Service Design as Entertainment

Wooo! My presentation is up, as well as audience feedback. It would be iPod Video friendly had Youtube not wrapped it up in flash, but oh well... there are ways around that.

Enjoy!

Had a stellar time presenting this time around, came up second to last on the second day so I knew I needed to do something to wake the audience up.

Started off with the "More Poop Your House - No Grazie!" slide and then I struck with the iPood advert. Very simple, very effective. Two 30-second tracks overlayed on the same slide, one with music, the other with my vocal poodar performance building up to a climactic "Watch Out! You're going to step in it!!!"

One of the best comments I got after the presentation was from Mellis, who said something like, "Now I get it. If the service was as entertaining as your presentation, that's Service Design as Entertainment. The presentation was the embodiment of the idea." I knew that I had got my message out after Danny Stillion kept coming up with poo puns long after the presentation.

What can I say? Poop is sticky. ;p

I'll post an update when the video of the presentation gets youtubed... tried it once, but got garbled in the transmission.

Still working on both character design and story. Here are the seeds of the bad guys of Pooptopia. Take one part Joker, two parts Toxic Avenger, sprinkle with Iron Man for the nanite age, and you begin to get an idea of what happens when a Pittsburg Pirates/Steelers fan teaching in Korea falls afoul of some industrial accident near a nano-robotics research lab in the outskirts of Seoul. Pair this steely poo-pirate with a military-grade Poomba (semi-autonomous waste removal swarmrobot) gone bad, and you get Captain Dong-chim* and the Nemse** Machine.

* Dong-Chim (똥침; poop needle) is an attack, which i think is unique to korean children, and often takes places when someone is bending over to drink from a water facet.

** Nemse (냄새; stink), i.e. a stinky, poop-powered robot.

Service Design as Entertainment
Case Study: Pooptopia LBS

MISSION
Why are you doing this project?
Poop is very natural. Poop is also kind of funny and gross. Poop is a big problem in Milan in certain areas, but not in other areas. I am curious as to why this is so. Via Watt is the perfect laboratory to investigate the problem because Via Watt is a "Pooptopia".

What is the problem you are trying to address?
Some dog owners do not clean up their dog's poop and when other dog owners follow suit the problem snowballs and everyone suffers.

What is your overall goal?
To provide dog owners with an easy way to take responsibility for the problem.

At the end of your thesis you will be happy if…
It is safe to walk down Via Watt while staring at the clouds in the sky.

CONTEXT
Who are you designing for?
Dog owners, poo-haters, and poo-hunters or in the language of the service: Pooptopians, Poogilates, and Poonies.

Who will benefit of your new design?
Anyone who has treaded and dreaded poo-littered city streets.

What is the added value you want to bring to people everyday life?
Community, cleanliness, and joy.

CONCEPT
What is your design domain?
Poop.

Is it a new product? Is it a new service?
Pooptopia LBS is a pet waste removal service for city neighborhoods. It utilizes location-based technology to locate, monitor, and respond to problem areas. The service incorporates stakeholder action into the solution by empowering dog owners, poo-haters, and poo-hunters to easily mark the location of pet waste for pick-up by the Pooptopia service or by city-employed sanitation workers.

What happens in each scenario?
POOPTOPIAN Scenario:
Pæris Hiltøn takes her poochie for a walk in her chic urban neighborhood. Poochie poo-poos and Pæris goes, “Like… ewww. Mommy will call the nice Pootector-man to take care of babies’ business. Mm-Kay?” Pæris flicks open her fabulous jewel-encrusted Vir2 phone, launches the Poodar application with one softkey click, then hits a second key to record a pootag sending GPS coordinates to Pooptopia’s server and then continues on her walk, gloves unsoiled. Seconds later a new blip appears on Poodar screens and Pootectors in the vicinity are alerted to location of Poochie’s mess.

POOGILANTE Scenario:
On her way home from the market, Signora Pelle wheels her cart into a fresh pile of dog poo. Infuriated by the indignity of the situation, she takes out her mobile to document the uncharted poo and fires off pre-formatted SMS to local city officials stating “No shit is good shit. Enough with irresponsible dog owners!” with photo and GPS coordinates attached. The picture is then uploaded to the Pooptopia website where other angry Poogilantes gather to vent and crook fingers at the filthy pictures and lament over falling real estate value of their neighborhood on Pooptopia’s message boards. From the comfort of her apartment, Signora Pelle pecks on her keyboard, “Let’s show them we mean business!” She organizes a flashmob of Poogilantes and descend into the heart of their Pooptopian neighborhood to poolog en masse. Nearby at a city substation, a small squad of sanitation workers wheel out on specially modified segways and head off to the new, large blip on their Poodar PDA screen.

POONIE Scenario:
Hannah Teresa Maria Lisa walks home from school everyday. She is a Junior Pootector, a volunteer Poonie and poo-hunter extraordinaire. Her HorseFly phone allows her to call the police, her mom, her best friend and poolog. Everyday she keeps her eyes peeled for dog poop a carefully catalogues anything she finds. She also helps by marking anything she finds as “big poo”, or “little poo.” She tries hard to be the first pootagger because she gets the most pooints for “new poo”. Hannah Teresa Maria Lisa is one of Pooptopia’s finest Pootectors-in-Training.

What are the touch-points?
SOFTWARE
Poodar powered by M.P.A.A.S. (Mobile Poo Awareness & Avoidance System) a mobile phone application for geotagging poop and GeoRSS for iPod.
The Pooptopia website.
Daily Pootistics and Zen koans from the Prophet of Pooptopia.

PLACES
Petshops
Animal Registration Office

WORKERS
Poojockey w/ lacross-polo style extended pooper scooper, rides a Pooter scooter and wears an augmented-reality helmet with Poodar on the visor’s H.U.D.
City Sanitation-worker w/ precision spray and claw for grabbing, rides Segway SHT.

HARDWARE
Honda Pooter - A zippy hybrid scooter with spacious storage compartments
Segway SHT - a specially modified segway to allow for ease of poop scooping and monitoring of Poodar.
iRobot Poomba - semi-autonomous swarm robots for waste removal deployed in urban environments (think Roomba 4x4 multiplied by 1,000).
Cingular HorseFly - Country cousin to the Firefly.

Why does the final user like it?
Dog owners have someone else to do their dirty work and something to talk about, poo-haters have a vehicle to take constructive action, and poo-hunters gain status and respect in the community.

What is the very new value you are bringing to the people?
A monk once asked Ummon, "What is the Buddha?"
Ummon answered thusly: "A dried shit-stick!"
- Yunmen Wenyan, zen koan

(Captain Dongchim and the Nemse Machine will be appearing in the next post.... I promise!)

Had a lovely walk with Heather and Leo this morning. The muse of Pooptopia visited me while I was enjoying a cappucco in the cafe next to Heather's flat. In the foamy swirl of my cup I received this cryptic message.

The Great Prophet of Pooptopia said:
Seek Shit and You Shall Find It.

After observing two sizable dog communities around parks, and monitoring the local parkless (non) community, I realized that citizens of Pooptopia (Pooptopians) may need more than a poop-scooping service for city sidewalks. And conversely, Puptopians may not even want some else to scoop their dog's poo. They are perfectly capable of doing it themselves and have the motivation, provided they see other dog owners doing the same.

So, while some may want a scooping service and some may not, all dog owners - be they Pooptopians or Puptopians - need ice-breakers, fodder for conversation. Dogs are social animals and require the same of their owners, and what do Pooptopians talk about dogs exchange olfactory namecards?

Perhaps dog owners could receive a daily quote from the Great Prophet of Pooptopia delivered via SMS; food for thought, wise words from a sage, or pithy one-liners about poo from a graduate student in Interaction Design ;-). That along with local neighborhood Pootistics, a daily report of choice facts, which could alert them perhaps if their Puptopian neighborhood was on the verge of being assimilated into Pooptopia's odiferous realm.

Dog owners aren't the only people affected by the battle between Pootopian and Puptopian neighborhoods. Other stakeholders would be the poo-haters (who may also be dog-haters just looking for an excuse). We shall dub them Poogilantes. Picture Clint Eastwood disguised as Italian lady wearing an immense fur coat and a scowl, armed with a shopping bag on wheels and a Poodar-equipped mobile phone. Then there are Junior Pootectors a.k.a. the Poonies, brave and reckless bands of youth recruited from the neighborhoods of Pootopias and Puptopias. An inquisitive bunch, they have a natural fascination with anything body fuction related and dog poo is always good for a giggle. They pootag for fun and glory. They pootag to defeat Captain Dongchim and the Nemse Machine (more on that neferious duo later).

Pooptopia LBS Values for Stakeholders rundown:
For dog owners. Portrait of a Pooptopian: Whether on not they choose to scoop, at least they have something to talk about.

For poo-haters: Portrait of a Poogilante: A cranky poo (and possibly dog) hater who points out poo in a furious attempt to oust all dogs and dog owners from their neighborhood. Pootagging gives them proof of the problem and fuel for their anti-merde politicking.

For poo-lovers: Portrait of a Pootector: A young, enthusiastic squad of poo-hunters. Their mission: Seek and destroy poo. Their ranks swell with every passing day with the fresh-faced youth of Pootopia's Police Squad. Armed with Pootector Kit: For now a disposable camera and neighborhood map to Poolog. Pooflags with Semacode on toothpicks to Pootag. This kit is to be handed out to volunteers at local church.... Come se dice "User Research Probe"?

A bit confused by all these filthy terminology? Check out my previous Pooptopian post which describes the environment in which Pooptopia LBS was born.

In the next Pootopian post I will introduce Pooptopia's nemesi:

Captain Dongchim (똥침/Poop-needle) and the Nemse (냄새/Stink) Machine!