new
and sustainable energy future, one that helps increase security of supply, makes
energy more affordable, improves national competitiveness and reduce our Green
House Gas emissions.
Economic
●
The main benefit we want to emphasize in our product is that it is a training resource
which leads to long term cost reductions.
●
Approximately €6 billion was spent on imported energy in 2008, and demand is
projected to grow by about 24% over the period 2007 – 2020 unless action is taken
now to reduce demand and usage. (The National Energy Efficiency Action Plan 2009
– 2020.)
Social
●
Creating an interactive learning environment which promotes collective thinking
between children and teachers.
●
Create initiatives for children to better understand the effects of energy conservation
and how these initiatives can act as a cost saving technique for primary schools.
Page 24
Technology
●
Smart meters have gained much attention over the past few years. In 2011 the
Commission for Energy Regulation published a paper proposing the launch of an
initiative which aims to put gas and electricity smart meters into homes after a pilot
system had already been carried out. By using these smart meters we will be
provided with real time information which can be incorporated into the game and give
it a more realistic element.
Legal
●
We will be following the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system
for the classification of computer games. This is voluntary system of guidelines for
retailers selling computer games. We will be aiming the game at being suitable for
age 3+. This essentially means that it is suitable for all age groups. The age rating
does not take into account the difficulty level of the game, but instead will assure
schools and parents that its content is appropriate for children (Citizens Information
2012).
●
Further legal issues have been addressed in detail in the Legal Section.
Environmental:
●
The entire motivation behind the development of this game is to contribute to
children‘s education about electricity consumption and their own carbon footprint. In
1975 UNESCO published the Belgrade charter which sought the development of
environmental education as one of the most critical factors of a complete attack on the
world‘s environmental crisis (EnviroEd 2008).
●
Environmental education is imperative for the benefits that increased environmental
literacy will have for the planet and human living standards and is also beneficial for
student‘s educational experience (EnviroEd 2008).
Page 25
PORTERS 5 Forces
Threat of Substitutes

A rival game may be
launched in schools.

Even if focussed on a
different sector, could
still pose a risk to the
success of our game.

Need collaboration with
Green Schools as USP.
Page 26
1. Threat of New Competition
The threat of new competition is high; one of the biggest threats is that electricity companies
may decide to create their own in-house solution rather than outsourcing to Electric Action.
Airtricity provide a programme, based around informing and educating school children about
energy conservation through activities, campaigns, videos and competitions. This game
however, is targeted only at schools in Northern Ireland. We feel our product offering
provides a more interactive and informative solution. It is a complete package that requires
minimal involvement from the electricity company, particularly in terms of research and
development. School children will have the ability to actually monitor their buildings energy
usage and make decisions on how to best manage and utilise this energy. We feel that
Airtricity pose the biggest threat as they are clearly already addressing this area in Northern
Ireland.
2. Threat of substitute products/services
Informative interactive games are becoming increasingly popular in primary schools,
particularly with the adoption of whiteboards and other similar resources. Kirriemuir &
McFarlane (2004) described the use of games in education as still a relatively new
phenomenon. However teachers and parents recognized the fact that game play can support
skills such as strategic thinking, planning, and communication, negotiating skills, group
decision-making and data-handling. They also observed that games promote higher Ievels of
attention and concentration among students.
The threat exists that a rival game may be launched in schools; it may even focus on a
different sector but will still pose a risk to our game. We hope to work in collaboration with the
green flag scheme in an attempt to strengthen our products appeal. The scheme is a national
environmental education programme that provides a way for schools to interact with energy
conservation methods. Unless we can collaborate with the green flag scheme, we may face
extreme competition from them.
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3. Bargaining power of customers
The customers are essentially the electricity companies and the end users are the children
attending the primary schools. As it stands, it is up to the school to include lesson plans
based on energy conservation, therefore it will up to the schools, in particular the school
principals to adopt the game. We plan to present the game as an additional resource for
teachers, aiding children's learning in an interactive manner. It will be an enjoyable and
informative resource that will not result in extra work for the teacher or the school. The school
still have the overall bargaining power of whether or not to adopt the game.
We also plan to investigate the possibility of integrating our product into the primary school
curriculum so that it becomes a compulsory element. This will give the schools less
bargaining power and therefore give our business more power in terms of supply. The
electricity companies have bargaining power in terms of the price they are willing to pay to
licence the product per annum. We will only be licensing to one company per country in order
to ensure competitive advantage which is one of our main selling points. If only one electricity
company in the country is offering this service, and all a school has to do to get it is switch
provider, the electricity company are in a very strong position. Considering this, we feel the
bargaining power of the electricity is somewhat restricted, we can only select one, therefore
the best deal agreed will be the winning bidder and the company we will work with.
4. Bargaining power of suppliers
The smart meters are essential in providing real time data about a school buildings energy
usage, this data provides a new and innovative approach to learning. In order to provide
schools with this resource we must have the cooperation of the electricity provider. We plan
to develop an attractive package that will work in both the favour of the provider and our
business. In doing this, we will decrease the bargaining power of the electricity provider and
increase our bargaining power as a business. We are importing smart meters from efergy
directly; the suppliers are giving us a discount of the RRP for sourcing directly. Once the price
is agreed for a set amount of units the suppliers will have limited bargaining power.
Page 28
5. Intensity of competitive rivalry
We plan to ensure sustainable competitive advantage through innovative and creative
games. Our product provides a new approach to learning, engaging children in interactive
learning. There are a number of other interactive learning tools available in the marketplace
today, however few of these incorporate real time data. Access to such data will provide
children with additional knowledge and experience that they could not get from competing
products and services. The education sector is a highly competitive one, however like many
other industries, digital technology is changing the day to day operations. We plan to
compete directly within this industry, in doing this we will still face competition from traditional
channels but are more likely to be competing with other technology based organisations.
Page 29
Business Model
Below is Alex Osterwalder‘s (2011) Business Model Canvas. This tool will help map, discuss
and design a business model for our game under four key areas.
This is then further broken down into nine building blocks:
1. Customer Segments:
The end users of the game will be primary school children and their teachers. The customer
is the electricity company who will licence the product. They will market it as an educational
tool available for schools and use the package as a selling point to get schools to switch to
them as their electricity provider.
2. Value Proposition:
As has been previously outlined, the unique selling point of this service is that the game will
use the school's actual energy usage within it. This is the element of the service that is
bringing value to the customer over the competition. This is further broken down in the value
chain analysis in the value chain section.
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3. Channels:
The customers will initially be reached through the installation of a smart meter in the school
either by Electric Action or the Electricity Company. The smart meter and the game are linked
through wifi. The child players as well as their parents and teachers can communicate with
Electric Action staff via phone or email as displayed on the bottom of the website.
4. Customer Relationships:
The initial customer will be the electricity provider who have purchased the game for a school
to use. Children from the age of 7 - 8 years will be the end users. Our website will have a
function for teachers and parents to contact us with any problems, queries or suggestions
and will also have a separate function for children to ask questions.
5. Revenue Streams:
Possible revenue streams are selling the game to schools, licencing the entire product to an
electricity company who could use the game as a USP to get schools to switch provider, or
advertising. In the future, selling branded Electric Action merchandise is also a possible
revenue stream.
6. Key Resources:
A key resource of the energy game is the integration of the school's energy consumption
from the electricity provider into a smart meter and then passed via wifi through to the game.
Without this, the USP of the game would be lost.
7. Key Activities:
Either the electricity companies will provide us with schools electrical data that can be
integrated into the game or else Electric Action will install smart meters that we have sourced
ourselves. The data from the smart meter will then be sent via wifi to the game. When playing
the game, the children will then see how much energy they are using, how they could cut
down and compete against other local schools.
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8. Key Partners:
A key partner may be the electricity company who could provide the information about
electricity consumption in each particular area through the smart meter. Another partner will
be the Green Schools Programme who we plan to get referrals to schools from. Partnerships
with schools will also be of great importance. It is essential that the school sees a benefit in
using the game and wants to implement it into their teaching. This is addressed in further
detail in the Partners section of the report.
9. Cost Structure:
Electric Action must consider the cost for the smart meter, installation, maintenance,
upgrades and updates of the technology over time. Following on from the development of the
initial game, cost will be incurred to generate different progressive versions for older children
to continue as they go into senior classes.
The business model can now be mapped out in one image:
Page 32
Partners
1. Green Schools Ireland:
There are four stages involved in achieving the energy flag. These are outlined below along
with how Electric Action can contribute to successful completion of each stage.
1. Analyse the problem
Before a solution can be implemented, the problem must be assessed. An energy audit can
be done by looking at past bills, assessing if there are any areas around the school where
energy is being lost unnecessarily? This could be due to draughts and ventilation issues,
windows and doors being left open, lighting and appliances being left on or radiators and
thermostats being set too high (Green Schools 3, 2012). The smart meter element of the
game will allow the class to analyse their past energy usage and the game itself will teach
children the benefit of closing doors and turning off appliances.
2. Devise an action plan
When the problem has been understood, many ways to fix it should be thought about. This
should start with "no-cost" campaign such as switching lights off and a "low-cost" strategy
such as switching to low energy bulbs (Green Schools 3, 2012). Electric Action will teach
children from the beginning, the benefits of closing doors and not wasting energy
unnecessarily by playing a fun game to try beat monsters that are wasting electricity.
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3. Measuring success
It must be planned from the beginning how success of energy management will be
measured. The Green School‘s website points out that we must remember to compare like
with like as energy consumption for February will probably be higher than the previous
September, no matter what improvements and changes have been made (Green Schools 3,
2012). Graphs and charts for showing success over time will be generated within Electric
Action for children to see. There will also be a leader board and schools will try beating their
own past consumption as well as beat other schools in their locality.
4. Maintenance
Perhaps the most challenging part of achieving the energy flag is maintaining the reduced
energy levels. Continual promotion of awareness for the campaign will be necessary (Green
Schools 3, 2012). As Electric Action is an interactive game with different levels, the aim is
that it will maintain a child's interest over time and they will enjoy playing it.
We would like to become listed on the useful links page under the Energy section on the
Green Schools Website.
(Source: http://www.greenschoolsireland.org/useful-links/energy.230.html)
Page 34
Green Schools Ireland have advised us that they could recommend our game to schools or
else we could go through a process of having it implemented into the Energy Flag curriculum.
At the moment, we intend to pursue the option of having the games recommended to
schools. We feel this will be beneficial to us as it shows that a reputable organisation is willing
to endorse the game, giving it more credibility. At present, we have chosen not to have the
game implemented into the Energy Flag curriculum meaning that any school that was aiming
to achieve an energy flag would have to play it. We have decided against this due to the time
constraints of getting all the schools set up with smart meters but it is an option for the future.
The Eco-Schools Programme is running in over 50 countries around the world. During our
first expansion plan we would target European countries such as the UK, France, Italy and
Denmark (Eco-Schools 2012).
2. Electricity Companies:
Electricity companies such as ESB and Airtricity could be large potential partners for us. An
option we are interested in is licencing the game to electricity companies. It can be their USP
to get schools to switch electricity provider. At present there is no direct educational initiative
for schools to choose a particular electricity provider; cost seems to be the main factor in
terms of decision making. This could raise the social profile of a partnering electricity
companies and they could use it for marketing purposes to show that they are involved in
community projects. If the game was licensed or sold to an Electricity company, they would
then have the responsibility of installing the smart meters into the schools.
3. Electrician:
Should the game not be sold to an Electricity company, Electric Action will be faced with the
challenge of installing the smart meters into schools. To limit expenses, we will advertise to
local electricians that we are looking for a volunteer to install it. In exchange for their time, we
will offer to feature their name and contact details in newsletters to parents. A platform that
we could use to source an electrician in Ireland is the website www.tradesmen.ie where
customers can fill out a form with the work they require to be done, tradesman required and
the area and then leave their details to be contacted by the tradesperson.
Page 35
4. Schools:
The schools will be another key partner for us. We have established from Daphne Egar,
Principal of Donoughmore National School, Co. Wicklow that it is the principal who decides
which electricity provider the school uses. Had it been something that the Department of
Education arranged, we would likely find it far more challenging to sell the game to electricity
providers as they would have to put in a tender to the Department for a contract for all
primary schools in Ireland. The fact that each school is allowed to decide themselves works
to our advantage when putting our game forward to electricity companies as there is a lot of
flexibility of decision making in each school.
An alternative option is that we would not sell the game to the electricity companies and
instead we would approach individual schools ourselves to purchase the game. This could be
a challenging option as schools today are faced with budget cuts. If we were to pursue this
option we would need to keep the package of smart meter and the game at a low cost. We
would also need a compelling sales pitch to get schools convinced about the quality and
value of Electric Action and justify the expense.
Page 36
Revenue
Sources of Revenue Generation
1. Selling to Electricity Companies
The main source of revenue generation that we wish to pursue is licensing the Electric Action
game to electricity companies. We would initially focus on selling to Irish companies. As has
been previously outlined, the game could be used as a USP to get schools to switch provider
over to them. If we do this, we would we license exclusively just to one energy provider per
country. The reason behind this is that if we licensed to multiple companies, the competitive
advantage that the game may give them would be lost.
Under a licensing revenue model we would charge a fee for our service to the provider.
License fees are often charged on a monthly basis. For a product like ours that will be used
primarily in schools, we have considered that it may be difficult to get the provider to pay the
license fee for summer months when schools are closed. For this reason we plan to charge a
yearly subscription fee.
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2. Selling to Schools
A possibility for revenue generation would be to sell the game directly into schools without the
involvement of electricity companies. This would mean that Electric Action would be
responsible for installing the smart meter into the school which would possibly be done by a
local volunteer electrician as previously mentioned. Some revenue models that we could pick
from if selling to schools directly are a subscription fee or freemium. A subscription fee model
would mean that the school would pay a monthly or yearly fee to access the game. It could
be difficult to get a school to commit to this as funding for schools is limited.
We would like to pursue a freemium revenue whereby schools would get to trial certain parts
of the website for free. ―It‘s common for people to spend $5 on a vanilla latte but to agonize
over paying $5 a month for a web service. That‘s because a psychological barrier to paying
for online services remains, and it‘s hurting both consumers and businesses‖ (Leonov 2012).
A way around this is adopting a freemium business model.
A great advantage of this type of a model for Electric Action is that there is value to
customers from others using the full website package. There is value to one school from
another school using the full website package. A full version of the game means that schools
will be able to compete in an inter school challenge. There will be an element of positive
competition between the schools for the greatest reduction in energy consumption month on
month. The winning school will have their name posted the website homepage and can win
prizes. A freemium version will not allow the school to participate in this competition which is
a large element of the spirit and fun of the game for the children. This would hopefully mean
that a large portion of schools would upgrade and pay for full access to Electric Action. This
will determine how many new users the free users will refer and influence.
Page 38
The additional parts of the game that must be paid for will bring inherent value to the user.
―You can use Skype only if the person you talk with also uses Skype. You can share a
Dropbox folder only with other Dropbox users. In this case, Freemium can be a powerful
strategy‖ (Shmilovici 2011). With Electric Action you can only compete against other schools
that are using the game and site. There is also added value. A school will not want to be the
only school using Electric Action. They will derive value from others using it. Freemium can
help the product become more popular if it is used as an effective invitation mechanism
(Shmilovici 2011). Having considered the invitation strategy we have decided that this could
look like spam and actually do damage to our reputation. We do not want 8 year olds to be
sending invitations to friends in other schools and this may not be something teachers and
principals are interested in doing either.
It has been advised that the freemium model should not necessarily be used when
companies want to build a ‗lifestyle businesses. However, it is suggested that if the desire is
to build a dominant company with a substantial market share, freemium can help accelerate
adoption of the product (Shmilovici 2011). We view the accelerated adoption as being a large
benefit of this revenue model. It will serve as a form of marketing and generate word of mouth
marketing among children and schools.
To generate money from the free users on freemium, we will use advertising revenue on the
free parts of the website so that these customers still bring value to the company. A key
consideration is that we must not let the free customers consume too much of our time. The
time with them should be focussed on getting them to upgrade their account.
There are several types of Freemium based on the structure of the offering. What is offered
for free versus what is paid for is extremely important so that customers actually see an
advantage to upgrading. The type of free strategy that has been outlined is a value based
one. The more a customer uses the website and game, the more value they derive and the
higher the switching costs are. At a particular point the customers will reach a usage limit and
convert to be paying customer. The decision will ultimately lie with the school and not the
children however. Another free strategy that we could adapt to be giving a time based free
trial. We could give schools a free trial with access to all features of the game and website for
a particular period such as one month free. At the end of the free trial month a fee would be
charged. The time period must be long enough so that the school realise the value of the
Page 39
product but not so long that they will have lost interest in it by the end of feel that have gained
all the value they can get (Shmilovici 2011).
3. Advertising
Advertising on the game would be an option to generate revenue for electric action.
Considering out target market is children aged between 7-8, we would be eliminating some of
the risks associated with advertising to younger children. ―A key conclusion of the task force,
which is supported by a strong base of empirical evidence, is that young children below 7–8
years of age clearly lack an understanding of the persuasive intent of television
advertising...advertising targeting children below the ages of 7–8 years is inherently unfair
because it capitalizes on younger children's inability to attribute persuasive intent to
advertising‖. We would not be exposing children below this age to advertising and therefore
would not be exploiting their inability to understand the advertisements persuasive intent.
On the contrary advertising is not always appropriate in schools due to the sheer exposure it
obtains as stated by the Task Force on Advertising and Children. ―The TFAC gave special
consideration to commercialism in the schools for two reasons. First, children spend a
considerable amount of their childhood in school settings, and because school attendance is
compulsory, children have little freedom to avoid any commercial content they are exposed to
in schools. Second, it is conceivable that commercial content delivered in schools may be
assumed to have the tacit endorsement of respected teachers and school officials, thereby
enhancing the effectiveness of the advertising.‖ Children are almost forced to acknowledge
the advertisements as they are exposed to them unwillingly, this could result in a backlash
from parents associations etc. From an ethical perspective, we feel that advertising may be
inappropriate and do not feel that it is a completely viable solution at this time.
Page 40
4. Financial Support
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) support energy awareness programmes
such as the green flag scheme which we have mentioned previously. The option exists to
seek grant assistance from SEI in order to establish an initial investment and start-up fund.
Obviously a grant like this would only offer financial support and not a continuous revenue
stream, but considering the nature of our product we feel our eligibility would be grant aid. We
have investigated the categories that we would fall into and decided the intelligent energy
Europe would be one potential sector that would facilitate grant aid for a project such as ours.
Criteria for eligibility to claim the grant include;
―Targeted funding is provided for creative projects putting this idea into practice
The projects help to further the three main objectives:
●
Promoting energy efficiency and encouraging the rational use of energy sources;
●
Increasing the use of new and renewable energy sources as well as encouraging
energy diversification;
●
Stimulating energy efficiency and renewables in the field of transport.‖
Page 41
Value Chain
To ensure that we will be a competitive company with a long lasting product, we must
assume a position that creates greater added value (Noke & Hughes 2010). We have
categorised this educational game into being a community valued products which has an
R&D value chain. This is not the same as the typical industrial value chain (Gobble, Petrick &
Wright 2012) as the primary goal is not only profit, but education and awareness of
environmental issues.
The Internet is the tool that will be used to transfer the data from the schools smart meter into
the game. The data is exchanged in real time which enables improvements throughout the
entire value chain. As the internet has common standards, no upgrading is needed to transfer
data (Porter 2001).
Page 42
Primary Activities:
●
Inbound logistics:
The smart meter will either be installed by an electricity company who have purchased our
game or else we can install our own smart meters into schools which we will source from
England. The devices will be shipped and delivered to Dublin which will take 24 - 48 hours.
●
Operations:
The devices will then be installed into schools either by the electricity company or by a local
volunteer electrician. Value is added to the product at this stage as the smart meter is linked
with the schools main electricity point.
●
Outbound Logistics:
One smart meter device is needed per school which is delivered by the Electricity Company
or else Electric Action post it to the local electrician installing it. The smart meter is installed
into the school and now the wifi connection is established between the smart meter and the
game in each individual school.
●
Marketing & Sales:
Marketing will be done through online and offline advertising. Marketing will be done to both
electricity companies and school principals who have influence over purchasing. The
marketing mix is used to establish an effective strategy; competitive advantage is clearly
communicated to the target group through the promotional mix. Direct marketing, personal
selling and online communication.
●
After Sales Service:
After the game has been sold, Electric Action offer support services to the customers. There
will be an email service where queries can be directed to. The email address is displayed on
the main website. The company's phone number can also be found here. There are
dedicated pages on the site for parents and teachers which are frequently updated.
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Section 5: Marketing
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Creating a unique product or service stands as a strength to any start-up company. We have
identified a product which has not yet been introduced to the Republic of Ireland. We hope to
use our first mover advantage to secure a successful launch and make the product as
attractive as possible to primary schools around the country. The game approach promotes
interactive learning which is a key aspect of teaching and we have identified it as a growing
trend in schools Game-based approaches present an excellent opportunity to engage
students in activities which can enhance learning and produce a range of educational
benefits.
We hope to use the beneficial characteristics of game approached learning to entice schools
to adopt our product as part of their teaching schedule. The variety of topics which our game
will touch on and their importance with regards to energy conservation makes the game
valuable to any school interested in educating children on the importance of energy and
reducing electricity waste.
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Weaknesses
Since we are a start-up company with a new idea our individual experience in this industry is
limited and could pose as a weakness. The option to temporarily benchmark our business
practices on already established companies does not exist since no companies have
introduced a product like ours.
Our lack technical expertise is a big weakness within the team as we all come from business
and marketing backgrounds. Our idea has a large element of technology and finding a means
of satisfying these elements may involve outsourcing the building stage of the game. Our
product is susceptible to being replicated and introduced by other companies; we would have
to take patent issues and copyright laws into consideration.
Opportunities
With over 3000 national primary schools in Ireland we have recognised a market with great
potential. The growing use of smart meters allows us to incorporate real time data into the
game aspect of our product which will create a more personalised experience for each
school. The game provides teachers with the opportunity to educate children on the
importance of energy conservation which can then lead to cost savings for the school itself.
The small amount of competitors in this market provides us with an opportunity to excel in
this niche.
Threats
One of the main threats that we have identified is also our opportunity. This is the lack of
competitors which means there is an opportunity for new competition to enter the market. We
believe it would be in our best interests to use our first mover advantage. Already established
electricity companies can stand as a threat if they were release a similar product to ours. With
their experience with electricity rates and customer service they would have more information
on consumers and the industry to work with. Government spending in the public sector has
reduced dramatically and selling our product to government owned institutions may be
difficult.
Page 45
Key Issues
●
New Product Development
●
Create Brand Awareness
●
Segment target market
●
Develop sales channel
●
Establish relationships with customers
Objectives
1. Establish a customer base of 50 schools by product launch date
2. Increase customer base by 50 x 100% (50 schools) per month
3. End of Y1; total = 600 schools
4. Additional Customers: Homeowners with young children
Ansoff‘s matrix provides a series of growth strategies which set the direction for the business
strategy. The first growth strategy is Market Penetration; this step involves selling existing
products into existing markets. Although Electric Action product is relatively new, it will be our
primary product offering to start so penetrating the target market effectively will be essential.
Product development within the existing market is the next growth strategy that Ansoff
presents. This focuses on expanding the product range within schools, we could focus on
developing more games or even alternative products/services that will convey our mission
statement effectively, 'taking action for a greener future'.
Diversification involves selling new products/services to different customers, as we are a new
company with a new product so diversification is not a strategy we wish to explore at present.
Market development is a step that involves selling an increased variety of products/services
to the different customers. We plan to operate primarily online giving us an advantage in
terms of expansion and development. We also plan to partner with existing electricity
businesses; this will give us an advantage when exploring international expansion strategies.
After exploring the four growth strategies suggested by Ansoff, we have decided that Market
Penetration is the most suitable for Electric Action to begin Year One.
Page 46
Ansoff‘s Matrix (1957)
Page 47
The Marketing Mix
Product
●
Game creating energy awareness, through real time smart meter readings
The Product is a combination of the smart meter and the energy awareness game. The Elite
1.0 Smart meter will be sourced from Efergy; it includes a general meter reading, with a cost
in euros for the reading as well as an accumulator, totalling every reading on the meter. The
game will be developed Affinity Tech, it will basically be an adaptation of an existing game
that the company have developed called ‗Joe the banker‘ which is discussed further in the
document.
Page 48
Price
The Pricing Strategy for Electric Actions product must take a number of factors into
consideration. These include; fixed and Variable costs, competition, company objectives,
proposed positioning strategies, target group and willingness to pay. In order to consider
these points, we have itemised the cost of developing the proposed product, taken into
account the company objectives and selected a suitable pricing strategy.
Individual Item cost:
●
Smart Meter - €46 each (including shipping)
●
Installation - none
●
Game Development - TBA
Pricing Strategy:
Electric Action will adopt a Cost Based Pricing Strategy in order sell effectively to electricity
companies. A cost based pricing strategy will allow Electric Action to determine a fair mark-up
price on the cost of sourcing and developing the product. The company's objective is to raise
social capital therefore we will not be adopting a more aggressive pricing strategy. We want
to encourage electricity companies to participate; we plan to incentivise them with a low cost
product that will in turn build their client base.
Place
Electric Action will sell the product using a direct channel i.e. directly to the consumer. The
company will act as the distributor, supplying primary schools with the smart meter and the
game. Electric Action will act as the only intermediary and all issues/comments will be raised
directly with them, either from the side of the supplier or the consumer. Licensing is another
primary consideration here; Electric Ireland will be licensing the product to electricity
companies. The electricity companies have a stake in the business by investing in a licence.
This strategy will allow Electric Action to move quickly and easily into foreign countries when
expanding the business. As the licensee of the product, Electric Ireland will receive fees that
essentially generate revenue for the company.
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Promotion
●
Direct Marketing
Our main focus in terms of promotion is firstly the electricity companies and secondly the end
users, i.e. the schools.
Considering that we are dealing with a specific target market, the best approach is to use
direct marketing. Direct mail provides a highly focused approach to communicating with
specific customers. We plan to direct mail the electricity companies with a personalised and
focussed email that can be carefully monitored. When we partner with an electricity company
we will continue this method of communication to update the company on progress of the
game. Similar for schools, we plan to provide informative emails to the principals and
teachers, providing them with all the information they will need to understand the game and
the smart meter.
●
Personal Selling
As a small team, we have selected one sales representative, Laurence. Laurence will deal
directly with both the electricity companies and the schools and will liaison with both
throughout the sales and installation process.
●
Online Communications
As mentioned, direct email will be the primary method of communication to our customers
and end users. We will also use the website to provide any updates we feel suitable to
provide. We plan to maximise the resources available to us through online methods, not only
are they more cost efficient but they are also more environmentally friendly, which ties in with
our green theme.
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Physical Evidence
Our website will be our main point of evidence before we can actually install the product. We
have designed the website so that it involves not only the main game but a number of smaller
activities and puzzles. We plan to provide a trial to actually demonstrate the game and the
different ways it informs children of how to save energy.
Secondly we have designed a strong brand logo and a character to tie in with this logo. We
plan to utilise this to the best of its ability, providing the children with some sort of branded
products e.g. pencils/crayons/copybooks before we install the product. This introduction will
aid not only promotion but awareness so that children are familiar with the character and the
logo even before playing the game.
People
Electric Action is adopting a ‗missionary‘ approach to personal selling. This approach involves
building goodwill and relationships with customers, with the longer-term aim of generating
orders. Our objective is to generate social capital and not to generate profit, therefore
developing strong sustainable relationships is essential.
Electric Action provides excellent customer services to customers and end users. Expertise,
technical support and coordination of the customer interface are all essential elements of a
positive customer service experience and therefore are at the forefront for Electric Action.
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Processes
The marketing planning centres around acquiring 8% of the overall market share (3,300) and
building this number by 8% each month for a year to reach an overall figure of 600 schools
i.e. 18% of the overall market at end of Year One. The process is designed to measure the
achievement of the original marketing objectives, this is why we have designed the process
as discussed above, meeting these targets is essential to success.
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Section 6: Technology
Smart Meters
The Commission for Energy Regulation released a report in July 2012 on smart meters. They
have defined a smart meter as being, ―an electronic device that can measure the
consumption of energy, record and store more information that a conventional meter and
provide real time information to the customer on usage and costs‖ (CER 2012). So what
does this mean for Electric Action? Children will be able to learn about the energy
consumption in their school and work together to reduce it.
The report highlighted that smart meters can be used to improve energy efficiency by
providing consumers with more detailed, accurate, and timely information regarding their
energy consumption and costs. With this information, customers can work to reduce their
overall energy usage which will help the environment. There will also be a reduction in their
energy bills by shifting discretionary electricity usage away from peak consumption times
(CER 2012). These goals are closely aligned to the goals that we would like the Electric
Action game to achieve.
The CER have smart metering trials since 2007. The next phase of the programme will see
the rollout of electricity and gas smart metering in Ireland to all residential consumers and a
large number of small-to-medium enterprise (SME) consumers. We contacted Electric Ireland
through Twitter to see if we could talk to someone in the smart meter department. They
advised us that the trials were recently finished and that the best source of information was
the CER website.
There are a number of key EU legislative instruments promoting smart metering. This
includes the Third Legislative Package for Further Liberalisation of the Electricity and Gas
Markets which has the aim of the better informing consumers of their consumption and
helping to improve awareness of energy consumption. ―On 22 June 2011 the European
Commission adopted a proposal for an Energy Efficiency Directive to establish a common
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framework for the promotion of energy efficiency across the EU, ensure the achievement of
the Union's target of 20% primary energy savings by 2020 and pave the way towards the
realisation of further energy efficiency beyond that date.‖ (CER 2012)
If we look to the UK, 500,000 households and businesses in Britain have been upgraded to
smart meters with British Gas. The company are committed to installing 2 million smart
meters by the end of 2012 (British Gas 2012, 1). The UK Government has committed to
reducing energy usage and has set a target for all UK homes to have a smart meter by 2019.
British Gas is installing smart meters as part of a free, nationwide upgrade to all our
customers (British Gas 2012, 2).
British Gas explain that their smart meters work by showing how much energy you are using
and how much it is costing in real-time. With this, you will be able to see how much it is
costing you to leave your phone charger plugged in all the time (British Gas 2012, 3). This is
a similar message that we want to communicate to children through the game. When
consumers really see how much energy they are using, they can start to make small changes
to use less and hence save money on their bills. The smart energy monitor is extremely easy
to understand as it uses a traffic light system to show customers at a glance how much they
are using in real time. A red reading means consumption is high and green is low (British Gas
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2012, 3). This is a system that we plan to incorporate into the game by having the character
change colour from green to red when a lot of energy is being consumed.
The smart meter shows past energy usage in half hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal
and annual time slots. This means that you can track your usage and see how you are
reducing it over time. Tracking usage is something that will be important in the Electric Action
Game. As there is a competitive aspect with a leader board of schools on the website,
tracking overall energy savings from schools will be the basis for competition. At the end of a
school year in June, classes could look at their schools energy saving since September. We
plan to convert their savings into the amount of trees that they have saved and other
interesting facts for children other than a euro cost saving picture. With this, they can begin to
understand ‗the bigger picture‘ of what energy saving means.
British Gas smart meters are very secure and have robust security features to protect a
customer's data at all times. This includes tamper proofing and encryption so that the
information is sent in a way that it cannot be intercepted and used (British Gas 4). The
company also send their customers alert text to the monitor of the smart meter to inform them
if they could change to a cheaper tariff for example. We can send text alerts to your monitor if
we have something you need to know, for example, that you could change to a cheaper tariff
(British Gas 2012, 3). Throughout the game, will we provide smart energy saving tips to
educate children on how to save energy.
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Efergy Elite 1.0
We have investigated a number of different smart meters, and decided that the Elite 1.0 from
Efergy is the most suitable fit for us. The Elite 1.0 is smart meter is an ‗elite wireless energy
monitor which updates your home's electricity consumption every 6 seconds so you can
instantly see the impact of turning a light on or off, boiling the kettle or using your tumble
dryer. It has an innovative memory function that allows you to see how much you have used
today, yesterday and in the last week or month. The elite monitor also displays your daily
average so you can see when you are using more electricity than normal and see how your
average usage reduces as you change the way you do things‘.
The Elite 1.0 comes with a number of attractive features;
●
Easy to set up and use
●
Portable compact display, can be placed anywhere in the home
●
Understand your carbon footprint
●
View your real time energy consumption (cost, CO2 and kWh)
●
View historical daily, weekly or monthly data (cost, CO2 and kWh)
●
View daily, weekly or monthly average (cost, CO2 and kWh)
●
Select up to 2 tariff settings
●
Audio Alert if you exceed your set maximum consumption target.
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●
Up to 70 m range
●
Portable or wall mountable display
●
12 months minimum battery life (with 2400 mAh alkaline batteries)
●
Mains or battery powered options for the display unit
As we were attempting to avoid installation costs, it is ideal that the Elite 1.0 involves a simple
installation process, and does not require a professional electrician. The freestanding
monitoring device is portable and the network range is significant. The frequency is set at 433
MHz, transmission time can be set at 6sec/12sec/18 Sec. Transmission Range is between
40m and 70m, sensor voltage range is between 110V and 300V. Measuring Current between
50mA and 95A. High memory storage of 64K Display Power and Transmitter power require 3
x AA Batteries each.
We went direct to Ambiorix Féliz Brito to find out how possible it would be for us to purchase
a bulk order of these smart meters. Ambiorix told us that it would be possible to get 50 smart
meters (required amount for product launch date) shipped from the UK.
We received the following email from Ambiorix at Efergy;
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The total cost of 50 smart meters including shipping will be €2,300, possibly less if we can get
a VAT number from the educational institution as Ambiorix stated in his email. The smart
meters provide all the information required for the game including cost and accumulation
functions.
We have also investigated the option of adding on an additional smart meter that will allow
students to monitor individual appliances. The Energenie Power Meter model ENER007 does
exactly this, and is available at a minimum cost of €11.56 (not including shipping). The
shipping will depend on how many purchased. We would be purchasing from Amazon.co.uk,
after contacting the supplier and speaking to David Shepherd, we realised that shipping costs
from some international locations are so expensive it is more cost efficient to source locally.
At present we have decided that 5 per school would be a suitable starting point, so 250 of
these appliances would cost €2,890 (before shipping). Obviously this is an add-on feature
and is not necessary to complete the game with the Elite 1.0 smart meter.
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How Smart Meters will be used in the game
Smart meters will be an integral element in the success of the Electric Action game. The
smart meters supply real time analysis which significantly differentiates our product from
other educational games and tools available today. The research that has been conducted on
smart meters to date has been extremely positive.
Below is a table containing the various different data transfer technologies available today,
each is evaluated in terms of positive and negative to give a better idea of what technology
best suits the specific requirements of Electric Action. These requirements include low-cost,
convenient, suitable range and easy to integrate.
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Type
About
Positives
Negatives
Power Line
Communication
Data is carried
along the same
line as electricity
Free
Need for
concentrators,
slower
response times
General Packet
Radio Service
(GPRS)
Permanent
wireless
connection
between smart
meter
and
system
Can cope with
large volumes
of data
Not free (cost
per megabyte),
proprietary link
to mobile
Not suited to
large data
transfer
headend
Text Messaging
(SMS)
Data sent via text
message from
SIM card in smart
meter
Broader
coverage than
GPRS
Radio
Frequency
Radio wave
communication
(either local or
long range)
cost
efficient, Requires
increased security
additional
infrastructure
Broadband
over Power
Line (BPL)
PLC technology
used to provide
broadband
through ordinary
powerlines
Very low cost,
continuous
connection
Need for
concentrators
+ repeaters to
boost signal
Zigbee
Wireless mesh
Networking
Cheap
More suited for
Home Area
Networks
Bluetooth
Short wavelength radio
transmissions
Safe, minimal
interference
Limited
bandwidth
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Most efficient system
On examining the systems available as outlined above, we narrowed our selection down to
two possible solutions, Zigbee and Wifi. We investigated further to find out which solution was
the most efficient and effective, particularly in terms of energy usage. GE published a white
paper containing just this information. On average, GE found the ZigBee system consumed
less than half as much energy as the Wi-Fi solution:
"The testing under identical conditions in a smart appliance communications module revealed
that a ZigBee system consumed an average of 0.39 watts over a 24 hour period, while the
Wi-Fi system consumed more than twice (2.2 times) the power of the ZigBee solution, a total
of 0.87 watts over the same period."
This information made our selection somewhat more difficult, although Zigbee is an attractive
option, the cost of licensing the software makes the overall product cost somewhat higher
therefore we have decided to go with Wifi. Wifi is available in most schools today, and if not it
is readily available at a low cost. Ensuring the smart meter we chose to use is wifi enabled is
another key consideration. Wifi is a completely wireless network, popular for its convenience,
cost efficiency, and ease of integration with other networks and network components. Range
is one area of concern considering the size of some school buildings; the typical range of a
common 802.11g network with standard equipment is on the order of tens of meters. To
obtain additional range within a larger structure, repeaters or additional access points will
have to be purchased. The wifi will have to be tested to ensure the connection is within
range.
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Technology Roadmap
The technology road mapping process consists of three phases — preliminary activity,
development of the technology roadmap, and follow-up activity.
• Preliminary activity includes:
1. Satisfy essential conditions
Needs driven therefore the central technology i.e. the game needs to incorporate input from
the children‘s perspective. Needs to be simple, easy to use and effective. The real time data
needs to be transferred from the smart meter directly to the game. This data can be viewed in
a simple way on the computer interface.
2. Provide leadership/sponsorship
Perspective and planning horizons is essential to the implementation of a technology
roadmap. The technology roadmap provides the team with a method of making resource
allocation decisions therefore all three team members have an input in the leadership with
one participant, Olivia leading the decision making process.
3. Define the scope and boundaries for the technology roadmap
The vision has been outlined earlier, to design a game for primary school children using real
time data from a smart meter installed in the school. We have looked into game development
and limitations with regards to game content etc. We are also aware of the limitations that
exist with the smart meter data i.e. only certain amounts of results are provided. We have
broken down the scope of the project into technology scope and participation scope. We
have clearly defined a vision and outlined an expansion plan, we are aware of the limitations
and boundaries and we do not plan to test these. We are dealing with primarily with smart
meters (and therefore electricity companies) and a computer game for primary school
children. We do not plan to incorporate any other types of technology and our expansion plan
involves taking the existing product and selling into other markets e.g. UK.
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• Development of the technology roadmap includes:
1. Identify the ―product‖ that will be the focus of the roadmap
The product is essentially the video game. The game needs to be designed in a manner that
suitable and appealing to primary school children aged between 7-8. The main objective of
the game is to provide children with relevant knowledge regarding to their school‘s energy
use. We plan to use smart meters to provide real time data analysis making the game even
more relevant to its users.
2. Identify the critical system requirements and their targets
The critical system requirements are based around a number of clear targets. Firstly both the
smart meter technology and the video game need to be reliable. The information fed to the
game from the smart meter needs to be valid and in real time. The objective is to save energy
costs by making children aware of energy usage, therefore the cost of the overall system
must be low or the purpose is defeated. Simplicity of the system is also important, the game
need to be appealing to children, portraying the concept is vital. The smart meter needs to be
a simple device; we are not looking for a huge amount of information from the meter therefore
a simple design will be ideal.
3. Specify the major technology areas
Energy and Communication are the main technology areas involved in our technology
roadmap. The main concept revolves around energy, the integration of the smart meter
technology ensures that the electricity usage can be monitored and in turn transferred to a
more understandable game format. This is where communication becomes an integral part of
the process. The concept must be effectively communicated to the user via video game
format.
4. Specify the technology drivers and their targets
Transferring the data effectively from the smart meter to the computer is one of our main
technological objectives; we plan to do this via wifi technology but are looking into alternative
solutions also.
5. Identify technology alternatives and their timelines
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There are a number of technology alternatives to be considered in the data transfer section of
our service. Some of the most attractive alternatives include the use of ‗Bluetooth‘ and
‗Zigbee‘. Both come with advantages and disadvantages as listed in the table above,
however both could be used to transfer data from the smart meter to the cloud.
6. Recommend the technology alternatives that should be pursued
Out of the two technology alternatives identified, Zigbee provides a more attractive package,
originally designed for wireless sensor network standards development. Bluetooth is difficult
to intercept and therefore more secure however it is not as common as wifi and therefore will
only be used as an alternative.
● here
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Systems Architecture
The systems architecture for Electric Action is very simple and requires very little installation
and maintenance due to the smart meter we have decided to use. The diagram below
consists of four stages that integrate to create one operational system.
Stage 1: The Elite 1.0 smart meter takes electricity readings at 6-second intervals and
communicates these readings using the transmitter.
Stage 2: All the data recorded is transferred using a wireless local area network connection,
Wifi.
Stage 3: The data being transferred is all stored in a cloud computing system for easy
retrieval in case of any issues.
Stage 4: Finally the data is then transferred to the game interface where it appears as legible
information on the monitor.
Storage
Storing the data provided by the smart meters must be done in a secure and efficient way.
After evaluating different solutions, we felt that the most suitable was cloud computing. Cloud
computing is becoming increasingly popular especially for small businesses, where
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expensive servers are no longer a viable option. Cloud computing supports a huge variety of
applications including smart meter data and website hosting.
We plan to use justcloud.com to store the data obtained by the smart meter. Just cloud is a
free storage system that will allow us to keep initial costs down, as business increases we
may need to increase our capacity which will be something we will negotiate with just cloud.
Justcloud.com offers the following features;
●
FREE Cloud Storage
●
Unlimited Storage
●
Sync Multiple Computers
●
Encrypted and Secure
●
100% Automated
●
Access Files Anywhere
The website will also be stored in the cloud. The advantages of doing this versus hosting it
ourselves are that we do not have to invest in servers and pay for maintenance of them. It is
also a cheap and reliable option.
Security is an important aspect of choosing a cloud computing provider. Justcloud.com have
recently partnered with Amazon s3 to offer a secure package to users. Amazon s3 have
never lost a file and have a 99.99% guarantee that it will stay this way.
―To ensure maximum protection, Just Cloud store copies of your data on multiple servers in
multiple locations‖ - Lloyd Oliver, System Administrator
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The website:
This is the interface of the homepage for www.electricaction.com
Description
Above is the interface of the homepage for Electric Action. The banner bar displays the logo
for Electric Action, the main character of the game ‗Bolt‘ and out tagline ‗Taking Action for a
Greener Future.‘ A child will click into the yellow button for ‗Play Games‘ to play the Electric
Action Smart Meter Game which will load on a new webpage.
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The above image is an example frame shot of how we intend the main meter dependant
game to look like. As you can see we have included our character bolt and he is midway
through a level collecting coins and dodging obstacles. The figure in the top right hand corner
signals your meter reading. This meter reading virtually decreases depending on how many
coins you collect, levels you pass and trophies you achieve. The trophies are awarded on a
milestone basis the more progress you make the greater the achievement.
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Design
One single best design for everybody does not exist. The design of the website has been
optimised to suit the maximum percentage of our audience by following these nine design
guidelines:
1. Consistency
Consistency was an integral element with this site as it is aimed at children, parents and
teachers. With a consistent design, users can easily navigate the site without much effort.
Examples of our precise consistency can be seen with the banner that displays the company
name ―Electric Action‖. It first appears on the homepage and is then repeated behind each link
and is stationary as a user browses the site.
The navigation bar stays below the banner image so that if a user is browsing the Home
button is always in the same place.
Similarly, the bottom bar, displaying our contact details stays at the bottom of all pages so our
telephone number and email address etc. are always readily available.
A consistent light blue background is used throughout the website as we wanted the content
of our website to stand out and not be distorted in any way by a loud background. Although it
is colourful, as we thought this would be appealing to children, it complements the main
content of the page tastefully.
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2.
Simple and Natural Dialogue:
The Gestalt Theory of restructuring was put into practice when laying out the contents of the
website. Gestalt proposed that restructuring is an essential thinking process and that there is
a link between restructuring and search (Ohlsson 1984). As mentioned there are smaller mini
games that can be played separately to the main smart metered Electric Action. When a child
hovers over the yellow ‗Play Games‘ button, Electric Action is the first option and the mini
games are listed underneath in a dropdown style. This way the child understands how the
website is organised and that they can access all the games through this one button on the
banner.
3.
Speak the User’s Language:
We had to find a balance between language that would be suitable for both adults and
children. On the Homepage, we chose to speak a child‘s language by having the character
Bolt greet them saying ‗Hi Kids‘. This was decided upon considering that it will be the children
who are playing the game. We have also designed the website to have the appropriate
language for parents and teachers that are kept separately under the ‗Teacher's Toolbox‘ and
‗Parents Corner‘ tabs.
There is also an FAQ section which is a button on the navigation bar so that it can be easily
found. The FAQ section shows that we understand that an adult or child may have queries.
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4.
Reduce user’s memory load:
We have made the company name as well the home button links back to the homepage. This
makes it easier for a user as they can click on either and little thought is required. This helps
to reduce the memory load of the users and make the website easy to navigate.
5.
Provide informative feedback:
Users always have the option to press the home button on the navigation bar if they have
been browsing on another part of the site and want to go back. If a user leaves us a comment
on the testimonials page, a thank you message will appear to inform them that this action has
been successful.
6.
Provide short-cuts for frequent users:
If a user wishes to end their game play, they can press ―Close‖ to escape or else they also
have the option of pressing the ―Esc‖ button on their keyboard. This is clearly communicated
to them and allows frequent users to exit more quickly if they desire.
7.
Good error messages:
If a user incorrectly types the web address they are directed to Page Not Found. It is clear that
they should try to re-enter the main URL to redirect them back to the homepage.
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8.
Prevent user-driven errors:
We have tried to minimise user-driven errors by clearly naming all the pages of the site with
relevance
to
its
content.
For
example,
the
link
to
games
becomes
www.electricaction.com/games. The only thing that changes from the homepage address is
―games‖ extension written on the end. This makes it easy for a user to remember and they
can return directly to the accessories page by typing in that address if they wish. All other
pages are written the same lower case format such as www.electricaction.com/faq.
9.
Provide easy reversal of actions:
If a user is browsing on the site, they should be comfortable knowing that they can press the
Home button on the navigation bar at any time as the bar remains in the same place
throughout the entire website. Users also have the option of pressing the back button on their
browser.
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Usability
Computers do what users tell them and rarely take their own initiative. Contrary to this, they
have capabilities beyond what a human can process. They can be directed and manipulated
in a variety of ways by users (Bellotti V, Back M, Edwards K et al, 2002). Considering this,
when designing the website, we knew it was imperative to have clear labels and buttons so
that a user could easily comprehend and navigate around the website.
Heckel‘s law states that the quality of a user interface is relatively unimportant in determining
user adoption if it is perceived value is high. This can then be translated to Heckel‘s inverse
law, where the importance of the interface design to user adoption is inversely proportional to
the perceived value of the appliance. If a difficult interface impedes the uptake of an
appliance, then the appliance has little perceived value. With computers and information
appliances, Derrett (2004) says that there is no excuse for poor interface design, since the
designer should make it appealing and convenient for users. He suggests that it would be
more beneficial if designers created useful interfaces rather than concentrating on making
valueless interfaces simple to use.
We have strongly considered the way in which Derrett has looked at Heckel‘s Law with our
website. We have designed it, always thinking about our target user, primarily the children
and secondary to this, the teachers and parents. We agreed with Heckel‘s Law and decided
that there was no point in having an extremely complex website that our users would find
difficult to use and therefore not like. As outlined above, the site has been kept consistent
throughout with many features remaining stationary such as the same background and a
constant navigation bar.
We took a professional approach to design looking at rival websites before constructing our
own such as the Moshi Monsters which we are aware is extremely popular. CSS is used in
formatting the links on the navigation bar. For an active link we chose that the text would be
black as it is bold and easily read on the bright buttons. When mouse is hovered over it, the
background of the button turns pink. Visited links turn a dark blue colour. This is also in
keeping with the colour scheme. Visited links being a different colour makes users aware of
which tabs they have accessed and what sections they have yet to click on to.
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Usability: Context Diversity
We looked at Digman‘s (1990) five factor model of personalities to get a better understanding
of our potential users and look at it from a child's perspective.
1.
Neuroticism:
We had to consider if children would feel nervous using the site. Perhaps they would be if they
were inexperienced using the web. For these users, we have made clear features consistent
such as the stationary navigation bar. We are aware that some children in our target age
group may be experienced and confident but think that they will also enjoy the benefit of using
a site that is easy to navigate around.
2.
Extraversion:
Some users may be very outgoing compared to others who will be shy. It is common to have a
mix of these personalities among children around the age of seven. For this reason there is a
detailed teacher's toolbox so that teachers can help more reluctant children or those that may
be struggling. The toolbox will give guidelines of how best to guide children.
3.
Openness to experience:
Some people are inventive and curious in nature but others can be more cautious. To cater to
a careful user, the Home button is always in the same position on the various pages so if they
end up on a page and want to go back, they know where to press. This function is still
convenient for curious users.
4.
Agreeableness:
We considered how some people are compassionate whereas others are competitive and
outspoken. Children will be able to beat past personal high scores as well as monitor their
schools position in a leader board against other schools. The latter would be more competitive
but will be a group score.
5.
Conscientiousness:
Some people are organised versus those who are more carefree. We felt that it was important
to have an organised structure to the site so that even a carefree user would not get confused.
As mentioned, the Gestalt theory of organisation has been used.
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Layout
Good designs provoke positive feelings of success, capability, mastery, and clarity to the user
group. The users are not hindered by the computer, and can predict what is likely to happen
when they select a particular action. When it is efficiently designed, the interface almost
disappears, which lets the user concentrate on their work (Shneiderman & Plaisant 2010).
We aimed to have an interface that was so clear and easy to use that it would indeed
disappear into the background and users would not have the frustration of trying to figure out
how to use it. This is why the same layout is used throughout for consistency. It is easy to
follow, understand and navigate.
All of our content is in one block that is centred in the middle throughout all the pages. We
thought about the shapes of the text boxes and banner and how they would best look
together. We aligned them to make clear, aesthetically pleasing shapes.
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Section 7: Finance
This section below details our projected financial plans over the first three years. As has been
outlined, our main desired stream of revenue will be through licencing of the game out to an
electricity company for a yearly subscription fee. This revenue stream shows the most
potential for sustainable income and growth.
We have developed realistic projections on the number of schools that will sign up in the first
three years. Although our income for the licence fee will remain the same regardless of the
number of schools we are in, growth is important so that the electricity company retain
interest and see value in the game.
Assumptions:
We have based our financial costs on the following assumptions:

Cost of sales: This is made up of the smart meter (total €6,700 based on €46 per unit)
and the fee for game development (a one off fee of €1,000).

Salaries: We have decided to assign salaries of €5,000 each to Susan and Olivia in
year 1 as they will be working on a part time basis. Laurence will receive a salary of
€15,000 in year one as he will work full time in sales. These salaries will be increase
in year 2 when Susan and Olivia will receive €10,000 each and Laurence will earn
€25,000. We have included PRSI at a rate of 10.75% in our accounts as per Irish
employment legislation.

General Expenses: Covers the cost of all general expenses per year. This will include
fees paid to Laurence for use of his home office space and to cover the utilities of
light, heat, phone bill etc.
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Sales Projections
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Balance Sheet
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Cash Flow Statement
Page 79
Profit and loss Account
Profit and Loss Account
for Year Ending 31 December
2013
2014
2015
€
€
€
Licensing of Game
98,000
98,000
98,000
Total Sales
98,000
98,000
98,000
Smart Meter Devices
27,600
36,800
36,800
Game Development
1,000
0
0
Total Cost of Sales
28,600
36,800
36,800
Gross Profit of Loss
69,400
61,200
61,200
Notes
Sales
Cost of Sales
Expenses
Start-up costs
1
5,000
0
0
Salaries
2
25,000
45,000
45,000
100
0
0
500
500
500
2,687.50
4,837.50
4,837.50
33,287.50
50,337.50
50,337.50
Purchase of URL
Expenses
PRSI
Total Expenses
3
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Operating Profit/Loss
(Corporation Tax)
4
Net Profit After Tax
Profit at start of year
Profit at end of year
31,962.50
10,862.50
10,862.50
3,995.31
1,357.81
1,357.81
27,967.19
9,504.69
9,504.69
0
27,967.19
37,471.88
27,967.19
37,471.88
46,976.57
Note
1:
Onetime fee for registering a private limited company in Ireland
Note
2:
Salaries based on Olivia and Susan working part time and taking €5,000 each in year
1 and €10,000 each in year 2 and 3. Laurence will work full time and take €15,000 in
year 1 and €25,000 in years 2 and 3.
Note
3:
Salaries multiplied by PRSI rate of 10.75%
Note
4:
Corporation tax on profit is 12.5% in Ireland.
Note
5:
General expenses to be paid to Laurence for utilities and use of his home office
Note
6:
Accounting for depreciation based on straight line method over 12 years (EMFWise
space.
2012)
Page 81
Section 8: Primary Research
This section will detail the findings of our primary research from talking to teachers, lecturers
and subject experts over the course of generating this business plan. The companies and
people contacted were:
●
Alan Smeaton: DCU Clarity Center
●
Dr Antonio Ruzzelli: Wattics Smart Metering Company
●
Cathy Baxter: The Green Schools Programme
●
Mick Rocheford: Game Developer Affinity Tech
●
Survey Results: Survey Results from Primary Schools
●
Focus Group Findings: A group of 4 Primary School Teachers
Summary Interview with Alan Smeaton ( DCU Clarity Centre):
Following on from Joe Morris‘s advice, we met with Alan Smeaton in early July 2012 who has
done a lot of work in the area of energy and technology. We were also interested in the
company ‗Wattics‘ who emerged from the Clarity Centre in UCD and deal mainly with
monitoring sensor technology. We wanted to investigate the possibility of using Wattics
technology in monitoring and displaying a school‘s energy consumption.
When we met with Alan, we discussed different aspects of our practicum and he provided
additional reading material. This included the emergence and adoption rate of smart meter
technology and the effectiveness of a competition element in measuring energy usage. e3
have developed a system for universities, similar to ours but no league table/competition
between universities exists). He told us that Wattics has moved into the business market as
they found that there are more opportunities for both saving and making money as well as
saving energy.
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Summary of Webinar Interview with Dr Antonio Ruzzelli of Wattics
Smart Metering
In our first meeting with our technical advisor, Joe Morris, he suggested that we look at the
smart metering company Wattics to learn about the technical elements of their service. As
Wattics are a company that came from the CLARITY centre in UCD, we decided to talk to
Alan Smeaton of the DCU CLARITY centre before we progressed to contacting Wattics
directly.
The company's aim is to help their partner to understand and reduce their energy
consumption by enabling thorough building monitoring through a single meter. This provides
consumption breakdown to individual equipment (Wattics 2012). Wattics was shortlisted at
the European Smart Metering Awards 2012, in the Innovation of the Year Award 2012
category (Wattics 2011).
We emailed the company with the concept of our game idea and asked them if we could
possibly arrange a meeting to get advice about the technical aspects of linking the smart
meter and the game. The CEO, Antonio invited us to a webinar so he could show us the
features of the Wattics dashboard.
We were very interested to find out how Wattics transfer data from smart meters back to their
company. Antonio told us that, yes they do use wifi as we suspected, but if wifi cannot be
used they can use a sim card device to send the information from the smart meter back to a
Wattics server. We asked if there were any problems with data transfer such as interception
or speed but Antonio said this has never been an issue.
In relation to their experience with children, Wattics do not work on any projects to do with
children at the moment so they have not adapted any of their interfaces. It was suggested
that this could be easily done however.
Regarding pricing, an annual subscription fee is paid to access the dashboard. Wattics
connects one or more smart meters to their system. They connect information back to
Wattics and add analytics through a real time dashboard. The dashboard shows a list of
major appliances and has ones that are on displayed green.
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The subscription fee for us to use Wattics would be €2,000 for the meter and installation to
monitor ten devices as well as a €900 annual subscription fee.
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The Green Schools Programme:
Our main findings from our phone calls and emails to Cathy in Green Schools were that they
are a non-government organisation and do work and partner with many private companies.
The options for us are that we could put the game forward as something we want
implemented into the curriculum or else we could have it featured as a product that Green
Schools would recommend as being beneficial when trying to earn the Energy Flag.
Game Developer (Affinity Tech):
The main finding from Michael was that the existing Affinity Tech game ‗Joe vs. Banker‘ can
be adapted to meet the requirements of Electric Action. Michael provided us with two options
with regards to proceeding with game development. Either we pay Affinity Tech to create our
own unique game that is simply an adaptation of one of their existing models or we can
licence the engine and animations for a fee that is paid every-time revenue is earned. We
have decided that we want to own the game and therefore would pay initial development
costs to develop our own game.
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Survey Results from Primary School Teachers:
●
70% of the 20 teachers we surveyed rated interactive games as being Effective.
●
We based our aiming the game at 7-8 year olds based on the fact that 60% of
respondents suggested that 6-8 years old would be the optimal age range based on
their experience.
●
All surveyed teachers confirmed that teaching about energy is in the Primary School
Curriculum. We learned that it could be part of the Social, Environmental and
Scientific Education (SESE) subjects which are Geography, History, and SPHE. It
could also come under the Green Schools Programme.
●
80% of surveyed schools are currently participating in the Green Schools Programme.
●
All children have access to computers either in a dedicated school computer room or
in the individual classroom and have at least one hour per week to spend on
computers.
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Focus Group with Primary School Teachers:
Participants: Four Primary School Teachers
Electric Action conducted one focus group in an attempt to gain insight into our target market.
Vicsek (2012, pg 7) ―There are various alternative methods for organising and analysing
focus group discussions, depending on the aim of the research, the problem examined, the
wider theoretical approach and the technical possibilities‖. Considering this, we felt the most
appropriate group of people to speak to would be primary school teachers. We selected
first/second class teachers who deal with 7/8 year old's on a daily basis. The transcript for the
focus group can be found in the appendix.
We selected four primary school teachers, and held a relaxed discussion; we did not have
any concrete predetermined expectations. We simply wanted to gain a greater insight into
what children enjoy, which may help us answer what attributes our game should possess.
The sample size was obviously quite small but we were satisfied that this snap-shot view into
our target market would suffice into giving us the answers we required.
Morgan and Krueger (1993) write: "A good moderator will strive to create an open and
permissive atmosphere in which each person feels free to share his or her point of view".
Considering this, the moderator was conscious to ask open ended questions that allowed
each respondent to expand upon. The critical incident technique and round robin style
reporting were the two approaches taken to answer the questions, this worked very well,
particularly with the small group.
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Main Findings:
Popular Games
All four respondents agreed that Moshi Monsters were the most popular games at present.
They did not feel the game had any educational value and therefore did not allow children to
play it during school hours. One respondent told us that she had purchased the Moshi
Monster sweets and playing cards as a reward for the 'best table' every week; she said the
children 'loved' this.
None of the respondents were overly familiar with what the game
actually involved but knew that it was a simple and character based.
Competition
One of the respondents spoke about her school's involvement with Mangahigh.com. This
website provides a free game based maths teaching resource, containing hundreds of
quizzes and games that covers the entire primary school maths curriculum, designed for
children aged 7-16. The respondent discussed the Mangahigh Maths Challenge 2011/2012.
The challenge involved a number of primary schools across Ireland; students would compete
against each other for highest results in various tests. She said the competition was
extremely successful and students loved the element of competition involved.
Smart Meters
Respondents had little experience or knowledge of smart meters, they were unsure whether
anything like this had been done in their schools before but were all enthusiastic about the
idea. They felt it would be an excellent way for children to learn about the actual cost of
electricity usage and provide them management skills. They felt the target market was
suitable as older children would require a more advanced level in order to maintain interest.
Children aged 7/8 however would be age appropriate for the levels designed by Electric
Action.
Green Flag Scheme
All of the teachers were involved in the green flag scheme. The scheme is an international
environmental education programme, environmental management system and award
scheme that promotes and acknowledges long-term, whole school action for the
environment. All respondents agreed that energy awareness was important and promoted by
the green flag scheme.
Page 88
Section 9: Electric Action Game Overview
Game Play
The first level of the game will be simplified and explained so the users can become
acquainted with the game and get an idea of the game play. Each player will be introduced to
bolt who is the main character of the game. A short history of bolt and how he was invented
and what his purpose is will be included. Using short videos without the game will be our
attempt to educate the user on a variety of important energy topics. The games are based
around our energy mascot bolt that is searching for energy coins; by collecting energy coins
the user will unlock different bonus videos, levels and trophies. The coins however are only
achieved by defeating bolts number of enemies in each level. The enemies that bolt must
face represent all the different ways people waste energy and within in the school.
By learning about the different wastes you begin to understand how to prevent them, like
closing a window, reducing the classroom temperature and switching off standby plugs. Since
the classroom is the main setting for the game its design will play a huge roll in how the game
operates. It will consist of many different applications which bolt can approach; these will
include its schools energy meter, computers, interactive white board, and solar windmills.
Each of these applications will consist of games, puzzles and stories. The student will direct
bolt around the classroom using navigation arrows. The trophies achieved by the students
will be posted on the classrooms trophy wall and they will be accompanied by energy coins
which can be spent on improving the virtual schools energy conservation schemes.
These games are minor compared to our overall game in which we would be more inclined to
promote as our unique selling point. The main game will include the meter readings from the
smart meter which will attempt to keep the users attention on reducing their energy usage. In
order for the user to begin he the game they must direct bolt to a plug hole portal in the wall
of the virtual classroom. Once entered you will then be in complete control of your character
bolt. He will jump run and slide in order to dodge oncoming objects which aim to slow him
down throughout the levels your background will have changed from a classroom setting to
a school playground. The energy reading from your meter will be displayed on your screen
Page 89
and your aim is to chase and collect energy coins. These coins will be totalled and reduced
from the meter reading at the end of the level. This will symbolise to the children that there is
a need to reduce this number in order to make a difference in energy conservation. The level
is complete once the bolt completes a track in which he is chased by his energy enemies. As
you complete the levels with the required coins they will begin to get more difficult and the
number of coin and checkpoints will increase.
The concept of our main game will be based around Joe the banker which is a game
developed by affinity tech who are an independent games development company. Joe the
banker is based on a character running through a virtual street trying to collect as many coins
as possible within a limited time period. He also has the task of escaping from banker who
chases him throughout the game and avoid hidden obstacles. We feel this game would make
a perfect template to base our main energy game on. We want to create a reoccurring game
yet as the levels increase so does the difficulty. To adapt this game we will need to change
the main features which make Joe the banker unique. The setting will be changed to a more
children friendly background such as a playground. The idea of making it a playground
comes from children being able to easily identify and relate to the scenery.
The character is a big change in order to make our game recognisable to our users. We have
designed a unique character called Bolt. He is used throughout the game and is the only
character that we have designed. He will be collecting energy coins throughout the levels
instead of Joe collecting Euro coins. The coins totals will be collected but instead of being
carried onto the next level they are subtracted from the total of the meter reading. We will
include a meter reading on screen for this part of the game. The banker will be changed to a
set of new enemies which chase bolt throughout the game and will obstruct bolt from
collecting coins. The functions used by our character will not differ to those of Joe vs. the
banker. He must have all key navigational functions which will allow him to complete all levels
such as jump, forward, backwards and enter.
Page 90
Page 91
Opportunities for Expansion in the Future
Marketing: Brand Expansion
Similar to the Moshi Monster franchise; we could develop the Electric Action brand to include
products designed for children. Moshi Monsters have developed a range of sweets, stickers
and toys.
http://store.moshimonsters.com/
We plan to investigate the possibility of developing energy awareness/recyclable/educational
toys to expand our brand.
Page 92
Section 10: Risk Assessment
As a start-up company with lack of market experience, we are vulnerable to many financial
and operational risks. We must conduct a risk assessment and come to terms with potential
flaws in our strategy which may disrupt out long term goals and revenue aims. Our market is
un-touched but is open to rapidly change; having the ability to forecast vital changes may
help the company avoid important business risks.
Financial risks:
We have forecast that our main revenue stream will come licencing our product to electricity
companies. This however is not guaranteed to succeed, and revenue may fall from year to
year. There are a number of financial aspects we need to consider which could deviate from
our original targets and goals.

The companies that we target may not feel the need to purchase the license to our
product and since the industry is an oligopoly and there are only a few key players,
losing on company could have a huge negative impact on our revenue stream.

If a company was to take our product on a trial bases and pay the fee annually, they
could be tempted to discontinue the service unexpectedly in the next year, this would
leave us without expected revenue stream.

Having a lack of experience with licensing could mean we are undercharging for are
service which puts us under extra strain to better preform in other areas.

We hope to use grants provided by EU and national energy projects to ease the
financial strain. These grants are not definite source so we cannot rely on them when
creating are budget predictions. We also need to know if these funds would be on
going and no a lump sum.

The cost of sourcing our product is a determining factor on our overall profit. The
greater the cost the greater our licencing fee will be. An increase in licensing fee may
appear unattractive for companies to continue with our service.
Page 93
Organisational Risk:
There are a vast number of operational risks associated with setting up a new business,
especially
due to economic, political and governmental issues. We have identified a number of main
risks associated with our business which need to be taken into consideration.

We have acknowledged that this market has relatively low which allows companies to
approach companies with a similar product to ours. This is why we would like to
capitalise on our first mover advantage. we must be aware of the possible threat of
new competitors and continuously carry our market analysis

The majority of our business is outsourced such as the website and the meters.
These aspects are highly relying on expertise in this area. These can be costly
activities but are a priority to the company‘s operations.

Since smart meters are becoming a popular device for electricity suppliers to market,
we must be careful to monitor whether companies will begin to skip the wholesaler
and begin supply meters themselves.
Risk management:
In order to deal with the risks listed our management will implement a strategic risk
management policy which will prioritise the risks which need to be monitored at all time. It is
sometimes difficult to determine which risks may affect the business at anyone stage more
than another so they will be under constant review. This method shows similarities to a risk
map which makes it easier to stay monitor potential risks.
Page 94
Section 11: The Organisation Team
Team composition:
The three members of the management team of our team will all play active roles within the
Electric Action Company. In addition to this management team, it is our intention to outsource
technology issues to software programmers. The management team composition is outlined
below.
Management Team Background:
Olivia Hickey
Marketing, Innovation & Technology with INTRA DCU MECB
2011
2012
Susan Blake
Business Studies with INTRA E-Commerce DCU 2011
MECB
2012
Laurence
McEntee
Business Studies E-Commerce DCU 2011
MECB
2012
Experience: Over the past several years, the management team has developed a wide range
of experience through both university and jobs; this experience is discussed in more detail
below.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths: All three employees of Electric Action have strong business backgrounds. We are
all passionate about raising social capital and creating energy awareness. We have the skills
to promote and market the product we have designed, we also feel confident about the
number of contacts and leads we have already made so far. We are all aware of our
strengths, and feel this is hugely important in learning how to play to them.
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Weaknesses: We are lacking expert technical experience and capabilities. Unfortunately all
three of our technical backgrounds are limited particularly in the area of game design which is
one of the primary areas we have decided to focus on. Like most businesses we plan to play
to our strengths and source experts in the industry to fill in the gaps where we may be
lacking.
Based on our strengths and weaknesses, responsibilities and roles have been allocated as
below:
Susan Blake: Chief Executive Officer (CEO) & Financial Controller
Susan has been appointed to the role of Financial Controller due to her undergraduate
background in Business Studies which included finance and accounting modules. Her work
experience includes working in the finance department of Allianz Insurance and Corporate
Trust Fund Accounting in the Bank of New York Mellon.
Susan will have responsibility for preparation of accounts, allocation of finances and
preparation of budgets. She will monitor income and expenses to see if they are running
according to budget.
Olivia Hickey: Chief Technology Officer (CTO) & Marketing Director
As Olivia‘s undergraduate background is in marketing and technology, she will take the role
of developing marketing strategies for Electric Action. Olivia has experience in this area from
her INTRA work placement in Enterprise Ireland as a grants payment administrator. In this
role, she dealt with a number of clients applying for market research and feasibility grants.
Olivia has undertaken modules in Modern Technology, High Technology Entrepreneurship
and Information systems at undergraduate level. All of these modules have given her an
insight into the technical operations of a variety of projects and organisations; therefore she
will oversee the technical operations of electric action. She has knowledge and experience in
computer programming, database and website design. Although Olivia has some experience
in this area, her background is mainly business oriented and so we may still face some
limitations with regard to the technical development of our product.
Page 96
Olivia has almost five year‘s experience in retail; this has given her a chance to develop
customer service skills. She has also worked in both marketing and promotions.
Laurence Mc Entee: Director of Sales & Customer Service
Laurence holds a Bachelor‘s degree in Business Studies. It is for this reason that he has
been given the position of customer service and liaising with schools. His degree has allowed
him to gain vast knowledge and experience in networking. These networking skills will be
crucial in meeting clients and pitching the idea to potential investors. In 2010 he completed
his intra in AIB and was mainly based with customers and reviewing contracts. Using his
experience with customers we hope to exploit this to increase sales at schools. The position
Director of Sales will involve researching potential clients, meeting and greeting and putting
forward a sales pitch. His experience with contracts will give our team a key advantage with
negotiating the best possible deal for our company.
Page 97
Section 11: Legal Requirements
Register Business Name
When deciding on a name, we had two main considerations firstly that the business name
selected, Electric Action was available for use via the CRO website. Secondly that the
domain name; www.electricaction.com was available for registration.
Proof that .com domain name is available 11/08/2012
On www.CRO.ie we could check for free that the name Electric Action was in fact available,
which it was. We were then able to reserve the name on the Companies Registration
Environment for a fee of €25. The next stage is to complete the RBN1B form to establish
Electric Action as a corporate body.
Company Registration
Electric Action will be registered as a private limited company, limited by shares under the
Companies Act 1963 to 2012. CEO, Susan Blake will complete the following forms to ensure
requirements to trade as a private limited company are met;
Form 1A: discloses the company name, its registered office, details of directors and
secretary, subscribers and details of shares.
Memorandum of Association: The first constitutional document of the company, containing
fundamentals such as the name, the company's objects and powers, and its original share
capital. It must be in accordance with Table B in the First Schedule.
Page 98
Articles of Association: The body of rules, directions and regulations for internal regulation of
the company. The CRO require this information in a table they provide (Table A, Part II).
Regulation of Limited Liability Companies
There are a number of factors to consider after registering the company name;
Annual General Meeting: Section 148(1) of the Companies Act 1963-2012 requires that
directors of a limited company hold a general meeting within 18 months after the
incorporation of the limited company. This meeting must be held at least once a year after
this.
Annual Return: Electric Action must prepare and submit an annual report that contains details
of the company‘s financial affairs. The company must also attach details of their accounts as
documented at the annual general meeting. An auditor‘s report must also be attached unless
Electric Action is eligible to avail of an audit exemption. In order to qualify for this the
company‘s annual turnover must be less than €8.8 million, which we have predicted it will be.
Tax Requirements
VAT: The TR2 VAT Registration form must be filled out in order to obtain a VAT number in
Ireland.
Page 99
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Section 13: Appendix
Appendix Number 1:
Hi Alan,
Our practicum project is based around an energy saving game for primary school children,
providing them with the ability to manage and reduce real time energy in their schools.
We plan to work with an electricity company to link the schools energy consumption with the
game so that children can compete against other schools in the area on how much they can
reduce their energy consumption.
As part of our practicum, we are investigating the company 'Watticks'. Before we speak to the
company directly, we were wondering if we could speak to you briefly as we know the
company emerged from the Clarity center.
We appreciate your assistance.
Kind Regards,
Olivia Hickey
Following on from meeting with Alan
From: Prof. Alan Smeaton <[email protected]>
Date: 11 July 2012 12:32APPENDIX
To Alan Smeaton ([email protected] on 11/07/12)
Subject: Sensor data streams from smart metering - DORAS - DCU
To: Olivia Hickey <[email protected]>
http://doras.dcu.ie/17117/
http://doras.dcu.ie/16323/
http://www.cer.ie/en/information-centre-reports-and-publications.aspx?article=1c6fdd02da48-44b8-8703-7f0916c2de7a
currentcost.com - cheap home sensor, only 1 value vs episensor with 10 values/parameters
ESB / ESB networks tender for pilot study on medium-sized enterprises smart metering
(schools)
E3 http://www.e3.ie/index.php
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Prof. Alan Smeaton" <[email protected]>
Subject: Good news story for the weekend ..
Page 107
Date: 4 May 2012 15:12:43 GMT+01:00
To: CA Staff <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Folks
You'll all have seen how the light switches in the Computing building have been automated
for the last couple of years, in our main corridors and in labs, switching on only when the
corridors / labs are occupied. Thought you'd be interested to know that the cost of this re-fit
was about €14,000 but it is now saving us an estimated €7,200 + VAT each year, meaning its
almost paid back already. In old money that equates to an annual saving of over 25 tons of
CO2. If you think that's good, the energy saving in the multi-story car park where a similar
control of lighting has been introduced, is over €28,000 each year. I was amazed by those
figures. Weren't we lucky to be one of the buildings selected for this !
More details on the DCU Estates website,
- Alan
details somewhere in … http://www.e3.ie/index.php
Appendix Number 2, Email to Green Flags:
Email to Green Flags
from: Susan Blake [email protected] to: [email protected]
cc: Olivia Hickey <[email protected]>,
[email protected]
date: 11 July 2012 11:06subject: masters thesis querymailed-by: mail.dcu.ie
Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Susan Blake and I am a DCU E-Commerce masters student. As part of my
masters, I am working with two of my classmates on a green energy awareness project for
our thesis.
The project is based around an energy saving game for primary school children, providing
them with the ability to manage and reduce real time energy in their schools.
We plan to work with an electricity company to link the schools energy consumption into the
game so that children can compete against other schools in the area on how much they can
reduce their energy consumption.
We are investigating the possibility of incorporating this into the energy section of the green
flag scheme and were wondering if you could direct us to someone in this area who could
assist us further with this.
Kind regards,
Susan
Page 108
Appendix Number 3, Game Development:
Game Development Emails
from: Susan Blake [email protected]
to: [email protected]
date: 17 July 2012 12:11
subject: Game development
referalmailed-by: mail.dcu.ie
Hi Brett,
Following on from your tweet to @oliviahickey, below is the spec for what we would like to
find out from a game developer.
The concept for our master‘s thesis in e-commerce is an energy saving game that will be
played in primary schools. The target audience will initially be 8 – 12 year olds in Ireland. The
game will be based on a school's actual energy consumption with the goal of reducing it to
save money and also teach children about their carbon footprint from a young age. Children
will be able to see the energy their school has used in real time via smart meter technology.
Schools will compete against each other to reduce their overall energy consumption. The
game will have an interactive element and provide tips that will mean that they have to
continue on with activities after the game over the course of the school day. These activities
will still be related to the game and reducing the overall carbon footprint.
The basic concept for the game is a character in a classroom whose main objective is to save
electricity by turning off appliances, closing windows etc. The character must avoid energy
hungry monsters in order to stay green and retain a high energy level. Bumping into these
monsters will result in a loss of some energy and the character will have to earn more power
by saving electricity.
What we would like to establish is the difficulty of creating a basic game to perform functions
similar to this. What game development programme would suit this concept? Is there a
simple game development platform that we could experiment with? Would you have any
other suggestions or recommendations?
Thank you for your assistance.
Regards, Olivia & Susan
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Appendix Number 4, Email to Red Brick:
RedBrick Society DCU
Hi,
Myself and two other master students are in the final stages of our masters in E commerce
and as part of our final project is developing a product or service that we would hope to
launch. Our product is a game which we want to aim at primary schools and it will based
around educating children between the ages of 7-10 years on the importance of energy
conservation. We have little experience in this area and we would be keen on gaining an
insight into the different aspects or stages in building fully functioning interactive games. We
understand that we are in the summer months but we we were wondering if there was
anyone available in redbrick that would like to speak to us or if you knew anyone outside
DCU that would be interested in getting involved.
Regards
Laurence Mc Entee Ryan
MECB
Dublin City University
Page 110
Appendix Number 5, Email to Wattics:
DCU (Clarity) Practicum Query - To: [email protected]
Hi,
My name is Olivia Hickey, I am part of a group of three completing a practical thesis for the
DCU e-Commerce masters programme. Alan Smeaton of Clarity in DCU has advised us to
contact you as you may be able to assist us.
The concept for our project is an energy saving game that will be played in primary
schools. The target audience will initially be 8 – 12 year olds in Ireland. The game will be
based on a school's actual energy consumption with the goal of reducing it to save money.
Children will be able to see the energy their school has used in real time via smart meter
technology. Schools will compete against each other to reduce their overall energy
consumption.
We are having difficulty with the technical aspect of linking the information provided by the
smart meter into our computer game. Can you tell us if you have any experience with
transferring such data from a smart meter to an online platform i.e. website/game.
If possible we would like to speak with someone in the company directly to add to our
primary research but we do understand that you are busy and so email contact would also
be very useful. Thank you for your assistance, we look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards,
Olivia
Page 111
Appendix Number 6: Questionnaires for Schools
Page 112
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Appendix Number 7, Focus Group Transcription:
Participants;
Nicola O Connor, 1st class, Prosperous National School, Prosperous
Laura Nea, 2nd class,St. Conleths National School, Newbridge
Cliodhna Ni Ghogain, 1st class, Gaelscoil Chill Dara, Newbridge
Marion Keogh, 1st class, Scoil Naisiunta Bride, Monasterevan
Date: 06/08/12 Location: DCU
Moderator: Good Morning everyone, My name is Olivia Hickey and I will be moderating
today's discussion, I would like to that you all for taking the time to meet with us, coffee and
tea will be served shortly. We will honor your time by making sure we wrap up in the next 60
minutes.
Moderator: Okay to begin I will ask you all to introduce yourself, tell me what school you are
from and what class you teach.
Nicola: Nicola O Connor, 1st class, Prosperous National School, Prosperous
Laura: Laura Nea, 2nd class,St. Conleths National School, Newbridge
Cliodhna: Cliodhna Ni Ghogain, 1st class, Gaelscoil Chill Dara, Newbridge
Marion: Marion Keogh, 1st class, Scoil Naisiunta Bride, Monasterevan
Moderator: Okay great, so tell me, do you use games as a teaching aid?
Nicola: Yes, I think games are a great way to get children interested in a subject, I use them
across a range of subjects, there are some great resources available online.
Laura: Yes, I agree, I really enjoy finding new ways to interest my pupils, I think its important
to find ways that work for them and very often games work.
Cliodhna: My pupils really enjoy Mangahigh.com, it;s a website that provides a free games
based maths teaching resource, it contains hundreds of quizzes and games that covers the
entire primary school maths curriculum, and is designed for children aged 7-16. This is great
because I wont always have the same class every year but it means I can still use
Mangahigh because it covers a range of ages.
Marion: Oh yes Ive heard of that, I havent started using it yet though.
Cliodhna: Its great, my school even entered in the Mangahigh Maths Challenge 2011/2012.
Moderator: That brings me onto the topic of competition, do you think competition between
schools is a good idea?
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Cliodhna: Well it worked very well for my school, a number of classes were involved,
including mine. We basically had to compete with other schools based on maths test scores,
my school did very well overall, the principal and parents were very pleased.
Marion: Yes my pupils enjoy the element of competition among their own school so I think
involving other schools could be a great idea.
Nicola: My pupils love art competitions, and I feel it gives them a good sense of healthy
competition at a young age. I try to be fair and encourage different groups my having different
types of competitions so it's not always art or its not always sports.
Laura: Yes my kids are the same, they love sports competitions, but I try to vary it so that
each child is encouraged and is able to find something that they can be good at.
Moderator: Do you reward children for winning competitions?
Cliodhna: I prefer to reward good behaviour, so the competition I enforce the most is the 'best
table'. Each week I give stars to students for good behaviour and at the end of the week, the
team with the most stars are awarded 'best table' and I give them a prize.
Marion: Yes I do this type of thing aswell, it encourages good behaviour, cooperation and
team work at a young age, I also have a most improved award each week, so the pupil who
has increased their number of stars the most gets acknowledgement.
Nicola: I like to give my pupils certificates for taking part in competitions, I feel this is a good
way to encourage them as they can keep it and show it to their families.
Moderator: Are there any particular computer games that your pupils enjoy/talk about?
Nicola: I think all of us are familiar with Moshi Monsters, they have come onto the scene
recently and become hugely popular with this age group.
Laura: Yes the children I teach are always talking about them, they remind me of the
Pokemon craze. They originated as a computer game but now have a range of products for
sale including trading cards, action figures and sweets. As a reward for the best table I often
get the pupils Moshi Monster sweets, which they love.
Cliodhna: They seem to be the latest craze, all the pupils talk about them and even have
Moshi Monster school bags. I dont allow them to play the game in school as I feel it add's no
educational value and simply acts as a distraction.
Marion: I agree, I know the students enjoy the game but it does not aid their learning
therefore I do not allow them to play it during school hours. It seems to be a very simple
concept, as Laura said similar to Pokemon, students love the variety of games available.
Moderator: Are you familiar with smart meter technology, do you know if your school has ever
thought about using one?
Page 115
Nicola: No I dont know that much about them, and I dont believe they have ever come up at
school board meetings.
Laura: I have heard of them yes, I know the are used to track electricity usage but I have
never seen one.
Cliodhna: Yes Im the same, I have no idea if our school has one.
Marion: No I dont believe our school has one, I dont know much about them either.
Moderator: Do you think it would be beneficial for children aged 7/8 to learn about energy
usage and become more aware around this area?
Nicola: Yes I think it would be very beneficial for children of this age, it would be something
quite different but my students always love new experiments and new topics so I think they
would enjoy learning about this area.
Laura: I agree, I think its important for children to become more energy aware, my school are
heavily involved in the green flag scheme, and I think this question fits in well with the work
that we do to achieve flags for the scheme.
Cliodhna: Yes my school spends a lot of time on the green flag scheme also, I think making
children more conscious of their energy usage is very important especially as electricity
prices rise and finite resources deplete.
Marion: I enjoy this subject area, I have addressed it with students already, I too am involved
in the green flag scheme. Students are eager to become actively involved in the scheme and
so I think that it is important to make them more aware of their energy usage.
Moderator: Thank you all so much for your time and participation
Page 116
Appendix Number 8, Team CV’s:
Susan Blake
784 Sarto Park,
Sutton,
Dublin 13.
Phone: 0872396336
E-mail: [email protected]
DOB: 14/06/1989
Education
Sept 2011 – Present: Dublin City University MSC E-Commerce
Currently undertaking a twelve month full time Masters Course in Electronic Commerce with
Next Generation Management.
Expecting to graduate with 2:1 honours.
Modules include: Web Design and Implementation, Object Oriented Programming (Java),
Digital Business, Business Process Innovation and Innovation and High Technology
Entrepreneurship.
Sept 2007 – May 2011: Dublin City University BBS Business Studies
Graduated with a 2:1 honours degree.
Specialised in E-Commerce with Management.
Final Year Modules Included: New Enterprise Development, Strategic Management, ECommerce, Supply Chain Management, Business to Business Marketing.
2001 to 2007: Manor House School, Raheny
Leaving Cert 2007:
English, Irish, Maths, French, Business Studies, Economics, Geography.
Total Points: 490
January 2010: Insurance Industry Exams
Certified in Gen 1A and Gen 1B Insurance Exams
Key Skills
Team Player: Member of 5 project teams in final year (most of which ran simultaneously)
September 2010- June 2011: New Enterprise Development:
A member of a three person team developing a university texting system.
Undertook market research; Filmed and presented a viral video advertisement; Concluded
the module with a completed business plan.
Project Management:
September 2011 - Present:
Project manager of a team of four first year students for a module in Digital Innovation
Creativity and Enterprise. Main duties include team facilitation while the group make weekly
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decisions for IBM City One game. Responsible for teaching blogging with Wordpress.
Studying for a qualification in PRINCE2 project management.
Time Management:
September 2010– January 2011: Information Systems- Data Management:
This was an individual two part assignment and exam based on Microsoft Access Database. I
received a first in this module while doing the above two projects and studying for four
Summer Exams.
Employment
Nov 2011 – Present, Audi North Dublin:
Receptionist/Showroom Host: Part time receptionist where I am responsible for managing
the switchboard as well as dealing with direct customer queries. I also undertake any
administration duties as necessary.
July 2011 –Sept 2011 BNY Mellon:
Corporate Trust Intern: Selected as one of 45 EMEA interns from over 2,600 applications.
A nine week internship undertaking a project to deliver the firm in Ireland; Extensive research
on company websites and Bloomberg; liaising with the Asset Servicing Department;
Preparation of a slideshow and supporting information for use at a management meeting.
June 2011 – July 2011 Allianz:
Finance Department: Four weeks working on financial spread sheets; use of excel formulae;
calculation and compilation of claims data and generation of graphs.
Sept 2009 - Sept 2010 Allianz: (Full time college work placement.)
Private Motor Underwriter: Administration of the team‘s correspondence and re-delegation of
work to colleagues; Liaising with other departments; Calculating and processing discounts;
Performing a variety changes as customers requested.
May 2006 – June 2009 Denis Mahony‘s Motor Group:
Receptionist: Part time secretarial duties in a busy garage. Greeting customers; Answering
and transferring customer calls from a switchboard; Preparing and printing pricelists.
Voluntary Work
March 2011 – June 2011: DCU Intergenerational Learning Project:
A weekly three hour Saturday Morning Session assisting the over 60‘s to improve their
computer skills; Teaching the use of Google functions (youtube, images, maps, translate,
books, blogs etc.); setting up email accounts; blogging; Assisting groups of 2-5 at a time.
Interests
Developing computing skills, digital marketing, SEO.
IT: Qualified ECDL. Excellent Microsoft Excel and Access skills having completed final year
modules in spread sheets and database. Google Analytics Certified and Certificate in
PRINCE 2 Foundation. Full Driving Licence.
References
John Collins,
Denis Mahony Ltd,
Kilbarrack Road,
Arlene Allen,
BNY Mellon,
Hanover House,
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Dublin 5.
01 8322701
Dublin 2.
01 542 7920
Olivia Hickey
Crannard, Barrettstown
Newbridge, Co Kildare
Email address: [email protected]
Mobile No: 0851607228
Summary
·
Objective is to secure a position in a Consultancy role.
Applicant is a 23-year-old DCU graduate with a Second Class, Level One Honors degree
in Marketing Innovation and Technology. Currently pursuing a Master‘s of E-Commerce at
DCU.
l
Key accomplishments include a highly successful work placement with Enterprise
Ireland; applicant was offered continued employment beyond the work placement period.
l
Applicant is an energetic self-starter, excellent communications and team working skills,
and relishes a challenging work environment.
Education
l
University: Dublin City University, Glasnevin, Dublin 9.
Course: BSc. Marketing Innovation and Technology (Level 8)
MSc. E-Commerce
Experience
Date: April 2011 to September 2011
Job Description: Promotions, Publicis D
Promotional work with Publicis D, Dublin 2. My role involved promoting the Sky Digital brand
through various different channels; this experience has given me a practical application of the
theory I have learned in DCU.
Date: November 2007 to September 2011: Job Description: Sales Assistant, Champion Sports
I worked as a part-time sales assistant in Champion Sports, Whitewater, Newbridge, Co. Kildare. As
part of a large team, I developed a range of skills including sales and communication. These skilled
assisted me in university where I was regularly working as part of a team and making presentations
etc. I was hired as a stock room assistant on a temporary Christmas contract but was kept on as a
sales assistant working on the shop floor and then as a cashier, where I was wholly accountable for
my own tills finances every week.
Date: June 2010 to August 2010:
Restaurant
Job Description: Shop Assistant, Mac’s
On my J1 summer visa, I worked in Mac‘s restaurant, Santa Barbara, California, USA. I was hired as a
server, however the business was in start up stages and so I was given responsibilities in terms of
marketing, promotions and event management. This was on a relatively small scale but provided me
with useful experience.
Date: June 2009 to June 2010: Job Description: Grants Administration Officer, Enterprise
Ireland
Page 119
I completed an eleven month Internship at Government agency ‗Enterprise Ireland‘; my role was a
grants payment administrator. This job requires attention to detail, initiative and working to a schedule.
I began my internship processing one type of grant and assisting with other administrative tasks, within
weeks I was being given more responsibility and multiple types of grants to process. I was soon in
charge of a team who were recruited to process the ‗employment subsidy scheme‘, a specific grant to
assist small Irish companies during recessionary times.
Date: July 2007 to November 2007:
Job Description: Shop Assistant, O’Brien’s
Following my Leaving Certificate exams I worked as a Shop Assistant at O‘Brien‘s Sandwich Bar,
Whitewater, Newbridge Co Kildare. I decided it would be beneficial to see how things operate in the
food industry as well as clothes retailers. My role in O‘Brien‘s was a counter assistant as well as a
cashier. Customer Service was a big aspect of this job, ensuring satisfaction was met and maintained
with every single sandwich was essential.
Date: April 2006 to September 2006:
Job Description: Sales Assistant, Pull & Bear
Sales assistant at Pull & Bear, Whitewater, Newbridge, Co Kildare. Spanish retail giants ‗Zara‘ arrived
in the Whitewater Shopping Centre in 2006. I secured a job in one of their chain stores Pull & Bear.
The store was an example of complete modern retailing, fast moving affordable stock which proved a
huge hit with consumers. Employees dressed in casual Pull & Bear clothing and went through intense
training in order to promote this new strategy and buying experience for customers.
Interests, Activities, and Achievements
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Avid Gaelic Football Player; with ‗Sarsfields Senior Ladies‘ team in Newbridge and am
involved with training the underage teams in the club.
Member of the Clongorey Community Association.
5 Published articles in the Leinster Leader on school and sports related events during
transition year.
Bronze ‗Gasice' award (Presidents Award) for community involvement.
Successfully completed the 2011 Google Online Marketing Challenge.
High Competency in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Access, Java Programming, HTML and
Dreamweaver.
PRINCE2 Foundation Certification
References:
·
·
·
Ms Ann McDonnell, Enterprise Ireland, Tel 01 727 2000
Ms Kim Murray, Campion Sports, Newbridge, Co. Kildare Tel 045 940025.
Mr. Grant McNaughton, ‗Mac‘s‘, 503 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA. USA. Tel (805) 8971160.
Page 120
Laurence Mc Entee
Telephone:
041 6851775
Mobile:
0862426606
Rath Rd,Grangebellew, Drogheda, Co. Louth
E-mail:
[email protected]
Age:
23
Professional, self-motivated and flexible individual with great organisational and interpersonal
skills. Comfortable working both in teams and individually. Strong communicator and not
afraid to take on responsibility or to take initiative.
2012 Dublin City University, graduating October 2012 – M.Sc. E-Commerce (2.1
expected result). Subjects include information access, strategic management in a
networked era, Java programming, risk management, next generation management
and process improvement.
2011 Dublin City University – 2nd class honours Bachelors of Business and,
specialising in e commerce.
2008
Scoil Ui Mhuiri, Dunleer, Drogheda, Co Louth.
Language skills English, French and Irish
Computer skills Efficient in PowerPoint, Excel and Word.
Experienced in SPSS and Lotus Notes
LicenceFull clean drivers licence.
AdWords Currently in the process of obtaining my
AdWords Certificate. Will take part in the 2011 Google Marketing
Online Marketing Challenge
11/07 – 12/08
·
Barman, Westcourt Hotel, Drogheda
Trained cocktail waiter in Baroccos Bar, responsible for
collecting/counting takings, opening and closing the bar, and managing
customer relations.
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06/06 – 12/09
Drogheda
Employee supervisor and party host, Drogheda Leisure Park,
·
·
Organised employee rosters and problems relating to
employee/customer.
Hosted children‘s birthday party and supervised summer camps.
Politics Young citizens award
Represented Ireland at this event in the European Parliament in Strasburg, France. Member
of the 20 student delegation who attended various intercultural seminars and workshops
Louth Junior County Council 2004-2005
Voted by fellow classmates to represent my secondary school at the Louth
Junior County Council and chaired several meetings.
Sport -
Kitesurfing representative, DCU Surf Sail Club
Elected to this position in my first and second year of DCU. I organised
training, insurance, recruitment and promotion for this sport helping the Surf Sail club to
become the 2nd largest club in DCU.
Soccer and Gaelic Football Coaching
Played for many years and was involved with the DCU GAA Academy.
Captained my local junior championship the in 2010 which we won. Have GAA coaching
credentials and have trained students in basic footballing skills.
Squash
Enjoy playing and have represented DCU at handball varsities.
Charity Suas and Intergenerational Learning
Enjoy volunteering for charitable societies. In 2011 and 2012 I was involved with Suas with
DCU who helped underprivileged children focus on their education by providing mentors and
homework classes, participated in the intergenerational programme which aims to educate
the elderly on basic computer skills.
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Appendix Number 9, Blog:
Below is an account of the blog that the team kept over the course of practicum. This was
updated with a new entry each Monday which kept the details of our interaction with our
supervisors and other people and companies we interacted with as part of our research. As
we originally set out to work with sensor technologies in the household market, our blog can
be found at: http://sensorsolutions.wordpress.com/2012/06/
Week 1
This blog is to document our progress with our group practicum in E-Commerce at DCU.
Sensor Solutions is a start-up company that will integrate home energy consumption with car
usage so that a household can see their total carbon footprint on a dashboard.
This first week we began with meeting Cathal on Monday to clarify the timeline. We spent the
rest of the week attempting to clarify the exact focus of our idea. We did this by researching
other sensor companies and by having our first meeting with our Business School Advisor,
PJ Byrne. During this meeting we determined that there was a lot of competition in this area
and we would need to focus on developing a niche. PJ advised that as the technology is
already available for tracking energy in the home. It would be difficult to recreate this
technology so we should really use what is already out there and concentrate on what our
unique element will be. We agreed that we would have this clarified by the time we meet PJ
again next week.
We have tried to contact our technical adviser Joe Morris by email but when we called to his
office we found out that he is on holidays. We hope to meet him next week.
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Week 2
This week we had our second meeting with PJ to discuss our progress in relation to the
business side of the practicum. We explained to him how we had amended our idea to focus
on energy in schools instead of the home energy market. Our concept is now an energy
saving game for primary school children. PJ was pleased with our new focus as he felt it had
a lot more potential. The area that he pointed out as being most important to work on this
week was revenue streams. We would need to look at all possible ways to make money and
brainstormed to come up with advertising, selling to green flag, educational websites,
schools, electricity providers and licensing. We will then look at these in detail and see which
are viable.
Other issues PJ advised us on were to focus on electricity provider using the game as a tool
to get schools to switch to them; there was an emphasis on the amount of schools we talk to,
so we would get a representative idea of all schools in Ireland. Lastly, we decided we would
try to talk to green flag people to see if we could work with them or else get information and
advice from them.
Our technical adviser was back from holidays this week, so we had our first meeting with Joe
on Friday. The main point that we took from this meeting was the importance of interacting
with the actual interface we plan to work with i.e. watticks/airtricity smart meter interface.
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From examining the results presented we must figure out how to illustrate results through our
game (rather than through graphs & charts). Technology aspect of the practicum will be
transferring data from the smart meter database to the actual game itself i.e. real time data
transfer (suspect that this is done primarily through the internet, we must have access to this
data therefore relationship with electricity provider is essential). Joe suggested expanding this
project into the home, no additional resources required, kids can simply take a reading from
their electricity meters at home every week and record this information. They can use the
methods introduced in the game to save electricity in the home, and document their new
meter every week. Objective = measure improvement per week. Our main focus from the
technical perspective is to figure out the games functions, what do we want the game to
actually do? Some ideas included building a new energy efficient school building/completing
a number of tasks that provide energy ‗boosters‘, etc. We will contact schools so we can
understand their internet availability; we will also contact electricity providers and Watticks
who provide smart metering.
Week 3
In week 3 we gained a lot more insight into the energy market in Ireland as well as current
energy saving trials and methods. Following on from Joe‘s advice about researching the
company ‗Watticks‘, we decided to meet with Alan Smeaton for more information as it is a
company that emerged from the Clarity centre who deal mainly with monitoring sensor
technology. We wanted to investigate the possibility of using Wattics technology in monitoring
and displaying a school‘s energy consumption.
When we met with Alan, we discussed different aspects of our practicum and he provided
additional reading material. This included the emergence and adoption rate of smart meter
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technology and the effectiveness of a competition element in measuring energy usage (e3
have developed a system for universities, similar to ours but no league table/competition
between universities exist). He told us that Wattics has moved into the business market as
they found that there are more opportunities for both saving and making money as well as
saving energy.
Alan also informed us about a pilot study being carried out by ESB in schools at the minute,
based around integrating energy measurement systems for principals etc. to read. After this,
we sent emails and tweets to Electric Ireland and Airtricity to gain more information.
Some other areas we worked on this week were sales and how to make money, refining the
SWOT analysis, completion of the Porters 5 forces analysis and beginning the technology
road-map.
On Friday, after some brainstorming, we finally came up with a name, ‗Electric Action‘.
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Week 4
We began this week by meeting on Monday and making progress on the gaming aspect of
our idea. We discussed what we wanted the game to do. We were having difficulties planning
our way through how the game would be navigated, what the exact setting would be, how
many characters there would be etc. As can be seen in the photo below, we decided the best
option would be to confine the setting for level one to the classroom with computers, radios,
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lights, radiators, windows, doors and additional options being included. There will be one
main character.
The next topic that we covered this week was the creation of a survey on Tuesday. We made
a list of all the questions we would need answers to from teachers. We asked general
questions such as where do you teach and what class do you teach. We then wanted to
confirm if all schools had a computer room and if so, how many computers were there. Do
they also have computers in their individual classrooms? We also left room for them to tell us
any difficulties they had encountered in trying to attain the green schools energy flag. We
generated the survey on sogosurvey.com and then spent time re-arranging question order
and how the questions were phrased to make it easily understood and so we would give
teachers every opportunity to provide us with valuable information. On Wednesday we came
back to the survey and tested it to make sure that it worked properly and where multiple
answers needed to be clicked, this option was available. We used our NGM and statistical
notes from Gerry Conyngham to ensure that we had met the best practice guidelines in
survey generation. We then sent out the survey to teachers on Thursday and will analyse the
results next week.
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At the end of the week, we spent time working on a logo for the company and game. We
created these on paper before we will design them on the computer. Here‘s our favorite ones:
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Week 5
On Monday, we created our digital version of the Logo.
We also spent some time designing the A0 poster for the final presentation day. We sketched
this out so that we would not be rushed for time at the end of the semester trying to come up
with ideas for it.
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On Tuesday, we analysed the results of the survey that we had sent out last week. We got
positive feedback for the ones that were completed, but decided we needed to send it to
more people to get more accurate results. We also wanted a larger sample size before we
would do any SPSS on the results. We sent it out to more teachers and friends who would
pass it on to teachers and plan to come back to this again next week.
On Wednesday, we revised the practicum guidelines to make sure that we were still on track
and would not have to rush anything in the days coming up to the end. In doing so we
decided that we would settle on team composition based on everyone‘s strengths and
experience. We also decided that we needed to start focusing on the financial section. We
then got in touch with a former DCU student who is a trainee accountant in PWC who is
willing to help and advise us in this area.
At the end of the week, we planned and sketched out game interface and what first three
levels would look. While doing more research, we decided it was necessary to include
transport and renewable energy issues into the game and incorporated these into later levels.
We also researched website creation, what tool we would use and how we wanted it to look.
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Week 6
After revising the content that we have already written, we added a graphical representation
of Porters 5 Forces. We did this so it would complement the written text. It acts as a summary
and the main points can be understood at a glance.
In order to gain a greater response rate from our survey, we added it to a forum on
schooldays.ie targeting Primary School Teachers.
We emailed the smart meter company Wattics as advised by Alan Smeaton. They are a
company that came from the CLARITY center in UCD. Their aim is to help their partner to
understand and reduce their energy consumption by enabling thorough building monitoring
through a single meter. This provides consumption breakdown to individual equipment
(Wattics 2012). We emailed them to ask for assistance and ask could we organise a face to
face meeting to learn more about the technical aspects of the service.
The CEO of Wattics, Antonio Ruzzelli invited us to an online webinar on Thursday where he
showed us the dashboards that Wattics provide. He gave us price points that we could use to
estimate costings. We learned that if a school did not have a wifi connection, we could use a
mobile phone style sim card to transfer data. Details of our interview are outlined in further
detail in our practicum report.
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Week 7
The deadline is approaching soon so we are busy ensuring that we have all elements of the
report. On Wednesday, we met with Joe Morris, our technical advisor to discuss our progress
and re-evaluate where we are at. We hand an in depth discussion around the concept, how
the game will be played, the technical aspects and what we ultimately want to achieve. Joe
challenged us on many of our answers and we found ourselves having to defend some of our
decisions as well as taking on board some suggestions and amending our plans.
We settled on the decision that we will narrow the age group again to seven to eight year olds
instead of eight to twelve year olds. From our discussion we decided that there is a big
difference between the skill levels of eight year olds and twelve year olds. It is beneficial to
refine it so we can define that it should be played in second or third class when children will
understand the principles behind the game but still be challenged by it.
Joe also made us realise that we need to be more specific about the type of smart meter we
are using as they vary. He suggested that we add an additional plugin type of smart meter so
that children can test the electricity consumption of specific devices by plugging them to the
device in a plug point in their classroom. Maybe they could even take this home for an
evening and continue the learning with their parents and siblings.
Joe asked what is our tag line? We came up with ‗Taking Action for a Greener Future‘. We
feel it is concise and nicely sums up our motivation behind the concept.
A great suggestion that we took from Joe was that if we do not sell this to electricity
companies, we could eliminate the cost of installing the device by having a local electrician
volunteering to install it. We could feature their name on the website to promote them in
return.
We found this meeting beneficial in terms of the questions asked. It got us thinking about
potential presentation interview questions and how we could address them.
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