Collaborative Project

PlatForum

A showcase for creatives of all backgrounds to cultivate a sense of community through knowledge sharing.

Brand Strategy

Event Experience

Communication Design

Client /

ReGo x Oliver Haus

Role

Design Consultant & Strategist
User Research, Brand Strategy, Stakeholder Relationships, Service Design, Event Organisation, Copywriting, Pitching

January 2023 - March 2023

You all effectively allocated team roles and responsibilities, leveraging the diversity of skills within the team, while also embracing an agile approach that complements your adoption of sociocracy principles. Your understanding of the project brief and client needs translated into insightful choices of methodologies and frameworks, such as the double diamond model, demonstrating flexibility in adapting methods as the project evolved.

Additionally, your thorough contextual analysis, stakeholder engagement, and use of design sprints yielded deep insights and fruitful ideation. The praise received for your branding design was well-deserved for its professionalism and contemporary appeal, and the team went the extra mile to provide clear guidelines for an engaging event experience.

Overall, the team’s strategic planning, including detailed marketing strategies and timelines for implementation, coupled with honest reflections from the team, indicate a successful collaboration that produced strong outcomes, laying a solid foundation for future endeavours.

— Michael Martin, Senior Lecturer for MA Design Management & Project Supervisor

Overview

PlatForum is a showcase for creatives of all backgrounds to share their journeys and experiences, cultivating a sense of community through knowledge sharing. As we often exhibit tunnel vision as individuals, we need the input of others to broaden our horizons and overcome our cognitive biases. PlatForum aims to inspire creatives to be better presenters and to develop mastery of communicating the value of their work to others.

This was a client project where we had the liberty of choosing our group members. With limited spots for this brief, I organised an online visual workspace for people to express their skills and preferences. Through this, our team was quickly assembled as we strategically identified skills compatible with each other and the project.

Client Background

This brief called for the team to develop an ethical and sustainable business model for an early start-up initiative aiming to create an event space for creatives. The hope was to create an inclusive space for emerging designers, artists, and performers with the core value of knowledge-sharing. Our client had observed that emerging creatives were oftentimes hidden or secluded and wanted to create opportunities for them to be heard.

ReGo is a social design enterprise showing young people that they could shape their lives to be more purposeful. Launched as a separate initiative under 'ReGo Forum' in November 2022, it proved a promising space for aspiring artists and designers to exhibit their goods and services. With many intriguing paths the start-up could explore, we sought to understand and undertake their vision while offering our insights as design managers.

Project Management

As we were five members with different working styles and patterns, we needed to manage our resources and time efficiently to ensure our delivered solution was effective.

We used a combination of two organisational structures, forming a 'teal' organisation based on the principles of self-management and holistic coordination:

Network organisations are characterised by a flexible and multi-disciplinary approach that emphasises individual skill sets and high levels of efficiency. Since our team was made up of various specialists, using this system gave us the freedom to pursue our own lines of inquiry and investigate problems in a multi-pronged fashion.
Sociocracy allows each member to have an equal voice in decision-making. While this process lengthened our planning and execution stages, the combination with the above enabled us to present our ideas and come to a decision together. This led to increased engagement and better attention to detail during our meetings.

Collaboration Tools

We used a combination of tools suitable for in-person, online, and hybrid working to remain flexible in our collaboration. It was important to standardise and categorise where the information would go so that work progress could be easily communicated.

The Double Diamond

The Double Diamond framework was chosen as it readily conveys the design process to non-designers. Without a strong USP (unique selling point), the range and variety of ideas Oliver proposed suggested a lack of clear vision for the business's future. Therefore, we needed to explore a series of strategies that could guide him through this uncertain process.

Discover. This helps designers understand, rather than assume, what the problem is. Using secondary research and analysis, we thoroughly understood why presentations were critical to creative professional development. This phase also ensured we understood client requirements, providing opportunities to validate our insights.
Define. Using primary research methods, we narrowed the problem to specific elements we could tackle and design solutions for. Experiencing a 'Forum' event firsthand, we observed, inquired, and empathised with direct stakeholders to collect data and interpret them to generate our problem statements.
Develop. With clearly defined objectives, we ideated early iterations of event plans and value propositions through design sprints. We developed the brand identity and USP with 'ReGo' values in mind, defining the business manifesto and mission themes.
Delivery. Finalising our deliverables, we compared them against our pre-defined aim and problem statement. Prioritising designing for autonomy and capacity building within them, we took care in providing their reasonings so that he could understand the ‘whys’ and have enough flexibility and guidance to implement the ‘hows’.

Discover

Why is it So Difficult to Put Yourself Out There?

Being in a community is hard to come by after leaving university. Having a social group where questions, advice, and discussions could be traded can be extremely helpful for the creative process. Creative graduates often wish for more support and resources during the transitional period between university and industry work, wanting opportunities to obtain insights into industry standards before leaving university.

During the pandemic, a survey filled by 1,202 university finalists shows COVID-19’s devastating impact on employment. Young creatives have attended online networking sessions to remain connected to the industry, but only a minority felt it helped develop their careers. While digital platforms increase accessibility, networking on these platforms feels impersonal and disconnected. Graduates state that the most significant thing in creative relationships is showcasing your personality and doing so online can be an uphill struggle.

Without opportunities for creatives to practice presentation skills long-term, they can remain afraid of the prospect and adapt slower to new circumstances. Being a visual communicator does not necessarily translate to being a verbal communicator. The lack of focus on this aspect can limit artists' confidence in their speaking abilities, and they may struggle to convey their perspectives to those unfamiliar with their work.
Within the digital age and social media, the instant gratification and ease of finding information often reduces attention span and impairs critical thinking. People are quicker to make assumptions and disengage from discussions or presentations if they are not made aware of the value quickly, placing much pressure on presenters to hook listeners in within a short period.

What Does This Mean for FORUM?

Based on these insights, we wanted to tackle these issues from the presenter's and attendee's perspectives to create a holistic solution. We debated the benefits of creating a safe space versus a space where stakeholders can embrace discomfort, not wanting to spook newcomers but knowing that risk is needed for growth.

Is Safe Too Safe? While safe environments may encourage more creatives to take the first step, the overall value of the practice would diminish as there would be no real stakes. The final decision was to create an empowering space for presenters and attendees to improve their self-efficacy, provide career and networking opportunities, and promote community-building by focusing on better presentations and active listening.

Define

Experiencing a FORUM Event

Attending a FORUM event as participants and researchers allowed us to act and speak with stakeholders directly and observe their interactions with the event. We split our team between the organisers, the presenters, and the attendees to gather a holistic perspective on FORUM's event organisation and management.

Understanding Behaviour

Behavioural mapping is a design research method that inspects and documents how people behave and interact with their environment. Using our observations, we plotted the movement and interactions of attendees during the event. Collating our findings into an empathy map, we narrowed the insights down to three areas that were lacking:

Weak Event Structure. Although attendees found the pacing of the presentations to be interesting as it was free-flowing, they were confused about how they should behave during the event. Without consistency throughout the event, those unfamiliar with the scene could not readily engage and felt discouraged at the end of the event.
Inaccessible Event Experience. Attendees who came alone described feeling excluded, mentioning that many others came in groups. They also said that event logistics, such as poor choice of music and lighting, affected their mood as they sometimes did not match the atmosphere.
Inconsistent Event Management. There was no observed standardisation of presentation content or feedback systems that could help presenters on their public speaking journeys. Bringing this up to the organisation team, they agreed on the points we brought up, expressing their desire for themed events to curate better presentations and tools that could aid audience engagement.

Interpret

Using stakeholder mapping, we identified the various individuals, groups, or organisations that could be interested in FORUM. We selected "university students and graduates" as our primary stakeholders as networking events like FORUM can give them the exposure to practice their skills and "fail" safely.

Problem Statement

Organisation: The current business model of FORUM does not allow the enterprise to be self-sustaining. The proposed value and USP of FORUM are not well-communicated to the target audience. Additionally, there are no formal guidelines for organising and coordinating events, making it difficult for FORUM to be an autonomous entity of REGO.

Creatives: A lack of proactive behaviour was observed among young creatives in critiquing and connecting with new people, preventing them from establishing an empowering community that allows them to develop presentation and active listening skills in spaces around London.

Proposed Solutions

To attract this target audience, we devised several more "how might we...?" questions to guide how we develop our proposed solutions.

Develop

Brainstorming

Design sprints are time-constrained processes that help teams define goals, validate assumptions, and decide on a product roadmap before commencing development. We assigned roles to each team member at the beginning of the sprint and switched around when either of us hit a mental block. Doing so allowed us to work more effectively and efficiently as we constantly kept each other in the loop, keeping the momentum going and ensuring productivity.

Establishing FORUM's Mission and Values

As the benefits of FORUM weren't clear, we decided to write a manifesto to establish FORUM's vision, mission, and values. This was so that new audiences could see FORUM's purpose and intent in organising these events while allowing the organisation team to make design decisions based on them.

Designating Event Themes

To differentiate them from competitors in the market, we decided to implement thematic elements based on professional feedback provided to the presenters during the event. Seeing how Presenter 3 evoked the greatest emotional impact spurred the team to develop themes around sustainability and empowerment, as those were also common themes identified throughout all three presentations.

The initial themes were based on the United Nations' 17 Sustainability Development Goals for their 2030 vision. However, further research showed that it was heavily critiqued for underlying inequalities in its international system, not being able to be used in localised contexts, and providing a false sense of security in its achievements.

While it is widely known and has many positives, we concluded it was best that the themes were more generalised to avoid restricting presenters. Thus, we decided to use the 5 Ps the 17 goals were based on instead.

Mapping Out FORUM's Services

A hypothetical event structure is a chronological sequence of events that may occur in a FORUM event. We use this tool for strategic planning, risk assessment, and forecasting to help PlatForum and all the stakeholders (organisers, presenters, and attendees) prepare for potential scenarios.

Through this, we developed an ecosystem map that represents FORUM's stakeholders, flows, and relationships. From our design sprints, we have identified two periods in which activities will occur: during the event and pre/post-event. Activities associated with event experience fall within the event duration while marketing strategy, event preparation and curation operate before and after the events.

This not only allowed us to identify operational activities that we can include in the Business Model Canvas and Service Blueprint, but it also allowed us to identify the emotional state of our stakeholders as we map their journey through the event service.

Deliver

Rebranding FORUM

Within our deliverables, we first re-framed the name “FORUM” due to strategic marketing decisions. The name of “FORUM” was already taken within social media and URL addresses. Therefore, we came up with the name “PLATFORUM”. It retains the concept of Roman forums while depicting a platform, a space that creates an opportunity to initiate action.

We chose the colour palette to represent the three themes that PLATFORUM focuses on: "Technology", "Planet", and "People", with the added pink to embody warmth within the PLATFORUM community. To visualise how this can be implemented, we designed mockups showcasing branding material PLATFORUM could use.

Providing Guidelines for Event Experience

For presenters, attendees, and organisers to understand their role at PLATFORUM events, we created guidelines and templates for each stakeholder segment to maximise the event experience. This would include allowing presenters to understand the themes and dates they would be required to send material by, for priming attendees and the audience in preparation for events, and guides for organisers to ensure each element of the event was carefully thought through before execution.

9.4.A. Deliver_ Guidelines_ presenter.png

Marketing Strategy for Brand Presence

Marketing strategies are essential to the success of networking events because they raise awareness, generate interest, and encourage attendance. To maximise the impact of a networking event, the marketing strategy must be aligned with the event's core values – To Educate, To Engage and To Resonate, which add value, create curiosity and build communities.

To Educate. The marketing strategy should emphasise the event's educational aspects. The content should be engaging, informative, and shareable so the target audience can spread the word and generate more interest in the event.
To Engage. Interaction allows the target audience to participate in the event before it starts. For example, sending personalised invitations to industry-relevant individuals or businesses can help generate interest in the event and encourage attendance.
To Resonate. Strategies should be tailored to the target audience's needs and interests. This could be accomplished by segmenting the target audience based on their interests, preferences, and demographics.

The Future of PLATFORUM

In developing our deliverables, we identified pain points to establish an appropriate strategy and timeline that would allow PLATFORUM to differentiate itself as a self-sustaining enterprise. We also summarised and provided an audience development plan for PLATFORUM’s next steps in achieving this vision.

Establish PLATFORUM's Reputation. To deliver PLATFORUM's value proposition, the organisation would need to evaluate their strengths for future opportunities to mitigate threats to work on their weaknesses. After implementing more events, PLATFORUM can continue to build its reputation by updating its marketing strategies.
Focus on Educational & Experiential Goals. Doing this would allow PLATFORUM to be desirable for the main stakeholders, after which they can focus on reputational goals where the team can begin to collaborate and partner with industry professionals and established organisations.
Becoming a Social Enterprise. Once PLATFORUM's growth is stabilised, focusing primarily on financial goals can expand its initiatives and potentially provide initiatives and collaborations with local communities. The team may consider whether they'd like to follow REGO’s stance and become a social enterprise.

The Pitch

We decided to use the pitch presentation to showcase how our clients could apply our deliverables to create audience engagement. Through ice-breaking activities, creative storytelling, and accompaniments to engage all five senses, we demonstrated how they could produce an unforgettable event experience using elements of our deliverables as key storytelling points.

Door-In-Door-Out Activity. Handing out placards, we posed a simple “How do you feel today?" before and after the presentations as we ended our pitch with a call to action. From the 23 responses we collected, the insights gathered described mainly negative emotions at the beginning and positive emotions at the end, showing that this was a valid method for collecting audience feedback.
Engaging All Five Senses. By providing refreshments, a curated music playlist, printed-out booklets for the panel, and sending an email invite with promotional material the day before, we created an immersive experience to engage our audience and demonstrate the validity and value of our solution.
Maximising Emotional Impact. Our pitch content and structure were based on the Pitch Canvas by David Beckett. We used storytelling techniques to maximise its emotional impact, emphasising our selected themes and values across our points to drive our “whys” as we wrote a script that would resonate with the audience.

Client Feedback

"I like the logo and choice of icons. I think it's very interesting, creative, and easy for people to connect the events to. If it's possible, I would like to have a transcript of the end statement you just delivered. I thought that was brilliant and captured the very essence of what I want to convey."

— Founder of FORUM

"First of all, congratulations on a job well done. The visual branding is fantastic and the colours remind me of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. While the way you presented it felt very corporate and professional, you added emotional and human touches to your presentation that were human-centred and appealed to ReGo's values."

— Director of ReGo