As we are OH so close to publishing our beta version of the Minimum Viable Book, we thought it would be a good time to share some of the feedback and lessons learned from our alpha release last year.
The Alpha test group
The Minimum Viable Book alpha experiment was released by invitation-only to roughly 100 people in 2014. These folks had been very engaged with us over the previous year, either by attending workshops, interviews or interacting with us on email and twitter.
We asked these awesome people to read 10 article-length pieces of content online, each with a slightly different format, tone and topic and leave us a rating along with comments.
A few gems from our feedback bank
We noticed that the more thought-provoking, passionate or personal the article content was, the more positively a reader ranked the article:
“People really connect with people and stories about people, so this is a fab way of doing it.”
“I enjoy reading about entrepreneurs and what drives them.”
Most of our alpha articles were quite short and snappy, so they often lacked in-depth examples of how the person applied the concept we described to their work.
“Examples/case studies of how others do/manage process-improvements are really useful.”
“I would’ve found it useful to have concrete examples”
One of the content formats we tested was a simple, but neatly laid-out interview transcript. The idea behind this was to let readers take what they wanted from the interview, rather than us analysing it for them.
“I don’t think the quotes read well. There are just purely transcribed. I think you need to rewrite them to actually make more sense. It’s more important to get the sentiment that was being put across rather than the exact words used.”
“I was confused at the beginning what this was even about, if I wasn’t trying to help, I probably wouldn’t have kept reading. It took me a while to figure out how this might be relevant to me, even after I read the article.”
“I’m confused. I don’t understand how the individual content nuggets, fragments and formats are meant to be read together (if at all) and what binds them together.”
The video format went down well, with almost all participants leaving quite a lot of positive feedback for this format.
“Video > Writing”
“Love the videos”
“I liked the brevity. Saying useful things quickly. The idea being that you can then go and act on the advice.”
“Nice soundbites on the topic; good insights from people who have done it.”
Finally, we also found a couple of comments about a few grammatical mistakes, so we’ve decided to work with a proper grown-up sub-editor on the beta!
The beta
We are close to the release of a beta version of the Minimum Viable Book, and this will be available to buy in a printed newspaper format very soon. We’ve learned from our Alpha feedback, and decided to include many more in-depth examples, analysis and visuals around a central theme that ties the narrative altogether. We’ll be releasing another video too, although not in the newspaper, obvs ;).
In this first newspaper issue, we’ll be featuring stories that explore the positive force of 3D printing on hardware innovation and traditional industries; plus, the links between iteration and diminishing improvement of technology in large organisations. And so much more.
Join us!
If you’d like to contribute in any way, we’d like to hear from you. Drop us line.
