Service Design as Entertainment

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!)