B7- Crystallizing, designing & prototyping / Part two

Phase C- Prototyping: Explore prototyping scenarios  

At this phase we put our ideas and plans into action and started prototyping. The process was going smooth and fine, as we all had a clear same understanding of the final goal. Just the idea about collages (comparing earth with other planets, in terms of marketing competitors) was changed more or less to advertisement posters. Why? What was wrong? As we tried one collage but it was not in coherence with other ideas, and also I personally check it with a friend in another KCT; in order to get some new inputs, so at the end we changed it more to "posters" than "collages".

My personal feedbacks from the prototyping process:

The business plan idea was going good; it was making sense for all of us. It was making the project look more feasible and real. Furthermore, it was in alignment with the webpage prototype, it was kind of providing us with the final ideas of how the final prototype must looks like.

Also I think that our three prototypes would enable better communication between the designers and final users. For examples the collages/advertisement posters are based on environmental issues and how management techniques that our company would offer (which are mentioned in the business plan) would deal with them.

Difficulties:

As it was the first time for all of the group members to make a prototype for not an automobile project for example, it was a bit different. It was so interesting to go through the process and see how as it was developing from the first abstract idea and getting more and more complete.

Furthermore, in terms of difficulties it is worth to mention that a degree of skill and experience was inevitably necessary to be able to use the prototype as an efficient tool. The other factor could be time limitations, a perfect prototype would come up when the appropriate amount of time is dedicated to it. In our case the group faced time pressures. But in general the group was satisfied with the ideas, process and the prototypes.  

To sum up this part I would like to say thanks for the useful prototypes ideas that were provided from the professors on the homepage.

M.M

B7- Crystallizing, designing & prototyping / Part one

Phase A- Individual crystallizing: let sink in the project idea from the previous phase of presencing and let it become more concrete.

It is a time for self-studying and co-operate within the group. I started to inform myself more about different types of prototypes. I searched around and found some interesting ideas, pictures and articles; I was talking to other KCTs as well. I learned more about storyboards, collages and different other techniques which would be appropriate for our project and finally I still thought that the best media for our prototypes could be collages and webpage.

By getting clear on my ideas for our prototypes, I tried to make contacts with my group, in order to share my two new ideas with them. But it was a little bit frustrating process, not because they disagreed, but mostly because they responded me so late. So I learned another issue here, the group members' responsibility would have a great impact on my level of motivation. But I always have this in my mind that... "creation of success requires a strong foundation in each individual pursuing it. The foundation consists of a healthy, positive mindset that believes in that improvement and change is possible" (This is based on the teachings of Anthony Robbins, David Deangelo and Napoleon Hill on personal development).

Phase B- Collective crystallizing: develop a concrete project and a joint vision in the KCTs.

Anyway, finally the group managed to meet.  Through sharing the ideas and experiences with each other we came up to the solution together. And finally all of us agreed upon the collage/advertisement and business plan and a webpage as prototypes. We made a to-do-list, split up the tasks and decided to get in touch through the email, because almost everybody was so busy with their personal life issues.

As my learning outcome from this phase, I would like to mention that, at this time I felt that the group has got finally the same joint vision. As we were discussing the things, I noticed that finally blurry questions are going to fade away and we are near to create the thing that was in our minds from the beginning. Finally our joint intent could show up in the prototypes.

M.M

Sharing expriences with other KCTs

After the outing session I met a friend from another KCT and through discussing with her about their prototypes and our prototypes and so on, I came up with two new ideas for our thematic field.

1- Comparing the Earth with two other planets that would offer living to human beings:

Imagine it is 2200 and the earth is about to explode and running out of any natural resources and human being life is threaten. There are some competitors to the earth, like other planets, that would offer some kind of possibility of living. Imagine what kind of life styles they can offer and then make a "business plan" or some kind of "scenario planning" for our company and compare it with these two other planets. Two planets that I thought we can consider could be "Saturn" and "Mars". As the Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system and Mars’ rotational period and seasonal cycles are likewise similar to those of Earth.

And I thought as a prototype, we would present it in the format of a collage or advertisement posters.

I also started searching around for some pictures and I found a structure for the business plan.

2- What would the Earth itself do to get rid of us, as human beings?

(Considering the fact that humans are destroying the Earth).

I was thinking about something like that the earth would fine or punish us as human beings, when we do not care about our environment. Try to make a brainstorming on the factors that earth could do in order to decrease the population of the human beings gradually until it could get rid of us completely. For example through earthquakes, volcanoes, water explosions, sonami, ozone layer decreases, producing unhealthy ashes and so on. So the prototype could be a collage again, considering the brainstorming objects.

Well, I kind of liked the second idea, although it was not really related to what we have done up to now. So, I gonna discuss these ideas with my group and would make a new post regarding the feedbacks that I would get.

M.M

B5- Creating collective sense organs and collective sense making /B6-Presencing

In this session we went out with the whole group to the nature. The aim of the session was to share knowledge about the experiences in the process of observation. The “world café" and "dialogue" methods, which have been introduced to us before, were applied.

For me personally it was hard to kind of co-construct the observations, because in my group we did not have any specific observation and our process was a bit messed up. What I did was kind of reviewing our thematic field and sum up everything in my mind one more time. I also came up with the idea of representing the company as a NPO, considering the questions that we previously faced regarding the final goal of the company. Through making the "dialogue" within the group (only two other members of my group were available) we came up with some ideas, which could be highlighted as follow:

We decided upon a platform design for our enterprise, some kind of a social entrepreneurship and for the prototypes we came up for three ideas at the moment. The first idea was, to create a webpage for our Earth enterprise, the second one was to create a "folder" by the use of best used cases and the third idea was to create a role-play prototype.


M.M

B4- Deep observation and deep understanding

The goal of this phase is to totally immerse into the chosen thematic field by extensively exploring it with a wide variety of methods for deep observation. In order to do this, group decided to create a website to provide a conceptual model representing the thematic field and at the same time prototype of the joint project of the group.

At this phase, the group faced a lot of confusions again. Considering the feedbacks that we got from the professors, some changes in observation tactics occurred. Now the group decided just to focus on two of tactics among the list of primarily tactics that have been created before. Observation is based primarily on "brainstorming" and "simulation" and results in the description of the enterprise comprised of different typical elements (such as a product portfolio, organizational structure and similar). As for a real enterprise, this information provides a basis for different (mostly PR) materials, such as a stock market folder, web page or a business plan. A typical web page presenting an enterprise would thus be an appropriate structure to present the observation results.

The twofold structure of the model, being an observational device and a prototype for a possibly ‘real’ project, is at times very confusing, and one sometimes does not know which aspect one is currently working on.


M.M

B3- Negotiation observation strategy & observation design

Up to now, the mission of the project, observation strategy and some observation tactics have been discussed. On April 12th, we had a coaching session with our professors, in order to come up with a concrete observation design, which will be brought into practice in the next phases.

Here I would share the feedbacks that we got from the professors on the project up to now:

1. First of all, the professors liked the idea of using the "world as an enterprise" metaphor, However, they recommended us to narrow the definition of environment down to a specific topic (e.g. sustainability),

2. Try to focus on two central questions in our research,

3. Use the strategies of some other green companies and combined them with ours,

4. Try to get some inputs from creative industries for example, design and communication agencies,

5. Use photos and videos in order to document the observations,

6. Rather pick some interesting points and discuss them in detail than doing too much and get frustrated by the results.

I participated in a coaching session with a colleague of mine and my understanding of the project changed a bit after this session. I understood that there are still a lot of fuzzy issues going on in the phase of "observation strategy", which means we need to sit with the group more and more and continue our brainstorming.

It is always very useful to get feedbacks and comments, so I decided to make a very simple experiment, in order to get more feedbacks on our field of study. I described the theme of the project very shortly to a familiar person and asked him to tell me, what did he understood and did not understood about the project? As a result, I faced some questions like; (" what would be the final goal, make money or just increase the awareness"? what about animals? Who are the owners and who are the customers specifically? etc"). 

M.M

B2- Co-initiating KCTs, community-building, and observation strategy development

This is the phase, in which KCTs were supposed to meet and discuss their thematic fields. In my KCT, through discussing on the chosen topic (“Environment”), the group came up with the following idea:

How can we make people care about the environment? The group agreed upon the fact that most of us really do not think about environmental issues most of the time and usually tend to turn away from most issues. This question led us to something like developing a "marketing plan" for the planet earth. Some idea like, how the "care for the environment" can be best sold?

By doing a bit more discussion and elaborating on the topic, the group came up with the idea of “the earth as an enterprise” model – just thinking about (or looking at) our planet (or the natural and social resources) as a company which has product management, marketing, sales, organizational behaviour etc, in order to help “the Earth” (whatever that will turn to be) to survive and prosper.

Goal and key points

The goal would be: setting up "the earth" as a start-up enterprise. Furthermore, the key points of the group thematic field could be summarized as follow:

- How to make people concern/aware of environmental issues?

- Enterprise metaphor as a tool to transport the idea of environmental concern.

Mission and Visions

Based on the thematic field, a common “mission” and "visions" of the field was identified also.

- Mission:

We manage the Earth.

- Visions:

- Enterprise the Earth ( to make the earth a successful enterprise),

- Create an “Earth Inc”.

And finally regarding observation strategy, the group made a list of possible resourses of data collection and decided upon a draft observation strategy as bellow:

Observation Strategy: To look at the Earth as an enterprise.

Observation tacticts:

- Interviews

- Questionnaires

- Brainstorming

- Market study

- Literature Review

- Nature observation

- Simulation (sales situation, CSR, management meeting, talking to our kids and so on).

As my learning outcome from this part, I would like to mention that it was a bit confusing to find a common goal and vision at first steps, but when we continued and did more brainstorming, little by little we were able to get into the same and clear understanding of the field of the KCT. well, the topic is so intersting to me but still a bit complicated and fuzzy though.

M.M