The prosev strategy

THE PROSEV STRATEGY

PA

H

PRODUCT

EVENT

SERVICE

DESIGNING THE PRODUCT SERVICE EVENT CARLO VANNICOLA

THE PROSEV STRATEGY DESIGNING THE PRODUCT SERVICE EVENT Carlo Vannicola

PA

H

PRODUCT

EVENT

SERVICE

SERIES EDITOR Carlo Vannicola EDITORIAL PROJECT Forma Edizioni srl, Florence, Italy redazione@formaedizioni.it www.formaedizioni.it EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Archea Associati EDITORIAL DIRECTION Laura Andreini EDITORIAL STAFF Valentina Muscedra Maria Giulia Caliri GRAPHIC DESIGN Elisa Balducci Vitoria Muzi Isabella Peruzzi Mauro Sampaolesi Alessandra Smiderle TRANSLATION Alison Bron PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY LAB di Gallotti Giuseppe Fulvio PRINTING Lito Terrazzi, Florence, Italy

The editor is available to copyright holders for any questions about unidentified iconographic sources. Š 2018 Forma Edizioni srl, Florence, Italy All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. first edition: April 2018 ISBN: 978-88-99534-44-8

This book has been written as the result of a series of research workshops run during the 2015 edition of the PRA, with funding from the University of Genoa Department of Architecture and Design (DAD) and the Polytechnic School of the University of Genoa.

I should like to thank all the many students who played a part over the years, helping to define this method, by taking part in the various projects linked to each different situation in every specific territory. I should especially like to thank Enrico Piazze with whom I carried out many of the teaching activities and with whom I developed many of the main theories, as well as extending my thanks to the various institutions in Genoa, including both the Chamber of Commerce and the Confartigianato who lent their support to this project with their own input, as well as telling us of their own experience. Last but not least, a special thanks to both Luisa Chimenz and Paola Palma for their invaluable contributions in revising the final texts.

INDEX 07

INTRODUCTION / DOING DESIGN

10 01/

READING DESIGN

18 02/

THE PROSEV STRATEGY

29 03/

THE MANUFACTURED PRODUCT

42 04/

SERVICE AS A PRODUCT

55 05/

THE EVENT AS A PRODUCT

66 06/

THE PRODUCT SERVICE EVENT

1. Sharing the manufacturing process 2. Shared manufacturing 3. Sharing the experience 4. Sharing cultural products 5. Instant products 6. Social products 7. Branded territories 8. Emotional services 9. Urban heritage as a product 10. Long-distance experience via products

105

CARLO VANNICOLA BIOGRAPHY

106 ESSENTIAL

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION / DOING DESIGN When it comes to design in Italy progress has been slow and steady, tending to consider the design process as a key marker of innovation.1 In this relatively small land, where the economy has grown via its continuous exchange with international markets, design has become big business, taking Culture as its raw material and adding a pinch of historical continuity to highlight its reliability. Reading and making progress by transforming standards, believing in the development of user-driven designs as a source of inspiration for renewal, communicating design identities as a way of defining new alliances, betting on the progress of the user-centred features in both tangible and intangible designs, and taking as a basic requirement the idea that designs can be customised by the user, is what makes Italy a globally recognised nation, benchmarking design in both theory and practice, a land where anything can be “designed”. The simplest daily actions, such as doing the shopping, must necessarily belong to a specific rite, the act of “artification”2 by which daily activities are transformed into activities that may be institutionally recognised as a collective value. In this way, it is clear that the development of design practice becomes the basic element, so that questioning how to improve the way in which certain actions are carried out, imagining meetings and impossible clashes between things, is an area of research which must clearly be prioritised. Designing the design process is the first thing that can be done in order to guarantee true originality: this is how things were yesterday, are today, and may well be, even tomorrow. It is such ideas that make it vital to seek out new pathways in order to redefine the current practices which, as yet, may never have been adequately examined, questioning how we work, codifying these methods to come up with something able to inspire our approach to design. Design is about paring things down to the essence, whether working alone or in groups and, in this sense, it is something that cannot be taught. What can be taught 07

these projects. By looking at these examples it is clear the extent to which the proposed method has deep roots in a tradition with a historical basis originating in a time that is not completely demarcated and has not yet been sufficiently researched, highlighted or disseminated.

1. SHARING THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS On the wave of a renewed interest in good food, teamed with the idea of living well, food has become a sector in which there have been huge transformations in recent years when it comes to the way in which products have been promoted. Italy was one of the first countries to start defining, investing in and disseminating this new approach, contrasting slow food with over-industrialised food products, finding ways to protect and celebrate the biodiversity of the foods it is famous for everywhere in the world. Such initiatives, which began with individual companies, co-operatives and food associations over thirty years reached the peak of their success at the Milan food Expo 2015, celebrating this cultural dominance in the food world. Around such themes such as this, other excellent questions arose, including that of how a gentler economy, tied to its territories, could still find a valid role to play, competing independently in the various markets.

The case study that we can examine here was the project from the year 2000 named “Adotta una pecora, difendi la natura” [Adopt a sheep, protect nature], which was designed to re-launch the flagging successes of the Sheep farming industry in Abruzzo. The project was designed to raise awareness with members of the public “La porta dei parchi” [The gateway to parks.], which has its headquarters in Italy’s National park of Abruzzo. The idea was to involve members of the public by drawing attention to the number of people moving away from mountain regions with the resulting devastating effects on the local environment. Sheep farming and the shepherds involved had always been responsible for taking care of the mountain terrain and, once this sector had fallen on hard times, a new 74

approach was required in order to increase productivity, efficiency and the profitability of sheep farming as opposed to the older, semiwild, traditional methods which had been once been used. In order to make this happen it was necessary to push towards a change in the commercial relationship with the local territory. The one-directional relationship with the media and mass distribution meant changes in management were needed, changes which often did not allow for, or take into consideration, the long term social values such as taking care of the environment, and preserving the traditions and identities of the individual places. This new project succeeded not only in defending the quality and nutritional value of the products deriving from sheep farming, but also highlighted the leading role played by those taking part in other activities such as preventing forest fires, protecting the water resources, and taking care of local biodiversity.

It is well-known that sheep are a great way to take care of the natural environment, by keeping the land clean and the undergrowth down, this also meant keeping the tratturi [footpaths] open to nature lovers as they hiked through the mountains.

In the end, the chosen solution was that of appealing to a market of people who are already interested in the environment, other green issues, and health foods, inviting these people to invest in the long-distance adoption of sheep. In exchange for paying expenses to look after and raise the sheep, people are then able to obtain the meat, the sheep’s milk and hard and soft cheeses such as pecorino and ricotta, as well as wool and fertilizer, and those subscribing are also permitted to take part in actively in managing a part of the land where their chosen flock is grazing. The sheep farmers taking part in the project are also able to offer hospitality to guests at their farms, thus adding a further income to their farming business. Supporters can also follow the various stages of sheep farming, from the grazing to the lambing, milking, shearing and driving them to and from new pastures. Contact may either be direct, where people take part in situ, or from a distance, via web cams. It is possible for subscribers to interact with the farmers, asking for advice or information from the farmers, this is a typical example of a service which 76

has been customised. The tangible advantages for the user adopting a sheep can be found in the savings when buying the products, as well as the reassuring knowledge that such goods are genuine, not to mention the other intangible factors including the emotional satisfaction of nominally adopting a sheep and contributing to the preservation and survival of an age-old culture steeped in rich values and sentiments. Finally, we can also analyse the way in which the event fits right into this type of programming. The adoptive ‘parents’ receive a direct invite, together with a series of special offers, inviting them to take part in events linked to various aspects of sheep farming, including festivals celebrating sheep shearing or driving the flocks in spring, leading the flocks up to new pastures on foot or on horseback in the period just before summer, or taking guided tours through mountain pastures at the end of the summer, and at the start of autumn, and, finally, with themed evenings dedicated to farming activities with a chance to take part in a series of tasting workshops, or events linked to cheese-making, wool-dying and working with felt, the whole year round. The result leads to a varied approach touching on everything that can be linked back to this one single age-old agricultural theme. The basic concept sells the intangible items, education, culture, entertainment, putting them on a par with the traditional products, by means of a simple service which ties together manufacturers, territory and final customers.

Imagining a long-distance means to offer support, counting on a shared cultural sense of belonging to the territory, offering people the chance to get to know how farmers are working together with an image of this centre of production, became the ideal way to transform this complex production line into a new productive reality that is also able to take account of the social issues involved in the equation 7. It shows a typical example of experience design (XD), focussing on the direct bottom-up relationships, with the two-way exchange of a service such as the diversification of markets, where traditional products blend to reflect the shared issues of the problem of territories and their collective identity. The success of this programme has also been made possible thanks to the role played in communi77

cating the existence of this service, once it has been rolled out, so that the many difficulties involved when it comes to buying food online have been played down, while an emphasis has been placed on the emotional strength of the story, heightened by the language, making the interaction between consumer and farmer its key focus.

Now that several years have passed it is easy to envision the original storyboard at the heart of this communication and we now have enough data to monitor, optimise and even transfer this method.

To summarise this project once again: the product is traditional, while the service is a hybrid, mixing various alternatives at different levels, using both direct methods aimed at the consumers, and indirect ones which involve society in a broader sense. The event involves more than one type of approach, the traditional invitation to play an active role in local events, and other more unusual approaches which can be repeated and undertaken from a distance, in other words, the goods can be received directly at home and are designed to meet whatever type of expectations people have.

2. SHARED MANUFACTURING Farm stay and agricultural holidays have now become a common practice, often giving tourists a way to enjoy active holidays, finding out more about harvesting and farming, and bringing them closer to the land. This is a typical example of a crossover between various sectors, which shows how working in the fields has now become an activity that is viewed as something to be protected in society, so that as well as the Agritourism we can now find what is known as Agro-ecotourism. These new habits contribute to the gradually changing scenario by raising awareness and generally reaffirming of the values of country life via bed and breakfast guest houses, learning farms, urban farming, and ethical purchasing groups, all of which have resulted in an increased demand for locally available sustainably farmed healthy food from the vertical ‘orchards’, and new city gardens, or as Andrea Branzi calls them ‘residential agriculture’. One of the most well-known sharing movements 78

in farms is the international charity World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), which began life in the UK in 1971 and can now be found via online groups throughout Europe.

People now talk of wwoofers and woofing, coining new words for this action and for those who actively take part by working for its selected certified organic farms. This is a typical example, showing how the product is initially virtual, and is then backed up with the experience: in this case the service is the hosting on the part of the farm as well as the supply of information that enables the exchange of work and experience to take place; the event is the sharing of the results once everyone returns to their daily lives, which, in this way, also creates an indirect income via the virtual word-of-mouth.

The moment of talking about the experience can, in fact, be considered to be what makes this event exceptional both for the person remembering the event and for those listening to this involuntary performance of the experience.

The tourism/work starts at a distance, in the following two case studies we will see how such practices offer a highly valid way of creating brand-loyal markets. In the first case, we will look at an age-old tradition, whereas in the second case we will look at how to transform traditional services and products using modern techniques teamed with sustainable practices and competitive rates.

The production of Rose Water in Kashan in Iran, is an example of co-operative-farming. The rose water production relies on the seasonal harvest of rose petals from Damask roses, in order to make the perfume: the gulab. At the beginning of the month of May local manufacturers in the city of Qamsar invite anyone who wishes to take part in the various stages of preparation of the perfume, from gathering petals to distilling the perfume, all of which takes place in the most traditional parts of the ancient city. The harvest of the petals must take place in the shortest possible span of time in order to harness the fragrance of the petals at its best. In this way, the harvest is transformed into a leisure event, with a call for seasonal workers which had once been solved by asking other farming families and local companies to pitch in and help. The system now attracts 80

keen visitors from all over Iran and many other neighbouring lands, encouraging people to learn about this tradition, also in turn generating business for those working in the local hospitality trade as well. This period, known as the “Festival of Roses and Rose Water” alludes to the event that takes place at the end of the whole process. The help brought in by casual labourers belongs to an age-old farming tradition that can be seen the whole world over. In the countryside in Italy it is common to see small farms helping each another out every year for the winemaking, harvesting, olive picking or grain threshing, often with a final party at the end of the all the hard work held at the farm of those asking for help.

The ever-growing cost-cutting at source practiced by large scale distribution networks as they compete for goods to undercut their competitors, is suited only to the most industrialised types of agricultural produce and has resulted in difficulties for many smaller-scale farmers. Direct contact with customers in sales have been greatly helped by ethically motivated purchasing networks like the Italian GAS groups and other ethical P2P buying groups elsewhere encourage their members to club together to buy sustainably-farmed local produce, likewise, people can also buy directly from farmers’ markets, or at traditional markets, such cases are all examples of a model which is universally recognised as the best way to survive in the fight against price-wars.

Turning the supply chain from producer to final customer into a viable option has led, over the years, to a growth in tourism linked to coastal fishing and inland cabotage. For example, freshly caught fish is no longer very affordable in Italy since the fishermen can no longer keep up with the high costs of managing fishing vessels. This is the case for an industry that was once relatively widespread, but which has been hit by the downturn which has effected most of Italy’s coasts. There have been various different policies which have attempted to support this sector, including government grants, temporary offers of redundancy pay offered to match the biological scarcity, and subsidised fuel costs, but the results have been slow to come to fruition. In an effort to keep their production line unaltered, some 81

fishermen have begun to look into ways of blending their traditional activities with other trades. Experience tourism has now become a byword for a highly sophisticated brand of cultural tourism with many types, the most simple of which is the “Pescato e mangiato” [Catch it and Eat it] version on offer. Here, owners of small fishing boats bypass the supply chain becoming managers of their own destinies by offering the full range product/service/event.8 In order to better comprehend the innovative features of this action it is worth noting that the traditional method of sales before this might have been sales directly to customers from the side of the boats, or sales to small restaurants with pre-arranged prices for catches, so the fish could in any case be easily traced back to the source and appreciated for its fresh local origins. Such a project places tourists at the centre, every step of the way, during the fishing trip, including preparing and tasting of the food, which might occur either directly on the boat or in some more exciting area in suitable spaces close to the port or near to the water’s edge. This is a practical example of a short production line which has added the extra stages of service, tourist attraction and restaurant food. As everyone knows, fishermen are not only able to catch the best fish, but are also famous for having family members who know just how to cook the fish according to tradition, in the best way according to local custom.

3. SHARING THE EXPERIENCE The re-discovery of local food festivals and fêtes all over Europe and in Italy, has been widespread and can be clearly seen as a way of tempting tourists to visit small traditional villages. We have already seen how these can be taken in all senses as a thoroughly modern way of adding value to certain local territories. Combining a place with good food and an evening of entertainment during the summer holidays or during the short holiday breaks and other festive periods, is one of the key cultural transformations that can be seen in modern approaches to tourism. The traditional food fairs of old were timed to coincide with feasts dedicated to the Patron Saints 83

/ A COMPANY WORKING IN A “KNOWN� MARKET, whose activities lead it to design a product, its services, and events all at the same time, can be defined as a Prosev Factory. Prosev designers are industrial designers who have been trained with both scientific and humanistic rigor, making them ideally suited to suggest or oversee new ways of interpreting company concepts and products, as well as coming up with innovative new methods and stages of development. euro 9,90

ISBN 978-88-99534-44-8

CRITICAL ESSAYS