olliedesn601

[olliedesn601]

Trade me competitors

Facebook Marketplace:

Pros:

Free to list and sell: There are no fees for publishing an item to the marketplace no matter how many times it is done with the exception of those located and selling in the United States where there is a 5% fee per shipment. 

Easy set-up: Facebook is integrated into your social media profile, so the difficulty of establishing an account on a new marketplace is greatly reduced. The best sellers on Facebook Marketplace advertise their items through joining groups on Facebook or on other connected platforms such as Instagram. 

A wide variety of items are listed: You can find just about anything on Facebook Marketplace, from clothes to furniture to cars. It is the second most used marketplace by Kiwis and is growing in popularity with the younger demographic especially.

Cons:

Only local available: At the moment, Facebook Marketplace only allows you to sell items in your own country. So although it is a marketplace used worldwide, these are the limitations.

Payment options: Facebook does not have built-in payment options, so you will need to handle payments through another service. Similarly, there are no shipping integrations so you will need to manually move sales through a separate system.

Potential for scams: Because Facebook is free to use, scammers have more opportunities to create fake profiles and listings. Be sure to do your research before meeting up with a buyer or seller.

Less control over branding: Because Facebook Marketplace is integrated into your personal profile, there is less opportunity to establish a strong brand identity for your business. The profile icon image that would usually be used to showcase a company logo is your personal profile photo instead.

Facebook Marketplace is an excellent option for sellers looking to reach a broad audience with little effort. However, because it is integrated into your profile, there is less opportunity to establish a strong brand identity.

Mighty Ape:

Pros:

Fast delivery focus: Mighty Ape’s market point of difference is to get their goods to consumers as quickly as possible. For customers who value fast delivery, they provide a same-day despatch promise for purchases placed before noon on weekdays, which is appealing to many Kiwi customers. To assist them to fulfil this promise, the company has distribution centres in Millwater and in Silverdale, Auckland.

Options for how to sell through Mighty Ape: If you are just starting out as a casual seller, Mighty Ape has a created Mighty Ape marketplace, which focuses on selling second-hand items, or, if you are looking to set up a more professional account, you can become a Mighty Ape Trade Partner and sell new items as well.

Potential to grow: Because they were acquired by an Australian firm in recent years, there is now an Australian version of the website and the potential to sell to that market in future years.

Cons:

Less focus on merchants: Mighty Ape puts more of an emphasis on their own brand and retail model, as opposed to the merchants. For example, they don’t have a dedicated section for merchant how-to’s or support like Trade Me does.

Commission fees on the marketplace: Mighty Ape has a 9% final sale commission fee, which is high in comparison to other marketplaces.

Focus on the product: Their most common business approach is direct import, in which they undertake distribution themselves from international markets. The barrier to entering as a vendor in this marketplace may be more difficult for this reason.

Mighty Ape is a great option for Kiwis looking to sell items to other Kiwis without worrying about international shipping.

Amazon:

Pros:

More market, more sales: Amazon is continuously growing, with its revenue increasing over $469.8 USD billion in revenue and over 200 million Amazon Prime members worldwide at the end of 2021. This makes it an excellent marketplace for sellers to join as the potential for growth is high.

Easy advertising: Repeat sales without spending money on marketing. Amazon has a larger customer base that can’t be matched by any stand-alone ecommerce platform.

Easier access to international markets: Amazon is an internationally known brand and as such, being a merchant allows you to access their international markets. If your business wants to target international markets then this could be a viable choice.

Cons:

Amazon fees: A professional account on Amazon costs USD $39.99 per month for selling an unlimited number of products. That doesn’t sound too high, however, keep in mind you’ll have to include sales and other expenses as well. This might increase your cost by around 15% or more, depending on your offer. Some veterans have left Amazon because its commissions are too high, and the need for free delivery cuts into profits.

International fees: Because Amazon is an international company, there may be tax implications and fees associated with selling on their site. For example, you must provide an NZ GST registration number in order not to get charged NZ GST.

Fulfilment by Amazon: You can either decide to arrange to ship on your own or to use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). If you select FBA, Amazon will handle warehousing, shipping, and returns for you. Conversely, you may save more cost if you decide to do the fulfilment yourself. If you do charge for shipping and handle this side of it yourself, Amazon Prime customers might be discouraged from purchasing as they will not be accustomed to paying for shipping.

Customer service: If you plan to remarket to your customers or offer them any sort of customer service, it needs to be done through Amazon, meaning you are not in control of every potential customer interaction.

Competition: Because Amazon is such a large marketplace, there is significantly more competition. You’ll need to make sure that your products are well-priced and offer good value in order to compete with other sellers.

Amazon is an excellent option for sellers looking to reach a wide audience with little effort. However, there are some drawbacks to selling on Amazon, such as the fees associated with selling on the site and higher competition.

AliExpress:

Pros:

Great for drop shippers: If you are looking to set up an account to sell to individuals as opposed to businesses, AliExpress is a great option. A large demographic use AliExpress with a dropshipping business model. You could even consider this marketplace as a platform for you to source your products to sell in the New Zealand market.

Can tap into the Chinese market: If you are looking to sell products to the Chinese market, this is a good option as it is an Alibaba subsidiary.

Cons:

Product quality risk: Because of the low prices on AliExpress, there is always the risk that items may be counterfeit or of poor quality.

Shipping times: If you are planning to dropship or work with other businesses, shipping times can be quite long (up to a month in some cases). This is due to the fact that AliExpress is based in China.

Competitive: Due to the large number of businesses on AliExpress, including manufacturers that may sell at a lower price, competition for items is fierce. There are numerous copycat listings, making it difficult to sift through for the casual buyer.

Ebay:

Pros:

International market: eBay is made up of 182 million users worldwide and as such, allows Kiwis who are potentially looking for niche items to find them through an eBay international search.

Options to auction products: In line with Trade Me, many consumers find the option to buy through an auction appealing, giving them the opportunity to get their items for a lower price. As a merchant, auctions can sometimes drive up the original sales price because it depends entirely on the demand for your product.

Fewer fees than Amazon: On average, eBay sellers keep 5.13% more of their earnings than if they sold the item on Amazon, and on top of that, they receive a certain number of free listings per month. 

Cons:

Harder to be a casual seller: Compared to Trade Me, it can be a little harder to get started and become a casual seller on eBay. This is because there are a few different fees you will need to pay including insertion fee, final value fee, monthly store fee and advertising/upgrade fees. The high cost may not be worth the effort for a casual seller. 

Less New Zealand market: On eBay there are an average of 413.0K monthly visits from kiwis, whereas on Trademe the number is 13.5 million per month. As eBay is not a local marketplace and has comparatively less market share than Trademe, There is less incentive for kiwis to get on board with using this marketplace.

More difficult to stand out: Because there are so many products listed on eBay, it can be difficult for your product to stand out from the rest. eBay prioritizes sellers who can get their goods to customers in 24 hours or less. If they don’t, their listings will have a lower ranking in the search results.

eBay is a great option for sellers looking to reach an international market with a similar structure as TradeMe.

Etsy:

In recent years, Etsy has been growing in popularity as a platform for creative entrepreneurs to sell their wares. Suppose you make handcrafted items, from jewellery to furniture – Etsy is worth considering as a marketplace to sell your products.

Pros:

Aesthetically pleasing: One of the big advantages that Etsy has over other marketplaces is its visual appeal. When you enter the site, you’re immediately greeted with a homepage full of beautiful photos of handmade items. This makes it a great place to browse for unique gifts or one-of-a-kind items for your home.

Great for niche products: Because Etsy specializes in handmade and vintage items, it’s a great place to sell niche products that might not be as easy to find on other marketplaces.

Setup: Setting up an account is relatively easy, there are dedicated sellers’ handbooks and community forums for extra support.

Easy to use and market: Etsy has a smart-pricing tool that allows you to bulk change your pricing of multiple items or create strategies around meeting a minimum free shipping threshold. Etsy has a marketing platform, Etsy Ads, that allows entrepreneurs to create advertising campaigns and get immediate insights into their performance. To attract more customers, the site offers useful analytics and SEO assistance.

Cons:

Fees: One downside of selling on Etsy is that they charge a listing fee of $0.20 per item, as well as a transaction fee on the total sale price (including shipping costs).

Customer service: Another downside of Etsy is that they don’t have the same level of customer service as some of the other marketplaces on this list. If you run into any problems with your account or an order, it can be difficult to get in touch with someone who can help you resolve the issue.

Can only sell handmade/vintage items: To sell on Etsy, you must provide products that fall into one of these categories handmade or vintage. As a result, wholesalers or resellers aren’t permitted to sell their items on the platform. 

Difficult to stand out: Because there are millions of sellers on Etsy, it can be difficult to make your products stand out from the crowd. You’ll need to invest some time and effort into marketing your store if you want to attract buyers.

Not as popular in the New Zealand market: Etsy is the most unutilized of the marketplaces in New Zealand. The majority of their demographic are United States-based, and global users only account for 34%.

Overall, Etsy is a great option for selling handmade or vintage items. The setup process is relatively easy, and the site has a lot of helpful resources for entrepreneurs. However, the fees can be high, and it can be challenging to stand out from the competition.

The Market:

Pros:

No listing fees: One of the main benefits of TheMarket is that there are no listing fees. As a merchant, fees are negotiated with TheMarket and based on what is sold.

They work directly with merchants: TheMarket is focused on increasing brand exposure by specifically featuring brands and showcasing them on the platform.

Ability to integrate with your existing platforms: TheMarket provides an API that lets businesses integrate their store with TheMarket’s platform. This is great for businesses who want to use TheMarket as a supplementary sales platform or for those who want to move away from other marketplaces such as Amazon.

Local: TheMarket is a New Zealand site that can be beneficial for both buyers and sellers, as it’s easy to find what you’re looking for, and customers may feel more comfortable buying from a local site.

Cons:

It is still a new marketplace: This may mean that there is not the same expansive customer base as other sites, however, this also means that there is an opportunity as the number of sellers is also lower.

Information not readily available: Information regarding prices for merchants are not readily available for any casual seller that is considering joining TheMarket. As such, it might make it harder for casual sellers to make an informed decision.

Not designed for the casual seller: TheMarket requires you to have an API to connect your store to its platform. Unless you already know what your business model will look like or have an ecommerce platform already, you will not be able to join TheMarket.

Although TheMarket has some great features for businesses, it may not be the best option for those just starting out or for those who want to sell casually.

[olliedesn601]

Research on Trade Me (SDL)

In our third class we were given a work sheet asking the following questions:

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I decided to instead of filling out the sheet by hand, answering the questions here on my digital journal so that they are all collated together for ease of access for myself and my marker.

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In 1999, Sam Morgan (CEO) founded Trade me after difficulty buying a second hand heater for his flat. In early March 2006, Australian media company Fairfax "acquired Trade me in a deal worth $700 million NZD" with an "additional $50 million payable if the organisation met earning targets over the next two years".

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Trade Me's customers are located in either NZ or Australia furthermore "unless we (Trade Me) specifically give approve you to use Trade Me from another country). This means that Trade Me fills a niche market on the global scale of online shopping however that smaller, bespoke team of people operating the website are more inclined to be passionate knowing that they are providing service for fellow Kiwis and Aussie's. Trade Me is visited "1.9 million times every day by an average of 650,000 Kiwis".

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Trade Me provides the servers to host the website to allow Kiwi's (and Aussie's) the ability to sell what they no longer need to people who do need them. Since no tangible item is held by Trade Me they operate a service to people.

For a company Trade Me sells advertisement space on their website, funding Trade Me while also potentially driving traffic to the advertisers company, a symbiotic relationship in other words.

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Being an online service, "Trade Me set up a dedicated Trust & Safety team who monitor the site seven days a week to keep its members safe" from people who may attempt to commit fraud or steal from people. They've also made it easy to contact Trade Me for help when needed through the us of a "Contact Us" link at the bottom of every page. Trade Me also can be contacted on social media directly for help which allows people from all over the country to easily talk to team members through a variety of mediums to get help.

Trade Me takes 7.9% on all successful auctions made on the website, in comparison, Facebook Marketplace takes 5%, Grailed takes 9% and the Steam Marketplace takes 5%. This variation in percentages on successful auctions helps a business pay for overheads and loans however people may stay away from places with higher transaction fees. Trade Me falls in the middle of these other businesses however is still rather high considering these other marketplaces are worldwide rather than domestic.

The connivence while already talked about in previous paragraphs is a mixed bag on TradeMe, the old layout of the website was dated and complicated to navigate and something that can still be found in certain parts now, however the ability to look for an incredibly unique item and likely finding it, by another Kiwi, who you can message questions to in real time is massively useful and likely overlooked.

Prestige is something that could come if you were willing to look hard enough to find it. The fact that the items listed are from people who in most cases have used/unboxed/lived in the item/object/place means that you could get something that needs some work OR an object in pristine condition. Personally I wouldn't say you'd find prestige on TradeMe's front page, and that's okay because it's part of what makes the website more inclusive to the NZ population, they don't isolate potential consumers with some kind of paywall or exorbitant prices.

Innovation was certainly a factor that played a part in the early days of the website however even today we are seeing new services being released. Trade Me was the first of it's kind in NZ, which is why it's so successful as it has that aged quality and reputation that other, newer and potentially better ecommerce stores may not have. We can see on their story a timeline of what was launched (innovated) in what year and allows someone to better visualise that TradeMe was well ahead of its time.

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I chose Trade Me for it's prevalence in NZ life. Everyone knows what Trade Me is and I found the idea of asking someone from London if they know what Trade Me is for them to likely say "I don't know" fascinating as the premise of Trade Me is a lot like Facebook Marketplace, only domestic. Furthermore TradeMe describes themselves on their Linkedin as "New Zealand’s most influential ecommerce platform and as quintessentially Kiwi as you can get" resonated with me being a citizen of New Zealand.

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Nowadays TradeMe shares a lot of it's services with other commerce stores (Grailed, Facebook Marketplace) but they don't have the history has Trade Me has, Trade Me was instrumental in NZ during the 2000s in making items affordable simply due to them being used/unboxed. I believe that TradeMe helped accelerate NZ's transition to a digital world, as people have created business that operate completely on TradeMe with their sole purpose being to sell items on their as if they were an online version of The Warehouse.

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TradeMe certainly met and still does meet the needs of the consumer due to the ability to search exactly what you are looking for. There is no manipulation of putting pretty socks next to the cashier, you find what you are looking for and complete the transaction. Today TradeMe has innovated to add cars, properties, jobs and even services to accommodate as many potential consumers as possible. Increasing the chance of a buyer, in turn putting more money in their pocket due to the transaction fees.

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TradeMe stays relevant through "unearthing remarkable memorabilia, inspiring intrigue, taking the Mickey, drawing attention to social issues or supporting a charitable cause" which in turn are all their most viewed listings of all time. Trade Me also awards Kiwi's with the "Trade Me New Zealand Innovator Of The Year Award" keeping aspiring people on their feet to create something new and impactful, making them happier while getting free press when the event is hosted as their name is on the award.

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Trade Me has a history of excellent customer service. They are aware that for a buyer (whether they are a first time buyer or sixth) that their words must be heard and therefore don't reply with some pre-made information dump, but rather create replies with personality, which people appreciate. They work quickly compared to other businesses to remedy potential problems.

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Trade Me's brand identity is represented by a bright eyed blue Kiwi staring up towards the top right of the rectangular logo, the background is a bright yellow. This bright eyed Kiwi best represents the consumers on the website; bright eyed and full of intent on what they want.

In their banner the Kiwi is running towards the right side of the banner, this also is likely to depict the intent and desire of the buyer, however the commonality of left to right in design means that the Kiwi (buyer) is running the to auction.

The banner uses a san-serif typeface with the T having a curved descender. The typeface uses a bold weight making the business name easily legible.

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The two primary colours of TradeMe are blue and yellow. They contrast against each other. The type and the logo (Kiwi) are both share the colour palette and the main marketplace of the website still shares the colours to pay respects to the humble beginnings of the websites (while the newer parts of the website use newer and various other colours).

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The colours of the brand can be recognised instantly when presented with the name. This may be due to its long-winded prevalence in NZ culture but also due to the symbolic factors such as the philosophical ideas regarding the Kiwi (as written above).

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Touch points of the website include:

Advertisements

Word of mouth

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Due to the colours and logo the mood given by the brand identity is happy and forthcoming. The yellow helps with that idea as yellow in the context of colour theory is associated with happiness and joy. This mood is encouraging for consumers as they want to feel safe, happy and secure when buying items.

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Consumers and suppliers/businesses that operate on Trade Me would all feel the same regarding the mood.

[olliedesn601]

One recent new tech and design development in New Zealand

For our week 3 SDL we were required to find one recent new tech and design development in New Zealand. One of my favourite philosophical YoutTuber's (Tom Scott) travels the world finding obscure topics and has done several videos in NZ. In one of the most recent video he bought up a company attempting to reinvent public transportation through the use of pods powered by bike pedals, rigged above the street out of the way of the roads and sidewalks below.

The company is called Velocity Valley and the product I am discussing is called the "Shweeb Racer" in Rotorua.

The company describes the product as:

"Get ready to rock your ride with the Shweeb Racer – the only pedal powered monorail track in the world. Feel the exhilaration through high-speed acceleration fueled by your own adrenaline and pedal power. There’s no other sensation quite like it and there’s no other place in the world to experience the thrill of the one and only Shweeb Racer. Pedal hard to pick up your race pace and be the first across the finish line."

And while they made the first one into a theme park ride it (as mentioned) began as a potential replacement of public transport. It never came to what the company envisioned.

The innovation that went into the product is clearly there however certain key aspects of strategic design were left out.

Tom Scott says in his video on the product:

"There was the family market that were dying to do it, but they found it a bit too hard to get them going."

Imagine your up at 7am on a Monday morning in your suit on the way to work. You hop in your pod and "cycle" to your workplace, arriving hot, sweaty and tired potentially starting a bad precedence for the day ahead, I think personally this idea could be excellent but the first generation of these pods didn't include an electrical motor to assist movement (whether it be in motion or needing to come to some kind of emergency stop).

Scott also brings up some great criticism of the product:

"What if the person in front pedals slowly", "How do you overtake? You can't", "How about uphills? What if you get tired?", " Or what if you're approaching a track switch".

These drawbacks are what held the company back from potential unicorn status and if remedied could've completely redefined the public transport industry.

NZHerald states: "For $55 a rider, you can race around the 200m track – the only one of its kind – and experience the transport that was once poised to change the world."

[olliedesn601]

Journal reading 3

Strategic design: eight essential practices every strategic designer must master.

The increasing importance of strategic design: Organisations are increasingly adopting a design a design approach to define and implement their innovation strategies, using design to leverage organisational transformations and even embracing design principles as the overarching philosophy that guides their entire organisation.

There are more CDOs (chief design officer) leading innovation activities and fuelling internal design culture. Several organisations such as SAP and Microsoft are using design methods and practices to transform their products & features. Business consultancies like McKinsey and Accenture have recently begun to acquire entire design agencies to better serve design-driven client needs. Even entrepreneurship is bonding with design, as start-up unicorns like Airbnb are not only being founded by designers, but make design principles the core of their offering and growth strategy.

(Unicorn companies: Are those that reach a valuation of $1 billion without being listed on the stock market and are the dream of any tech startup).

[olliedesn601]

Strategic design class 3

Design management

Topics:

Design for by society

The mindsets

Branding

The most powerful media

Workshop - Brand inventory

There will always be a market for product/services that are:

Wanted and needed

Make the world a better place

Make life easier

Experience economy The term experience economy was first muted in 1970 by the futurist Alvin Toffler in a chapter titled "the experience makers" in the acclaimed Future Shock questioned "where does the economy go next? After the services, what next?" and alluded the idea "the growth of a strange new sector based on what can only be called the 'Experience industries'".

Strategy Describes the course of action and resources needed to achieve the vision of the organisation.

Describes how the organisation plans on delivering on the mission and vision, and is translated into various business objectives, strategic plans and deliverable across different parts of the organisation.

The strategic direction of the organisation - how to move from where they currently are to a desired future position - is established by asking three key questions.

The mindsets

Sensing changing conditions

Foreseeing trends

Reframing problems

Forming an intent

The concept of sense intent is more about answering the 'where to play' question.

Where is the world moving?

In which sector, industry and market does our organisation intend to innovate

Two sides of the digital media scape Advantages

Media can influence the sphere of education positively by teaching individuals about various subjects.

Media provides up-to-date information about various topics around the world in very short time

Though media, individuals get a platform to exercise their talents and improve themselves.

Media acts as a source

[olliedesn601]

Journal reading 2

Trends expert interview

Talking with trends experts to learn about latest developments and possible futures.

Benefits

Facilitates quick and early discovery

Brings in new perspectives

Captures knowledge

Input

Project's topic

Pool of trend experts

Output

Understanding of trends and growth factors

Areas for further research

What it does: Helps one quickly learn about trends related to a topic. Speaking with experts like futurists, economists, professors, authors, and researchers, who stay on top of what is happening in a specific topic area, can very quickly reveal valuable insights. Speaking with them also provides guidance for where to look for additional information.

How it works: 1) Determine the topics to be understood 2) Identify experts 3) Make preparations for the interview 4) Conduct the interview 5) Listen, capture and follow up 6) Transcribe and summarise

Keyword Bibliometrics

Using keywords for researching spread of ideas among publications and databases.

Benefits:

Processes large sets of data

Reveals patterns

Encourages comprehensiveness

Input:

Set of keywords related to specific topics

Identified specialised database

Output:

Insights and patterns revealed by the search on the specific topics.

What it does: Keyword Bibliometrics is a method adapted from library and information sciences used in researching the spread of ideas among publications and databases in fields such as science, medicine, economics, and technology. Keyword Bibliometrics operate like search engines. It uses keywords to search through huge databases to find relevant articles and writings. The list of documents generated through a search is analysed to understand the nature of what is being written about the topic or uncover emergent non-obvious relationships.

How it works: 1) Determine keywords that will be searched 2) Consider the time period that will be searched 3) Combine keywords to find overlaps 4) Review returned results and reiterate if needed 5) Summarise findings

Ten types of innovation framework

Understanding the nature of different types of innovations in industries

Benefits

Broadens mindset

Encourages comprehensiveness

Shows best practices

Facilitates comparison

Provides organising structure

Input

Identified industries, organisations, and their innovations relevant to the project’s topic

Output

Understanding of how the different types of innovation are playing a role in the studied industries

What it does The Ten Types of Innovation Framework, developed by Doblin, is a method for surveying an industry (or sometimes an economic sector or an individual organisation) to understand and plot different types of innovations. The method also helps us with what to look at more closely, where the innovation trends are in the industry, and where to direct forthcoming research efforts. The framework proposes that regardless of industry, innovations happen in one of four areas: finance, process, offering, and delivery. Among the four areas can be found ten distinct types of innovations. In the fi nance area, there are business model and networking innovations. Process innovations include both core processes and enabling processes—an organisations new ways for developing their offerings. Innovations in the offering area are product performance, product systems, and service. Delivery includes innovation types like channel, brand, or customer experience.

How it works: 1) Gather information about the industry 2) Search for innovations in the industry and organise them. 3) Make a visual diagram of innovations 4) Find insights, share and discuss opportunities

Innovation landscape

Mapping an industry's range of innovations as it grows over time.

Benefits

Creates overview

Facilitates comparison

Maps change over time

Reveals opportunities

Input

Identified industries relevant to the project's topic

Output

Visual representations of innovation activities in industries over time

Indications of where innovation opportunities exist

What it does: The Innovation Landscape is a diagnostic method that applies Doblin’s Ten Types of Innovation Framework to understand the broader patterns of innovations in industries over time. The method creates a three-dimensional terrain map by plotting the type of innovation on the X-axis, time on the Y-axis, and number of occurrences of innovation activities as the height dimension. The ten types of innovations plotted are in finance (business models, networking), process (enabling, core), offering (product performance, product system, service), and delivery (channel, brand, customer experience). The landscape shows the intensity of innovation activities by the height of the peaks, the diversity by the number of peaks, and the pace of change by how many new peaks form and by the change of their slopes.

How it works: 1) Select the industry and identify databases to be searched 2) Specify keywords and the time period to be searched 3) Search the databases to compile results 4) Visualise the results as a terrain map 5) Discuss the patterns and explore opportunities

Trends Matrix

Summarising changes happening today that lead to a future direction.

Benefits

Creates overview

Maps change over time

Encourages comprehensiveness

Reveals opportunities

Defines direction

Input

Project aspects to be studied

Output

Matrix with an organised set of trends

Insights about trend patterns and possible directions

What it does A trends matrix presents a high-level summary of how trends and forces of change affect technology, business, people, culture, and policy. The matrix offers an at a glance understanding of how trends impact your project. For a project on cultural travel, one might study travel tools, travel-related services, travel experiences, travel information, and other similar aspects.

How it works: 1) Set up the dimensions for the Trends Matrix 2) Fill the matrix with relevant trends 3) Take a step back and discuss the matrix as an overview 4) Capture insights as overlays on the matrix

Convergence map

Visualising converging fields and seeing opportunities for innovation at the overlaps.

Benefits

Visualises data

Reveals opportunities

Reveals relationships

Promotes shared understanding

Input

Data from research about trends and innovations in selected topics

Outputs

Visual map showing where topics are converging and the related trends affecting them

What it does The Convergence Map makes visible how areas of daily life (work-life, home-life, mobile communications, etc.) or industries are beginning to overlap more an how new behaviours are emerging because of this dynamic.

How it works 1) Identify topics for creating the Convergence Map 2) Identify trends and innovations in these topics 3) Build a Venn diagram showing overlapping regions 4) Discuss and identify opportunities

From… To exploration

Moving from a current perspective based on conventions to a new perspective based on trends

Benefits

Challenges assumptions

Identifies opportunities

Gives focus to the process

Input

List of key aspects of the project

Understanding of key trends related to the project

Output

Table with conventions, trends and possibilities

Innovation opportuntities

What it does From . . .To Exploration is a method that helps turn a current perspective into a new perspective for solving problems. It is about challenging orthodoxies, questioning why things are the way they are, exploring possibilities, and making suggestions. Based on a good understanding of the latest trends, the method proposes how the current context may be changed for the better.

How it works 1) List the key aspects of the project 2) Identify trends related to the project aspects 3) Describe current perspectives based on conventions 4) Describe new perspectives based on trends 5) Discuss innovation opportunities

Initial opportunity map

Speculating on an opportunity space to move to in relation to the current position.

Benefits

Visualises information

Facilities comparison

Reveals opportunities

Defines direction

Input

Trends relevant to the industry to be considered

Output

Visual map of industry participants and potential opportunity spaces for innovation.

What it does The Initial Opportunity Map helps you explore possible opportunities for your organisation’s innovations on a 2x2 map. The map uses two key dimensions that are found to be strategically signifi cant to the project based on a deep understanding of the trends and other changes taking place. Plotted on the map are various participants operating in that space. The map shows your organisation in relation to others and can support speculations on where opportunities exist for your organisation to move. During the early stage of an innovation project, this method helps explore the fundamental question of strategy: Where to play?

How it works 1) Identify key dimensions 2) Create a map and plot industry participants 3) Discuss the map and identify opportunity spaces 4) Speculate on innovation opportunities.

[olliedesn601]

Strategic design class 2

Today:

Case study & methods

Methods for knowing the context

Innovation diagnostics

Why design is a powerful business tool

Exemplars of pass reports

Single case study: Data collected categorised into themes, analysed. Contain at least 4 sections: 1) An introduction 2) Body where you should include background information 3) Explanation of why you decided to do this case study 4) Presentation of your main findings; then a conclusion where you present data; and references

Collective/multiple case study Create themes form data in each case and within-case analysis. Then determine common themes between all of the cases (cross-case analysis). eg, citing problems - instigate ideas on improving - with the aim to mitigate impact on the business.

Assertions When the researcher makes interpretations of the meaning of the case data/themes. Making statements about the lessons learned from the case, what should be learned from the meaning of the data. What answered could be introduced to the case.

Dissecting case study? Case: An event, problem, process, activity, program, a single person, or several people Bounded system: The boundaries of the case, usually time and/or space.

Participant mapping Most companies have to build fresh competitive advantages and destroy others' advantages faster than they used to.

Design & society We (designers) are needed to:

Wants and needs

Make the world a better place

Make life easier

Strategy

Strategy describes the course of action and resources needed to achieve the vision of the organisation.

Economics

Economics is a social science that considers how the limited resources of the planet can best be managed to server the unlimited wants if humankind.

It addresses the business cycles and affairs of both local and global economies and is of the fundamental importance with regard to how companies make decisions about business and finance.

[olliedesn601]

Journal reading week 1

Innovation: A viable offering that is new to a specific context and time, creating user and provider value.

Research shows that less than 4% of the innovation projects undertaken by businesses are proven successful. . . . The remaining 96% of the projects fail".

There are 4 major assumptions organisations make that prevent them from achieving systemic innovation.

4 core principles of successful innovation:

Build innovations around experiences: Experience can be defined as “the act of living through events.” Although the term “user experience” (or UX) has become associated with the software and information technology industries, user experience is a key factor in the success of any type of offering. Every company and organisation in some measure creates or affects peoples’ experiences. Focusing on the nature of those experiences provides the perfect starting point for innovation.

Think of innovations as systems: An offering, whether it is a product, a service, or media/ message, naturally belongs to a larger system of offerings, organizations, and markets. A “system” can be defined as any set of interacting or interdependent entities that form an integrated whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Innovators who understand how this larger system works can better create and deliver offerings with high value.

Cultivate an innovation culture The story of Apple’s successes through design innovation is well known, and not very surprising. Apple is a relatively young company, founded and built on the idea of user-centered design of technology. Although now an established Fortune 500 firm with 60,000 employees worldwide, it has inherited and maintained much of its organizational culture from its days as a Silicon Valley start-up. Its founder-CEO, Steve Jobs, was a natural innovator and showman who knew that design is one of the company’s primary differentiators. In short, a company like Apple has many built-in organizational and cultural advantages that allow it to pursue a design innovation strategy.

Adopt a disciplined innovation process ‘‘Innovation planning’’ is not an oxymoron. Successful innovation can and should be planned and managed like any other organizational function. It is possible to create innovations using well-developed processes and repeatable methods, all in the service of supporting and extending the other three principles of successful innovation— understanding experiences, thinking in terms of systems, and fostering an innovation culture. A high degree of discipline is necessary for these processes and methods to work, but when they do, the probability of creating successful innovations can increase dramatically. Simply recognizing and understanding that innovation can and should be planned is the first, critical step.

A model of the design innovation process The design innovation process starts with the real— we observe and learn from the tangible factors from real-world situations. Then we try to get a full understanding of the real world by creating abstractions and conceptual models to reframe the problem in new ways.

A 2x2 map illustrates the design innovation process. The lower left quadrant represents “research,” about knowing reality. The upper left quadrant stands for “analysis,” since this is where we process the information about reality in abstract terms and try to come up with good mental models to drive innovation. The top right quadrant is about “synthesis,” during which the abstract models developed during analysis are taken as a basis for generating new concepts. And lastly, the lower right quadrant defines the “realisation” of our concepts into implementable offerings. All four quadrants; research, analysis, synthesis, and realisation— combined together is a formalised process model with which to drive innovations in your organisation.

Process is nonlinear Although the idea of a process implies a linear sequence of events, this can be misleading. Many projects are actually nonlinear. For example, a project may begin with a sudden brainstorm (Explore Concepts) and then proceed “backwards” to research and analysis to validate and improve the idea, followed by further exploration and iteration.

Process is iterative The process is also iterative, requiring many cycles through the process, and often through one or more modes (cycles within cycles), rather than being a direct sequential push. A project might start with an intent and some contextual research; then follow several consecutive rounds of user research and analysis, with initial insights being fed back to users for validation; then several rounds of concept exploration, user feedback through prototype testing, refinement of analysis, and then further exploration, further prototyping, and so forth.

Seven modes of the design innovation process

1) Sense intent

Gathering the latest: Searching for the latest happenings, cutting-edge developments, and the latest thinking going on in the field

Mapping overviews: Taking a step back from details and creating high-level views of the changes going on in the topic area

Mapping trends: Getting high-level overview of relevant trends in business, technology, society, culture, and policy

Reframing problems: Framing-up challenges differently based on the associated trends and conditions and finding opportunities where the organisation could create high-value innovation

Stating initial intent: Outlining hypotheses of how the organisation could take advantage of innovation opportunities

2) Know context

Planning for research: Creating a work plan for understanding the context based on available time, resources, methods, and expected deliverables

Searching knowledge base: Searching through large quantities of data from existing sources to find emerging patterns

Mapping evolution: Creating overviews of key industry developments, eras, timelines, and likely futures

Doing comparisons: Creating overviews showing organisations in relation to industry networks, competitors, and analogous organisations

Diagnosing conditions: Gaining perspective on the organisation’s capabilities, their performance, and industry patterns of innovation

Asking experts: Communicating with experts in the field and understanding their analytics, opinions, and recommendations

3) Know people

Planning research: Deciding on research objectives, target users, fieldwork protocols, budgets, and timeframes

Observing people: Recruiting participants, doing fieldwork, documenting people, their activities, and interactions with objects and environment

Asking people: Conducting surveys, discussing findings with users, and gathering feedback and validation

Engaging people: Having users participate in activities, conversations, and interactions with researchers

Organizing finding: Collecting observations and research data, tagging with keywords, and identifying gaps in research

4) Frame insights

Finding insights: Identifying patterns in research results about people and the context and looking for insights 

Modelling systems: Diagramming the context as a system showing its components, relationships, attributes, and value flow

Finding clusters: Sorting data in different ways, finding groupings, and revealing high-level insights

Finding patterns: Visualising research findings as diagrams and revealing hot spots, gaps, and overlaps

Making profiles: Defining attributes of key stakeholders and other parts of the system

Mapping flows: Visualising how value flows in networks of producers, consumers, suppliers, and other stakeholders

Mapping experiences: Diagramming user journeys in space and time, discovering pain points, and showing opportunities

Making frameworks: Summarising insights and translating them into frameworks and guidelines to drive concept generation

5) Explore concepts

Framing concept space: Converting insights to design principles, reframe assumptions, and making hypotheses for concept generation

Defining concepts: Brainstorming concepts within the widest solution space permitted by design principles, gaining inspiration from metaphors, and visualising concepts

Organising concepts: Sorting, recombining, and dividing concepts into logical systems and groups; collecting and archiving concepts for future reference

Communicating concepts: Sketching, diagramming, prototyping, visualising, and narrating concepts to understand, validate, and convey their value

6) Frame solutions

Generating options: Combining the many point concepts explored in Explore Concepts mode into a set of solution options for further selection

Systematising concepts: Clustering and synthesising concepts into coherent systems, planning lifecycles of offerings, and creating roadmaps

Evaluating concepts: Scoring, voting, and ranking concepts against design principles, cost/benefit, viability, and feasibility

Communicating solutions: Refining sketches, diagrams, prototypes, visualisations, and narratives of proposed solutions

Organising solutions: Sorting, collecting, and archiving solutions for easy access, including use by other teams and projects

7) Realise offerings

Building prototypes: Developing prototypes to test details, feasibility, viability, and technical specifications

Defining strategies: Determining market positioning, platforms, partners, and business plans key to the innovation’s success

Defining tactics: Identifying capabilities necessary to achieve strategies and plan development trajectory

Developing initiatives: Gathering resources, constructing budgets and schedules, hiring teams, and creating plans for pilots and launches

[olliedesn601]

Strategic design class 1

We are here for:

Teamwork

Collaboration

Engagement

Attendance

Deep learning vs memorising

Knowledge sharing

The case study:

Understand how design methodologies could be used to generate new business opportunities.

Research, immerse, experience and document the process of how a company can use design as a vehicle for their business.

Identify how design is being used (or not) either as a design-led methodology, as a product, as a service or as an experience.

Gather information and knowledge from their internal team (existing knowledge) as well as feedback and impressions from their audience/users.

(Deliverables)

Individual digital case study (digital) report

Group presentation (8mins max) (understanding how strategic design is taken on board)

The current philosophy/vision of the selected business.

How and if they are currently using & applying design.

The needs and requirements of their users/audiences.

Your case study to include a proposal of an identified challenge and a possible solution to it.

Objectives

To use different design methodologies (design thinking, human-centered design practices covered in the worksheets).

To identify existing challenges inside a business.

To write a case study and present a possible solution.

The reflective journal

Understanding the strategic design processes and theories

Reflection on the learning outcomes of the lectures and workshops

Analysing the role of design in management and commercial innovation.

Objectives

Design journals on new thinking and approaches in design practices through research

Challenge current perceptions how design and business are facing. Discuss and share insights openly in groups.

Write and articulate

Group project

Understanding the strategic design processes and theories

Reflection on the learning outcomes of the lectures and workshops

Analysing the role of design in management and commercial innovation.

Tangram activity

Tangrams activity is also a great way to foster teamwork. Reinterpreting the shapes of the tans will be challenging, it is about simplification and as a group everyone will discuss, cooperate and contribute with new formed collective insights to find solutions.

What is design?

Purpose or planning that exists behind an action, fact or object.

Synonyms include; intention, aim, purpose, intent, objective, object, goal, end, target, point, hope, desire, wish, dream, aspiration, ambition, idea.

What is strategy?

A plan of action designed to achieve a long term or overall aim

Strategic design is:

An emerging problem-solving mindset that utilises design tools to meet business goals and objectives that goes beyond just aesthetics.