End thoughts:

I loved this live brief paper. It was such a good learning experience to not only have to work cohesively within a group from a variety of backgrounds, but work well in order to complete a brief for an outside organisation/business, a concept we’ll have to be well used to within a creative field.

When I first learned of ‘Shift’ I was so excited to hear about an organisation working to empower females from an early age. With my own history and ideals I was so excited to be able to work in a feminist field, through design. The wicked problem posed by the ‘Shift’ organisation, before any research and discussion, seemed pretty basic, which the group quickly found to be untrue. As their funding is such a large sum of money, the problem quickly became a collection of intricate details, and as such, the solution was only able to be applied to a fraction of that issue.

I feel that our group was such a good mix of people. We were all able to bring something different to the table, while over all having the same views and ideas on the final outcome, with ‘Shift’s’ success in the forefront of all our decision making. Our approach to helping ‘Shift’ overcome this wicked problem was based around the idea of creating an expandable solution that would work to support ‘Shift’ over coming years as the organisation itself expands. Our solution: a retreat.

A retreat is such a broad idea, that we could easily make of it what we wanted, in a way to suit ‘Shift’, as well as all be able to partake in the design of this solution. Our idea was supported with strong primary and secondary research, a well designed weekend event, and strong branding through promotional material and merchandise.

Our final presentation went very well. Aria and Sanne were our strongest public speakers, and did a great job on the day. I feel our presentation had all the necessary information about the solution, including a retreat plan, supporting proof from research, a narrative based on a common ‘Shift’ girl to follow the idea behind the solution, and good explanations of the decision we made surrounding the retreat. The presentation we ended up with was collated as a group based on our two previous presentation runs, and so, like Kim and Daniel, I found that some of the feedback given and questions posed were slightly out of the blue or not necessarily what we found vital for our role in this design process. The legalities of such an event wouldn’t necessarily fall within the initial design process, and would be worked through as such an event was actually planned out, based on the location, the people involved and the number of participants.

I think overall our team, Bullshift, worked great together and all got along very well. The ‘Shift’ collective as a whole would be a great collaboration of ideas to move ‘Shift’ into the future as a sustainable organisation.

 

 

Johani

Final Thoughts

Personally, I have thrououghly enjoyed this live brief project. Working with a client in order to discuss problems and understands way in which these could be amended are skills I am grateful to now have. Along with working cohesively in a group for a common goal is becoming second nature.

As for Shift, the organisation seems hugely positive for Wellington and hopefully New Zealand in future. It seemed simple what they’re wicked problems were at the beginning, but as we dug deeper to the root the more sophisticated the problem became. In a quick sentence though, Shift needed awareness. Ideally awareness would then become attendance. Attendance would then ideally attract more sponsorship and possibility of expansion. In the end a sustainable future for Shift.

As shown multiple times through our secondary and primary research. The idea of a camp/ retreat seemed like an exciting idea! Personally I do worry about the actual event- in some experience, people would say they would go, but the reality is much less in attendance. Although Shift has the following to make this work for real!

Overall, our idea/ solution shows promise to Shift’s future. As exclaimed in some of the feedback that a camp/ retreat is in the future for Shift. With strict expansive advertising- more so than what is currently done so with Shift could be more successful- thus more talk- more awareness- more attendance – a positive sustainable future. In terms of our presentation- our use of narrative painted a real picture of our proposed Retreat. I am very proud of the presentation done by Sanne and Aria- they showed professionalism and passion to the project at hand.

Despite the feedback, my own reaction is similar to Daniel’s. Much of the feedback is logistical at nature- things we purely did not think about or could have been previously notified about. Or in general seemed out our depth, and would be things that Shift would organise, had they decide to carry on with our Retreat idea. In the end, I believe we have done what we set out to do and what the project had needed.

Overall, I am really proud of our team- Bullshift. I think we have worked really well together as a team. As for all other Shift teams- most of our ideas could be worked in conjunction with each other. Each idea can be used to boost the next and so forth. Ultimately working together to create a sustainable shift.

 

Thoughts and Things

Yesterday the presentations happened.

Aria and Sanne did a great job. I believe we came across as a well oiled machine that knew what we were talking about.

We had a couple of spanners thrown in the works that we hadn’t thought about, that could have been covered if we had thought of it basically, or that we might not have communicated as well as we could of due to our level of understanding and assumptions we made to fit the presentation into the time frame. They are as follows:

Why Eliza and ShaanXo? We chose these speakers because they are appealing to the target market. We were operating under the guise that this was a proposal, and as we have not been tasked with actually putting this event on, the onus would fall on Shift to organise speakers that they feel fit, or they may choose to forgo speakers and focus on activities and fitness. We have no personal connection with these people.

ReTreat Yourself? We had not thought that this may be owned by somebody else, as it is a fairly common phrase. It is obvious that we should have looked this up, with the benefit of hindsight. With a fairly basic Google search, it becomes clear that we are not the first ones to think of this name, there are numerous companies operating retreats with this name, but as it is the name of a one off retreat in NZ (all the ones I found were overseas), not the company name, I foresee no problem. Again, our proposal is just that, a proposal, and it can be changed by the Shift team, and they may not want to use our name and call it simply Shift Retreat or something to that end.

Who runs the Retreat? We had discussed this, but felt like many other things, this comes under day to day operational needs of the camp, and would need to be run by Shift and figured out by Shift. We imagined it running along the lines of many scouts camps etc, with a few Shift workers, and student leaders and parents. This all depends on the level of sponsorship available, the number of girls attending etc etc.

Why Three days?  Why not a day event? We had to propose a concept, how Shift takes this and uses it is up to them. As they alluded to, running a single day event with 30 girls at a much lower cost with lower staffing needs and less catering makes a whole lot of sense. We are proposing an end goal, Shift might never achieve our concept, but if there is any part of it that they can use is a win in our books.

We presented a idea, an event that we feel is flexible, can be stripped down, used in its entirety, or a small section at a time with many different ideas and end goals. In the end this could be run as cost neutral without sponsorship merely as a summer camp with a strong body positive, modern feminist and equality based approach that focuses on real issues and what matters to young women today. That is the crux of our proposal. It is a summer camp without having to learn to tie knots and worry about what other people think. We hope that this was communicated.

-Dan

Final Group Presentation

Wednesday was the big day of presentations, and our team was feeling confident and organised leading up to the live presentation in front of Shift. We met up at 11 so that Sanne and I could go over the presentation a couple of times while getting feedback and constructive criticism from the rest of the group.

Our aim for the presentation was to present it to the clients as practised material, rather than reading off paper or the slides – this was some of the feedback we got from the interim presentation, and we felt that this would give our team a more professional attitude to our work, and why wouldn’t we? We knew our contact well, and we were confident in the research we had done.

I met with the Shift team 10 minutes before the presentation to walk them up to the presentation room and make them feel comfortable, and to get them hyped about the awesome work they would hear about in the next hour or so! I know the other Shift teams were feeling confident and excited about the presentations, so there was a very positive and excited buzz about the room that afternoon.

Because we were presenting in front of the Shift team – some of which hadn’t heard of us and our ideas yet – we were able to feel like we were explaining to the new members, rather than sounding like a broken record to them. Overall, I believe Sanne and I did a great job with the presentation, and the work our team put into the project really paid off.

-Aria

Dossier & Retreat Booklet

Yesterday I spent the day tidying up, updating and adding content to the existing Dossier for the presentation and to hand over to Shift. Some of the things I added included the Projected Attendance graphs done by Daniel, as well as adding the merchandise we have created, and some promotional material for public displays and social media posts.

I also made a retreat booklet that will be included in the welcome bag. This includes information about Shift, the speakers, and what the girls are to expect from the activities coming up in the weekend. At the back I also added a feedback form so Shift would be able to recieve feedback from the girls to be able to grow upon the retreat in coming years and make it the best experience possible for the girls.

-Aria

Merch Photographs

Retreat Yourself Amazing Race prototype

Yesterday morning we organised and took part in the prototype of the Amazing wellbeing race that would be part of the Retreat Yourself event. It was the most beautiful day by the waterfront and Frank Kitts Park (hopefully the kind of weather that the event would be experiencing!). Unfortunately, the people we had invited to come were unable to make it, as it was an awkward time of the semester for people to come out of their way to be a part of the prototype, but despite this, it was a lot of fun with the small groups.

As part of the documentation of the event Sanne had hired out a GoPro to capture the event. From this footage we compiled a small video: watch the video here

The video above will be too long for the presentation so we will have to cut it down or turn the sound off so we will be able to speak over it as it plays.

We then headed off to class to present our draft presentation in preparation for next week. They gave us some great feedback heading into next week, and we will work on it as a group for next week, as well as meeting up on Sunday or Monday to finalise the dossier for printing.

-Aria

Our presentation Script progress

Below I have pasted in the various versions of the script that we built for our presentation. This began with an idea, and with input from all members of our team it evolved into our final iteration.

Initial Draft

Sarah is going on a Shift retreat. She doesn’t really know why, she doesnt really know much about the whole thing. Apparently shift is something to do with sports.

Sarah doesn’t like sports. Well she does, but she doesn’t think she will be good enough. And they cost so much! And she doesn’t have time to organise it. And it’s so sweaty. So many roadblocks.

Kelsey is going to the shift retreat. She plays netball and does hiking and all sorts of other crap that is way too hard core. Sarah is only going because of Kelsey.

ShaaanXO is going to be there too, and Sarah might not have heard of Shift, but she has heard of her.

It costs 95 dollars to go, Kelseys parents paid for her to go, but Sarah’s parents made her pay for half which was so frustrating because she was saving up for heaps of really important things that she can’t think of right now.

Anyway, there she was, waiting in a mob with a hundred other girls to go to some forest thing in wainuiomata, she was not confident.

Oh my god busses. I hate busses. And I hate wainui. Why am I even going to this.

Ohh look a gift bag!! T-shirt… soap… bank leaflet lame… recipes… shift leaflet… Some lady is droning on and on and on about all these amazing things we are going to do this weekend. I’ll believe it when i see it. And I am not singing on this bus.

That night, Sarah tried yoga for the first time, She felt happy. She felt even happier after dinner that night.

Oh my god yoga is hard, all my muscles are aching!!! Waking up in this random hut didn’t help! I hope breakfast is good.

Breakfast was good. Sarah didn’t know this, but her presence here was paying for the running group that she was going to join next week. She didn’t know she was going to join the running group yet, either.

But back to today.

Do you guys know where the cross fit for noobs is?  

Even Kelsey the super athlete looked shattered.

That insane lady from the cross-fit gym really went for it. I thought i was going to pass out at least three times.

I had heard of crossfit, but i never lingered on the videos in my facebook feed long enough for them to auto-play, they made me feel shitty about my weekend on the couch so i ignored them.

Ladies, here are your options for this afternoon!

Oh my god, sports or more sports.

Later that evening, one of the shift ladies came and sat next to her in the dinner room. Sarah asked

Why are you guys doing this? I mean it must cost a lot.

Sarah was right, it did cost a lot. The lady from ANZ who spoke to the girls earlier had talked to them about financial health, and how being on top of finances can reduce stress and make life a little easier. Sarah knew how sponsorship worked.

 

————————————————————————————————

 

Second Iteration

 

Meet friendly Fiona, a sixteen year old new to Wellington, and interested in making new
friends, getting involved in sport, and overcoming her shyness. In her first week at her new
school, she hears about a wellbeing retreat, Retreat Yourself, and looks into it further on facebook…

We will catch up with fiona in a minute, but first a quick overview of our vision for a sustainable shift:

Shift has already established itself in the Wellington region, encouraging
activeness and wellbeing in girls aged 12–20. Shift facilitates activities including
group runs, community activities and much more as you all know. However in order to be sustainable (without the funding of the Wellington City Council) something needs to happen so the girls can still engage in physical activity and well-being, while enabling Shift to continue growing – in the city, and nationally. We believe a wellness retreat based around Wellington can be a part of the solution, we have called this event, re-treat yourself.  As well as being advertised in schools, This retreat will have a regional campaign, including Facebook marketing, and featuring in local magazines and newspapers.

Although she enjoys Sports, Fiona still feels too shy and embarrassed to take part in team
sports, so misses out on the physical activity she should be getting. She looks into the
retreat and sees that there is heaps to do, team building, talks from awesome people like
Shaaanxo and Eliza McCartney, and sports! It sounds like something she could be
interested in…

Like Fiona, many girls are dropping out of sports for things like:
• Feeling shy or embarrassed,
• It costs too much for them,
• Feeling as if they’re not good enough,
• Or just simply not interested.

What can we do to remove some of the barriers for not wanting to participate?  Providing Somewhere girls can feel comfortable in their environment, willing to try new sports and be active, as well as socialising with each other?

Fiona has never heard of Shift before, but she knows that some of the girls at her school
are involved with it. This encourages Fiona to sign up to the retreat so that she can make
some friends in Wellington, and also at school.

Shift is doing great things for women and girls in Wellington, girls like fiona can benefit a great deal from the continued efforts of the wonderful shift team. However we believe a lack of Engagement is holding shift back from becoming a more sustainable social
enterprise. We see this issue of awareness and engagement as key to Shift’s
sustainable future, and raising awareness is the key to unlocking Shift’s potential for growth and impact.

For a 3 day, 2 night, all expenses paid retreat, Fiona’s parents are willing to pay $95 to go
to the retreat, so that she can connect with some of the girls in her new city, make new
friends, and get involved with the sports they know she loves.

Our team has identified that the highest objective we have for Shift is to help them
raise money while also helping their demographic. An event such as retreat yourself will
enable them to raise money, helping to sustain shift throughout the
remainder of the year. Our aim is to raise $10,000 from this event to contribute to
Shift’s sustainability. As the event will be fully sponsored, the money that the girls
pay to attend the retreat will go towards Shift and their movement and awareness in
Wellington City. Combined with the other sustainability ideas, Shift will have a
promising future.

Once Fiona arrives, she is greeted with a gift bag including a retreat t-shirt,
information about the speakers, and a Shift leaflet, things that she is interested in reading once she settles in. Looking at the timetable, she is looking forward to meeting
the new girls and learning more about her well being and all the activities that are to
Come!

*Aria explains timetable

The activities featured in the day plan of the retreat are the ones that girls
responded well to in our primary research, and that are known to be popular with
the current Shift community. Although the last conference Shift held was successful,
we believe that there can be a greater outreach to the girls, and more of an
emphasis on everyday wellbeing. This combined with exciting speakers and fun
activities, this retreat can turn into a yearly venture to spread throughout New
Zealand, and therefore becoming more sustainable.

With new friends made, a new found love for yoga, and inspiring life advice, Fiona is ready
to move through into the rest of the year, knowing that she has Shift to support her
throughout her teen years! She is definitely keen for another retreat next year!

---

 

Final Draft

Bullet points are to be written on slides.

Insecure Isabelle is a seventeen year old girl who is constantly bullied about her weight in high school. Although she enjoys sports and exercise, she is not comfortable in taking part in sport activities because of the hassle she gets from her peers. She heard about Shift from one of her classmates, but wanted to know more as it sounds like a great way to pick up some  sports again, and meet new friends in a more inviting environment.

• Loves sport
• Doesn’t play due to insecurity
• Wants to meet new friends

 

Shift has already established itself in the Wellington region, encouraging activeness and wellbeing in girls aged 12–20. Shift facilitates activities including group runs, community activities and much more as you all know. However in order to be sustainable (without the funding of the Wellington City Council) something needs to happen so the girls can still engage in physical activity and well-being, while enabling Shift to continue growing – in the city, and nationally. We believe a wellness retreat based around Wellington can be a part of the solution, we have called this event, re-treat yourself.

 

• Shift is well established
• Demographic 12-20
• Needs to become sustainable
• Our solution!

 

Like Isabelle, many girls are dropping out of sports for things like:
• Feeling shy or embarrassed,
• It costs too much for them,
• Feeling as if they’re not good enough,
• Or just simply not interested.

(bullet pointed already)

What can we do to remove some of the barriers for not wanting to participate?  Providing Somewhere girls can feel comfortable in their environment, willing to try new sports and be active, as well as socialising with each other?

• What can we do?

 

Despite the bullying that Isabelle receives, she signs up for the Shift retreat that she has seen advertised around her high school. She sees that it is focusing on your mind, body and soul, and is super keen to become involved, and hear from some awesome people like Shannon Harris and Eliza McCartney!

 

• Isabelle signs up despite bullying
• Loves the whole ‘body, mind, soul’ approach
• Awesome speakers draw her interest

Shift is doing great things for women and girls in Wellington, girls like Isabelle can benefit a great deal from the continued efforts of the wonderful shift team. However we believe a lack of Engagement is holding shift back from becoming a more sustainable social
enterprise. We see this issue of awareness and engagement as key to Shift’s
sustainable future, and raising awareness is the key to unlocking Shift’s potential for growth and impact.

• A lack of engagement is holding Shift back
• Engagement and awareness are key to a sustainable future

For a 3 day, 2 night, all expenses paid retreat, Isabelle’s parents are willing to pay $100 to go to the retreat, so she can get more involved with the sports she loves, and make some new friends who will accept her and encourage her to try new things.

• Running over a weekend, all expenses paid (3 days, 2 nights)
• Parents willing to pay $100 (our primary research suggests this)

Our team has identified that the highest objective we have for Shift is to help them
raise money, whilst also helping their demographic. An event such as retreat yourself will enable them to raise money, helping to sustain shift throughout the
remainder of the year. Our aim is to raise $10,000 from this event to contribute to
Shift’s sustainability, this is based on 100 girls paying 100 dollars each to attend. In order for this event to make a profit, all costs must be fully met by sponsorship, which means the attendance fees paid by the girls contribute to the running of Shift for the rest of the year. This initiative, combined with the other sustainability ideas presented today, mean that Shift will have a promising future.

• Our aim is to raise money while encouraging engagement
• Retreat costs $100 to attend
• 100 girls each paying 100 dollars, equals $10 000 profit
• All running costs covered by sponsorship

Once Isabelle arrives, she is greeted with a gift bag including a retreat t-shirt,
information about the speakers, a Shift leaflet and the Empower-her magazine, things that she is interested in reading once she settles in. Looking at the timetable, she is looking forward to meeting the new girls and learning more about her well being and all the activities that are to Come!

• Greeted with gift bag (T-shirt, information, Empower-her magazine)
• Timetable creates excitement!

Some of the activities will include sessions with the guest speakers, team activities, sport classes, and just generally having a huge amount of fun! We prototyped one of the activities that we will hold, the amazing wellbeing race. Here, cabin teams will compete against one another and the clock to come out on top! Some of the stations include riddles, team exercises, yoga, and eating a whole bunch of food as fast as you can. We enjoyed running and participating in it a lot!

• (prototype video playing which will help with what to say)

The activities featured in the day plan of the retreat are the ones that girls
responded well to in our primary research, and that are known to be popular with
the current Shift community. Although the last conference Shift held was successful,
we believe that there can be a greater outreach to the girls, and more of an
emphasis on everyday wellbeing. This combined with exciting speakers and fun
activities, this retreat can turn into a yearly venture to spread throughout New
Zealand, and therefore becoming more sustainable.

• Included activities are based on research we undertook
• Speakers that appeal to our target audience
• Potential for expansion

With new friends made, a new found love for yoga, and inspiring life advice, Isabelle is ready to move through into the rest of the year, knowing that she has Shift to support her
Throughout the next steps in her life! She is definitely keen for another retreat next year!

• New found friends and love for Yoga
• Support from Shift
• Ready for next year’s retreat!

Amazing Race Prototype – the event

As we designed the event, we chose to actually run it in order to see what kind of response we would have from participants.

We created an event for the “ReTreat Yourself Amazing Race”- https://www.facebook.com/events/133317293958371/?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22dashboard%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22calendar_tab_event%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22%7B%5C%22dashboard_filter%5C%22%3A%5C%22upcoming%5C%22%7D%22%7D]%2C%22ref%22%3A2%2C%22source%22%3A2%7D

Given all our hectic schedules, our original idea of running the event on Friday 29th September fell through, so we pushed the event back to the 4th October. From the creation of the event on the 20th September. This allowed us almost two weeks to create hype.

Despite the four of us young women (besides Daniel) being technically apart of the demographic of Shift. We found our own networking skills couldn’t quite reach the hype we thought we could.

With the support of other Shift groups, we decided to run the event as the five of us. Trying out each others “stations”. To document, we each took turns using the hired ‘go pro’ to video our experiences. You can see our video linked on Aria’s blog post.

Personally I found the event experience rather invigorating. As I have been working hard on my own studio, to go outside and enjoy the outdoors whilst being slightly challenged through the concepts of mind; body and soul really helped me to continue my focus. I found my body was more relaxed and my mind was calmer.

I would say that it was a success for myself! For our own logistics: If only our net working venturers could be have been a little more successful. Although we could have asked Shift to carry the message on to they’re own networks- as it was apart of the recent school holidays. We considered this, and thought it might be stepping on Shift’s toes, therefore we decided to give it a crack ourselves.

 

 

 

Projected Attendance and Profits

The Business model that Re-treat yourself is based is not on a parabolic curve of ever increasing profits.

This is because the Camp is limited to a number of girls that it can accomodate. You cannot sell more tickets than there are beds.

Therefore, there are three ways to make more money:

1- Lower costs. We have allocated pretty low running costs as it is, so this may be difficult.

2- Get more sponsorship. This is dependant on the camps being successful, if sponsors see potential to further there cause they will get on board. The sales ability, networking, and enthusiasm of the Shift team will be key in this.

3- Do more camps. This is dependant on the success, for the girls, sponsors and Shift, of the original camp.

 

The lower graphs illustrate how a increase of camps could impact profits.

The projected overall attendance graph shows how each potential camp attendance flattens out and does not grow exponentially.

The line graph shows the income rising as you have more attendance by including more camps. This is dependant on venues and shift growing to other cities first though, as they need a cabal of staff and volunteers based on the ground in the home city to promote the event and attract interest.

The table shows a example of how attendance plateaus, and how we imagine the expansion might go once the initial Wellington event is established and successful.

The initial and most obvious expansion is another Wellington event. We hope that with the large population base in Wellington there is appetite for another event within a year, or the potential to split the event onto 12-15 and 16-20 on different dates, therefore doubling capacity and available profit.