NESTA workshop: Book04

Book04 of the Nesta Toolkit is called 'In it for the long haul' and looks at how you should speak to customers so that you can remain in business.

The book covers 3 main areas:

• Marketing Mix
• Marketing Plan
• Financial Modelling

According to the Chartered Institute of Marketing: Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.

As part of the 'Marketing Mix' the book looks at the following:

- The 7P's of Marketing

1. Product
2. Place
3. Price
4. Promotion -how to engage with your target audience
5. People - you
6. Process -blueprint modelling
7. Physical environment

- Establishing Demand

-Is there a market/desire for your product?

-Is there a satisfactory demand for the product?

- The USP of a Product

Your business has to be UNIQUE.  Your USP has to be DIFFERENT to that of any other company.  The price must also be taken into consideration.


The USP of my service could be: The Gap between DJCAD graduation and industry that provides an opportunity of free space to act as a ‘starting block’ into the business/design world.

- Place

Where is your product/service sold?

- Price

The price of your product/service must be set at a level that the market will accept. There is a quote within the book from former DJCAD graduate, Johanna Basford that says:

''My top tips for pricing are know your market, know where you are in that market, be realistic and don't undervalue your product or your time.''

- Marketing and Promotional Tools

Consider how to get your product/service noticed.

• What message do you want to communicate?
• Who is the audience?
• What is the best way to communicate with them?
• What budget do I have?
• What measures will I use if I have been successful?

The 6 main tools for promoting your business and product and service are:

1. Public Relations
2. Advertising
3. Internet and online banking
4. Direct marketing
5. Sales promotion
6. Personal selling (you're the vehicle that is 'selling yourself')

- Public Relations

Public Relations (PR) is about creating and maintaining an image for your business/product that's the essence of its values and integrity, and that forms your reputation.

Bill Gates once said - ''If I was down to my last dollar, I'd spend it on public relations.''

-This can only emphasise how important PR is in the business industry.

Worksheet 04a: The Marketing Mix

This exercise helped me to be clear on the ways that I could market my service.

The marketing mix refers to the 7Ps of marketing that can help ensure that a business offer is in alignment with your company's business strategy.

Worksheet 04b: Critical Marketing Tasks

This task asked me to list all the tasks that would need to be carried out when starting a business of my choice.  It asked for associated deadlines and individual responsibilities for achieving the tasks.

The book recommends that we should regularly monitor and review the progress of our marketing activities, both in terms of staff resources and budgets.

Any deviation in progress or finances should be acted upon and the marketing plan amended accordingly.

NESTA workshop: Book03

Book 03 of the Nesta programme focuses on 'Choosing your path'.  The book looks at 3 main areas:

• Customers: To determine who is buying your product, and why.
• Your business process: The different elements that make up your business.
• Relationships: The different associations you have to recognise and develop to ensure your product or service reaches your customers.

I found the following quote from book03 quite appropriate..

“ALL YOU NEED TO HAVE A BUSINESS IS A CUSTOMER AND IF YOU DON’T HAVE A CUSTOMER THEN YOU DON’T HAVE A BUSINESS –YOU HAVE A HOBBY.”

-Dean Brown, Product Designer

As part of book03 I participated in 4 tasks:

1. Your customers

2. Operational Stages

3. Blueprint modelling

4. Relationship modelling 

Worksheet 03a: Your Customers

This exercise asked me to build a picture of my potential customers and customer groups.

I was able to explore the needs of my 'customer' so that I could figure out what I wanted to offer them within the service.  The exercise also enabled me to think about how many people I would target, how many of those people I would reach, how frequently they would use the service, how much they would pay and what would be the potential income from the service.

Worksheet 03b: Blueprint Modelling

This exercise helped me visualise how my business would function.  The worksheet took the form of 2 parts- Part A: Operational Stages and Part B: Blueprint Modelling.  The operational stages looked at the engagement stage, the development stage and the delivery stage of a business.

Part A: Operational Stages:

The areas shaded in grey represent activities that are costs that cannot be charged to a customer.  These parts are within 2 of the 'backstage' stages and 1 of the 'onstage' stages.

Part B: Blueprint Modelling

The following image illustrates all the steps that I would need to deliver my service in a linear flow diagram:

Constructing the blueprint model helped me to really think about what my service would offer to the user.

Worksheet 03c: Relationship Modelling

Every business needs a set of relationships to ensure all the steps happen.  To help with this we were told to map out the steps into 4 different categories: Generator, Realiser, Distributor and Customer.  This exercise helped me think about the activities I would need to keep inside my business and what could be carried out by others outside my business.

Preparation for ''Feedback Feedforward''

As part of the ''Feedback Feedforward'' day that is due to take place tomorrow (Monday26MAR12) I have displayed all relevant work in association with my personal project on the wall in the interiors boardroom.

The wall display illustrates the following:

- The plans for the proposed site (2 Roseangle, Dundee)
- Photographs of the proposed site (2 Roseangle, Dundee)
- A hand drawn site plan to the scale 1:1250
- The 6 organisations that make up my 'partnerships, networks and connections'
- Relevant research images
- A personal annotation of manuscript from 'Puck no.3 from Lyric Pieces op.71' by Edvard Grieg that acts as the source for my creativity and collaboration for this proposal
- Personal sketches in response to the collaborative piece of music
- A blue print model stating how the proposed idea will act as a service to graduates
- Relevant quotes from former graduates and acting members of 'collaborative working spaces'

This next image is a close up of the site plan and the connections that derive from it.

I'm looking forward to hearing back from my tutors on my proposed idea so that I can make a start on the interior design process over this incoming week and over the Easter period.

Research: The Citrix story

Citrix is a company with a unique mission: "Create a world where people can work and play from anywhere." This means enabling remote collaboration and empowering people to work from any location.  It also means supporting the many different work styles of today's workforce. Citrix is very serious about this mission for their customers as well as for how they work for themselves, so serious that they are adopting design thinking as a company-wide strategic imperative from their CEO, Mark Templeton. Opening the design collaboration space was a milestone on their design thinking journey. It's already played a key role in fostering a more collaborative culture that involves less over-the-wall processes, fewer silos, more and earlier collaboration, and better integration of design into the product development process.

They saw the need to create a shift in behaviors, and realized this would be best achieved by having people live the change, not just being told about it. The space facilitates this.

The space:

The space is a 2000 sq. ft. open and sunlit space with large windows that frame the beautiful mountain views. Everything in the space is on wheels and is configurable by teams as they need it. They can move tables and whiteboards around to create mini collaboration spaces. There are stacks of markers, Post-Its, and every "quick and dirty" prototype material under the sun...from construction paper to pipe cleaners. On the surface it might look like a child's paradise...but in fact it's heaven for designers.

Instead of being closed-off and secretive, it has all glass walls. They want passers-by to see the action happening and to see how they work. There's total transparency, literally and figuratively! The space cannot be booked like a regular conference room, since having to make reservations kills the spontaneity. Anyone can drop in anytime and create their own working space.

The interior design is quite minimal. The "beauty" of the space comes from the work that happens inside it: sketches, flow charts, Post-Its full of blue-sky ideas, new product concepts from raw idea to real formation. The space was intentionally left not-too-perfect, so people are encouraged to manipulate it, not be precious about it. It's intended to serve as a canvas for creative thinking. It's also very flexible and can quickly change from working studio to lecture room.

See the space as part of the following video:

Proposed Site: 2 Roseangle

For my collaborative design space project I have decided to use the existing plans for an old abandoned house on 2 Roseangle.  Here is the site location:

In order to familiarize myself with the site I decided to take a few photographs of
the front, the back, the views and it's position in the landscape.

 ^ The front of the building.

^ The back of the building.

^ The view from the back of the building.

^ The position of the building in the landscape.

I'm currently studying the plans for the building so I can begin to think about how I want to regenerate the building for the use of collaborative working.

Research: Entrepreneurial Spark

After meeting up with SIE representative Dawn Shand, I decided to do a bit of research into the company 'Entrepreneurial Spark' as I was told by Dawn that their business/design aim is relevant to that of my personal project.

The company claim that they are ''a not-for-profit social enterprise engine that is geared to drive entrepreneurial mindsets and behaviours in and from Scotland.''

They claim to do the following:

• Provide free business start-up space and facilities
• Tailor Entrepreneurial Mentoring to your needs and skillsets
• Encourage collaborative and cooperative working
• Ensure you have comfortable Meeting Rooms
• Get you and your venture on the right track - at a pace that suits you

In visiting their website I was able to understand that the company seem to ''help with strategic planning to build companies that are sustainable, potentially scalable and have a corporate social element as part of their DNA.''

The company believe that they can find some great people who can make a difference in business because they know that people are and always will be the driving force of a community.  They have taken the initiative to ''find and enable people that want to do -rather than just think.''

The company/business seem to be dedicated into helping others, if they believe in them.

The company represent energy and forward motion. The website states the following: ''We want to accelerate a mass start-up community in and from Scotland.''

It's evident that the company have real entrepreneurial drive -the perfect example of 'collaborative design space' for my design process.

Research: Citizen M

Over the past few weeks I have been gathering research into all sorts of 'collaborative spaces'.

I found an organisation known as 'Citizen M' that is a hotel driven by one desire!  It's desire is to create affordable luxury for the people. By "the people," they mean a smart new breed of international traveler, the type who crosses continents the way others cross streets. This includes the weekenders, the suits, fashion baggers and affair havers. The explorers, adventurers and dreamers. Those who travel the world with big hearts and wide eyes. Those who are independent, yet united by a love of the five continents. Those in search of business, shopping or art. In short, everyone who is a mobile citizen of the world. Most likely, that also means you.

Here are a few images from the Citizen M base in Glasgow:

I love the interior within the hotel as I feel that it would successfully evoke creativity in the user.  This is one of the more important factors within a collaborative space as it's essential to have space where design can transform.

Not only is the organisation based in Glasgow, there are also plans to open a hotel in Paris.

 The whole concept is really interesting! -perhaps i'll stay there one day!

Making Connections: Vanilla Ink

Representative of Vanilla Ink: Kate Pickering (founder)
Location of the meeting: Tartan Cafe, Perth Road, Dundee
Objective: To gain an understanding of the formation of ‘Vanilla Ink’ and to discuss the need of collaborative design space for DJCAD graduates

This morning I was fortunate enough to meet up with DJCAD jewellery graduate Kate Pickering to discuss the relevance of my personal project in the design/business world today.

The reason I decided to meet up with Kate is because of her current ‘collaborative’ based project/business ‘Vanilla Ink’ (website home page shown above). Kate’s plan for the business is as follows:

”Vanilla Ink will be a fully equipped workshop in Dundee for jewellery graduates. As well as providing much sought after work space, it will also supply tailor-made business training, mentoring, support and advice. The facility will offer the graduate the opportunity to develop their abilities, covering many areas of practical and theoretical skills as well as providing a supportive environment and network to work within. Vanilla Ink will allow the graduate to grow as a maker and provide a platform to launch their career within the industry. Vanilla Ink is embracing the world of the new designer. It is the missing link from graduation to industry all under one roof. Vanilla Ink will house the jewellery graduates for one year and will offer a platform to showcase and sell their work.”

As part of the meeting, I decided to ask Kate a few questions that would help shape the concept/idea for my personal project for PNC2.  I began by asking her how she initially became involved/intrigued in the idea of ‘collaborative working’.  Her response was rather interesting! - ”after graduating from DJCAD I could make jewellery, but I was not a jeweller.”  Kate went onto to explain that she felt that the DJCAD jewellery course lacked business insight -this of course has changed today, however while Kate was a student she felt that there was no one/no where to turn to for advice.  This I guess is the reason why ‘Vanilla Ink’ exists today.  Kate was able to recognize the need to network and the need to provide an experience for graduates -particularly jewellery graduates!

I asked Kate what she thinks the main benefit is of working collaboratively – she emphasized that it would be ‘not working alone’.  We discussed how no one wants to feel isolated when starting out in business.  People need to be confident that their talent/idea has potential and relevance in the world today -if not, their idea might as well not exist.  I understand that it can be hard to believe in a product/service right from the start..but without that ‘push’ an individual may lose the will to maintain their creativity.

I explained to Kate that I wanted to create a working/design space that evokes creativity within a number of different design disciplines to encourage them to collaborate and integrate with one another (like cross-pollination) to create a sense of community right from the out set of their ‘career in design’.  After, I asked her if she as a design graduate would even be interested in utilizing a space like the one I described.  I definitely got the vibe that she would be interested -either that or she was just being polite! (:

When discussing where a place like this should be located, Kate mentioned that perhaps it would need to be outside of the University Campus -taking the graduates out of the ‘safety net’ that is the ‘University of Dundee’.  In mentioning this I thought about the choice of locating it right on the periphery of the University..or perhaps within the city centre of the city- nearer to the V&A that is expected to ‘kick off’ in 2015.

In order to establish what my proposed space needs in order to succeed, I asked Kate what she thought would make a successful collaborative design space.  She explained the need to promote it in a way that emphasized the benefits.  Graduates need to be convinced that the space could act as the ‘starting block’ into their design/business future.  The space needs to be sought after so as to benefit the creative/business minded people on an individual basis.  When talking through my ideas for the proposed interior space, Kate seemed keen on the idea of ‘adaptable space’ -providing an individual with a choice in how they work.  She suggested however that the majority of the space could be open planned to allow for successful collaboration.  Kate also talked about ‘triggers’ -such as blackboards, discussion spaces..a place where individuals would want to talk, exchange ideas and most importantly -to create a network.  Triggers need to exist to maintain a ‘creative drive’.

All in all I feel that talking to Kate helped a great deal in terms of providing motivation for my project.  I appreciated her advice -and I’m glad DJCAD have some excellent graduates for us under-graduates to look up to!