(Cybertorial)
Keep your accounting in tech
by Glenn Gillis, CEO of Sea Monster Entertainment.
(Sea Monster Entertainment developed the app for Pick n Pay’s successful Stikeez campaign).
Financial denial. It might not be an official medical condition, but it probably should be, especially in South Africa. We are notoriously bad at saving and households are also deep in debt. It’s because, for some of us, personal finance is a boring topic. Or it seems too complicated to understand, so we put off trying. And the longer we avoid it the harder it seems to take control of our finances.
When they came to us at Sea Monster Entertainment, Old Mutual had all the material, tools and tips to help people get on top of their finances. They had been sounding warnings about the low savings rates in South Africa. But they were struggling against the cognitive block the people who needed to act on the message the most had against it. They wanted us to answer one question:
How do you get someone to engage a topic they are trying to avoid?
The knee-jerk response these days would be to say, “I know! Let’s make an app!”. But we’re talking behavioural change here. To create something that drives the desired behaviours, you have to get inside the heads of the people you’re designing for. You have figure out what their motivators are and how to tap into them.
When we did this, a few truths from the minds of the users surfaced: Personal finance can be boring. It’s also complex, with no one-size-fits-all solution. It can be uncomfortable too, holding a mirror to your capital flaws.
We knew that whatever we created had to accept and respond to these user truths. We couldn’t just expect or demand that the power and freedom that comes from being in control of your finances was reward enough to break through the mental block of financial denial. That is how Moneyversity, an educational platform from Old Mutual, came to be.
When users enter Moneyversity, they are met by a neat dashboard that breaks down the content into courses ranging from taking financial 
responsibility to saving for higher education and more. Each topic has a series of animated courses and tests pitched at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Users are rewarded with badges and certificates as they work their way through them, to keep them motivated and engaged.
The idea is to build up financial literacy. To show users education empowers them to conquer the fear of their own finances, and that the education process can be enjoyable and rewarding. So, as an edtech platform, Moneyversity’s big advantage is in its singular focus on the user. It provides a simple, mobile-optimised learning experience responsive to what the user is thinking about the subject matter. It shows them why, when it comes to personal finance, it’s better to be looking at your screen than to have your head buried in the sand.
About Glenn.
Glenn is the Managing Director of Sea Monster Entertainment, one of Africa’s pre-eminent animation, gaming and augmented reality companies. He has a Business Science degree from UCT and has been an entrepreneur, hired gun and consultant with growing, knowledge intensive businesses around the world for over 25 years. Glenn was most recently the General Manager of Clockwork Zoo, one of the largest animation and live TV production companies in the country.
Before that he was the General Manager at Moonlighting Film Services, which is South Africa’s leading film and commercials company. He has held a number of senior marketing director positions and has provided management consulting services to many growing private sector businesses. Glenn provided consulting, advisory and facilitation services to leading public sector agencies, such as the Cape Film Commission, the Department of Trade & Industry and IDC amongst other government bodies. His area of expertise is in the film, media and the creative industries.
Glenn is a sought-after speaker and panellist and has presented at a many leading marketing and innovation events, from Tedx to The Digital Edge, to The Learning Landscape conference amongst others. He is regularly quoted in the media and his articles have been published in a number of key industry forums locally and internationally. Glenn is the co-founder of Relate, a social trust that provides employment opportunities and connects organisations to good causes by making branded bracelets. Relate has sold 1 million bracelets in the last 2 years, and generated over R35m in donations and enterprise development funding in this time.
