OPEN SPACE INNOVATION CROWDSOURCING | QUIRKY Strategic Design and Management Integrative Studio 1 // Spring 2015 Parsons New School for Design
Table of contents Introduction
#04
Executive Summary
#10
DESIGN THINKING @ PARSONS NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN
#12
inquiry
#18
quirky 2.o transition
#40
#42
discovery
#58
Workshop with quirky
#70
PROTOTYPing//TESTING
#74
assess//engage
#92
conclusion
#95 Source1 : Citrus Content
Appendix/BIbliography
As a key component of the graduate
IntroductioN The Parsons New School for Design, Strategic Design and Management graduate program, was founded with the vision of providing students the knowledge and skills needed to accommodate the rapidly changing economic landscape. Students are pressed to work on tangible industry problems and to collaborate with peers, partners and the community to develop innovative and strategic solutions through blending the practices of design and business. Thank you for taking the time to support our learning process, we hope you enjoy the following report of our investigation.
degree, students participate in an integrative studio where students meld together diverse academic and professional backgrounds to uncover innovative solutions to complex multidisciplinary projects. Each studio cohort is paired with a live client and divided into research teams that explore the overlaps between business and design. Within the context of a live partner’s’ current business model, students make use of research methods, ideation processes, and theoretical frameworks in attempts to test their academic work. This studio group was dealt the challenge of deciphering crowdsourcing as it stands today, and to forecast where the industry will go in the future. The immense economic shifts of the last 5 years, coupled with generational changes and shift towards knowledge working, have set the stage to welcome crowdsourcing and creative collaboration into a multitude of sectors. From fashion design, peer-to-peer financial lending, a slough of car services, and even filming and advertising, crowdsourcing commodities have cracked many markets wide open. Crowdsourcing allows data, information, ideas, and resources accessible to all. Joining forces with strangers is now easy and convenient, making achieving great feats possible while
improving the lives of millions. To take a deeper and practical look at crowdsourcing and creative collaboration, the class chose Quirky as its case study. Through diverse field research, intense ideation and prototyping, and iterations upon iteration, the team has developed various new concepts and strategic responses for the complex terrain Quirky faces today. We would like to thank Natalia Radywyl of Fjord Design who came to our studio to give us a workshop on basic approaches to research methods. Natalia currently works as a Senior Design Researcher at Fjord, leading research efforts to ensure people are at the heart of digital service experiences, from telecommunications and financial services to health, retail and tourism. Natalia could not have come at a better time as she came to give us some helpful tips on how to conduct successful stakeholder interviews at the beginning of our research phase. From this workshop, we learned how to create a strategic interview outline. Some of the tips included the importance of creating a conversational vibe. She went on to talk about how to ask open-ended questions, how not to influence the interviewee, being empathetic and attentive to the stakeholder in hopes that they will feel more comfortable sharing information.
Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 5
N
atalia then provided us a useful guide on how we should approach our case study with Quirky. She went over the various methods and tools needed to be able to act as a strategic consultancy for Quirky. Some of the things mentioned were the use of interviews, market research, and learning about the company culture. Natalia then went on to talk about how important it is to gather artifacts and the need to visualize materials to communicate with the client. We would also like to thank Dr. Wolfgang Leidhold who came to our studio class all the way from Germany. As an “academic entrepreneur”, philosopher, political scientist, and artist. Wolfgang Leidhold has written on the concept of experience, religious experience, noetic turning, empirical metaphysics, and the individual and ensemble. Dr. Leidhold gave us a lecture on ‘Creative Practice: History, Method and Approaches.” Dr. Leidhold gave us some valuable advice and tips on the concept of creative practice. He covered many key concepts such as the need for open mindedness and breaking away from routines and tunnel vision seeing that placing too much emphasis on results, can hinder your creativity. Dr. Leidhold went on to talk about how creativity is an experience and the desire to get in touch with one’s inner self, he advised us that being laid back is the first step to creativity. Dr. Leidhold goes on to mention how you must respect everything that comes your way. Love it. Trust it, and be patient. To study creativity means you have to confront the question of innovation. We would also like to thank trend analyst Zuzanna Skalska, the driving force behind 360 inspiration’s trends. Zuzanna conducted her ‘Designing Thoughts’ workshop with the class on trend research. This workshop gave us valuable insights and tips needed to provide strategic advice for future sustainable businesses. Again, thank you for all the support throughout the course of this project. Thank you, Quirky for welcoming us so warmly into your space and for providing us with such a wonderful learning experience. Special thanks to Sarah Bain, Sebastian Hayto, Erin Petree, Anna Buchbauer, Domenick Pontoriero, for taking extra time out of already busy days to support our learning. We hope you enjoy the following report for our investigation.
Thank
You!
School of Design Strategies http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/masters-design-management/ Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 7
project timeline PROJECT PROJECTTIMELINE TIMELINE FEBRUARY FEBRUARY
FEBRUARY FEBRUARY 17TH 17TH
MARCH 12TH MARCH 12TH
APRIL 9THAPRIL 9THAPRIL 16TH APRIL 16TH
MAY MAY
IDENTIFYIDENTIFY THE THE BLUE SKYBLUE SKYMIDWAYMIDWAYQUIRKSHOP QUIRKSHOPIDEATE IDEATE & PROTOTYPE & PROTOTYPE TEST TEST CREATECREATE ‘HOW ‘HOW TRADE SHOW RESEARCH RESEARCH COMPETITIVE COMPETITIVE TOWN HALL TOWN HALL PERSONAS PERSONASJOURNEYJOURNEYTRENDSTRENDS INITIALINITIALTRADE SHOW OPPORTUNIOPPORTUNIIDEATIONIDEATIONPRESENTAPRESENTACO-CREATE CO-CREATE PROTOTYPES PROTOTYPES MIGHT WE’s MIGHT WE’s IDENTIFIED IDENTIFIED ANALYSIS& QUIRKY& QUIRKY MAPS MAPSWORKSHOP WORKSHOP QUIRKYQUIRKY & FIELD& FIELD CROWD-CROWD-ANALYSIS TION TION OPPORTUNIOPPORTUNI-IN FIELDIN FIELD RESEARCHSOURCING SOURCING TRANSITION TRANSITION & TRENDS & TRENDSFOR ALLFOR ALL TIES TIES MEETINGMEETINGRESEARCH RESEARCH TIES TIES MATRIXMATRIXRESEARCH EMPATHIZE EMPATHIZE
DEFINE DEFINE
IDEATE IDEATE
DEFINE DEFINE
IDEATE IDEATEPROTOTYPE PROTOTYPE TEST TEST
Executive Summary Project Overview:
T
his report focuses on the evaluation and understanding of the crowdsourcing industry. We were fortunate enough to use Quirky as our case study. Through secondary research, user insights, and hands-on prototyping we developed an evaluation of strategic opportunities as well as possible threats that could possibly face Quirky in the next ten years. Opportunity: The recent switch in Quirky’s business model has created an ample amount of room for new exploration. Since the new platform emerged, Quirky changed its process due to the challenges and limitations that come with trying to develop products in an unlimited number of categories. As Quirky has cut out some of the outdated practices such as removing manufacturing
and e-commerce from their website, they now have the opportunity to explore new revenue streams as well as partnerships. We wanted to be able to conduct a comprehensive analysis to identify future opportunities as well as develop a new creative strategy for Quirky. Findings: To address the problem above, we first had to look at the industry as a whole. We started by identifying who the key companies were. By looking at their strengths, we found out what some of the best practices across the industry were. We used these findings as a lens through which we analyzed Quirky’s strengths and weaknesses. It allowed us to have a status quo upon which we can build on. It was imperative for us to understand the Quirky demographic process and user experience. By understanding the fundamental drive behind each community member and user, not only were we able to identify their successes, but also their pain points. Several weeks of research went into conducting surveys, personal and employee interviews as well as case study comparisons. This was a way for us to look into Quirky with a pair of fresh eyes and to see the disconnects that were happening. We took these insights to figure out a solution for how Quirky can better position themselves for the future. After careful observation from our interviews, surveys, and examining the current platforms such as the Quirky website and app, we found many strengths and weaknesses. Some of the strengths of Quirky include their global access for inventors, the ability to directly collaborate creatively within the community, and their overall culture. We identified Quirky’s weaknesses to be the lack of their ability to manage change, a complex business model, a lack of awareness of competitors, and lastly, their lack of brand awareness, Business Case: We identified the solutions as a mobile app, network, establishing trust & loyalty to maintain community involvement, and future visioning. This became the framework for all of our research and prototyping. Each group was given the task of examining the proposed idea in a way that yielded several solutions. This was the most quantifiable, scientific part of the process. From the results we gathered, and the solutions that we came up with, we believe they will position Quirky for much success in the years to come.
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DESIGN THINKING @ PARSONS NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN T
he Masters of Strategic Design and Management program heavily integrates a myriad of Design Thinking processes into course objectives. For those unfamiliar, Design Thinking is a set of iterative steps seeking to discover a problem’s fundamental question(s), search out opportunities, test assumptions, validate insights, to provide rich feedback on those insights and to rapidly implement sustainable solutions.
Source 3 : SDM Design + Management Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 13
A
DESIGN THINKING
@ PARSONS NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN
ccording to Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, Design products, and services. Radical innovation that Thinking is a “discipline that uses a designearns increased market share, the creation of er’s sensibility and methods to match people’s new markets, exponentially increased profits, needs with what is technologically feasible and and overall improved product performance truly what a viable business strategy can convert into relies on asking the right questions and rapidly customer value and market opportunity (HBR).” testing assumptions. The Strategic Design and Management program takes a similar mindset of design thinking, with The designer employs a variety of qualitative an emphasis on design combined with a focus research methods to uncover opportunities, on economics and business. As designers at Parthese tools complement quantitative analysis sons, we approach problem solving through the and strategic thinking. They include, but are lens of business-anthropologists, striving to not limited to: analogous research, problem identify with and better understand reframing, ethnographic interviews, those we are solving for to idendirect observation, journey maps, tify their key values, needs, personas, value chain analysis, ”Discipline that uses behaviors, and motivamind maps, brainstorming, tions. This unique focus rapid prototyping, and a designer’s sensibility connects us to desired assumption testing. and methods to match users on fundamental Workshops are frepeople’s needs with what levels that enable us quently deployed is technologically feasible to unlock sustainable with key stakeholders and what a viable business business opportunities. to maintain continuous strategy can convert into feedback loops and learncustomer value and market Half technical, half ing surrounding potential soluopportunity” intuitive, the design tions. These tools are deployed process is tough to in a rapid, cyclical, and explain. iterative manner that enable leaders to keep pace with the Creating such long-term, sustainable rapidly evolving business landscape. value, versus striving for short term gains, is the These tools will be explained at a later point in ultimate goal of the design thinking process. The this paper. current business climate is complex and rife with The Design Thinking Process at Parsons change, leaders need the tools to help manage complexity, resistance to change, and sustain a The Parsons process is centered on the basic competitive advantage. principles of design thinking which embraces questioning, reflection, and synthesis at each From a strategic standpoint, organizations corner. Below are the key steps in our process: can apply the design thinking process to help or augment the development of new ideas,
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what is 1 Define The analyzing and synthesizing the findings of the empathy phase to form a holistic view of the problem and to reflect on its design.
3 Prototype The act of creating physical representations of the solution to gather feedback on the user’s experiences and interactions with the prototype.
5
DESIGN THINKING? Empathize Striving to fully understand the experience surrounding users and their nature via observation, interaction and immersive ethnographic research techniques.
2 Ideate The exploration of ideas by producing high volumes of diverse possible solutions.
4 TEST The use of high-fidelity prototypes to observe and gather feedback, further refine solutions, and to learn more about the user.
The Inquiry
During this phase extensive research is conducted on the industry, company, product, and customers. It is important to dig deep and follow your curiocity. Though all of the research is expansive and generative, we still want to find out as much as possible about the company we are working with. This is the time for quantative surveys and qualitative interviews. The team ideation sessions throughout this phase are to provide a closer look at our case study. The inquiry is for “going wide” in terms of concepts and outcomes but still getting quantifiable data upon which we can build on throughout the process. Key visualization tools are used during this phase to better illustrate our findings. We utilize journey maps, personas, mind mapping and look at the competitieve landcapecpe with the use of the affinity matrix.
The Discovery
The discovery stage is where brainstorming begins and where the new concept development takes place. It is here that new possibilities and alternative business models come to light. Team members continue to reserve judgment in the brainstorming phase and push to encourage outlandish ideas. As ideas stream in, it’s important to begin “clustering” or assembling innovative elements together in order to keep an open mind. This is the stage where, “no idea is a bad idea“ moto comes to life.
The Testing
The testing stage is all about repitition. This is where the prototyping and fleshing out of ideas gets underway. To truthfully test assumptions it is important to develop a series of rapid prototypes to understand if your ideas are viable in the real world. Whether in regards to service offerings, usability, or experience soliciting opinions from desired users on a tangible product can highlight the successes or failures of a concept. As the list of positive and negative feedback grows, it is important to reiterate and refine new concepts for yet another round of prototyping.
Assess and Engage
This is the process of including the customer directly in the testing and the creation process. This is called Customer Co-creation and allows solutions to further develop through eyes of the customer. By opening yourself up to cusomer´s critique and evaluation, you can faster find potential threats and successes within your prototype and result.
“As the list of positive and negative feedback grows, it is important to reiterate and refine new concepts”
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Inquiry D
esign Thinking is a human centered process thus it starts with the present, not the future. As design strategists, we must begin with a holistic assessment of the current crowdsourcing landscape. The cohort investigated what crowdsourcing is today, what changes are taking place within the crowdsourcing landscape, and what do people want and need from crowdsourcing. Teams assembled into “buckets” based on product design, community, marketing, web development, e-commerce, operations, and business-to-business partnerships. The small teams worked closely together throughout the inquiry phase and presented visualizations and research artifacts when the teams came together. It was during these meetings that we were able to begin highlighting, ideating, and building upon what we had found and how it came together. We believe that assessing the user’s’ current reality is key for uncovering insights and inspiring the imagination for later phases of the design process. The following research is a summary of our inquiries. Highlighted throughout are key problems, understanding potential opportunities, and our developing hunches.
Journey Mapping
Personas
Mind Mapping
affinity mapping
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Crowdsourcing AS A LANDSCAPE
We began this stage of the process by attempting to understand the current situation. This required doing extensive research on crowdsourcing as an industry and further digging into every aspect of the subject. To achieve this, we will conduct not only quantitative but also qualitative research to get a holistic approach of the material. By definition, crowdsourcing is, “the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, instead of receiving contributions from traditional employees or suppliers” (Merriam-Webster). Creating a digital community of strangers and bringing them together around the same focus is one of the most interesting trends nowadays that is expected to grow exponentially over the coming years. While the Internet has played a predominant role in the growth of crowdsourcing in the last few years, the shift in dealing with our cognitive surplus has been a major push in that space. People wanted to use their spare time no longer as consumers but as participants: they aim to use their skills and stretch their minds to add value and creation.
Design A design job is posted, designers submit ideas and the client picks the one he likes the best.
There is a growing population of crowdworkers. So why the push to participate in crowd efforts? As the workforce shifts from full-time, 40 hour work weeks, to a more multi-contract based career, people become invested in their fellow community members and would rather be doing business with them rather than large corporations.
These crowdsourcing workers tend to mainly be women, and those of the millennial generation. This demographic consists of well educated people, often holding at least a college degree, own smaller than average households, are already employed, and claim that they are not in it for the money.
WHO ARE THE CROWDWORKERS?
MICRO TASKS Breaking up large amounts of work into smaller tasks and outsourcing those tasks to the crowds.
Open innovation Allows people from all aspects of business such as investors, designers, inventors, and marketers to collaborate into a functional profit making product or service.
Mostly women,
Surprisingly
Live in smaller
Are already
Say it is not about
mostly millennials
skilled and
households
employed
the money
college educated 2006 was the year of the twitter launch, Pluto declared as a dwarf planet, the Saddam Hussein’s execution and Jeff Howe of Wired Magazine gave a name to crowdsourcing. In his article, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”, Howe explores companies that started to invest their money in collections of random crowdsourced media. Library of pictures and videos that later larger companies like Viacom could buy up the license for and use for their creative content.
"Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers.” This was the first time crowdsourcing was referenced to as such, but one can find its roots dating all the back to 1714 when European nations were trying to dominate the ocean trade. The British government, perplexed by how to measure the longitude for ships, offered £20,000 to the person who comes up with the best solution. The Board of Longitude was set up, which was charged with evaluating people’s submissions and giving out rewards.
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Alas, the birth of the first crowdsourced solution. This contest is still active today and uses the general public for unsolvable problems. From an early age we are taught that, “two heads are better one.” We are taught to share and work together. So why did it take so long for us to give a name to something that seems like second nature to us? It could be said, that the internet gave the push that crowdsourcing needed. The ability to connect with people from all over the world with a click of a button has made collaboration process practically seamless. Social media unites countries and people of many different backgrounds. In 2011, social media crowdsourced a physical and life-altering revolution in Egypt. Thousands of people poured to streets of Cairo, Alexandria in protest of the Egyptian President Hisno Mubarak. More than 846 people were killed and thousands injured. The result of the revolution was the dissolution of Mubarak’s government and the totalitarian regime that Egypt has been under for over 50-years. After the success of Egypt’s social media led revolution, other oppressed countries and regions united together using twitter and facebook to cultivate change. Crowdsourcing since then has been referred to as the, “power of the crowds” and we are only on the brink of all of its possibilities. People are now coming together to collaborate along different stages of the creative process. No longer people are just sharing ideas, but they are co-investing and co-owning content.
CROWdsourcing in 2014
$2.7 B
85%
65%
In funds raised by crowdsourcing
US market volume growth
EU market volume growth
+40%
+1M
131
Are earning 40-100K per year
Campaigns started
Of the World's Best Global Brands crowdsourced
Crowdsourcing can be applied to many industries. One trend that we saw rise during the 2011-2012 was citizen journalism. With easy access to the internet and variety of blogs, video platforms like YouTube and social media platforms like twitter – people were able to share their opinions, stories and become co-creators of the news. Even respected news stations, like CNN has turned to citizen journalism for stories. Mostly because citizen journalists can react to stories much faster than traditional news outlets. Since we live in the world where today’s news are old news, news stations turn to citizen journalism when they need to buy more time while getting a reporter to the source. CNN even took citizen journalism a step further with creation of iReport.
“iReport is an invitation for you to be a part of CNN's coverage of the stories you care about and an opportunity to be a part of a global community of men and women who are as passionate about the news as you are. At CNN we believe that looking at the news from different angles gives us a deeper understanding of what's going on. We also know that the world is an amazing place filled with interesting people doing fascinating things that don't always make the news.” Source: CNN.com
15%
2/3
Of exclusive crowdworker earn their sole income exclusively from crowdsourcing
Are using CS as an outlet for their cognitive surplus (outside of work)
”
Forms of hybrid crowdsourcing will become commonplace for companies by 2020. Source: Crowdsourcing Industry Report made by crowdsourcing.org
As we see many diverse industries turn to “the power of the crowd” for help. It is no surprise that the finance industry quickly followed. With DonorsChoose.org launching in 2000, it opened a new doors to crowdfunding.
“Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet.[1] One early-stage equity expert described it as “the practice of raising funds from two or more people over the internet towards a common Service, Project, Product, Investment, Cause, and Experience, or SPPICE.” source: VETlikeme.org With bigger names like Indiegogo launching in 2008 and Kickstartr launching in 2009 a new way to create products, movies, games and plethora of other things have been created. When Apple announced their move into the smartwatch sector, they actually showed up late to the party. In 2013, the pebble technology corporation put together a small Kickstartr campaign asking to raise $500,000 to launch their new product. By the end of their campaign Pebble raised $10,266,845 and was backed by 68,929 people. When Pebble 2 campaign posted to Kickstartr in 2015, it raised a whopping 20,388,986 and was backed by 78,471 people.
Survey Results
70
82
74
45
Percent
Percent
Percent
Percent
Positive perception of Quirky’s restructuring
Of users say they would invest in Quirky
Would privately fund or support Quirky inventions
Would continue to use an app versus desktop
What are members are doing
It is said that in 2015, crowdsourcing industry will reach close to 34.4 billion dollars. With industries finding new ways to utilize the crowd every day, the future is endless when its comes to power of communities. This trend of co-creation and collaboration is here to stay.
85% 55%
quirky
45%
30%
WHY QUIRKY?
The cohort was given Quirky, a New York based start up, for an in-depth case study. Quirky’s ultimate goal is not to crowdsource ideas, but instead to make invention accessible by providing a platform for co-creation and collaboration. Community members can participate in many ways with the collective ambition of making better, more human-centered, unique products. Quirky’s positioning is an iterative, fun, smart process that brings members with different skills, perspectives and inputs around the same goal: empowering the crowd to generate unique products that satisfy a need. Unlike other crowdsourcing websites, Quirky’s community members have more control over the creative process. They are at the origin of the ideas and interact with the creation throughout the development stages. The wisdom of the crowd determines what inventions or ideas go into development, what their tag-lines and names become, and later help to determine the appropriate price point. Quirky is able to ask people to share their dreams, their problems, their opinions by incentivizing member participation with a percentage of the inventions sales earnings. Quirky’s mission of empowering and rallying individuals to invent and collaborate digitally, is a fascinating crowdsourcing case study.
1
Community Members
2
Inventors
3
Influencers
4
Shop Quirky Products
How they interacT How often do you submit inventions?
How often do you influence?
Moderately Very often Slightly often Never
Extremely often Moderately often Not often at all
See Appendix for more Survey Results
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Sensing the Intent
Infrastructure: big problem, and will require serious investments
T
After careful observation of our high level summary of the current landscape, we developed a list of relevant trends and matrices showing factors and forces of society, economics, politics, technology and environment. A convergence map was later used to visualize the opportunities for innovation at the intersections and overlaps.
Immersive Internet
“The internet of Everything” + a more connected world and more globalized online economy
Obama’s incentives for start ups and the maker movement Persistent jobless growth; machines taking over jobs
Growing importance of health in the economies
ECONOMY
Crowdfunding (to replace the liquidity that banks usually provide)
India will turn to a manufacturing powerhouse economy
Emerging markets: Latin America and Southeast Asia
POLITICS
Gamification
Weakening of representative democracy (people believe more in companies than in their leaders)
Intensifying nationalism to preserve communities
TECHNOLOGY Connected : living, work, home and city
Chinese economy will be a consumer economy
Socially responsible investing
o begin developing a good understanding of the trends and conventions surrounding crowdsourcing the team set out to sense the intent. The cohort studied the current crowdsourcing market, future trends, and adjacent industries to decipher what changes are happening in the world today. Sensing the changing conditions and observing the surroundings are pivotal for identifying potential innovation opportunities.
Automation
US economy will slow down
Rising pollution in the developing world
Curated community
New local clean energy sources
New power storage solutions
Make WiFi accessible to everyone 3D printing Glocal: empower regional community
All products will be personalized & tailored
Nostalgia as people start to long for simpler, less controlled, more social past
SOCIETY
Social media generation
Move away from materialism and towards happiness
Silver tsunami is a growing market in need of technology education
Extreme waste and toxic chemical management
New energy systems
ENVIRONMENT Build to last / Repair
New Air / Water systems
Local Farming / Materials
New Environmentally Friendly Materials
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Corporations using crowdsourcing The platforms are not the only ones that are monetizing on the crowdsourcing trend. Some of the bigger companies in the market are now using similar models when looking to tap into the “power of the crowd.”
General Mills Created the General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network (G-WIN) The network focuses on generating new ideas in a variety of merchandise, commodity or service categories. These ideas can include: ingredient suggestions for General mills products; Tech suggestions for their IT processes; packaging for products. GenMils also has a tab called, “Submit a Novel Proposal” for community members to suggest a product or technology innovation.
Nokia The Ideas Project is a global community that focuses on open innovation with a focus on consumer-derived collaboration. Open to 210 nations to improve the viability of Nokia products in all markets.
Coca-Cola “Shaping a better future” challenge asks entrepreneurs to come up with companies with a social good impact that focuses on youth employment, education, environment or health.
Some of the players that we have identified that produce great work and utilize the crowd in an efficient way are:
Local motors
QUIRKY AMONG ITS COMPETITORS
was the first company to create an open-source car using 3-D printing technology in six months. Community is a core value at Local Motors. Local Motors places a strong emphasis on empowering their community by providing both digital and physical platforms that enables their community to share an idea online and bring the idea to life in one of their micro-factories. 4Platform Highlights - Key Advantages 4Creative Commons license 4Tutorials on how to build wikis and instructional videos 4Good UI-makes collaboration process simple. 4Community members can send “collaboration requests” for each project if they are in search of a community member.
FirstBuild
is an online and physical community dedicated to designing, engineering, building, and selling the next generation of home appliances. Community members go through a five-step process: ideate, evaluate, make, produce, and sell. 4Platform Highlights- Key Advantages 4Has a co-create section where various challenge are displayed 4They have sections for ideas, personal projects, challenges and how-to’s 4Ideas and challenges sections allow the community members to rate and comment 4Have a maker space where community members can come in and work
Grabcad
Worlds largest online community of mechanical engineers. Provides a digital platform where engineers can share CAD designs and collaborate with other engineers on products and design. Platform Highlights / Key Advantages 4Platform modeled around the workflow of an engineer, making it easy to navigate and collaborate. Includes photos and profiles for each member providing location, profile views, and comments. 4GrabCad employs gamification mechanics: shows badges earned, grabcad score. 4Strong emphasis placed on education. Platform provides tutorials, forums, webinars, case studies, e-books, articles, CAD designs, library archives and blogs. 4Partners with bigger companies like GE, Tiffany’s, Pebble and Petterson Medical
Professional
Manufacturing
General public
Crowdsourcing
Looking at the workers’ skills / actual professionals contributing on projects
People with no skills are able to contribute on projects
Is the “power of the crowd” utilized to create a physical product
Crowdsourcing/co-creation/collaboration is used only for an idea
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Crowdtesting C
rowdtesting, which is becoming a major player in the software world is another example of the utilization of the crowd. Recent studies show that in 2014, 55% of companies have adopted crowdsourcing services and many more plan to utilize crowdtesting in 2015 and moving forward. Crowdtesting is meant to validate that the final product meets the targeted quality standard. In order to achieve this, a large number of intuitive test scenarios must take place. By leveraging the crowd, testing moves from a focused activity aimed at a few individuals to a “hit it all” approach. Although crowd testing cannot completely replace traditional testing due to it not being a scientific method, it is still a viable option. Therefore, organizations need to adopt a strategy that blends traditional and crowd testing approaches to get the best results.
If successful, submissions are sent for “evaluation” where the community works together to judge the inventions viability and market success. If the community likes the idea, it goes on to be influenced further by the community and later brought to market by Quirky. The community is at the epicenter of any invention and it influences every stage of the creative process. Quirky’s community is broad and diversified, hence why it generates a myriad of products ranging from egg separators to smart window air conditioners. Quirky, in the crowdsourcing world, has truly become a key player. It has made co-invention real and tangible and it succeeded in making the collective imagination palpable and sincere.
In conclusion, we examine the crowdsourcing and crowdfunding landscape we find that one of the most important components that sustain these platforms is their community of members. Much emphasis is put on their user experience and the ability to contribute with ease. Each platform and company knows that the happiness of community members directly correlates to the success of products and services that they produce.
Understanding the Context A
fter a vast scan of the landscape it came down to focusing on the opportunities and ideas that could be applied to Quirky. Reframing Quirky through a wide lense allows us to gather a deeper understanding of the context that lives within. To do so, we used a business model canvas to get a comprehensive look at Quirky’s current situation. Quirky is a New York based startup with a branch in San Francisco, California that has raised $180 million in VC funding since its inception. The mission has remained constant since the beginning; to disrupt the way we create products and to make invention accessible. Quirky opens its doors to anyone, allowing individuals to join the community, submit inventions, and influence ideas. Quirky is using crowdsourcing to uncover innovative ideas from the crowd. On average, Quirky receives 1500 idea submissions per week which they then review and select the most promising. They believe that creativity can be found everywhere and thus provide the support for regular people to turn their ideas into reality. They leverage the crowdsourcing community by tapping into people’s imagination and marketing products in which the community expresses interest.
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Competitive Analysis A
fter the deep dive into Quirky’s business model which included an extensive analysis of the current competitive landscape and market positioning, a detailed SWOT and benchmark analysis was done on Quirky as well as its direct and indirect competitors. This enabled the team to achieve an unparalleled vantage point that not only allowed us a deeper understanding of the inner workings of Quirky’s business, but also helped us elucidate ways to secure a competitive edge in the future. We summarize our main findings in the following sections. Despite having such a unique business model focused on harnessing the power of the community and embracing its culture, Quirky demonstrably suffers from a lack of brand awareness. While most members have undeniable passion towards Quirky and its culture, the firm remains a widely unknown startup. The marketing campaigns devoted to promoting the brand are “quirky” and fun, with a focus on the company’s image, but ultimately fail to convey a clear, strong message leaving the targeted audience confused and longing for more. This weakness is even more perceptible when one considers how clear some competitors, like Innocentive or Kickstarter have presented their message, and how these companies succeeded in leveraging social media to increase their visibility. Through further examination of the landscape, we were able to identify another potential threat for Quirky, one that revolves around its difficulty of scalability. Quirky’s broad range of products separates the firm’s strategy from that of most competitors who choose to tap into niche markets instead. Innocentive targets engineers as their customer segments, while Tongal focuses on videos for advertising purposes. Such a focus allows these firms to scale their operations, and to be competitive in those specific sectors. A broad product offering is hampering Quirky’s efforts to scale and grow, and is weighing on its performance versus its competitors. Finally, we believe that Quirky’s community is the core of its business. We have identified community management within Quirky as another crucial problem to address. Crowdsourcing companies rely on their communities to survive, and it is in their best interest to grow an engaged, rich, interconnected and committed community. Direct and indirect competitors of Quirky have had better success in energizing their communities and were able to leverage a stronger base, hence achieving further growth and expansion. We believe that Quirky should go beyond sharing its message and culture with its community, but rather actively work to weave closer ties within the community. Quirky needs ot creasing its level of engagement and its overall level of activity and participation.
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Knowing Quirky's People I
n order to provide a better experience for crowdsourcing community members and to better identify the main pain points, we decided to further pursue our qualitative research and to focus on stakeholders. In order to get a better understanding of the different stakeholders and to achieve a deeper level of empathy, we performed a series of workshops. Over 16 interviews were taken with the Quirky team, and we conducted 3 surveys around the community. The following is a summary of our main findings.
A
After identifying key personas within crowdsourcing, the team used ethnographic research techniques to reveal intimate details about community member’s crowdsourcing experiences. According to Vijay Kumar’s definition, “a persona is a user personality that enables exploring concepts around them.” We created personas that are representative of Quirky’s customer segment. Defining personas elevates the understanding of the needs and expectations of the users and helps to frame the opportunity space so that innovation becomes possible. For the sake of empathizing with the community and succeeding in devising better user experiences, we used the personas to identify the users’ goals, motivations and how they interact with Quirky. This in turn gave us a better understanding for the motivation and elements of dissatisfaction which is key to uncovering people's experiences and needs.
Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative StudioJourny | Spring See Appendix for more Personas& Maps2015 | 35
KNowing Quirky's People T
he purpose of customer journey map tells the story of the customer’s experience. From the initial touchpoint the customer experiences, and throughout the duration of the relationship. Whether the focus is on the beginning or the end of the experience, getting a feel for what customers are experience is key to understanding their feelings, motivations and needs. Once the interviews, surveys, and shadowing the customers is complete it is important to visualize the gathered information. Whether by way of infographic or plotted on an axis, visually representing the journey makes it easy to see where the journey can be improved. For the sake of creating empathy with the community and succeeding in creating a better user experience, vwe created a set of personas to identify the users’ goals, motivations and how they interact with Quirky. This in turn gave us a better understanding of the motivation and element of dissatisfaction which was key to uncovering peoples’ experiences and needs. We then created journey maps for every persona identified. These maps are a representation, in a flowchart or other graphic format, of customer’s experience as he or she interacts with your company in receive its product or service. These maps are used to depict the customer’s actual or ideal journey.
We learned F
rom our pilot research and analysis of more than 20 journey maps, we clustered the most important insights. We identified 3 main insights: community, usability and insights relative to the inventors. Community became a chief focus because we believe that it is at the heart and soul of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing plainly can’t exist without a passionate community. Essential to obtaining a passionate community is the mode used to foster an empowered community. By doing this we can build a solid base to springboard off to the next level. The community is what Quirky is the sole purpose and at the heart of the company, it is the only way to success and we want the opportunity to make it stronger, bigger and more powerful. The other focus is usability, as we are deeply aware of the importance of communication and believe that to engage the users we need to make the experience more interesting, challenging and inspiring. To achieve that, we would like to explore concepts and solutions that meld the social, local and mobile sectors, incorporate gamification, and set values and instill commitment. We would like to creative an intuitive and powerful experience that will increase not only the customer segment but also the retention rate. Finally, the inventors who are vital not only to the community but also the sustainability of the business model. Such central community members deserve extra attention, as it is at the core of the innovation process. These members desire more transparency and clarity throughout the crowdsourcing journey, and would also like strong trust and faith surrounding their experiences.
COMMUNITY
USABILITY
INVENTORS
Encourage community engagement
Experiment with gamification
Enable more community engagement in the invention process
Make the community feel important
User interface should be beautiful and intuitive
Follow up with community and inventors
Synthesize information in visual guides
Consider decision fatigue especially when influencing
Newcomers still struggle to understand the site
Measure community engagement and use data for predictions
New platform should reflect company’s culture and values
More transparency about how the ideas are being used
More intuitive invention submission process
Confusion about collaboration style and usage
Wariness about ideas security
New platform needs to be more user friendly for inventors
With the desire to promote and elevate the community, usability, and the skilled inventors experience, the cohort continued the iterative design thinking process.
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journey map insights Perception of Quirky’s site
Opportunity to express ideas
Decides to submit inventions
Looks for information on how to submit ideas
Interacts with community for tips on submitting ideas
HIGH
Goes through the invention submission process
Presents entire invention process through the site
Believes in Quirky’s core concept of crowd invention
Influences other inventions
Decides to submit another invention
LOW
T
he main purpose of a journey map is to tell the story of the user’s experience with a focal point. Such a map starts with the initial touchpoint, and goes throughout the duration of the relationship. Whether the focus is on the beginning or the end of the experience, getting a feel for what customers are experiencing is key to understanding their feelings, motivations, and needs. Once the interviews, surveys, and shadowing of the customers is complete, it is important to visualize the gathered information. Whether by way of infographic media or simple plotting on an axis, visually representing the journey makes it easier to see where the journey can be improved.
By defining themes and insights, we’ve identified problem areas that pose challenges to Quirky. We now want to rephrase the insight statements to “How Might We?” questions to turn those challenges into design opportunities. A properly framed “How Might We?” doesn’t suggest a particular solution, but rather gives you the perfect frame for innovative thinking. The HMW is the perfect design thinking tool to identify opportunities and start innovative conversations.
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Big 10 changes Of Quirky 2.0
the Quirky 2.0 1 Transition O
n February 28, 2015, Quirky announced their new and improved invention platform, “Quirky 2.0.” The new platform incorporates many new aspects to Quirky’s business model while maintaining their mission to make invention accessible. During the Town Hall meeting Quirky revealed the many challenges and limitations that come with trying to develop products in an unlimited numbers of product categories. Quirky introduced “Powered by Quirky” (or PbQ) which will allow consumer product brands to leverage the Quirky platform for product ideation and development. Quirky explained that they will continue to privately develop connected home, connected appliances, and various consumer electronic under the banner of “Quirky Own.” It was announced that Quirky 2.0 would also revamp their current invention idea submission and development process. They intend to do this by increasing the standard submission guidelines which consists of requiring more professional guidelines to be met. Quirky is now simultaneously opening up meeting those guidelines to the general community and allowing the inventor to determine collaborator compensation, with the hopes of developing a more professional and participatory platform. These are necessary changes that need to take place for Quirky to thrive as an online community invention company. Since Quirky’s new business model was announced at the initial phase of our project, the cohort pivoted to the research and design thinking process to adjust to the changes and to better understand where Quirky 2.0 would like to go and how it will influence the existing system. We interviewed with the Quirky employees and researched new opportunities to test our assumptions and presumptions about the Quirky 2.0 transformation. By pivoting, we further refined our ideas about how we might acquire leading positions and competitive edges in crowdsourcing platforms.
3 5 7 9
Close e-commerce and focus solely on the invention platform: “We are going to sunset e-commerce. Why? We want to focus on being a community invention company and platform, not a retailer. Quirky’s product pages will link to our trusted retail partners.”
2 4 6 8 10
Improved invention process transparency: Users have more control over inventions. More clarity into the state and future of ideas in Quirky’s pipeline. Officially open an invention space for kids: Kids will be able to invent on Quirky 2.0.
Eliminate the internal step of recognizing similar submissions: We are no longer searching the archives for “similar submissions.” Reorganization for PbQ: Internal changes to the Quirky team in order to reposition for PbQ.
No more referral payment: Since we won’t be selling products through Quirky.com, it doesn’t make sense to have a refer-afriend program anymore. Focus on developing the best idea, not more ideas: Will not force 3 virtual launches per week. Now only when the inventions are ready.
Change of the cash withdrawal limit on payouts from $75 to $50. Expand idea creation channels from community to staffs and corporate partners: Removing the requirement that every product has to start with a community idea member outside of the Quirky team. New Payout Structure with PBQ launching: “We’re changing the payout structure. Why? Because PbQ partners will drive a lot more volume than Quirky does. And in the end, this means more money for you.”
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discovery A
ter thorough exploration of the inquiry section, a massive pivot by Quirky, the forward thinking began in the discovery phase. This stage is for creative and generative discussions around ideas and new concepts. It aims to surpass simple expressions of new possibilities and to build out robust ideas. Leveraging what we had learned about the industry and Quirky, we blue-sky ideated without limitations. While this time may be scary or disorienting at first continuing to remember to treat all ideas equally can lead to incredible breakthroughs. During the discovery stage, we turned to the help and guidance of Zuzanna Skalska’s workshop on trend mapping. We explored what things might make a crowdsourcing community desirable and what might inspire more people to become involved. We then used these findings to dig deeper into society, politics, economy, technology, and environmental trends to build out trend matrices to visualize our predictions. This was a powerful workshop that allowed us to not only to identify the trends that impact crowdsourcing in general but also how they might specifically affect Quirky. We believe that in order to design impactful solutions within the space, we absolutely need to understand where we are heading and anticipate eventual changes or disruption.
BLUE SKY IDEATION
Brainstroming
Concept Development
Source 3 : SDM Design + Management Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 43
workshop with Zuzanna Skalska O
On March 5th, Parsons happily welcomed Zuzanna Skalska into our studio space for an in depth workshop on ‘Designing Thoughts’ and future trends. The workshop provided valuable insights and tips needed to provide strategic advice for future sustainable businesses. Zuzanna gave a brilliant lecture on trends and how to conduct trend research in teams. She spoke about where the design industry and creative businesses are headed and how we can take a more human-centered approach in their application. During the first half of the workshop, Zuzanna gave an in-depth lecture on trends and how to do trend research. She talked about how the design industry and creative businesses are going towards a more human-centered approach. After the lecture, we had the chance to participate in an interesting workshop which consisted of hands-on activities. The class was asked to imagine that we were in 2025 and had to create a trend analysis within economic and technological scenarios. This activity pushed everyone to think outside of the box. This workshop gave us some valuable insights on how to connect the past with the present to be able to predict the future. This included analyzing new economies and their effect on social and business environments. The key take away from Zuzanna’s workshop was the importance of being in the know. Always being aware of the world and constantly updating yourself on current events in all industries. This is the key to being able to put together the pieces of future trends. As strategic designers, it is our duty to understand and to be aware of current changes in society, including politics, economy, and technology. Being constantly aware of current and past events in these sectors are the key components to master trend analysis. In her concluding comments, Zuzanna explained why the capitalist economy is heading towards a ‘scandinavism’ economy and why that sort of sharing, networked economy is both the silver lining of today’s wicked problems and the hope for the future. Images Source 3 : SDM Design + Management Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 45
DISCOVERING //blue Sky ideation Crowdsourcing and crowdfunding are known to have some wild cards. It is important to see what campaigns and products are capturing the general public’s attention. Analyzing the outliers not only gives us inspiration but also allows us to see the bigger picture, especially when it comes to consumers’ behavior. In this stage we use a method called Franken Ideation. It is a process which involves taking big and outlandish concepts and strapping them together. Thus allowing us to marry opposing concepts together, opening our minds to possible innovation. We learn that stepping out of our comfort zones and approaching a problem from a different perspective or angle, leads to better solutions.
” ”“
Creativity is intelligence having fun. Source: Albert EinStein
The Blue sky ideation
D
iving deep into the trends and the future, ignited a new vision and triggered our ideating process. By combining our insights and our new vision of the world, we constructed a new concept for Quirky to embody: Quirkyland. Defining a deeper community identity by converting the platform into a new country with its own characteristics could further motivate members. The community would take charge of defining the core values of the country (the constitution) and members might have some sort of passport as a citizen. The passport would allow access not only to the digital platform but also to events and other manifestations. Having this virtual identity would create a stronger and more dedicated community. Moreover, it will give the community more visibility and weight and thus shift Quirky’s identity and image to focus more on the community. In Quirkyland, members believe in the power of co-creation and innovation and their mission is to spread the movement to every maker and non-maker around the world, moving millions to solve problems in a creative and empathetic way. By connecting the community globally Quirky would aim to make the voice of the community heard. A total immersion into Quirkyland would create trust, empowerment, loyalty, and it would foster high levels of creative collaboration.
Brainstorming New Concepts
A
s we adopted the “going wide” approach, it is imperative to define what is at the core of Quirky. We decided to brainstorm ways to enhance the community and what shape the community should take. As several ideas and strategies began to develop we felt this would help support our ideal image of Quirky and enable the materialization of such an identity as Quirkyland.
By defining themes and insights, we’ve identified problem areas that pose challenges for Quirky. We now want to reframe the insight statements as “How Might We?” questions to turn those challenges into opportunities for design. A properly framed “How Might We?” doesn’t suggest a particular solution, but gives you the perfect frame for innovative thinking.
”
Several strategies that we have identified and wanted to focus on were, The Solomo Strategy, Gamification Strategy, SAPS and Partnerships. These strategies pertain to the what we believe to be the most important areas of Quirky as well as the ones with most opportunity. As we adapt the “going wide” approach, it is imperative to define what is it at the core of Quirky.
Every problem is an opportunity for design. By framing your challenge as a How Might We question, you’ll set yourself up for an innovative solution. Source: IDEO.ORG
The Vision Quirky, a destination to share ideas and reinvent the world
The Mission Statement Is to empower global and local communities of inventors and creative enthusiasts fostering a culture of collective ambition and collaboration through invention.
The Company Core Values To achieve a level of full-assimilation into the community member’s lives we envision a SoLoMo strategy. Solomo strategy blends the physical world with the online, creating a holistic approach.
Source: IDEO.ORG
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Quirkyland
Defining a deeper community identity by converting the platform into a new country with its own characteristics. The community consists of its population and leaders. Quirky team are the administrators / facilitators. Quirky Constitution - values, rules, policies and best practices Quirky Passport - allows the community to travel between platforms. A virtual identity will create a stronger and more dedicated community.
Create a New Community Identity Defining a deeper community identity by converting the platform into a new country with its own characteristics. The community would be first in charge of defining the core values of the country (the constitution). Quirky’s members would have a passport as a citizen. The passport would allow access to the digital platform but also to events and other manifestations. Having a virtual identity would create a stronger and more dedicated community. Moreover, it will give the community more visibility and weight and thus shift quirky’s iden-
tity/image to focus more on the community. In Quirkyland, members believe in the power of co-creation and innovation and their mission is to spread the movement to every maker and anyone interested in solving problems in a creative and empathetic way. By connecting the community globally Quirky will aim to make the community’s voice heard and by acting locally, their designs impactful. A total immersion into Quirkyland would create trust, empowerment, loyalty, and fosters extremely creative collaboration. Images Source passport photo: getty images Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 49
Solomo Strategy: Social, Local, Mobile What is SoLoMo?
T
he solomo strategy establishes a cohesive integration of the social, local, and mobile worlds by blurring the lines between the online and offline space. By implementing the SoLoMo strategy, Quirky would be better able to effectively target their desired community members and inventors by providing the right message at the right time and place. Marketing the brand on all three fronts does many things simultaneously. With SoLoMo, Quirky’s potential community members move between social, local and mobile marketing environments seamlessly. Allowing community members to check-in at Quirky, gain a voucher for a later purchase, share a picture of products in action, update their statuses with invention/influence notifications and to export ideas/products they love, gives members more freedom and power over the experience. Linking these environments, and incentivizing interaction on each equally, is the growth hacking tool that will start an indie-marketing chain reaction.
Community members can find you anywhere in the world, on any device
Social Crowdsourcing is not something that can just take place on a website. It is an interactive concept that requires the engagement of creative people from all over the world. The community is at the core of its business. Approximately 74% of all internet users are now using social media to connect and stay in touch with one another. That number is growing exponentially every year. We wanted to identify opportunities within the social industry, whether online or offline. People are driven by the interaction that happens on social media and desire to share things about their lives. How might we incorporate social media and real life events in order to engage the community members and allow them to connect, share and interact with each other.
Local We have identified that more and more people are focusing on their immediate communities. Local events forge stronger bonds between community members and serve as the educational outreach for companies. Crowdsourcing has to grow locally as well to create and foster enthusiasm. We not only envision local events but also local challenges where people can impact their own environment and communities by solving problems in their neighborhoods.. Within the local outreach, we would include networking events organized by community members, as well as educational workshops that would enhance various inventor skills. Makerspaces and co-working spaces would also be a part of the local partnerships. To take a national approach to local engagement, a maker bus will travel from different cities in the United States providing marketing for Quirky as well as engaged local communities.
DISCOVERING //Blue Sky Ideation Potato Salad Kickstartr by Zack Brown
A kickstarter community member wanted to make a potato salad, so he created a $10 dollar campaign asking people to donate to his causve. By the end of his campaign he has raised $55,482 and was backed by 6,911 people along with getting national press coverage. On average, a person contributed $8.
Mobile Reaching community members where they are is vital to providing an adequate user experience. Today, community members are more likely to frequently engage on devices other than a computer. Allowing members the option of engagement on a mobile app is key to growth, engagement, and the overall mission of improving accessibility. The mobile app would aim to provide convenience and accessibility to anyone interested in sharing their creativity. The ability to innovate, invent, and influence should be at heart of the mobile app. Only when the user experience becomes the focal point of the app, can the possibilities become infinite. Integrating a mobile component to Quirky’s strategy is imperative to truly living out their tagline, “Making Invention Accessible.”
Source:kickstartEr
Grilled Cheesus Kickstartr
Grilled Cheesus is a toaster that burns a face of Jesus on the bread. The campaign only exceeded its goal by $604 raising a total of $25,604 with 286 backers. On average people contributed $89 per toaster. Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 51
DISCOVERING //Blue Sky Ideation Ostrich Pillow Kickstartr
A pillow that allows a person to hide their face in a pillow to take naps in the office or when traveling. The campaign more than doubled its $70,000 goal, raising $195,094 with 1,846 backers. That’s on average a $105 per pillow.
3-D Printing Quirky purchases Showrooms where users can interact, discover and fall in love with Quirky’s product offering. QR codes that allow customer to purchase any product’s engineering plans and order a physical copy to be picked up from a nearby 3D printing shop. These are a few of the many features of the highly interactive showrooms we propose as true embodiment of Quirky’s future vision: offering IP and making the production of the physical product a simple step in a quick and streamlined process.
Quirky Touring MakerBus Source:kickstartr
Accurate Measurement of Creativity
A mason jar pencil sharpener, so a person can see how much creative output he makes based on the pencil shred. The project raised $12,950 and had only 381 backers. Thats on average a $33 dollar “accurate measurement of creativity” tool.
Highly interactive, dynamic, original and innovative. Such is our vision for the Busmaker touring buses that offer makers a chance to hop on and embark on a unique experience where they discover products, participate in the creative process and discuss with other makers and inventors. These mediatized and highly anticipated tours would offer inventors and makers the chance to discover Quirky and its offerings, but also for Quirky to expand its network of contributing members and further energize its community.
Source:image based off http://www.flyingobjects.hu/hu/munkaink/mbivy/
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Gamification Strategy T
he community is crucial to the crowdsourcing business model and is the single biggest asset to the company. We need to make the community a priority and to design around them and for them. Gamifying the online space for Quirky would entice the mental and emotional elements of users and thus creating higher engagement. Integrating gamification into a company’s business model is one of the most effective tools when it comes to community engagement and retention. Vendors claim that gamification strategies can lead to a 100% to 150% increase in engagement metrics. SAP, a German crowdsourcing community network that re-gamified it’s already mature reputation system, increased their usage by 400% and its community feedback by 96%. Since we aim to focus on improving the UX, by implementing these gamification techniques, we aspire to:
1 2 3 4
To create engagement of a whole new level for users by stimulating them on a deeper level.
The desire to participate goes up when there are clear goals in mind and when the user enjoys the experience and feels challenged.
Users are more happy with the community because of the shared goals and mutual understanding of motives, by keeping the community motivated and surprised you keep them satisfied.
The overall performance of the community improves because a clear direction is set and users are driven to do their best.
Gamification: SAPS HUman Motivators
s
tatus
Reputation points are qualitative measures of credibility and respect between community users. Reputation points are handed by users to one another for their contribution on projects and inventions. They enable members to see at a glance who is a valuable member within the community. This ensures a natural hierarchy within the community: users who have been active longer and have made good contributions, eventually develop a good reputation for themselves. This will also be beneficial for the inventors who are looking to forge new partnerships. 4 Create specific badges to show the area of expertise of each community member. Ex: Community members who have a big influence in the design area will win a badge that matches that area of expertise. 4Inventors whose ideas are often selected can win a specific title “invention master”; recognition the community can vote to select the inventor and influencer of the year 4Adapt the design of user names and icons based on community rank. - Show user titles, icons and badges in user profiles.
p
ower
Give power to members over the aspects of the community, content, and influence. 4Create a leaderboard: a digital board to rank influencers based on a point system. The 3 most important influencers will get double influence (their vote counts double) 4Every 3 months, the platform can partner with a charity organization or an social organization and launch social impact challenges. The winner will receive a symbolic price from the organization.
a
ccess
Granting access to users who invent, influence, provide feedback and collaborate can incentivise a higher level of engagement on the platform. Create a point system within the community. Members can collect points to win “Premium Access” to special Quirky content, events, early product releases, etc. Example 3000 points: be part of the panel in the evals 4000 points: a private tour of the offices 5000 points: be able to participate in the prototyping phase of a product 6000 points: Having Ben cook lunch for the winner of a challenge.
s
tuff
4For those motivated by physical goods and prizes. Giving small or large gifts to high volume inventors, influencers, collaborators, and problem solving. 4 Give winning community members brand merchandise to promote and help with brand awareness 4 Win customized products with member logo 4Reward the inventor of the year with 3-D printed products 4Partner with software companies such as adobe to provide discounts inventor materials 4 In order to encourage more members to submit ideas, send out “creativity boxes” to selected influencers. These boxes contain what an inventor needs in order to submit an idea (sketching pad, pens, supplies, a small guide to stimulate creativity).
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key partnerships
where products can be displayed and manufactured. If a customer likes a product, they can purchase the design by scanning a QR code, visiting a Quirky store or have it materialized through partnership with 3-D printing shops. The aim would also to be part of the co-working and makerspace in order to nurture the values of co-creation and providing a physical space for Quirky inventors to work.
Non-Profit and Government: Working with nonprofit organizations and charities opens Quirky up to a higher level of engagement by rallying the members around meaningful and impactful challenges. The community would collaborate to solve problems worldwide and create a better world through creative innovations. The same would be achieved with local government contracts where members draw inspiration from their everyday observations and will have the opportunity to enhance their environment through impactful projects.
Production Big Business A
llowing the crowdsourcing company to focus on fostering community, providing an exceptional experience and enticing skilled users, means letting another entity handle aspects of the business. We believe that Quirky should focus on what it does best: making invention accessible. By selecting strategic partners, they can lean on the partner’s assets and logistics, and move their focus back in-house processes and its community.
Big Businesses: Big companies: Quirky would partner with selected companies like GE and Amazon to take advantage of their manufacturing, distribution, marketing power and brand recognition.
Non profit & government Social Media Platform: Quirky will also work with important social media communities and leverage their network and visibility. In order to achieve this, Quirky would need to select key social media platforms depending on the purpose of the campaign (Linkedin for attracting and promoting skilled members, Facebook to advertise events or challenges, etc). We believe that these companies will provide the small push that Quirky needs to be a major innovation platform.
Production: When it comes to production, we envision creating 3-D showrooms and pop up stores
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workshop with quirky W
orkshops are used within the design thinking process to facilitate collaborative brainstorming. It is used to gain insights from a group or client. We were fortunate enough to conduct our workshop with the Quirky team at their headquarters. Each perspective group gathered a bulk of their research onto a poster, making for an easy jump off point for those not present at the midway presentation. Due to the limited time Quirky team members had to give, we conducted two workshops back to back, with the second round building on the first section’s ideation. We had several sessions of independent ideation as well as group ideation. Mixing different formats of thinking, brainstorming and ideation opened the team to more collaborative and holistic approaches and a better result. The main goal of the workshop was to test and co-create budding ideas from the inquiry and discovery phases with Quirky’s. As a result of this workshop we were able to identify some specific areas of interest for the Quirky team which were carried on to the concept development phase. To get the ideation started we provided a collection of generative questions, titled “How Might We” (HMW). This is serves as a springboard towards innovative ideas during ideation and brainstorming sessions. These questions enabled us to take a macroscopic look at potential solutions while maintaining our focus.
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How might we incorporate Gamification?
How might we better engage the community?
How might we build on future trends?
How might we be Accessible on Any Device?
How might we foster creative for trust & loyalty?
How might we Connect with our community offline?
how might we support knowledge exchange?
how might we entice skilled inventors?
Workshop Insights Role of the Mobile App: The mobile app should not
Quirky Mobile App
simply be a smaller version of the website but rather a complement to it. We gathered that the mobile app should be centered around the user and the community -- it should help foster community engagement and trust. The hope is that with an effective and engaging application, later implementation of the SoLoMo strategy and melding of the online and physical experience for community members. Quirky should aim to become more than an innovation platform and to be more integrated into the daily lives of every curious, creative person possible.
UX and UI: The app should be simple, intuitive and fun. We considered features like tinder-like swiping, videos, live streaming, and pictures. The mobile app should be appealing and interesting without being overloaded. Unbundling the app for features like chat or kids may also be an option to save general users from getting overloaded. Gamification has also proven to be extremely effective when it comes to engaging users, therefore the mobile platform should integrate gamification into its mechanics.
Push Notifications:
Users often enjoy push notifications as reminders to engage with chosen businesses. Without overwhelming the users, push notifications could be used to enable better participate in the invention process (by notifying the inventors of any progress in their submissions), and for profile/interest match within the community (team up with the a member that has a skill that another member is looking for). Geo-localization to notify people about Quirky’s events, pop-up stores, meet-ups or other members near by, was also a popular idea with the Quirky team.
T
he poster provided an overview of the mobile application space by providing a mobile usage landscape and identifying the main features that made some apps very successful. We then examined the main drivers of discontent as well as the expectations of actual Quirky members.
Future Trends
Workshop Insights Social media: With the growth of the social media as an industry, Quirky has the opportunity to enhance its presence by tapping into a market with a massive amount of users and potential community members. The use of Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have revolutionized the way users keep up-to-date and in contact with the companies they love. Utilizing these existing platforms which already have immense user bases is a completely logical and proven way to enhance a company’s presence and brand interaction with its users. Quirky could post events, new products, questions, challenges, new marketing techniques and much more through these avenues and gain another foothold in the tech space.
Skill Sharing: In order to help community members develop
I
n order to understand potential future opportunities for Quirky we designed a poster visualizing the current competitor landscape and how or where Quirky might excel. We asked workshoppers to ideate what future trends they believe will be and how Quirky might take use them to gain a competitive edge. The major subjects provided were Growth and Expansion, Fair Deals and Social Media. We also brainstormed around how might Quirky appeal to government and non-profit organizations.
their skills the group suggested a shared creation process between inventors and influencers. This skill-sharing concept would allow community members to post their finalized ideas as well as posting unresolved problems on the same platform. By doing this, the invention process will not be limited only skilled individuals. Through skill sharing, members may find people will complementary skills, enabling millions more to create and collaborate on Quirky.
Partnerships: A major opportunity identified by the future trend group was the potential for engaging governments and non-profit companies into the invention platform. How might we get bait skilled inventors to invent and design -- what about for a greater purpose? Instead of just designing products and gadgets, the community could be used to solve real world problems. By developing the community network into an online global community, inventors and creatives from all over the world would be able to share skills, collaborate on ideas and connect through the platform.
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Workshop Insights Providing transparency through marketing to establish trust and loyalty within a community and its customers is important to the integrity and authenticity of a brand. We found a few key areas where Quirky could do things differently.
Trust and Loyalty
Transparency:
Attempting to be more transparent revolves heavily around communication. Activities such as behind the scenes videos, taking evals on the road to different locations, and sharing the internal processes and functions of the company through social media will enhance the trust and brand loyalty by allowing the user access to the bulk of what Quirky does as a company. Quirky could benefit from emphasizing their mission and values to the public. By practicing what they preach, Quirky might inspire a more loyal community of people who sharing the same vision.
Community interaction: Another way to help Quirky gain trust and loyalty is to cultivate more interaction within the community. We believe that in order to establish more interaction from Quirky to the Community and vice versa critical actions must take place. Actions such as developing more personal customer service (ie: instant messaging on website, contacting people who gave negative reviews, and perhaps asking what they didn’t like and why), having workshops and tours held at Quirky offices so the in-house team can interact with and mentor inventors and influencers. In addition to enhanced interaction between Quirky and its community, there needs to be enhanced interaction between individual community members. Quirky can potentially host meetups and workshops where members can come to collaborate, adding a messaging feature to their interfaces in order for community members to contact one another, and to have better descriptions and skills within the community members profiles displayed, so that members can see/seek out the right people to collaborate with.
For the workshop the Trust and Loyalty team provided workshoppers with personas and journey maps based on live interviews and surveys distributed to Quirky community members representing 3 different users: shoppers, influencers and inventors. We provided personal insights and comments made by the interviewees and a basic manual on how to create trust in a brand. We then asked the workshoppers to ideate around how Quirky might create trust and transparency within the brand.
take away from workshops A
fter hosting an insightful, successful, and inspiring workshop, the team captured the session on video, post-its and notes for later ideation. The later reflective sessions revealed Quirky’s need to develop an app, build out a social media strategy and decide what their methods of attracting new skilled community members will be. These three factors were seen as paramount because of how heavily Quirky’s business model relies on the continued growth and improvement of invention and collaboration on its platform. The team used the ideas generated during the workshop as a starting point for building out prototypes. Gathering feedback on the insights and new concept assumptions we had been developing is important as it can provide Quirky with the confirmation it needs on the ideas appreciated during the workshop. After a group prioritization meeting where we mapped the insights on a value and feasibility axis, we narrowed the new concepts into four groups: trust and loyalty, future trends, network and a mobile app.
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PROTOTYPE & TESTING W
ith an overflow of ideas and research, we divided the insights into trust and loyalty, future trends, network, and the mobile app. We diversified the teams and launched off the midway workshopping into building tangible prototypes. Quirky being the visionary brand that it is, is the reason we felt the more interesting, wild, and unconventional prototypes would provide the utmost useful insights.
Assumption Testing
Rapid Prototyping
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Our Prototypes
Prototyping A
fter synthesizing new concepts and ideas, our prototype research, and workshops we set out to identify which ideas would be better suited for further iterations. This stage aims to reduce the risk of the marketability of the concepts proposed, understand what might not work early on, and maximize the probability of the success. This is done by synthesizing the insights from the ideas gathered, filtering down the most promising ideas, testing each aspect in regards to it’s relevance, and refining the ideas based on feedback.
We used two methods to determine which of these possibilities in each of the four groups we should move forward with. Firstly, we used our findings from our research in the inquiry phase to test whether our ideas might work in the marketplace. Secondly, we conducted rapid prototypes of the ideas we had narrowed down, such as sketches to help visualise the concepts and determining if they were viable. Call it serendipity or even luck, but once you start drawing and making things, you open up new possibilities of discovery. It’s easy to reject a dry
Each group ideated around key insights and developed ideas further Following the class-led workshop at Quirky we synthesised and narrowed down our key insights for each area; network, trust and loyalty, app, and future trends. Each group ideated around the respective key insights and developed the ideas further. The groups looked for suggestions that would bring customer value while also offering potential profitability for Quirky.
report or a flat drawing. But models often surprise, making it easier to change your mind and accept new ideas or make hard choices, such as forgoing costly and complex features.
01 Trust & loyalty
After brainstorming and prioritizing ideas, we reworked Quirky’s entire invention funnel and created a new “Collaborative Creation Funnel” which involves three main ideas – an additional step at the beginning of the problem solving process, offline meetups, and partnership with an adjacent industry or community. The envisioned scenario aimed to help to improve the breadth and depth of community engagement and to further build the presence of the Quirky community outside of the digital platform.
02 Network
In an attempt to better understand how trust and loyalty can be developed in an online environment we piloted a trust-building exercise called the “minefield team building activity.” In addition to this we conducted semi-formal interviews with Quirky employees, Community members, and the general public. These interviews consisted of several storyboards outlining scenarios into Quirky to obtain feedback about their perception of Quirky as a brand. Research showed that the use of social media platforms to increase community involvement is vital to enhance trust and loyalty.
03 Mobile App
Prototyping a mobile app that will be social, can attract more users allowing them to engage the community in a fun and easy way. The aim of this app is to make Quirky part of the everyday life of their users and interact with them constantly.
04 Future Vision
Our future vision consisted of prototyping an ideal future where Quirky replaced the UN, and inventors took on a global country to solve real problems. Quirky could potentially take on the role of a superhero. Inventors travel city to city in order to solve local community problems. The company would serve as a broker between people/ companies with needs/unresolved issues and the inventor community. Quirky’s annual awards are given to best CSR inventions and disruptive inventions.
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Assess // Engage T
he final phase of the strategic design process is taking everything built out in the rapid prototyping phase and testing it in the real world. Making sure to come out of the lab; getting real feedback from potential users is key for continued development of viable concepts. Getting in front of them quickly, and showing them multiple low fidelity options, is better than presenting a useless final masterpiece. As the authors of Designing for Growth would put it, this stage represents the “key difference between invention and innovation.� Invention only goes so far. The innovation takes place when real customers begin to shape the product.
Customer Co-creating
learning Launch
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trust & Loyalty We believe trust and loyalty is a key element in the building of long-term relationships between successful companies and their communities. Based on the correlation between the two, the main pillars of trust and loyalty we identified consist of respect, transparency, engagement, inclusion, authenticity, and empathy. We looked at some examples from countries like Sweden to online platforms such as Grabcad and online companies such as Zappos to see how they maintain community involvement based on trust and loyalty. After careful examination of a wide range of successful communities from countries such as Sweden, online companies like Zappos, to online platforms such as Grabcad, we were able to examine how these three communities maintain community involvement based on trust and loyalty.
Sweden is a country that demonstrates empathy, transparency and inclusion. According to The Economist Sweden has been ranked as one of the top five most comfortable places to live. The government fosters empathy with 480 days of parental leave for each child, as well as 80% of a salary so that the parents have time to bond with their children, believing that happy kids help to create a better country. Sweden also ranks among the top countries in the world in transparency resulting in low levels of corruption. The Swedish media is also known to have the most authentic and transparent news reports, as they are not susceptible to information control by governments or outside agencies. According to the Global Gender Gap Report in 2013, Sweden was named as the world leader in equality, because of this women have been able to thrive in Sweden. Because of this, women in Sweden make up 45% in parliament and 64% of managers. This is a great example of inclusion within the community.
STRONG LEADER THAT SUPPORTS THEIR TEAM
INCLUSION
CONSISTENCY
RESPECT
CLARITY
TRANSPARENCY
AUTHENTICITY
EMPATHY
TRUST & LOYALTY Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com built a culture for an online shoe retail company when many said it was not possible because of the complexity of selling shoes online. Tony Hsieh’s obsession with putting the needs of the customer first was able to build empathy by fostering a culture of trust in a chaotic environment. By facilitating open and honest communication between Zappos employees and customers, he was able to build lasting and trusting relationships which resulted in Zappos being a multi-billion dollar company. To create a more engaging environment between customers and employees, Zappos blog feature an inside look at different employees each month, such as snapshots of his/her life. By creating an online environment where purchasing product online feels safe and secure reduces uncertainty and risk. Zappos is able to do this through simplifying its buying process. Zappos believes that the most difficult thing to do is build trust, once you build it everything else is so much easier.
GrabCad a premiere online open innovation platform, is the world’s largest community for mechanical engineers. GrabCad is leading the Open Engineering movement helping the engineers get products to market faster by connecting people, content, and technology. By showing the process of creating their products, Grabcad fosters a culture of transparency. Community members are able to view product rankings and professional portfolio of other engineers. This level of collaboration is a critical component which enables engagement and nurture trust that has resulted in partnerships with GE, Pebble, Tiffany & Co. Miselu, and Patterson Medical. Through the posting of design challenges on a weekly basis, GrabCad ensures relevance and consistency, it provides the community with design challenges that transforms their cognitive surplus into tangible products. The successful completion of these challenges is extremely
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useful in forging new strategic alliances with companies looking to externalize research and development. After examining our research, we have analyzed what Quirky is currently doing to build trust and loyalty. By hosting events to encourage offline communication and engagement, Quirky provides meetups, open houses and weekly evals nights where both the employees and community members come together to vote for future inventions and inventors. Quirky openly discloses annual reports through their town hall meetings which can be found on the Quirky website. By providing schools with a invention-focused curriculum for grades K-12, Quirky is forging new relationships and levels of engagement with the community. In an attempt to better understand how trust and loyalty can be developed in an online environment we piloted a trust-building exercise called the “Minefield team building activity.” This scenario clearly demonstrated the importance of empathy and mirroring. We placed cups along the floor to simulate a minefield. Once the minefield is set up, the players are divided into pairs. In each pair, one person was blindfolded and was not allowed to see or talk. The other person was allowed to see and talk but was restricted from touching the other person or entering the minefield. Some of the results from the trust building exercise included anxiety in trusting others abilities to properly deliver the instructions and they tended to question the judgement of
the other member. The blindfolded members felt a need for clarity, specificity, and consistency in the directions that were given by the other member. They found that in person contact was a much easier form of communication as the member giving direction was able to pick up on the tone and anxiety of the other. The partner that was giving directions seemed to be very empathetic with the blindfolded member as a result of anxiety, hesitance, and lack of vision. As a result of this, the member giving direction tended to mirror the blindfolded member to help them get through the cups without knocking it over. Through our research, analysis, and team building activities we have deduced seven pillars for trust and loyalty: engagement, respect, empathy, transparency, inclusion, authenticity and consistency. Given that Quirky is an online community invention company centered on making invention accessible, creating an environment centered on the pillars of trust and loyalty are necessary in order to survive and thrive. After analyzing Quirky’s online presence, and future trends for social media platforms, research showed that the use of social media platforms to increase community involvement is vital to enhance trust and loyalty. Approximately 41% of Youtube users in the U.S are between the ages of 18-24 and there is over 1 billion active users on Youtube. Therefore, there is an opportunity in social media and video as being a stable channel to convey and connect with the community.
Therefore, we propose a Youtube channel which portrays a variety of videos which can help enhance trust and loyalty among the community by creating a more transparent, consistent,inclusive, empathetic, and authentic brand identity, where users will be able to see video documentaries of inventors through their journeys, pain points, and process. The Youtube channel will also create an excellent space for community members to understand who Quirky is.
Story, CSR Challenge, and Just Being Quirky.
Currently and in the near future Youtube is and will continue to be an acceptable medium to communicate the essential seven pillars of trust and loyalty. We have identified three different categories which are poised to deliver the most impact and create value for Quirky, they are: The Inventors
After testing and feedback we determined that our first phase will focus on telling the inventor’s story. With the current changes in the Quirky evaluation process, this scenario best communicates the seven pillars.
To test the validity of these categories we conducted semiformal interviews with Quirky employees, Community members, and the general public. These interviews consisted of several storyboards outlining scenarios centered on providing an in-depth look into the journey of an inventor, CSR challenge, and a behind the scenes look into Quirky.
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Network
F
rom the initial research to our workshops we came across a number of ideas or concepts showing promise in further creating value for Quirky. After making some tough decisions on which insights were valuable during a class brainstorming and idea prioritization mapping session, we looked heavily into Quirky’s process as a whole and created a new scenario named “Collaborative Creation Funnel.” This process involves three main ideas, including; an additional step at the beginning of the problem solving process, offline meetups, and partnerships with adjacent industries or communities. This hypothesized scenario seeks to help improve the breadth and depth of Quirky’s community engagement and further cultivate Quirky’s presence community beyond the digital platform. To transform this hypothesized scenario generated in previous stages into a testable model we built prototypes using three main methods.
and social media platforms, with the hopes of attaining authentic, quantitative feedback of the attractiveness and vulnerability of this new scenario. After sending out the surveys, we gathered thirty-one responses over the course of a week.
Approximately 86% of those surveyed supported the idea of having community members upload problems they are experiencing, having the community vote for them and eventually turning them into challenges. The concept of adding various feedback techniques throughout the whole process to further encourage engagement was well received as well. The surveyor believed that using community feedback to help narrow down ideas would result in more community interaction. Those surveyed did suggest to lower the number of ‘likes’ required to turn a problem into a challenge and were also worried about how feedback might be delivered, especially negative The first method we used to prototype was a survey. feedback. As a result we developed a code of conduct The team attempted to create a visual manifestation for the feedback process to help clarify what is acceptable of the business scenario illustration to gather feedback and what can be reported. on. By creating a detailed visualization, we aimed to attract real users, spark imagination, and to understand The survey results also showed that 77% of the testers and validate the new scenario. The visual representation would be willing to engage in offline events, particularly was uploaded, along with the survey, to the Quirky in events related to education, conferences, in-person community facebook page and other crowdsourcing meetups, skill sharing, tour buses and pop-up stores.
Collaborative Creation funnel #
COMMUNITY SUGGEST PROBLEMS INTERNAL TAGGING
?!
? LIKE, COMMENT, DON’T UNDERSTAND, EXISTS ALREADY
# ?!
INTERNAL TAGGING
QUIRKY REVIEW & DEFINE CHALLENGE
COMMUNITY PITCH SOLUTIONS IDEAS DEVELOP
4Be
respectful 4Constructive not destructive 4Learning focused 4No profanity
COMMUNITY FEEDBACK ?!
?
USER SKILL SHARING SELF GENERATING COMMUNITY
SOLUTIONS SHARED
Code of Conduct
BOOSTS COMMUNITY INTERACTION FEEDBACK EVENTS
COMMUNITY FEEDBACK PROBLEM GETS 500+ LIKES
REACH OUT TO SCHOOLS
SOLUTION GETS 500+ LIKES
REACH OUT TO UNIVERSITIES COLLABORATIVE MEETUPS MAKER SPACE COLLABORATIONS SKILL SHARING EVENTS NETWORK EVENTS FEEDBACK EVENTS BOOSTS COMMUNITY INTERACTION SELF SUFFICIENT COMMUNITY
QUIRKY REVIEW & SELECT SOLUTION QUIRKY EVAL
HELD IN HOMETOWN OF USER WHO’S SOLUTION IS SELECTED
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From our results, convenience seemed to be a big factor to the people. We also asked for feedback on possible future partnerships for Quirky. The majority saw maker spaces and co-working spaces as most beneficial. Some considered educational institutions or other crowdsourcing communities such as Kickstartr. The overall opinion from our collaboration funnel was overwhelmingly positive, with over 80% thinking it was a “great idea”. Still many pointed out that the success of the funnel would rely on easy implementation and usage. One interviewee voiced concern on how to “filter out negative noise” and how to “reduce repeat submissions”. Negative noise would be addressed by our code of conduct. For repeat submissions we are looking into developing an internal tagging system. That way users would be able to tag their ideas as detailed as possible. Ideas with very similar tags could then be matched up through Quirky as another way to increase collaboration between members. Another problem raised was that in order for collaboration to be successful, “you need to know who you are working with”. This led us to the idea of introducing skill sharing between community members and the possibility of viewing other members’ profiles to judge whether their skill could be a good match for the project. Altogether our prototype proved to be very successful, with almost 80% believing that the extra community input
would make them more likely to submit a solution or problem and that the feedback system would make the whole process more appealing. The second method we used to prototype was interviewing different stakeholders. Our interview responses included Quirky community members, middle and high school teachers, students between the ages of 11-18, and professional community managers with successful experience in community building. This wide range of feedback helps us to accelerate the iteration process. The feedback from the wide range of stakeholders was very useful. The problem suggestion function was very well received, as this would allow children who might lack imaginative or creative skills to still be part of the community. The teachers also viewed the idea of increased feedback throughout the process as very beneficial. Both, children and teachers, thought that the offline engagement could have real potential, provided it was a safe environment and the children felt they would gain something from it. Although children are more involved in the online world, one teacher mentioned, that if children were to attend offline events, they could be more driven to contribute, as the setting might seem less informal. Teachers viewed this as a great opportunity in general, since it could improve the children’s skills, motivate them and could possibly help with future jobs.
The third method we used in our prototyping phase was to formulate a toolkit that serves as a facilitator to build and better engage in a community. We will implement this toolkit on an existing product or community so that
we can observe and measure its growth of community via monitoring the corresponding increase of numbers of feedback, posts, likes, followers and shares on social media.
GRowth Hacking Tool Kit
1) ‘Content is king’- Everything you post, collaborate on, share, and care about online goes towards your brand
recognition and prestige scores. Make sure content is tailored to the company or field, interesting and engaging (to draw people in) and use it as an opportunity to explain what you do and why people should care.
2) Easy shareable links - whether
through the use of Twitter or via email give people a reason to share. This could be through an interesting Twitter campaign or a promotional offer.
3) Get people to refer a friend - this will encourage word of mouth and help to build a community. It could be
done through a simple referral code to forward on to friends with the possibility of perks for doing it.
4) Using different social media channels to bring in new people - this could be facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or blogs. Facebook in particular is useful for notification pop ups and adverts, these can prevent posts being lost (something that can happen on Twitter) 5) Seek feedback wherever possible - this helps to gain greater support, if people feel involved in the process and allows you to identify what’s working and what’s not. If campaigns weren’t successful then ask why 6) Finally, use the above and stay active - Post to Twitter at least 5 times a day. If you can swing up to 20 posts, you might be even better off. Post to Facebook five to 10 times per week.
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Mobile App
P
rototyping a mobile app that will be social and would attract more users and engage the community in a fun and easy way. The app aims to make Quirky a part of the everyday life of the users and to interact with them constantly. We envisioned the mobile app as a tool to serve all the objectives that we set with the other buckets: a tool that will enable the community to connect, interact, share and to quench its thirst for creativity. In order to make the Quirky app experience as realistic as possible we used a prototyping and UI mockup tool. By creating a number of app frames we were
“I feel like this is a smart way to use my time and have fun!”
Prototype can be viewed at: http://invis.io/WZ2WP4A8X able to give testers a range of functions and visuals. We proposed a very neat design with sober colors that will be appealing to the targeted skilled community. We also focused on creating a simple and intuitive experience with great attention paid to the overall flow of information. The prototype is presented as a stream of social feeds where the user would be able to cycle through the latest inventions, problems and challenges just by swiping, access more detailed information and share seemingly these feeds on Social media. In order to identify and submit problems or challenges, the user would just take a photo or a video of the problem and share it through the app. The rest of the community would be able to not only vote on the problem but also to connect with the initiator and comment or share their opinions or experiences. When it comes to the “Events” category, the community members would be able to access all the latest events happening within Quirky (pop up stores, meetups, networking events, promotional events, workshops, bus maker...etc), they can also see
who is attending and invite friends even if they are not part of the community. We can hence leverage the power of the network and not only promote these specific events but also Quirky’s mission. Users would be able to receive push notifications every time they are in the vicinity of a specific event or another Quirky member.
MOBILE PROTOTYPE
We aim with this tool to create a bigger and stronger close-knit user base as we believe that this is key to creating a PROTOTYPE powerful and ANALYSIS impactful community.
Since members would be able to team up on specific projects, creating a safe and trustworthy environment was important in order to forge a spirit of affiliation and union. Based on that, we conceived a user profile that collected and presented all the information needed to learn more about a given member on a professional and personal level. The user profile would list not only their skills, badges, points, reviews, followers and followers INTERVIEWEES but also recent inventing and influencing activities as MALE: 19 well as ways to contact them.
30
FEMALE: 11
Testing analysis
22
5
Liked the UI & said it was clean and easy to follow
Said that being able to access a more detailed profile was helpful
“Quirky absolutely needs this!” “I love this app, hope it’s free” “I would love to get notifications about events”
6
Liked the idea of submitting problems
9
Would like to be able to sign in with their Facebook login
I feel like it is a smart way to use my time and have some fun
I have tons of problems I would love to see solved, and I am sure I am not the only one
23
Would download the app
FUN ENTERTAINING SOCIAL INTERACTION
NETWORKING BEAUTIFUL INTUITIVE INTERACT WITH INVENTORS
I like that I can share these events with my friends that aren’t Quirky members, it is so convenient and fun
The information in this profile would help me select the right person for my team
I like this mix of things happening in the ‘latest’ feels more social
I would like to see videos of the inventions in action. It would be cool to learn something, too!
Next steps for the Quirky app First of all we want to tackle the privacy settings: We want to enable users to block people, customize their privacy settings and choose who can access their profile. We also want to create a new portal within Quirky just for students and universities and schools, thereby further educating our users and helping shape tomorrow’s inventors. Furthermore we want to make the app even more social: by providing additional social feeds our community members would be able to share more about their work, interests and connections. Finally, we want to introduce an inspiration board. We
want to add a section within the app where members can share whatever inspires them: articles around innovations, videos, pictures and much more. Members would then not only be able to share, like or dislike but also save their favorite inspirations. The favorites would then be collected and added to a mood board, which would be added to each members’ profile and provide additional information about who they are and what inspires them. This mood board could also be used as part of the portfolio and be shared with potential client or employers. Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 85
Prototype can be viewed at: http://invis.io/DJ2V3WUZH
A
nother feature of the app would include Quirky chat, which enables the user to connect and interact in real time with other members. The chat can be used to share ideas with one person in particular or to support team work. Collaboration becomes convenient and smooth and the community gets a chance to forge personal connections. Throughout the prototyping phase, through several design revisions regarding functionality and flow. We test the main Quirky app and 10
the app went and changes had 30 adults kids test the
“The app could have videos about cool inventions!”
Quirkyds app. Testers were either guided through the application or independently clicked through the frames. Afterwards we conducted short interviews to gage opinions and discover possible pain points. Interview insights were then used to improve and alter the app. Our results show that 23 out of 30 testers said they would download and use the app, if possible. Testers enjoyed the minimalistic and clean UI, found it very intuitive and some stated that the information on the app was conveyed clearer than on the website. Even users unfamiliar with the concept of Quirky quickly understood the app and found it intuitive and easy to use. The newly introduced feature of submitting problems to the community appealed to many. 1/3 of the participants stated afterwards that they would enjoy a connection between the Quirky app and social media platforms like facebook or linkedin. Some testers had concerns regarding privacy settings.
The Quirkyds testers ranging from ages six to nine were interviewed and filmed. All kids were very focused on the app and did not need any instructions on how to use it. The kids showed very strong opinions about the toy inventions they liked or didn’t like. They were also able to make their decisions just by looking at the photos and PROTOTYPE ANALYSIS reading a short tagline or description. 90% of the kids liked the app character “Benny”, they wished he could talk and were even curious if other “Quirkyds” existed.
Mobile PrototyPe The app could have videos about cool inventions.
Testing analysis
I like Benny. It would be cool if he could talk.
This lead to the design of additional Quirkyds characters and the idea of using them in short, educational, but 10 kids were interviewed fun clips. The majority was very interested in watching videos and some kids were even interested in inventing products themselves.
Are there any other Quirkyds or just Benny?
It would be cool if I could put together inventions in the app.
Nobody likes historical toys!
9/10
8/10
kIdS INTERVIEwEd wERE fOcuSEd ANd INTERESTEd ThEY dIdN’T NEEd INSTRucTIONS ON hOw TO uSE ThE APP kIdS hAd STRONg OPINION ABOuT ThE TOYS ThEY LIkEd ANd dIdN’T LIkE kIdS wERE ABLE TO mAkE ThEIR dEcISIONS BY LOOkINg AT ThE PIcTuRE ANd ShORT dEScRIPTION
9
6
LIkEd BENNY
AgE 8
7
4/10
wANTEd TO kNOw mORE ABOuT ThE APP
7 Boys
wANTEd TO wATch VIdEOS
2/10
wANTEd TO INVENT IN ThE APP
3 girls
Next steps for the QuirkyDS app We want to create a video library on inventions, innovation and creativity targeting children. Additionally we want to introduce educational invention animations using the Quirkyds as main
characters and include an audio option for kids who can’t read or are learning how to read. Finally, we want to add a vote meter as a visual indicator of how many votes are still needed for an invention to go to Eval.
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concepts
future VIsion Quirky Air-BnB: A skillshare/ travel program that facilitates community members, traveling to new places and connecting them with each other in order to collaborate on projects.
As a future visioning group we aimed to prototype a scenario where we looked at the transition of Quirky through the future megatrends on a 10- year projection. We created a visual map of an ideal future where Quirky takes on a major a role as the problem solving company of 2025. This implies the following concepts.
We left the prototype with the Quirky employees so that we could gauge the level of interest within each proposed bucket: concepts, partners and results. After having Quirky employees test the future trends prototype, we had a clear view of what the Quirky team actually envisioned for their future.
Quirky replaces the UN and inventors take on a unified approach to solve real life problems. Quirky is no longer a company that creates products and life-hacks. Quirky realized the benefit of having a great and diverse community and leverages its members to solve major issues on a global scale.
Concepts: The results from future concepts imply that the Quirky team wishes to build upon their existing business model . There was a positive response on leveraging a powerful community through charitable and philanthropic organizations and opening up collaboration spaces for skilled inventors. Another idea that was very well received by Quirky was an on the road bus and the flash taskforce to respond during crises. We see that Quirky really wants to do something that involves the community as well as facilitates change. Some of the topics that did not get a good response were the Quirky Air-BnB concept as well as Quirky becoming a country of problem solvers or creative superheroes.
Quirky takes on a role as a community of creative superheroes or vigilantes for good. Inventors will travel to cities in need and solve local problems within the community. The community network serves as a country for problem solvers online and off. Quirky will partner with foundations such as American Red Cross, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations, Anonymous, Pencils for Promise, Berkshire Hathaway, as well as others, to work together in order to facilitate change in the future.
Concepts
Intro We are looking at the transition of Quirky through the future mega trends on a 10-year projection.
These Mega trends include: Glocal Communities, Digitalization, Crowdsourcing evolution, IP Regulation, Social Media Revolution,Silver Surfers & Moral Responsibility
Taking these trends into account, how can Quirky position itself to effectively replace the UN, having its global community of not just inventors, but creative minds take on to solve real–life problems and aid countries in need In the following sections, please add a green sticker to ideas which you like, and a red sticker for those you don’t like. Also, add any additional ideas that you come up with on the provided post-its! THANK YOU!
Partners
Collaboration Spaces
Quirky “Air BnB”
Quirky Becomes U.N.
Vigilantes for Good
Trading/ Bardering/ Skillshare
Broker for inventors to businesses
Country of Problem Solvers
Guardian Angels
Create Change
Creative Superheroes
Leverage Powerful Community
Quirky Flash Taskforce
Quirky on the Road
Solve Problems vs Create Products
Awards to Recognize impactful members
Collaboration Spaces
Quirky “Air BnB”
Trading/ Bardering/ Skillshare
Broker for inventors to businesses
Country of Problem Solvers
Creative Superheroes
Leverage Powerful Community
Quirky Flash Taskforce
Quirky on the Road
Solve Problems vs Create Products
Partners
RESULTS
Results
Funds & Charities
Funds & Charities
Solve Important Problems not inventing life-hacks
Quirky Boy/Girl Scouts
“Best way to predict the future is to invent it” Alan Kay
Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 89
Partners: The results we gathered from the potential partners that we proposed for Quirky in 2025 varied greatly. From the responses, we can infer that the Quirky team was not very fond of the ideas of working with the FDA, Berkshire Hathaway, and the World Bank. However, they were more open to the ideas of working with the American Cancer Society, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, American Red Cross, Pencils for Promise, Unicef and the Peace Corps. Furthermore, the decision was split on Anonymous with equal responses for yes and no. There were no responses for or against the Feed Foundation or The Founders Fund. This may indicate that they did not know what the organizations did, or that the were indifferent about the potential partnership. Overall we can see that Quirky wants more of an affiliation with organizations that are geared towards charitable work vs politics and corporations. Results: Having a clear vision for 2025 is rather difficult. What we proposed to Quirky were very big picture concepts. We wanted to stretch the imagination and get the Quirky team out of their comfort zone. We proposed a future of “Quirky Superheroes” and “Vigilantes for Good”. Creating a country of problem solvers, and calling the inventors creative superheros were not ideas that Quirky perceived as potential future concepts. As we analyze the results of this prototype, we incur that Quirky sees itself moving into the direction of facilitating change and solving real life problems. It wants to do that by teaming up with more charitable organizations and allowing for
their community to get involved and create change. Conclusion: With the conclusion for this pilot research, we can identify that Quirky wants to become a problem solving company of 2025. After researching future trends we believe that crowdsourcing, skillshare and bartering are some of the major trends we will see more of the next 10 years to come. These predicted trends need to be integrated into Quirky’s community to really foster co-creation and collaborative approach in the new age. We see not only individuals, but companies as well, coming to Quirky to connect with their global community in order to solve specific problems and needs. In this way, Quirky will work as a connector between companies and the community. By collaborating with charitable and philanthropic organizations Quirky increase its social responsibility. As for how this partnership would affect Quirky, we see it fostering a new line of products that would solve real life problems. These products could be centered around education, trash, potholes, transportation, accessibility and others. This also can apply to the community donating their time to specific causes and organizations. The profits that come from these partnerships can be re-invested into the charity organizations. This not only will improve Quirky’s overall image but also will appeal to people who truly want to do something good. There is always a level of respect and appreciation among the community when a company truly uses their power for something impactful. We see the community being as big online as off. The large community can be split into sub-communities that respond to local issues and problems. “Quirky on the road” could be a concept that takes inventors to local communities all across United States to help neighborhoods, towns and cities solve real-life problems. If looking on a global level, Quirky can create “The Quirky Flash Taskforce.” This would be a group compiled of Quirky community members who would respond to life threatening disasters across the world. They would travel to these places and set up a relief initiatives. This can be anywhere from providing basic help to actually solving infrastructure problems after weather disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes and in war zones.
Pilot Takewaways
O
ur vision for Quirky 2025 is to become a global leader in open innovation and invention. Quirky will care about the world we live in and create solutions to everyday life problems that we encounter. Quirky will care more about their social responsibility than generating profits for their stakeholders. Quirky will become a company that people want to be part of.
With the conclusion for this pilot research, we created a visual that represents the vision of Quirky 2025. We chose to represent this vision through video to illustrate the journey of Quirky. The video depicts the ideation and thought process that not only went into building the prototype, but the insights gained from the feedback we gathered from members of the Quirky team. Through drawing this journey out, we aimed to give the viewer a brief experience of what the future could hold for a company positioned where Quirky is. Along with how they may adjust and pivot their business model to address future trends in the crowdsourcing space. The result is a look at a company that forms strong partnerships with non-profit and charitable organizations to solve real issues across the globe. Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 91
Conclusion
In order to maintain community involvement, we realized that fostering a culture that has a strong sense of trust and loyalty is a key element in the building of long-term relationships between successful companies and their communities. Based on the correlation between the two, the main pillars of trust and loyalty we identified consist of respect, transparency, engagement, inclusion, authenticity, and empathy. We looked at some examples from countries like Sweden to online platforms such as Grabcad and online companies such as Zappos to see how they maintain community involvement based on trust and loyalty.
C
rowdsourcing is an ever growing industry. We have seen proof that people want to collaborate and
Keeping our crowdsourcing research in mind, we started to apply our newfound concepts to Quirky.
share with each other. The Internet has played an important role in the growth of crowdsourcing
As strategic designers, we have learned that it is imperative to prototype, test and reiterate your ideas.
in the last few years, the shift in dealing with our cognitive surplus has been a major push in that space.
Prototyping and testing our ideas helped us get one step closer to finding a solution. We built physical
People no longer want to use their spare time as consumers but as participants. Therefore, they want to
prototypes because we wanted to be able to experiment and create a hands-on experience. The
use their skills and stretch their minds to add value and creation.
prototyping phase forced us to ask questions as well as filtering ideas and which idea to go forward with in our process.
Parsons Integrative Studio was given the task of looking at the crowdsourcing industry as it stands today, and to forecast where the industry will go in the future. The immense economic shifts of the last 5 years,
After testing our prototypes, we gathered many key insights. We found out that Quirky sees itself moving
coupled with generational changes and shift towards knowledge working, have set the stage to welcome
into the direction of facilitating change and solving real life problems. It wants to do that by teaming up
crowdsourcing and creative collaboration into a multitude of sectors. By 2015, it said that crowdsourcing
with more charitable organizations and allowing for their community to get involved and create change
will reach 33.4 billion dollars. This is an ever growing concept and will become an industry standard
by fostering design with meaning.
in the next years. We have already seen big companies such as General Mills, Nokia, Coca-Cola and Unilever adapt some of the practices into the core of their companies.
Through further testing, analysis, and team building activities we deduced seven pillars for trust and loyalty: engagement, respect, empathy, transparency, inclusion, authenticity and consistency. We
But the big companies weren’t the first ones to adopt this new concept. With makerspaces like FirstBuild,
realized that the use of social media platforms to increase community involvement is vital to enhance
GrabCad and Local Motors and crowdfunding players like Kickstartr and Indiegogo - using the power of
trust and loyalty, therefore we proposed a YouTube channel called Quirky TV, which portrays a variety of
the crowd is now becoming a specialized industry. Each platform provides something specific to their
videos which can help enhance trust and loyalty among the community by creating a more transparent,
users and community members. Some of them target only skilled workers and engineers, while others
consistent, inclusive, empathetic, and authentic brand identity.
like Quirky appeal to the invention enthusiasts in all of us. We looked heavily into Quirky’s process as a whole and created a new scenario named the“Collaborative The power of crowdfunding lies in the involvement of the crowd and their engagement within the platform.
Creation Funnel.” The results from our collaboration funnel was overwhelmingly positive, with over 80%
The more people you can attract to your platform the more collaboration and co-creation will occur. This
thinking it was a “great idea”. Still many pointed out that the success of the funnel would rely on easy
leads us to the main point of our crowdsourcing research, which is that, community is everything. Without
implementation and usage.
having a strong community that is participatory and responsive you don’t have a crowdsourcing platform. But to maintain a community and to attend to their needs is not easy. Communities are compiled of
As we explored the SoLoMo strategy we developed an interactive app. This app connects influencers,
many different people with many different requirements and wants. Therefore, it is important to take
inventors and just regular community members. Through the app, Quirky members are able to chat,
each member into account.
invent, influence, search for events, submit ideas and problems and rate other members. Having an
Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 93
on-the-go application allows for Quirky to really become part of their members every day life. We believe that children have crazy, unfiltered ideas, and we want to be able to capture them so we have created an app to allow them to fully express themselves. We also know how important it is to include the young and growing generation into Quirky business model. Hence, we have prototyped an app that targets them in a fun and education way.
Appendix
As a result, we have seen the tremendous impact that sharing and co-creation has had on our world in the recent years. No government or corporation can withstand the strength of a united crowd. With many minds coming together, opportunities are infinite. We are now designing for meaning, because we are designing for ourselves.
interviews & Surveys
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Journey mapping inventor
Virtual use of community memberss
Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 | 97
Virtual use of community memberss
Journey Map Insights
insights People are grabbed by commercials, but are left not knowing much about Quirky.
Lacking Brand Recognition
In all cases, except wink commercials, people were left feeling negatively about their experience.
Key Insights & Takeaways “World’s least important CEO” campaigns are ineffective and leave people confused
messages are misunderstood
ads are effective when actually promoting a product (Wink)
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personas inventor
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affinity map
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Trend maps
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SERVICE BENCHMARK TABLE Research analysis
Community engagement
kickstarter 206 us rank 18,927,736 visitors
tongal 773,184 us rank
indiegogo 437 us rank 9,163,918 visitors
innocentive 232,589 us rank
first build
Higher community engagement. Community is main focus
use social media and leadership boards to boost engagement with community
Higher community engagement. Community is one of the main focuses
Smaller community, reach more through partners. More professionals in community
Community more professional / experienced community The community create the prototypes so requires skilled professionals who train others
Produce an advertising video for product
fabrication
inventors
Have more control over the final designs
Have less control over the design process after initial concept. More specific project competitions
Have control over the final designs
Restricted to what the challenges require them to create
Restricted to what the challenges require them to create
market sectors
Not limited to one market sector
Cover many different areas based on partnerships & large focus on music sector
Not limited to one market sector
Limited to the market sectors the businesses and challenges are in
Limited to the market sectors the businesses and challenges are in major home appliances
Greater number of clients from varying sectors but no partnerships
Many partnerships from varying sectors
Many partnerships
GE and local motors
Similar to Quirky but in video/advertising
More democratic and large percentage get through initial vetting process
Judged by business or creators of challenges - not democratic
Very similar to Quirky model though some input from GE and Local motors
Sold through partners
Sold through partners
partnerships vetting process How ideas progress
More democratic overall and 50% get through initial vetting process
wholesale and retail
They dont do this but the exposure on Kickstarter helps
Have an ecommerce site. More limited in categories
E-commerce
Compensation model
key insights
Consumer engagement
no initial investment from investor
Accessibility
Compensation when buying product which helps the ecomm cycle but no ownership percentage. Get Perks
Similar to Quirky but also offer compensation using Leadership boards
Non monetary perks eg a name on the wall in the restaurant
Rewards of up to $1million
form of promotion of talents, monetary compensation, or access to tools Products vary so much in price its hard to target a certain consumer type
Better consumer engagement
Higher introductory campaign investment from inventor required Their all or nothing policy means need to be sure you can raise the money so its not as accessible
Accessible by all but requires a certain level of media skills
Accessible by all and don’t have a all or nothing policy
Requires a level of experience for the challenges
Requires a level of experience for the challenges
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possible future partnerships for Quirky
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workshop posters TOP INTERVIEW INSIGHTS
QUIRKY MOBILE
16 interviews 2 workshops 3 surveys
Landscape what features make an app successful and engaging?
9/26
What drew you to Quirky?
CURIOSITY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
EXPAND PORTFOLIO
IDEAS
INNOVATION
COMMUNITY
able to fulfill all the requirements for submission Swiping
Relevant research
UI take over the screen
Detailed profile
Volume
Very specific search functionality
UX+ease of use
ease of sharing pins or individual collection with others (from the community or not)
Better than the website
Control over the product
Unbundled family of apps
Convenience
easy to connect and share with the rest of the community (UI and UX)
Relevant profile information
Promotion tool for members
Transparency
Archive
Complement the website
Volume
How might we retain community members?
INTERVIEW RESULTS
? how MIght we offer a new service
? how MIght we improve adoption rate
PARTNER WITH OTHER MAKER COMMUNITIES
11/26
able to fulfill half of the requirements for submission
hOw MIght wE CREatE a BEttER UsER ExpERIEnCE thROUgh OUR app
WHAT QUIRKY’S USERS EXPECT FOR THE FUTURE INCREASE NUMBER OF EXPERTS IN OUR COMMUNITY
?!
PARTNERING WITH BRANDS THAT HAVE THE SCALABILITY AND THE BRAND RECOGNITION
MAKE SURE THAT WHEN THE IDEA COMES TO EVAL IT WILL BE FULLY UNDERSTOOD CURRENTLY ALL AREN’T
CROWDSOURCING INNOVATION COMMUNITIES ? how MIght we have a
platform agnostic presence
that complements the website ? how MIght we offer convenience
? how MIght we increase
? how MIght we broaden the ? how MIght we increase the number
customer segment
revenue
PROFILES (over 1 million skilled members)
PROFILES
PROFILES (over 2,010,000 skilled members)
of users
Landscape Mobile usage
aCCEss thE IntERnEt
dOwnLOad apps
sOCIaL nEtwORKIng
Age
Age
Age
18-29 30-49 50-64 65+
18-29 30-49 50-64 65+
84% 72% 45% 19%
?
77% 59% 33% 14%
18-29 30-49 50-64 65+
2014, mobile internet usage will overtake desktop internet usage
91% of adults have their mobile phone within arms reach 24/7
74% 69% 67% 58%
81% of U.S. cell phone users will have smartphones by 2015
how MIght we use our mobile presence to appeal to the different demographics of skilled users
why an app Interview Insights It would be great if I
during my subway
COgnItIvE sURpLUs
I never read their emails, if something is relevant to me, I believe that I would prefer getting a
shouldn’t be like facebook, you take a pic and you upload it and it’s done.
ride, commuting or anywhere I need to wait.
an app, would give me more control over the process.
COntROL OvER thE pROCEss
uploading pictures from the laptop is so painful,
I can easily picture myself influencing
could follow the progression of my invention through
pICs & vIdEOs
REvIEws taKEn fROM thE app stORE
this app is less than ideal for searching. If you are looking for a specific item you know by name, the “search” option likely won’t return the intended result, sometimes no results at all--leaving you scrolling for ages to find what you want. Need customer service? Good luck--there is no chat option and your email is almost certain to go unanswered. disappointing as I really like the idea of supporting inventors.
?
how MIght we make the search tool more effective
nOtIfICatIOn
do not purchase anythIng
I love your store and I want to look at things on the app but every time I click a title, then the back button it always sends me back to the top. It’s highly annoying and makes me not want to look at your shop on the phone which potentially influences my decision to buy things.
I got ripped off trying to purchase something through this app. APPLE needs to yank this app. they charged me twice through paypal. I spent 40 minutes on hold just for them to tell me they would look into it. I have still not gotten my refund. The app is crap and their customer service isn’t much better.
how MIght we make the app flow organically and instinctively
?
how MIght we improve the customer journey
How might we share skills within community members?
be more responsive.
scroLLs back to the top
?
How might we make our community members more skilled?
CROWDSOURCING INNOVATION PLATFORMS
notification on my phone, would probably
current app reviews hard to search, abysMaL custoMer servIce
How might we display our community member’s skills to attract highly skilled members?
How might we get more skilled people to join Quirky’s community?
What drew you to this platforms?
bad user experIence and coMMunIcatIon It was a nightmare to buy a headphone holder through the app, I couldn’t get through the payment process, I had to enter 3 times my personal and financial information, didn’t receive a confirmation email and the next day, my bank blocked my card, couldn’t be worse.
?
How might we make our platform more appealing for skilled users?
CHALLENGES
CURRICULUM
COMMUNITY
FREELANCE
TUTOTRIALS
How might we facilitate knowledge share between community members?
FEEDBACK
What are you looking for in this platforms? IDEAS
EXPAND PORTFOLIO
FEEDBACK
EXPOSURE
TUTORIALS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
how MIght we assist our community in their journey
CHALLENGES
the IdeaL app If you could wave a magic wand and have the ideal app in your hand right now, what top 3 things should it do? Besides these things, what else should it do? Is there an app you currently use or know about which you hope it will be similar to? What is it about this experience that you like?
Let’s imagine you’ve been using the app for a year, and are really pleased with how it’s been helping you. Can say, in one sentence, what makes it so good?
Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 |111
CREATE COMPETITIVE EDGE WITH COMMUNITY & PARTNERS
LANDSCAPE | WHO ARE QUIRKY’S CURRENT COMPETITORS? PROFESSIONAL
kickstarter 206 us rank 18,927,736 visitors
indiegogo 437 us rank 9,163,918 visitors
innocentive 232,589 us rank
Higher community engagement. Community is main focus
Non monetary perks eg a name on the wall in the restaurant
Rewards of up to $1million
More democratic overall & 50% get through initial vetting process
MANUFACTURING
CROWDSOURCING
To understand the potential opportunities for Quirky in the future we first need to understand the current landscape and see where current competitors are positioned and how or where they excel.
They dont do this but the exposure on Kickstarter helps
Smaller community, reach more through partners. More professionals in community
how might we offer non monetary perks to the quirky community?
how might we use partnerships to gain more professional community members?
how might we give the maximum to our community and their ideas?
GENERAL PUBLIC
FUTURE | WHAT ARE THE FUTURE TRENDS THAT CAN BE APPLIED TO QUIRKY?
first build
Community more professional / experienced Community created prototypes though professionals training form of promotion of talents, monetary compensation, or access to tools
how might we get our professional community to train less skilled members?
What are the key future trends and insights Quirky can exploit in order to gain a competitive edge in the crowdsourcing landscape?
Growth/Expansion
fair deals
community
social media
Target older demographic of 55+ as it’s the largets growing demographic
Laws within the community that protect IP
Yelp-like reviews for community members/profiles
Sell products using Social Media (direct messaging for customer service)
Focus on other countries outside of us (especially with distribution)
Patent broker
More emphasis on designer/talented people
Share inventions and invite others to contribute
Community app - global community
Youtube campaign “This could be you” Quirky inspired sub-communities
Compensation for IP
Gender neutral products
How might we structure ourselves to become IP brokers?
How might we connect socially to silver surfer A rising demographic on social media?
Giving a contributor a desk to work from for the duration of project (co working space)
how might we seek better and wider degrees of engagement amongst our community?
Quirky “tinder-like” app how might we use social media to enhance growth and engagement?
FUTURE | SOCIAL MEDIA POTENTIAL PARTNERS
social media channels
QUIRKY
one month activity: 03/14/2015 - 04/14/2015
How might we increase our social presence to improve brand identity and recognition? How might we tailor the specific demographic with different type of content and separated account?
Reponsive 372 comments
1273 post likes
333 shares
50 comments
124
6549
retweets
9188 post likes
1056 likes
2254 shares
39300
followers
9155 likes
comments
218700 followers
261 likes
1467
Most Followers
878 post likes
Most Followers Least Followers
8418 followers
851 likes
Most Followers
future
9
1868 followers
comments
837 likes
467 followers
220 likes
13 shares
Not Responsive
Not Responsive
6108 followers
62 comments
Least Followers 529 retweets
How might we engage the specific demographic by listening carefully and committing to frequent use?
Reponsive
retweets
Least Followers
Current
Reponsive
55 comments
FIRSTBUILD
INDIEGOGO
？
Not Responsive
FUTURE | WHO SHOULD QUIRKY PARTNER WITH IN THE NEAR FUTURE? 3D printing / maker space / co-working space GE type partners
How might we IDENTIFY other partnership opportunities?
PRODUCTION
Global retailers (online &
Local government / schools
Charities
Raw materials
BIG BUSINESS
Community like social media
i
Showrooms
Environmental organizations
NON PROFIT / GOVERNMENT
How might we engage government and non profits into working with & design for the human condition?
Strategic Design & Management | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 |113
prototype & Testing Trust & loyalty
Future Vision
Concepts
Intro
We are looking at the transition of Quirky through the future mega trends on a 10-year projection.
These Mega trends include: Glocal Communities, Digitalization, Crowdsourcing evolution, IP Regulation, Social Media Revolution,Silver Surfers & Moral Responsibility
Partners
Results
Funds & Charities
Collaboration Spaces
Quirky “Air BnB”
Quirky Becomes U.N.
Vigilantes for Good
Trading/ Bardering/ Skillshare
Broker for inventors to businesses
Country of Problem Solvers
Guardian Angels
Create Change
Creative Superheroes
Leverage Powerful Community
Quirky Flash Taskforce
Quirky on the Road
Solve Problems vs Create Products
Solve Important Problems not inventing life-hacks
Quirky Boy/Girl Scouts
Awards to Recognize impactful members
Taking these trends into account, how can Quirky position itself to effectively replace the UN, having its global community of not just inventors, but creative minds take on to solve real–life problems and aid countries in need In the following sections, please add a green sticker to ideas which you like, and a red sticker for those you don’t like. Also, add any additional ideas that you come up with on the provided post-its! THANK YOU!
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prototype & Testing Mobile App
MOBILE PROTOTYPE
MALE: 19 FEMALE: 11
PROTOTYPE ANALYSIS
22
5
Liked the UI & said it was clean and easy to follow
Said that being able to access a more detailed profile was helpful
“Quirky absolutely needs this!” “I love this app, hope it’s free” “I would love to get notifications about events”
Mobile PrototyPe
30 INTERVIEWEES
6
Liked the idea of submitting problems
9
Would like to be able to sign in with their Facebook login
I feel like it is a smart way to use my time and have some fun
I have tons of problems I would love to see solved, and I am sure I am not the only one
23
Would download the app
PROTOTYPE ANALYSIS
FUN ENTERTAINING SOCIAL INTERACTION
NETWORKING BEAUTIFUL INTUITIVE INTERACT WITH INVENTORS
I like that I can share these events with my friends that aren’t Quirky members, it is so convenient and fun
The information in this profile would help me select the right person for my team
10 kids were interviewed
I like this mix of things happening in the ‘latest’ feels more social
I would like to see videos of the inventions in action. It would be cool to learn something, too!
The app could have videos about cool inventions.
I like Benny. It would be cool if he could talk.
Are there any other Quirkyds or just Benny?
It would be cool if I could put together inventions in the app.
Nobody likes historical toys!
9/10
8/10
kIdS INTERVIEwEd wERE fOcuSEd ANd INTERESTEd ThEY dIdN’T NEEd INSTRucTIONS ON hOw TO uSE ThE APP kIdS hAd STRONg OPINION ABOuT ThE TOYS ThEY LIkEd ANd dIdN’T LIkE kIdS wERE ABLE TO mAkE ThEIR dEcISIONS BY LOOkINg AT ThE PIcTuRE ANd ShORT dEScRIPTION
9
6
LIkEd BENNY
AgE 8
7
4/10
wANTEd TO kNOw mORE ABOuT ThE APP
7 Boys
wANTEd TO wATch VIdEOS
2/10
wANTEd TO INVENT IN ThE APP
3 girls
Quirkyds testing video can be viewed at: https://vimeo.com/126746317
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3) Image sources page 57: http://www.edenarts.co.uk/event/a-quirky-workshop-traditional-coracle-building-in-a-dayworkshop-at-greystoke-cycle-cafe/ https://hybridex.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/gigo-future-car/ http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-2309933-stock-footage-smiling-child-placing-histhumbs-up-in-a-park.html www.CadNav.com http://www.gizmag.com/new-london-underground-train-design-unveiled/34188/ 4) Image sources page 71 and 84: http://www.gettyimages.in/detail/photo/portrait-of-a-coffee-shop-owner-high-res-stockphotography/496082009 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/axent-wear-cat-ear-headphones https://www.quirky.com/about 5) Image source page 86: https://www.quirky.com/
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the team RHea Alexander Rhea Alexander is an alum and social entrepreneur, Rhea comes to Parsons with interdisciplinary expertise pioneering 3BL along the value chain while manufacturing and designing international home products.
Cecilia Steele
caitlin dickerboom
A multidisciplinary designer with years of experience running her own company, Cecilia is looking for new insights for how to operate in the design business industry.
With a background in community management, healthcare and biological sciences, Caitlin is applying her love of systems thinking and transdisciplinary design to her current work as a design strategist.
Mariela Ferrer
Samar Ladhib
A Senior Product designer who has worked in multidisciplinary design agencies. Interested in the intersection between design, entrepreneurship, and design thinking.
A multi-disciplinary strategic designer with extensive experience in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Samar leverages design thinking to help companies transform, innovate and ultimately grow.
Tucker Diestel
Elliot Buscemi
Hyojin Jung
A recent graduate who is interested in pursuing a career in branding, marketing, creative direction and strategy. Tucker has a strong background in video production and marketing
With experience in developing systems and processes in the healthcare field. Elliot wants to apply design thinking process in bridging the healthcare industry with technology.
With background as a brand & marketing manager in electronics and retail industries. Hyojin is developing a new vision as an innovative brand expert by integrating design thinking with her experience.
Susann Krug With a background in fashion and jewelry design in addition to experience in fashion wholesale and retail, Susann wants to further improve her business and strategic design thinking.
sarah kehoe A Senior Web and UX designer who worked in design agencies & multimillion dollar PLC businesses.
Nika Blake
TINA Oskooei
Background in pr, marketing & branding. Nika works with start-ups to develop their strategy. Focusing on the entrepreneurial/start-up sector Nika’s passion is in venture capital.
Background in Product Design and Fine Art, Tina is focusing on the integration of design and business. Wants to create a perfect ecosystem for her selfexploration as a business leader.
Henriette Arnevig
Yanqi Tang
With a degree in internal marketing Yanqi earned experience in multicultural and finance, Henriette focuses her time settings in media industry. Later-on and skills on personal branding for the entrepreneurial practice cultivated modeling industry. Founder & contirbutor of her with customer-centered focus and a style blog, www.wilhelmine.femelle.no Strategic Design & Management strategic | Intergrative Studio | Spring 2015 |125 adaptation abilities.
Samar
Tina
Elliott Tucker
Mariela
Sarah Quirkyans
Strategic Design & Management design
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innovation
Rhea
Susann
Caitlin Henriette
Yanqi
Hyo Jin Cecilia
Nika
OPEN SPACE INNOVATION CROWDSOURCING | QUIRKY Strategic Design and Management Integrative Studio 1 // Spring 2015 Parsons New School for Design