TFGL2022 - S5 - Ep3 - Thanking and Banking

Welcome to this episode of the Tech For Good Live podcast.

Tech for Good Live pod regular Greg Ashton joins host Fay Schofield and our special guest this week is Louise Pavoni, Digital Engagement Manager at Leukaemia UK.

Transcript

Fay: Hello and welcome to another episode of the tech for good life podcast. If you're new here and wondering what the hell you've stumbled into, we're a bunch of pals that gather together once a week to talk about technology being used to make the world a better place. Well, in all honesty, we often end up talking about tech being used for evil, but tech for bad live isn't as catchy of a title, is it? And there are still glimmers of hope out there and wonderful people doing amazing things with tech. So as we soldier into the murky corridors of the tech conversation, this week we'll be talking about the food price index. We'll be talking about a new international age charity, fancy offices. And of course dogs. Thankfully I am not alone. So joining me today, Greg Ashton. Greg is back on the podcast. This should not come as any sort of a shock. Greg is here every week. But talking about fancy offices, Greg, is there a weird thing you have in your office or your spare room, your shed, the place where you work? What's a weird item that you have in your office. 

Greg: I don't really have an office at the minute. I'm moving in two days, so I will have an office then, and we'll have nothing in that room, just my computers. So it's probably the weirdest thing in the minute is a snoring dog.

Fay: That's all right. We'll take it. We'll take it. And we have a guest with us today. Hurrah. Louise Pavoni, Digital Engagement Manager at Leukaemia UK. Welcome. Louise, what weird item do you have in your office or the space that you work in or shed or kitchen or wherever you are currently sat? 

Louise: Hi, thanks for having me. Probably the weirdest thing I've got is a beanie baby. A gorilla beanie baby from years ago that's just followed me around. So yeah, that's probably the weirdest item. 

Fay: I love it. On Ebay, it could be worth a fortune. 

Greg: No they were never worth anything. 

Fay: Oh, my God.

Louise: It doesn't have the label. Unfortunately. 

Greg: I saw a meme just yesterday actually, which says Bitcoin is beanie babies for tech pros. And it's exactly right. Beanie babies were sold to a whole generation of young people, mainly young women, as kind of a collectible and parents were happy to invest in this, because there were sold this lie that it might be worth something in a few years' time. Thing is they sold so many, they're not worth a penny.

Louise: I'm crushed. 

Fay: I'm like, I'm one of these guys, like, I'm one of these people though that, you know, when you see like the news items and it's like rare 50p worth thousands, I collect them now. My office, that's weird item. Hi, I'm Fay everyone. I'm hosting today as if they let me back in for another one. But my weird item that I've got in my office, is probably my growing collection of 50 p. At one point, some point in the future, my 50 P collection and your beanie baby, Louise, will be worth something and God damn it, nobody will stop us. Anyway, so this week's topics. Greg, stat of the week. What's happening? 

Greg: You may have seen recently that the consumer price index has shown that there's been inflation. We've been talking about it for a few months now. Not us. We don't talk about inflation on this podcast normally, but today we're going to. Inflation is going to rise. Things are going to become more costly. But writer and activist, Jack Monroe, has been for 10 years tracking the changes to the cheapest products on the shelves. So the consumer price index normally looks at a wide range of products. You have that whole shopping basket thing they love to troll out on the BBC. It looks at certain products and it doesn't look at the lower end of products. So you had Sainsbury's basics or Asda range. Everybody has these basic range products and Jack Monroe has been checking them for the last 10 years and has found that whilst it shows a 5.4% increase across the CPI, actually, if you look at those cheaper items, you're looking at things like, so 10 stock cubes from Sainsbury's basics were 10p in 2012. And in 2022, they're now 39p. So you're looking at hundreds of percentage point increases in some cases. So there's a real call from Jack here to look at things differently and to really start investigating the fact that we're pricing out people at the lowest end of the economy.

Fay: This is mad. I'm just reading this news piece now. This one, I don't know why, but like, it's saying here that there used to be like 400 products in the Asda smart price range. And today there's like 87. What? That's just crazy and yeah, your point, Greg, about the stock cubes, like what the hell it, right. It's just mad. Louise, what's your take on all this? 

Louise: I had the same reaction as you really. I think it's shocking. I think it's really important work by Jack. He's obviously been campaigning and doing this for a really long time to just expose the full picture. I think it's very sad and just reading that article and seeing, you know, the Managing Director of Iceland saying his stores are losing customers to food banks and ultimately it's a hunger. I just think is desperately sad. So I think, yeah, really great that this has been exposed, but it's really sad. Isn't it? 

Fay: It's just kind of, it's just sort of mind boggling and I must admit, to be completely honest. It's one of those things and you sort of said, Greg. The picture of the shopping trolley would flick up on the BBC and you're like, oh God, yeah, of course, everything's getting more expensive, but when you actually look at it, you know, in this kind of way, it's just crackers. What can people do? What's the, I don't know what the magic solution is, but yeah is there anything that people are kind of saying to sort of tackle this? What can we do? 

Greg: Awareness is important. I think. So Jack's kind of picked up on that. And so the good news aspect of this, I guess, is that Jack, along with a team of economists, charitable partners, retail prices people working to combat poverty, ex-staff from Office of National Statistics. So real, like who's here with people that you'd want to be involved in this, they're going to compile their own price index to say, here's the reality for people in this situation. You know, I think the other thing is you've got ready meals and bottles of wine that haven't changed price in a decade and yet you've got things, quadrupling in price at the lower end. So yeah, it's that whole thing of value signaling that the supermarkets say they're there for certain groups. But actually when you look at their actions, then they're not doing that. They're not fulfilling their promise to make things more affordable. And this is in the backdrop of them dropping lots of prices to compete with the likes of Aldi. So they're dropping the prices of the more expensive items, but increasing the prices at the lower end. And so it's really shady kind of typical thing of, yeah, it looks like we're sacrificing but actually we're sacrificing very little 

Louise: That's the bit that I was so shocked to see. Like obviously high priced items not changing but actually huge numbers of people being priced out, like you said, but it's really encouraging to see so many charities and sort of high profile partners, I guess, getting involved. So it would be, I feel more confident that this is something we can, a lot more people can get behind and hopefully see some change. 

Fay: I hope so. Cause you're right. In terms of the bottle of wine, cause you walk around and be like, oh look, it's been discounted for like, it's only £5.50 or whatever. And then you go and buy a bloody veggie stock cube and it's like £1.50 for a pack of ten! Ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. 

Greg: Tell you what's even worse on this. So I was reading an article today. So there's long been recognized that there's a correlation between poverty and kind of mental activity capabilities. People performing well in school, all that kind of thing, but it's always been seen as a correlation. They've never been able to tie it to causation and a new study coming out of America this week has shown that there is a level of causation between poverty and a child's mental activity. So even within the first year of the baby being born, it can impact them. They don't know why yet but they've proven that there is some sort of causation element to that.

Fay: Jeez. 

Greg: So, go on. 

Fay: The beauty of doing podcasts over Zoom. Sorry, Louise, what were you gonna say? 

Louise: I just said, wow, that was my reaction. But yeah, that's really, yes, it was interesting to hear, but yeah, it was just a wow from me on that. 

Fay: That is very valid and yeah, posted on that study cause that's just, I don't want to use the word interesting cause it's also incredibly sad, but it is also interesting. Shifting gears slightly. So again, hadn't heard about this until I read the agenda, which is my bad, but this sounds like an amazing new campaign from international aid charities. What's the crack?

Greg: Yeah. So we occasionally cover campaigns like this. You don't see them often because just working inside a single charity is like herding cats or trying to do a combined campaign across multiple charities is always a great undertaking for the people involved. So God bless them. But you've got the likes of Water Aid, Care, Save the Children and Action Aid who've combined to run this, We The Helpers campaign. Basically what they want to do is change the agenda on international aid. You know, it's been really suffering in the last few years. A lot more nationalism has seen a rise. We've seen a lot more questions around that provision of aid outside the country. Particularly with rising levels of poverty in our own country, but it's still really important. So they want to take back that message and really start communicating the benefits of international aid. So this is a huge campaign from those different people. 

Fay: Yeah. This is awesome. Louise, having been in the charity sector yourself, what's your take on this? 

Louise: I think it's no surprise really that this has come about. I think just having a look at the kind of campaign itself and the website and all the kind of marketing around it, it's pretty bold, big stats, you know, hard hitting film, trying to get across those profiles of the aid workers, human stories. I think obviously since the pandemic in the UK, people are focusing a lot more on sort of local causes and looking after our communities, which is totally understandable. I think probably these organisations are having to work a lot harder. And just some of the stats around or comments from the charities involved that people are starting to doubt if they can make a real difference to sort of international causes. So I think it's an important campaign. It'd be interesting to see how it performs really, but, you know, there's some huge charities involved. I think they can do a lot to kind of get across that important message about why we have to look outside our island. 

Fay: Yeah, it's a really interesting one isn't it? I think this year in particular as we're kind of God, going into the third year of the COVID pandemic, which is just a little crazy. It's just going to be interesting to see how the kind of charity sector in the UK itself shifts, because obviously we have needed to be in some facets, so insular looking, you know, to kind of get the country through COVID. Help, you know, as you said, Greg, the rising levels of poverty that we're seeing kind of on our own shores or whatever, and it's almost, you know, it's almost been like everyone has been focusing so much on what's happening here because of COVID because we've had to, but then COVID isn't going anywhere, unfortunately, anytime soon and it's this whole learning to live with COVID or whatever your personal take is on that. So it's going to be interesting to see almost how the scales rebalance, I guess, in terms of kind of people support towards kind of domestic charities versus international. Because when you look at kind of like fundraising stats that have come out from different studies, you know, like here and like the US is another big one as well. And just the influx and the rise you know, of people supporting obviously health charities, mental health charities, all this kind of stuff, has just skyrocketed through the pandemic because obviously it's touched everybody in some way, shape or form. So it'd be interesting to kind of see how the sector almost kind of rebalances itself as we do look to support causes that are overseas as well. Anything else to add on this story, Greg, cause obviously as you said, it's a really interesting take that so many charities and there's like, I'm just looking at the website now. There's a ton of them, like huge, big names. There's at least eight of them, you know, as you said, ranging from Save the Children, Oxfam, UNICEF. So I can't even imagine. The poor project manager that's had to put this together. 

Greg: [laughs]

Fay: Oh God. Oh my God. 

Greg: There's gonna be a lot of egos in that meeting room.

Fay: Oh, yeah. They probably need a stiff drink from one of those six-pound bottles of wine. But yeah, anything else to add on this Greg? 

Greg: It looks like this was kind of steered by a studio called The Good Side. They describe themselves as an insight strategy and ideas studio. But the idea is a bit of that just doesn't sit well with me. It just feels a little bit wishy-washy. What do you do? We come up with ideas. Which I'm sure you do. But I don't know, it just feels a little bit flippant in a way of, what are you paying them for? Ideas. Right. I'm just picturing sessions where they're like just firing ideas at people. I love it. Yeah. So they've done some research alongside this. They did some research with 2000 UK adults found that 41% had donated within the last year. But quite interestingly, they found that 75% of people prefer to donate privately, with only 14% wanting to be recognized for their donation. No, I think there's always a question mark around what people say and what they actually do in cases of making donations. But yeah, I thought that was quite interesting because a lot of charities do focus on, you know, people want to be seen to be doing good. So, you know, do this and stick your name on this thing and all those kinds of actions. And I just thought that was quite interesting that a lot of people, based on their research, prefer to be more private in that donation.

Fay: Yeah, it's an interesting one, isn't it. And I think this is where, and like, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well Louise, kind of obviously working in the charity sector, but like with the rise of kind of thinking about how easy it is now to like donate online. And I mean, in the terms of kind of like social media, so, you know, like it's somebody's birthday, it's like, oh, you donated £10. And I get this with my mates. If somebody is like, I've started a birthday fundraiser, I'm like, okay, I don't know, donate your £20 or whatever. And then it's just all the list below, or it's like some other random person donated £75 and you're like, oh my God. So now I look like a fucking cheapskate because I've just chucked you a tenner or whatever else. So, yeah, it's a funny one. From a charity perspective, it's amazing to be able to provide people with quicker, more instant ways to donate but then I dunno, is there like, as a personal user, I don't know if you guys get this, but I'm sometimes like, oh God, like I want to donate, but then is somebody going to judge me for like only donating a tenner or like only donating a fiver?

Louise: Yeah. It is interesting. That number is higher than I thought it would be in terms of the numbers of people who prefer to be anonymous and donate privately. I think obviously working in sort of digital marketing and having been in the sector for a while. So much of our job is donor retention and celebrating our donors and kind of bringing our community closer, especially in terms of online fundraising. So those anonymous donors we're like, how do we bring them into our community, so I think we need to take note of that and it's probably gonna, you know, lead charities to be a bit more creative about their, I guess fundraising and marketing, but it's obviously people's rights to be private about who they're supporting. So yeah, I was quite surprised by that stat. 

Greg: I guess there's a difference though, isn't there between promoting someone's donation, but then thanking them is quite a different thing. 

Louise: Yeah. And following up to kind of, I think that, you know, a simple thank you goes very far. But yeah, you're right. It's two different things. It's the kind of building an online community versus just acknowledging people but obviously it's up to them if they'd like to sort of do that privately. But yeah, really, really interesting. 

Fay: It is a really interesting one. Oh sorry, go on Greg. 

Greg: I was going to say, I remember years ago, the old boss at my previous company, Reason, he did that 23 and me and looked at what diseases he was at risk of. 

Fay: Oh my God, I've sent mine off over Christmas. That was my Christmas present from my husband. So I'm waiting to hear back, what DNA I've got and what I might get sick from. I'm really excited. 

Greg: You know they sell all that data to the highest bidder?

Fay: I know, it's fine. Whatever [laughs] 

Greg: So he looks at like his top 10 risks and he did selfish donating. So he donated to those 10 charities in that area. As like a selfish thing, but he did quite sizable donations. And he got thank-you's back from like two of them. And these were big charities. 

Louise: Yeah.

Fay: Thanking and banking. They go hand in hand. They go hand in hand.

Louise: Exactly. 

Fay: Thanking them for banking. Now I feel pressure now. Because I'm like, oh God, well he did 23 and me and donated to all of them. Do I now need to like donate when I get my results back?

Greg: I mean, it was so he could write a blog post about it. 

Fay: Please nobody followed me on Twitter. I might not be blogging. I'll chuck them a fiver. It's fine.

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Fay: Talking, I don't have a pivot for this. I was trying to, I was trying to move from 23 and me into our next story. I'm sure they will have fancy offices because they're a big company, but yeah, apparently big headquarters are shit for us, Greg or they're bad. What's happening? What's going on?

Greg: Yeah, I literally had a conversation a few hours ago about moving to hybrid working and I just wanted to avoid talking about the metaverse. Yeah, so we're not going to talk about the shit storm that's happening over there. So Clive Wilkinson who's an architect, celebrated architect, who was involved in the design of Google Plex, the Google head offices, he recently in an interview with NPR over in the US, basically said that these kinds of all-inclusive tech offices are really bad for people and society. We've talked a lot about offices here and that that workplace culture and how blurring the lines between work and private life is not great. And he's basically echoed those things. But one thing I did think was interesting as well, he says there's a lot of people's argument about return to office is, let's support the local businesses near to the offices. He's kind of said, well, if you've got these big tech head offices that provide everything for their staff, they're not going out and spending any money anywhere because they can get it all free internally. So yeah, I just thought it was interesting. You know, he's obviously changed his opinion on these things. And I was interested from you guys what you thought of the big tech offices and whether we thought they were dying out and what do we think is going to happen with the charity sector this year and what that workplace could look like.

Fay: Ooh, weighty questions. I love it. Go on Louise. 

Louise: An interesting one, thinking about obviously how things have changed since the pandemic. I know, just from speaking to friends, working in the sector, it seems that a lot of charities are really, you know, some are struggling to get workers back into the office regularly. Some are thinking of going fully remote. It's totally changed obviously how we're working sort of office wise. I used to be jealous of friends, working in sort of commercial organisations with their free breakfast and pool tables and all that kind of stuff. I think, you know, the point is, you're just not getting work life balance. I think often that's the way to make up for the long hours and the kind of expectations of working late in these big tech companies. So maybe people are just seeing through it and the pandemic's been a point for people to actually reassess what they want from work. Yeah, personally, I've never really looked for those kinds of things. And I think just from a chariy saving money point of view, I think, yeah, even the bigger charities are having to really rethink how they provide that workspace. Don't know what you think Fay? 

Fay: Yeah, it's an interesting one. Having lived in the Bay area and driven past Google HQ and Facebook HQ or whatever, it's just mad. They're massive. Absolutely massive. They're almost like theme parks. Do you know what I mean? And it's so easy to see how people could buy into that. And you know, the very, very first job I ever had was at like a B2C agency based in Manchester and the offices were amazing. It was like free breakfast. The floor was bright pink. It was really swanky. And I just remember walking in being like, oh my God, I have arrived or whatever else. But then like when you begin to kind of unpack it all, not that company in particular, but when you begin to unpack the free coffee, the free kombucha machine, which one of the offices of the company I worked in in the US had. When you begin to unpack all those things, it's kind of like, well, what's behind it. I'm not saying that, not obviously, not every company that has nice offices and wants to invest in creature comforts or whatever for their staff. I'm not saying that they're doing that to kind package up like the long hours or whatever else. But then when you look at the super exaggerated version of this in terms of, I think there's a balance. I think there is kind of the companies, the charities or whatever else that might have the nice offices, because they want to look after their staff and they want to kind of create a nice working environment. You know, the biggest example that springs to mind is WWF and they're amazing. Their office is always in the news. , Is it the living center it's called? And it's recycled rainwater and all that kind of stuff. But then when you look at it on the flip side, and it is these big you know, Google, Facebook, Twitter, whatever else, and it's like, oh, we've built like a sleeping nook under your desk so you can take naps. And it's like, no, you haven't built me a sleeping knock. You've basically built a prison that I can never leave because you just want me to work 23 hours a day. So I think, yeah, I think there's varied levels of this corporate bullshit in terms of like, oh, look at us, we've got a really swanky office and we expect you to work every hour God sends. Versus, we want to make a nice environment. But in terms of kind of going back to the office after the pandemic, companies, charities, organisations, whatever they're going to have to bend and flex like any organisation, which is like, right, we expect you in five days a week, nine to five are going to buckle because over the past three years, people have proven you don't need to be in an office to do a good job. So I think, you know, there needs to be that flexibility. Sorry, I got really passionate about offices. Who knew?

Louise: It's interesting as well about Oscar. I think he was saying, you know, it blurs the line between work and sort of pleasure, which it does. But it also stifles creativity. And I was just, you know, thinking the whole point of that is probably to enhance creativity and to encourage it. But I don't know if now, you know, people do have more of that work life balance. They're coming back into these offices and actually there is less need for all this free stuff and kind of cool colourful workspace. It's just shaken it up I think. People are now more confident, I think, to put across their needs for their workspace. I think people are a lot more not shying away from actually communicating if they need to work from home or if they need a certain type of office space to be able to work creatively because we've been allowed to be so flexible. So yeah, there's no going back really. 

Fay: Nope. 

Greg: Yeah. It reminds me of some person in a relationship who just spends lots of money on the person rather than actually treating them well.

Fay: Yeah. 

Greg: You know, at some point, you wake up and go, yeah, I've got lots of nice stuff, but this person doesn't love me at all. So yeah, I think a lot of people have had a bit of time away and gone, hang on a minute, yeah, I got free beer every day. I feel terrible all the time. So maybe I don't want to work there anymore.

Fay: That free kombucha ain't going to drink away depression is it?

Greg: I'm picturing this kombucha machine. Is the inside of it some sort of weird culture?

Fay: So in the office that I was in. I was in the Oakland one and it was like free filtered coffee, snacks, you know, we've got free lunch every Tuesday or whatever. I'm sure it was, I think it was the LA office and I will fully admit the LA office was a shared workspace. It wasn't that many staff members in the LA one, but as part of this kind of collective building, they think we work, but like LA and very swanky and very like unique, there was a kombucha on tap machine in there and that was like, that was next level. And I hate kombucha. It's awful. No offenseif anyone likes it. But you know you've arrived in LA when it's like, oh my God, would you like a free kombucha from our machine tap? I'm here. This. Is LA. Yeah, it was, it was quite swanky. It was quite swanky. Talking of, I think we might have time for this story, Greg. We should be all right. Google again. What they doing with Nest this time?

Greg: Yeah. So just a segue from them as a horrible headquarters to something that's maybe good. I don't know yet. It's certainly good for people who can afford it, which is something that we're seeing quite often with people trying to reduce their carbon and be more environmentally friendly is it's easy if you can afford it. But if it helps people to reduce the amount of electricity or energy that they're using, then it's potentially a good thing. So the Nest Renew program, there's a version which you can, is free to join, or you can pay to join and essentially what it does is it looks at, so a lot of energy providers say we're going to provide renewable energy but actually it's not, it's a combination of renewable energy. And this program basically monitors the grid and indicates when it's best to use your energy so that you can use more green energy than fossil fuels and kind of gamifies the whole process of how people use their energy and gives them a score and allows them to track how they're doing. And there are impact reports and goals and activities that you can kind of sign up for to try and use less fossil fuel. So I think it's an interesting approach. It will work in some cases, but yeah, it's also very much for people who can afford it. 

Fay: True. Very, very true. Louise, what's your take? Would you sign up to this? Would you gamify switching a light on?

Louise: Possibly. 

Fay: Obviously it's a lot more complicated than that. I think I need 16 hours a day. 

Louise: I have a real low attention span for sort of life admin and things like this. So I basically need start sort of small and actually look at switching energy providers to save money and things like that. But definitely sounds like an interesting idea. I think obviously it's a shame that it seems to cost to be for be fully environmentally friendly. But I think it's a really interesting idea. I think, you know, they're saying you can exchange, you can earn rewards that let you exchange for donations when you reach certain milestones and help certain causes and things like that.

Louise: So I think that's a really interesting sort of way to draw people in and just, I guess, giving more ownership to people over their energy consumption and more sort of feel good factor. So it'd be interesting to see how it progresses really. I think people want to feel like they're making a tangible difference because we're so bombarded and overwhelmed by..... 

Fay: You are evil.

Louise: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Climate change is such a heavy thing that we don't really want to face up to. So more of this, you know, more kind of ownership over things. And obviously, at the moment, it seems like it's only for those that might be able to afford it and, you know, do like a premium membership or whatever. But yeah, I think it's really interesting. And it would be Google, wouldn't it? 

Fay: Of course, like, in their colourful offices, in their sleeping bags, deciding how to roll this out. Drinking free kombucha. 

Greg: I've seen other examples of it. There's an online store in Norway, I think, which is started.

Fay: Ikea.

Greg: What?

Fay: I said Ikea. Then I realised that was Sweden. 

Greg: [laughs] Nailed it, Fay. Spreading more of your misinformation, 

Fay: I know. Fake news. 

Greg: So they started printing carbon onto receipts. So people can look at the products they're buying and work out how much carbon it's created so that you can shop for things that have a lower cost. You can make those active choices, which I think is a really good idea. Like you say, Louise, you desperately want to be more green, but it's so hard and I think anything that makes that easier and helps you to make educated decisions, you know ,will be much better for everyone.

Fay: Yeah, 100%. 

Louise: Yeah. It often feels like we don't know how we can help. And there's obviously little obvious things that we've been told we, can do, but something like this where you make a conscious change over a period of time. I think, yeah, can be a positive thing. 

Fay: Definitely. And talking about gamifying stuff and gaming in general. Thank you, Louise, for being the one to spot this super interesting new story, but yeah, for we're actually having a nice of the week, this time, not a rant, which is a positive, a positive turn of events. So yeah, Louise, what's the story. Please share it with us.

Louise: Probably says a lot about my mood this week that I chose positive over rant.. 

Fay: There we go. Love it. 

Louise: I saw an interesting story on Sky News about kind of AI being used. This new platform called by Thimia or Thymia. It basically asks patients to play video games. And it's ultimately designed to measure depressive cues so it can help with identifying the causes of depression. Emilia Molimpakis is kind of behind and has basically said they hope to help clinicians diagnose people much faster. It can take years. They want it to reduce that to weeks. And ultimately, I guess, start that process of identifying treatments for people. I think it's just really interesting. I think obviously GPs are time poor. We know there's huge gaps in funding for mental health services. So I think this could be a really interesting thing, but I guess the other side of this is well, it's fine to kind of identify depression, but it's kind of looking at what are the causes and what's led to that. So going a bit deeper, but you know, if tech can help with this, I think that's a really exciting prospect, isn't it? Yeah. Video games ultimately help with diagnosis. 

Greg: Yeah, it's an interesting one. It's a different take on other things I've seen. And there's a lot of counselling apps that have been coming out of the US over the last few years, many with lots of controversy over, you know, they've been built by tech bros and not actually involve people, or they've been involved in ways that haven't meant they've actually had any impacts on the quality of the products and things going wrong. And obviously, over here, we've got a little bit more of a shelter from that, but they are starting to creep in with the privatisation in some areas and people wanting access to convenience. But I think this idea of using games to kind of help that consultation process and feed into clinicians is a really interesting way of doing it. You know, it makes it more interesting for the person involved, but then also saves time and effort for the clinicians. 

Louise: Yeah. It'd be interesting to see more of how this is sort of being trialled and used and kind of how people are actually interacting with it. I think it sounds like a kind of crazy idea, but as a kind of case study, and like you say, Greg, you've seen more of this being trialled in other ways. I'd like to see the kind of impact of it. I think is such a complex process for the individual, you know, sort of going through that diagnosis and even getting in front of GPs, so I think if it can help with cutting down that diagnosis period, then it's yeah, it would be a great, great tool, but yeah, quite excited by that.

Fay: It is. It's a really interesting one. And the thing that I also find really interesting, just looking more towards the end of this article is the debate that's happening almost in the medical sector itself over this. There's a really cutting quote where it's just like I'm just not sure this is the answer. And just, you know, sort of saying that they, we need people to actually sit down, ask about events in your life. What's going to help us understand people better, et cetera. So it'd be interesting to kind of see how this possibly unfolds and just kind of, I guess the internal debate between psychologists and GPs and therapists or whatever else, and will they actually kind of take this on, you know, again, looking at sort of the medical sector over the past three years, clearly they've been, you know, bombarded. They're stretched thin or whatever else. So as a way to almost kind of, as you said, Louise, like free up capacity, it'll be interesting to see how much this gets taken up. 

Louise: Yeah, I think as one tool in this process for kind of psychologists, clinicians, you know, it could be really powerful, but as you say, I think there's so much more to supporting someone and diagnosing someone and finding out person to person about their experiences and emotions. It's missing out that huge part of it, isn't it? But yeah, encouraging to see tech for good. 

Greg: I think that's where tech works best though. Yes, that's always, the pushback. Well, tech can't do this because you need this person to this and this and it's like, yeah, you do. But the problem we've got is that person does that, then there's a break. Then maybe that person, you know, the person who's got depression comes back and has to speak to somebody else, you know, or goes through multiple things where there's a stop-start, stop-start. Where tech can really help that is by removing that stop-start, so you know, they fill in that gap so that the person who they're interacting with, they can do their job much more easily and the person gets treated much more quickly or maybe not more quickly, but they feel like stuff is happening all the time, rather than this stop-start approach. And I think that criticism of well, tech can't do this is always very short-sighted, you know, it can make the whole process much slicker and much less painful for that person who is probably suffering quite badly and where timing really is of the essence. So yeah, it just needs to be handled well. 

Louise: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And thought of as part of that wider journey that the person's going to go on and having that kind of clinical support.

Greg: Yeah.

Fay: Exactly. Exactly. Looking at holistically is the way forward. And talking of epic journeys, I actually think this might be my favourite and finally that I've seen on the podcast in a very, very long time. Oh my God, Greg, this is an amazing story. It's fantastic. Please tell us. Please tell us about it.

Greg: So someone finally found a good use for drones. Not sticking, you know, machine guns or flame throwers on to them, but actually saving the lives of man's best friend. And so a little dog was stuck. It was stranded on some ground, it was by the sea I think. And it was gonna flood and the dog was in danger and they couldn't get to him to get him out of there. So they hooked a sausage to a drone and basically attracted, led the dog to safety and the dog very obediently followed that little sausage all the way to safety. 

Fay: The best thing about this is this quote from the guy from the drone search and rescue team, I didn't even realise there was such a thing, where he was saying one of the local residents on the beach is where they supplied the sausages. But then in the quote he's gone, I think they were from Aldi. I just love the fact that he's specifically gone, I'm sure they were from Aldi. I'm sure it was the really cheap ones but you know, we hiked the price up over the years. It's amazing. This is actually amazing stuff. Because Millie was hungry. Of course, it's a bloody doggedness, obviously, of course, it's going to follow a sausage. Do you know what I mean? Oh, God, would Noodles do that, Greg?

Fay: Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, he'd just see people and he'd go running. Yeah. He wouldn't need a sausage, he just needs someone who might look like they give him a belly rub and then he goes straight for them.

Louise: Awww. 

Fay: Bless. This dog sounds amazing. Really, really likes food. She'll eat anything but meat is her favourite.

Greg: [laughs]

Fay: Have you got a dog in your life Louise? 

Louise: I haven't no. I've got friends with dogs, so I get a lot of joy out of seeing them. But no, never had a dog. 

Fay: Yeah. Well, you know, to catch one you need a drone and some Aldi sausages.

Greg: [ laughs]

Louise: I've got ideas. I've got ideas about getting my dog. 

Fay: I love it. News article in a few weeks' time. Woman stealing dogs with sausages and drones.

Louise: If it works. 

Fay: Exactly. It works. We've proven it, thanks to Millie and the drone rescue and search team. Good God. Thankfully, I say, thankfully not thankfully. That's all we have time for. Thank you, Louise, for joining us. Did you enjoy it? 

Louise: I did. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. It's been a pleasure being able to chat to you both. 

Fay: A pleasure and an experience you probably won't forget. Neither will the editing team. They have to sort out a lot of my mishaps. Apologies. Where can people find out more about you, Leukaemia UK? Where can people find you online if they want to know more about the amazing work that you do? 

Louise: You can find us online. Our website's Leukaemia UK dot org dot uk. We're on social. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, mainly. So I've got lots of exciting campaigns coming up this year. So yeah, follow us and keep applying what we're up to.

Fay: Amazing. Listeners, what did you think? We'd love to hear your thoughts. Would we? Yes, no, we would to hear your thoughts. Please send all complaints directly to Rebecca Rae- Evans, seeing as she left us in the lurch to host this podcast. I'm only joking Bex. Do get in touch with us. You can find us on twitter @techforgoodlive. Or you can email us at hello@techforgood.live. We would love it if you gave us a nice iTunes review, told your pals about the podcast. Listen to us when you're going on your daily walks or whatever. Please spread the word about us so we can get more listeners. Thank you to Podcast.co as well for hosting our podcast. And thank you to all of the many offscreen volunteers who you can find on the team page at tech for good dot live. As many of you know this podcast is volunteer-run and without our wonderful team, we wouldn't be able to make these podcasts. So thank you everyone. And we will speak to you next time. Bye.

Greg: Bye.