A Win-Win Situation

Well, now it is official. SpeakingPal has won first prize in the Education Category at the recent SmartContent 2011 Conference, held Nov 2-3 in Seoul, Korea. Hosted by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and organized by the Korea Creative Content Agency, SmartContent 2011 had over 150 entries from 15 countries in seven categories. See the Press Release here: http://www.wiredprnews.com/2011/11/09/speakingpal-wins-first-in-smartcontent-2011-education-category_2011110923723.html
What can I say? It’s a great feeling to have your efforts and hard work appreciated. The award was for “Smart Content”, aimed at discovering and awarding unique content solutions worldwide. SpeakingPal has especially tried to make our content unique, highly interactive, engaging, and entertaining, replacing the usually boring and repetitive types of pronunciation and speaking drills that are so commonplace.
Designing speaking skill practice anew, specially geared for the mobile, allowed us to tear down traditional ways of thinking and prepare educational content with a totally fresh start. We decided from the outset that we would pretend that no such practice existed yet, so as not to get bogged down in the rut of simply porting existing, un-engaging material to the mobile. No, we opted for a much better win-win scenario – let’s design the whole thing from scratch! In this way, we could leverage the easiest and most intuitive use of the mobile – taking to another person on the phone – to an educational tool.
We win a prestigious prize, the user wins a unique educational user experience – I’d say that’s a perfect win-win situation, wouldn’t you?