How can GetHelp! Communicate Value

I think that the one most effective and onerous task that the get help team faced with is to communicate value.

The value of using the application – Why should the user even post something on the application? What can this application do that other means and platform cannot?

Value of helping others – Why should the users care about helping others? What should they be prompted by the application

Value of social capital (which incidentally is the reason which makes facebook ticks!) – How much response can the user generate if he/she shakes her “friend tree”

In essence, the design and the functionality should be answer this questions, which in turns communicates the value of this application.

Keeping this overall concept in mind, I would provide 2 few touch-points which I think would allow the application to communicate value.

Modelling – Form follows functionality. If so, what models out there can essentially allow an application to match-make users? Off the top of my head, I would recommend looking at

1)   Dating sites – as they try to match-make users through their profile and peferences. Difference over here is of course, it is presumably true that the party at both ends have the incentive to begin to want to engage in a date and have taken the proactive step to sign up, whereas GetHelp needs to offer more incentives to the “helpers”

2)   Kiva.com – I thought it was quite interesting that this micro financing site has reshaped the way financing is done. Perhaps, each task specific by the user is to huge and they can be broken down into smaller parts just like how Kiva reduces the entry barrier for mircofinancing by allow users to lend with a starting minimum of $50, for more people to come in and provide help. Again, for this side, the lenders have 2 obvious incentives which is 1) to support entrepreneurs doing good work and 2) to earn interest on loans.

3)   Odesk/freelance.com – Freelance website might offer the team some insights about how help can be categorized, quantified and outsourced.

User incentives – This is perhaps the hardest question to address. “Why should one be movitated to help others” is perhaps too large a question to be addressed by the application. A nice and realistic assumption would be there are friends and people out there who will offer their help – hence perhaps the real question is now "how to make GetHelp! personable such that both the parties have the incentive to use the platform in getting help"?