By Brent A Saulic (Draft 2) 4-11-2012

Human Centered Design: Framing Challenges and Possible Marketing Solutions.

Objective: Devised some marketing ideas, insights, and apparent assumptions which
may greatly improve marketability, scalability, and participation in HCD workshops.

Synopsis: (1) Social mobility and prestige may be the core cultural motivations which
could assist in HCD workshop scalability and adoption. (2) The symbolic marketing themes of renewal and new sight may be best suited for quickly conveying the value of HDC workshops. (3) Industry Specific HCD workshops may create better revenues, participation, and sponsorship viability. (4) The problem of Price Points for HCD workshops may be overcome by connecting diverse target markets groups in networks of mutual benefit. (5) Effectively applying the design science of HCD tools and methods should be the main priority of the workshop instruction, taking precedence before the central topic and overarching sponsorship goals of the workshop.

(1)

SOCIAL MOBILITY AND PRESTIGE MAY BE THE CORE CULTURAL MOTIVATIONS WHICH COULD ASSIST IN HCD WORKSHOP SCALABILITY AND ADOPTION.
a. Marketing the even as an opportunity for participants to gain social mobility through connections encountered during the event and speakers gaining prestige and exposure through limited speaking engagements in close proximity, is your best bet for attaining scalability. It is imperative that the speakers be local to rein in costs and provide regional relevance to the workshop conversations. i. Customers: Sell the workshop as a tool for networking and getting to meet local Industry leaders and experts answer questions, and discuss their industry or field candidly (honestly without filters). ii. Speakers: Ask local industry experts to come to your workshops for an hour, not to watch but speak during the workshop, answer

questions, imparting their knowledge and perspective to the workshop discussion. Honor them in some way (money, gift basket, speakers award) highlight their expertise (so they gain prestige) in your marketing material. Secondary Supporting Research: Successful application of principle Examples: Ted Talks, Industry Associations, Speaking Events, Conferences.

(2)

THE SYMBOLIC MARKETING THEMES OF RENEWAL AND NEW SIGHT MAY BE BEST SUITED FOR QUICKLY CONVEYING THE VALUE OF HDC WORKSHOPS.
a. Ingrained in their long history in a given industry, a customers experience hardens their ability to see new opportunities. Its often hard to exactly describe the benefits of these types of workshops in practical terms to them quickly. The simplest description and most potent ancient symbolism revolve around renewal and new sight. Sell the workshop as an investment (in learning a new set of tools) which helps people see the world anew, shaking up their brain to see new connections and opportunities. b. I would suggest developing a short video overview of your workshop to engage the persons senses better about the experience using this Refreshes the mind theme. Secondary Supporting Research: More to follow.

(3)

INDUSTRY SPECIFIC HCD WORKSHOPS MAY CREATE BETTER REVENUES, PARTICIPATION, AND SPONSORSHIP VIABILITY.
a. The value proposition and content of the workshop needs to be tailored to a specific industry to be compelling to specific classes of corporate executives, managers, and business interest groups (sponsors). b. They may not regard HCD as having relevance to their industry if its not explicitly stating why this workshop is important to their current Industry challenges and standing. Generic Design, all inclusive workshops cannot target specific market segments effectively or quantify effectiveness per industry. The adoption of HCD and rates of innovation in a given industry may be correlated if a conscious effort toward segmentation is pursued. c. Each Industry (Healthcare, Engineering, Manufacturing, Education, Church administration, etc.) has its own yearly cycles (of intense work). It may be more viable to plan HCD industry workshops to fit these industry specific business cycles relaxed times. d. Quantifying potential participants may be practical and easier to estimate and market to regionally if you utilize specific HCD workshop industry themes. By sending out flyers and emails to specific companies in particular industries, you could actually rate your marketing effectiveness

for specific industries, and create more targeted and grounded attendance projections which you could base yearly revenue and cost projections. e. The staying power of HDC workshops is weak, they become one-off workshops, once or a year events, instead of long term cultural engagements with communities and cultures. By breaking up your efforts into a number of specific industries specific workshops, HCD workshops contact with communities could be extended, having dozens of distinct industry specific HCD workshops a year. Secondary Supporting Research: More to follow.

(4)

THE PROBLEM OF PRICE POINTS FOR HCD WORKSHOPS MAY BE

OVERCOME BY CONNECTING DIVERSE TARGET MARKETS GROUPS IN NETWORKS OF MUTUAL BENEFIT.

a. I have found a good number of them HCD workshops try not to distinguish between the corporate, non-profit, and the entrepreneurial cultures--in an attempt to cater as broadly as possible. But each of these cultures has significantly different mentalities, motivations, insights, and price points. So it is a struggling point when marketing these types of workshop and devising financial models to sustain their occurrence. And because they are often weighed more toward corporate price points they often cut out a large segment of the potential audience and market. b. I believe in order to engage the west Michigan community (beyond the corporate world) more effectively you need to tailor your pricing to cater more broadly. The key may be to leverage these groups for creative mutual benefits. You may have different tiers of workshops motivations and benefits which can be leverage between stakeholder groups. c. The key to low cost public events is sponsorship from corporate interests and public institutions. In this effort HCD workshop elements could be design to overtly elicit similar deliverables of a focus group of a typical market research study at lower cost and expense to sponsorship companieswhile giving workshops participants a central theme to practice the new HCD toolsets and methods. This could spark greater sponsorship revenues and subsidize workshop cost for broader audiences, while still making a profit. d. In essence you could design a workshop that in it is in tandem conducting market research for a company, using keenly enthused customers working through the human centered design process, toolsets, and even paying a nominal subsidized fee for the privilege. If a company could elicit complex creative feedback and focused insights from a group of participant customers, with authentic perspectives, whose training in HCD process

toolsets makes them keener at communicating their thoughts it could be compelling two sided service solution. This business model may be interesting to explore further. Secondary Supporting Research: More to follow.

(5)

EFFECTIVELY APPLYING HCD TOOLS AND METHODS SHOULD BE OF PRIMARY CONCERN IN WORKSHOP INSTRUCTION, EVEN BEYOND THE CENTRAL TOPIC AND OVERARCHING SPONSORSHIP GOALS OF THE WORKSHOP.
a. There is a lateral organization of principles, a range of design methods and analytically divergent and convergent tools for navigating the Human centered design process. HCD principles should not be merely stated and memorized as the main strategy for adoption, the main but learned through the applied process of the HCD tools. b. A workshops diversity aids in idea generation, and compelling conversations, if participants are already familiar and comfortable with the design tools and processes. Diversity may actually hinder initial adoption of a new cultural behavior in the initial learning of HDC workshop tools. c. Having some sort of physical reference takeaway from a HCD workshop is essential. Secondary Supporting Research: More to follow.

(6) Conclusion: a. Confines of Brief: These are my personal thoughts and ideas, mainly acquired through personal experience and conversations with friends and acquaintances. I have largely left out more hard secondary facts and data to support my insights at this time, so I can further flesh out their meaning intuitively before substantiating with real world evidence. This is not meant to be definitive outline but a draft of well thought out concepts spelling out creative ways to frame an ongoing set of problems related to HCD marketability. Practical action plans related to these insights need also be defined further as well. b. Motivations: I value HDC workshops and the service they provide to nonprofessionally creative workforce. I have participated in a number of HCD workshops from many different organizations. Ive even paid for a number of them out of pocket. Each had its own applied learning style, framework, and workshop goals. I believe its important for these workshops to persist because of the value of the conversations they inspire, skillsets they impart, and new insights and connections they generate.

c. I have given a lot of critical thought to these workshops (financial sustainability, community engagement, and marketing) challenges. Every so often new conversations I have make me reevaluate and reframe my understanding of those challenges. I share these insights to aid in the increase the preponderance and quality of these workshops, gain more feedback, and refine my understanding of their effects on cultural psychology.