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Stiho is a supplier of construction, wood and plate materials. Costumers of Stiho are construction companies active in building, renovation and the development of small new building projects. Craftsmanship and knowledge about product and application modes are disappearing rapidly in the Dutch construction industry. Ageing is the main reason for this development. The loss of knowledge and skills is already causing problems in maintaining the quality of project in this industry. The question is how these skills and knowledge can be preserved and circulated to future generations through digital storytelling? The target group that Stiho wants to reach consists of construction companies active in building, renovation and the development of small new building projects. The media application that has to be developed must make this knowledge accessible to craftsmen at the ‘Stiho-building square’ (together with the Giebels formula) and at building locations.
The past week seemed like a roller-coaster. One moment we were doing great and the next felt like a disaster. Last week we discovered new roads and by doing the workshop we decided to change the assignment a little.
Bruno was very enthusiastic about the three concepts that we presented. Along with Bruno we decided to focus on 1 of these concepts. We were very happy to obtain this feedback and it felt reassuring to know that we took the right route.
This week we will be focussing on developing the concept further and finishing it up. After that we will start with the design phase! Exciting!
The past 2 weeks seem to have flown by as we were engrossed in creating our concepts.
The brainstorming workshop with Charlie Mulholland helped us gather our ideas and enter the concept phase. To aid our conceptualization we planned to have a co-creation workshop with our stakeholders. With Charlie’s help, Jelmar and Linda prepared for it.
We worked on creating concepts based on our research results from Friday and on Tuesday we peer-pitched 3 raw concepts so that we could get preliminary feedback from our colleagues and managers at the MediaLAB.
On Wednesday, 20th March, Jelmar and Linda visited the Weber company at Eindhoven to learn about how they impart their knowledge and to get insights for our concept.
On Thursday, 21st March, we conducted the co-creation workshop with two contractors, Jasper and Rik, two STIHO representatives, Andre and Dennis, and Andries from Makita, one of the supplier companies for STIHO. The meeting highlighted a few aspects about information received by the end users that we might have to focus on while incorporating into our final concept.
The workshop
Right from the beginning the meeting turned into a large discussion with all the stakeholders and gave us a refreshing view on the case. The relationship between supplier and end-user was different than expected which also gave the manager from Makita new insights. It appeared that Makita thought that they offered a very personal service to the end-user and that the end-user really appreciates this. In practice the end-user is only keen on getting information from the dealer, STIHO, whom they trust.
Another new insight is the fact that the contractors never supply detailed information about the case they are working on to the dealer or the supplier. They do not want to give away their financial and trade secrets to companies.
Consequently, we learnt that it was a logical to focus more on STIHO and less on the end-user for the whole project. We want to present STIHO as trustworthy, efficient and especially as an organisation were a lot of experienced specialists work in the field.
