Testing Our Assumptions (For May 8th)

To start having some more references, we have developed a poll and then sent it to a list of friends / kown people. Our intention was to make a vary short and simple test to verify if we were too far of the real existing needs associated to the bike parking experience.

So we received answers of 29 persons, with an average age between 23 and 26 years old, and a balanced relation between men and women. They also declared (more than 50%) that they usually go more than 2 times a month to a mall (This time we focused just on mall experiences). The answers we put more attention were the ones related to the questions ¿What transport media do you use?, ¿Would you like to go by bike?, ¿What do you know about bike parking lots in malls? and ¿How much would you pay for a customized service in bike parking?.

More than a 90% of the people use their car, and no one goes to the mall by bike, although a 86% of them declared that they enjoy riding a bike. Also more than a half  of the people said that would pay a dollar or more  for a safe and customized place to park their bikes, what would have not that relevance in the develop of our research, considering the fact that non of these people usually go by bike to malls. And maybe the most important data is that more than the 95% hasn't a clue about today's bike parking lots situation in malls. 

Our assumption that a few people ride a bike because there is no culture related to this transport media is strictly supported by our results, considering also the fact that most of the people that answered the pall told they would like to go by bike to malls, but they're unsafe.

¿What transport media do you use when going to the mall?

¿What do you know about bike parking lots in malls?

After that short experiment, we organized a visit to Mall Plaza La Florida, Parque Arauco, a LIDER and a JUMBO supermarket, and made some questions just to people we noticed they were riding a bike to get to the place. We interviewed 10 persons per place, and our focus was on the assumptions about people needs at the time of parking a bike in a bis store or retail. That way, we started by telling them about what we wanted to develop, mentioning a technologic experience which would be cheap but not free. And the first thing we noticed (by the reports of the people) was that the safety thing is today being covered by some organizations. In the same Parque Arauco for example, they have just opened 49 baike parking lots, with a special guard and U Locks, on the ground, free, and a with a nice presentation, so that would be a very useful analog for the develop of our value proposition. One person told us about the existence of free U Locks providing in the Diego Portales University for people that get there using their bikes. We also got to know a service called parkeatucleta, a project that includes easily transportable and environmentally freindly bike parking lots, made almost completely by recyclable materials and with a very clean presentation, what gives them a lot a value (www.parkeatucleta.cl, they were at Lollapalooza 2012).

Parque Arauco's brand new bike parking

So, and despite the fact that those were little but useful examples, our first important result related to our assumptions was that principal need of the people is ACCESIBILITY. The fact of being not underground and with a nice value given proposition was also important for most of the people, but always after the first big need of the accesibility. Finally, we noticed that the safety wasn't really a problem related to the already existing bike parking lots. It's unsafe to park a bike in a big store where there isn't any bike parking, but in places where there is it seems to be not a huge problem.

With that information we listed the real needs of the riders we interviewed according to their relevance.

1.- Accesibility

2.- Enviroment (associated experience)

3.- Safety

4.- Capacity

Now the problem seems to be clear, we have to orientate our project to the solution of the problem of accesibility, but anothe problem appears. There are already free and safe parking lots, so people wouldn't necessarily pay anything for that service. Our actual problem is to solve the dilema of needs, we have to decide between a free option or a paid one by developing and analysing new particular value propositions.

Group At Work...

During the last days we have visited some big stores and retailers looking for our costumer segment and talking with them... Soon we will be able to evaluate the correspondance of our assumptions and to modificate them if it applies.

Felix

The Value Innovation

For this week, we had to read two independent publications, that specially made me reflect about the initial idea related to a new concept of integration of bycicle parkings. First the ideas on The Future Of Retail about a new way for brand stores to hold their clients, and then the interview with Ron Johnson, both of them were telling to me the way through which we had to develop the idea of customising bike parkings. So we took our initial idea, and gave it the value vs cost approach, that basically states that retailers must work in adding more value to the relations they have with their clients, instead of looking for a way of increasing revenues by slowing costs. That way, I figured out that I have to associate the problem in case to a value given proposition. To take a today's common parking lot and name the completely opposite characteristics, then integrate them into a whole new concept of product/service. 

So, following the Business Model Generation philosophy, I attacked this problem by sketching de contextual Business Model Canvas and then observing which factors could I eliminate, reduce, raise or create, in pro of giving a much more better experience to the users.

Source: Adapted from Blue Ocean Strategy

Today we are attached to another totally different strategy, which includes minimum costs (just in cases there actually is a bike parking) and no concerne at all about the value. That automatically makes the associated experience an awful one. We have to consider that people who dare to ride a bike in Santiago, has already a hard time making their ways through the city. Streets aren't safely enough for a person to pedal on it, but the riders aren't also well received on the sidewalks, where there's not enough space for them and walkers to coexist. 

The purple lines indicates cycle paths in Santiago... You don't have to do a lot of research to notice that there's an alarming lack of available kilometers for people to travel by bike, given this huge city's already known context.

Now the problem is settled. The challenge is to transform today's disturbing experience of leaving bikes in a safe/comfortable place after our pedals in a whole different concept of treatment to the costumers.

I gues the sensation I want the costumers to experience is the one associated to the video below. After some thinking and filling the Canvas with estimated numbers, I can say that this a totally a profitable project that would change completely associated store's image by improving the experience of the costumers, that would also help by adding themselves to a great develop of conciousness and change of mentality.

This is cool.

Discovering A Real Need

During our last practice experience (Warm Up 2, The Mall Observation), I was a little bit immersed in that lapse when minutes/hours pass and nothing new seems to appear in front of us. So one early conclusion I could prove was the importance of the persistence needed if you want to notice a real need in a public area...

However, yesterday I needed to get some tickets for a show and I decided to go to Parque Arauco. This time, like I usually do, I used my bike (without asking myself first if there would be any place to park it). 

My previous experiences with bike parking lots in retails or in general big stores weren´t so different between them. With the exception of one Lider supermarket wich has a small space for 5 or 6 bikes near the entrance, I haven't used a single outdoor safe place for parking my bike without being aware of his safety during my staying. And this wasn't any different.

When I get there, and after asking some guards and doing some circles around the block, I found the bike parking, in the subterranean, where there wasn't any space for it (there where no more than 20 bikes). So I had to lock my bycicle in a common safety rail near some cars. I didn't need more than 2 minutes (the time a spent down there lefting my bike) for noticing the nonconformity of the other people who was looking for the same. And that made me think about a similar experience I had in Jumbo, where I had to pedal all the way accross the car parking lots in the supermarket's subterranean to finally leave my bike, not before giving all my personal data (It was a horrible small dirty kind of jail). So when I was looking for my Bob Dylan's ticket, I couldn't stop thinking about the particular need of having a customized space for parking our bikes, in this kind of places. The particular fact is the direct source of experience through which I capted this particular necessity of having a comfortable and safe place to leave a transport media that today is playing a central role in a kind of revolution that slowly becomes taking force in Santiago.

Later, and doing more thinking at home, I wander about the idea of adding value to an already existing thing by promoting the benefits of using a bike. In this case, the idea is strictly related to the mall's image, people need's satisfaction, and a deep work of conciousness of everyone (specially people here in Santiago). So I started gettin informed about some relevant and influential revolutions that has taken place in history and could be observed as a rich source of general data.

Nice

Warm Up 2.- Observation: The Mall Experience

In this opportunity, our group went to the Mall Plaza Vespucio, near the University, to walk, sit and most important watch what was going on in that place. Our goal was to identify some key facts that make people go to Mall Plaza instead of other small shoppings to buy almost everything... At first it was obvious, then very confusing, but at the end we think we understood it.

So once there, we start seeing lots of people walking, just sitting, or eating ice cream, all them looking at the showcases or carrying bags with any kind of products. Based on the AEIOU method, we can put in the categories of activities the ones just named in addition to sitting on benches or in restaurants for working or just doing nothing. 

I think she's posing...

Now, and refering to the environments, I think that the conept of Mall Plaza is to offer us a lot of combined environments in just una big box. The corridor, different kind of stores, fast food places, restaurants and terraces are basically the type of environments that Mall Plaza combines in one hit,  which could be one natural reason of why people go there instead of shopping in small stores. As we just read in the Basic Needs lecture, people tend to satisfy their basical needs, where we find the need of socializing. People can also eat in these Malls, and we also read that evoiding the hunger sensation is related to another basic and physiological need to be satisfied. There we have two big and easy-to-catch needs and reasons why people keep going to the Mall Plaza.

Sitting doing nothing.

Lot of people...

The interactions observed in Mall Plaza were between parents, grandparents, and children. Between people and products, food, benches and tables. The variety of things and kind of people related to the context we noticed in the mall is in some way similar to the Araucano Park context observed in warm up 1. I suppose that is really the kind of effect that Mall Plaza wants to transmit, but they must know there is one big failure in the environment proposal: There is a big lack of green areas in those big boxes. Now all of the things and kind of persons I've described are the objects and users involved in the AEIOU method, which brings back the thought about the similarity  between the Mall Plaza and a real plaza. 

"Green Areas"

The concept is about being in family.

The working concept is present here and in the real square.

So as a concluding remark of this particular experience, I can say that the meaning that Mall Plaza management wants to give to their "Plazas" is really a similarity to the real squares, like the Araucano Park. In order to that, is the need of satisfying the physiological and basic needs the one that, based in our observations, make people going to the Mall Plaza and develop their lives there, instead of going to a small store with the only purpose (or possibility) of buy something. 

Warm Up 1.- Observation

For this first Warm Up activity, our group went to the Araucano Park near the Parque Arauco, to sit and observe during an approach time of three hours... Just observe, and then get some conclusions.

The method we used to do the observation was the AEIOU, based on Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects and Users. So in resume, we just sat on the grass and started observing everything around. At first, it wasn't that revealing, but after some minutes, the dynamic of everything what was happening at the place gave us some general and specific ideas of the sense of this huge park. That fact and a little bit of thinking gave us some ideas of the specific needs that people were satisfying at the Araucano Park.

The first thing we noticed, was the amount of people who were doing different kind of sports. Football, basketball, skating, slacklining, running, riding a bike, excercising or even jumping are some of the activities we could see. The second thing (and one of the most repetitive ones that we saw) was people walking their dogs or babies (in that order of relevance). Those two general things showed us that people go to the Araucano Park looking for a place to liberate themselves by doing any kind of sport, and also that this park is, by some reason,  a perfect place to carry your baby or your dog. 

Over time, we could see couples, families having picnic, playing, staring at birds, or simply being alone.  

Ok, now we think; People go the Araucano Park to get relaxed and have a nice non-stressfull time near the green color. But at that point, we start watching other kind of activities, specifically related to work...

First, we saw a group of men doing a great puppet show, then an organ grinder. But what really caught our attention were some people (indepent cases) literally working with their notebooks, like bringing their offices to the park. Now we think again; It's not a thing of going to a place where you are far from your work. It's about going to a place and bringing your needs and ordinary activities to a place that gets you away from the big city.

In overview, what I personally learned from this afternoon at the Araucano Park, is that people use it as a place to satisfy any kind of ordinary need that they have, but with the concept of bringing those activities where the power and the consequences of the big city seem to be far far away.