Entertain + Sustain is happy to announce that it is collaborating for the English festival and event market with EcoCharge. In the last weeks the first steps have been made to integrate our offering and be able to present to clients a complete portfolio of sustainability experiences, ranging from human powered phone loading systems to solar panel based interactive installations.

Research and development
Currently Entertain + Sustain is researching the different characteristics of festival visitors. The resulting personas and character profiles are based on insights gathered during events over the summer, discussions and workshops with EcoCharge personnel and customer conversations, both on- and offline. The following development phases will build upon these personas to guide the development of innovative new sustainable interaction concepts for outdoor festivals.

website EcoCharge
website Sustainable Dance Club
website The Pea Awards

Entertain and Sustain was asked to develop a concept for a marathon in the Netherlands. The aim was to let both the runners and the visitors think about ‘sustainability’ and ‘energy’. Below are some images of the steps we took to come to a concept that acknowledges the physical and mental state of the runners after finishing and provides an experience that is both social and sustainable.

The first step is to talk to people that have been going through the experience of running a marathon and can give insight in how it feels and what you do after crossing the line. Based on these feelings and actions a customer journey can be drawn out showing possible touch points for a ‘sustainability experience’.

It was realised quickly that the main chances to provide interaction about sustainability are by using the friends and family of the runners and not purely the runners themselves. After analysing the opinions and experiences of runners, it became clear that from the runner’s perspective the most important aspect after finishing is recovery. Not only physical, but also mental. It is important for the runner to cope with the pain in a good way and to share the joy of finishing with their loved ones. Any ‘interactive experience’ should be a service that helps this process.

We came up with several ideas that combine different aspects of this process and bring sustainable energy sources, recycling or human power in.

We discussed the chosen ideas and visualized the scenarios for the runner and his family / friends. The final concept encapsulates several elements of the different ideas; integrating the social bond between family / friends and the runner and providing an experience to the runner that is relaxing and comforting.

This week, Elisave, the leading design school in Barcelona, is organizing the Design Thinking Week, or better said: 1a jornada Design Thinking e Innovacion from the first till the third of Februari 2011.  I will be attending two days of talks and workshops and will also be present at the UnConference on Thursday, organized by Wenovski Design Thinking Network and Claro Partners. I am sure I will learn a lot from the experienced professionals and scholars that will be presenting or leading workshops. One of the themes I especially look forward to get more insights of is the financial viability of the use of design thinking in business. Rich Radka of Claro Partners will speak about this on the first of February.

The UnConference on Thursday will have as a theme ‘Society 2.0′. Personally I like this theme as it encapsulates all aspects of human life. We are all part of a changing society and it is perhaps necessary to guide this society into certain directions. With big changes in our climate, in the way we communicate with other people, and in our economic systems there is a clear need to that experts from different fields put their heads together. On a larger scale, I hope that more and more companies and organizations will make use of the ideas and input of the individuals who are the single parts society’s made of. Crowd sourcing and co-creation are ‘hot’ words within marketing research, and consumer actions like the #UnCut demonstrations in the UK are a clear indication that people want to have influence on big companies and decision makers. How far this influence should go is of course debatable. Within innovation processes my current belief is that the idea generation phase should be open, with a co-operative insight generating creative process engaging potential users or target groups within the process. But the selection of favourable and valuable ideas would be something for designers, experts, innovation managers. Perhaps my ideas are perfectly fitting in a Society 1.0 framework and will be proven old-fashioned during the UnConference. I hope that the discussion will provide insights in how processes where users are included in the fuzzy front end, and work there together with designers and problem-owners, can be streamlined and optimized to deliver solutions for Society 2.0.

I’m really curious what kind of solutions or themes will appear during this UnConference and will post details about the outcome when I’ll be back from Barcelona.