NOT A PORTFOLIO, BUT A JOURNEY!
01-HORSES IN PALMA
SHORT-CUT: A beautiful Finca on the sunniest Spanish island, 2 rescued Arabic horses, tones of wood to cut, and the dream of a retired couple who wants to create a healing paradise.
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION _ NOTING BY DOING
When I arrived in the Finca, I had little or zero knowledge of what could be daily life on a farm, caring for lots of farm animals and ground to cultivate: despite the horses and pony there were chickens, goats, and sheep and at that time it was also hosting a large community of cats.
The farm, which they wanted to transform into an official Healing Center and already hosted their NGO, was enormous! It included several gates for feeding and pasture and different cottages with stables, surrounded by fields and woods. Kelly and JP, the owners, led me to set up an easy task daily routine I could handle independently, while they were also working around.
I could understand how the farm was working, what the difficulties were, and the needs. While working together with my feet in the (real) mud I could listen to and notes all our conversation in a diary.
DECISIONS MAKING PROCESS STARTS FROM AKNOWLEDGMENT
To connect with the world of Kelly and JP, their vision and mission were beautiful but difficult: the project was still "in the air", yet the farm needed to be run daily and the help of random helpers volunteering was not enough.
They faced a financial crisis and a crash on a wall of legal issues very much unknown -both were coming from non-EU countries-.
They were determined but physically proved and disoriented: which steps to take other than talking to lawyers and fundraising for the restoration of the stable's roof?
How to run the project AND meanwhile care for the animals and the field? They had to admit that something should be changed in the process but need a compass to orient!
SWAT ANALYSIS TO PIN YOUR POINT
So MY CHOICE was to prepare Kelly, my main interlocutor, to co-build a swat analysis. I asked her to make a proper space during her routine for the task, a space that would have taken some unexpected brain energy.
It's not always easy to acknowledge that for each opportunity there is a threat to face or what traits are coming from in or out... Solutions can only come from recognizing different perspectives. And here I came in the help!
​
Now Kelly knows where her project is and has a useful instrument to orient.
USER PERSONAS ARE USEFUL TO UNMASK
After mapping the project with a SWAT analysis, I decided that the most useful approach to a fast-problem resolution was to design user personas based on my notes, where the "product" was the Finca itself, with both its content of the Healing Center project and challenges and the day-to-day present routine.
The users were the two owners in need to find different resolutions to their organizational gaps.
​
Done to the short frame of time given to collaborate on this project, I created a resumé of documents, easy to read, and asked Kelly to analyze and discuss them with me during a 2 h consultancy in order to fix concepts and steps.
​
PRIORITIES COME TO SURFACE
Kelly was certainly surprised to see herself and her project so unmasked: the SWAT analysis didn't enter the details ... but the users' personas and storytelling she read, were focusing on the real situation and real problem statement - I laterally noted their own sentences!- mirroring her present and boosting fast resolution for her well-being as NGO entrepreneur!
​
I could provide her with a practical solution for scheduling priorities, for ex. changing the heating technologies and providing different bed-linen changing systems-
She benefits from my market search on the needed products and services and could plan all the upcoming events differently, happy not to be overwhelmed by tasks that were necessaire but too expensive in terms of costs and energy.
​
EMPOWERING THE CONTENT
But what she needed most, was to redesign a recruiting plan for resources that could fix the giant problem of caring for the farm while she was trying to set up a marketing plan for the future. She couldn't keep changing random weekly helpers, nice but unexpert in farming and animals.
​
Based on my 3 weeks of design research, notes and consultancy, I could redefine the project priorities and completely redesign her profile request on the platform she used to navigate to enroll volunteers and formal workers.
Her job offer is now not only very coherent to her business but also very appealing and still clear to her target audience and the results didn't late! Three days after publishing she already found a long-term collaboration that perfectly matches her project!
​
If you want to navigate the whole content
I created, click the link
There was also space for some extra help: I redesign her letters for the local university so to help her to establish the ambitious network of professionals needed to sustain the Healing Center and I trained her to choose -first- and navigate -then- some part of the social media platforms she was enrolled in but couldn't use, so in ex. to be independent in creating and designing posts and stories for IG...
Now Kelly is doing great and proceeding with renovated energy, new support, and a clear strategy toward her dreams!
THANKS TO THIS PROJECT, I'VE LEARNED HOW TO BE CONNECTED TO NATURE AND ANIMALS AS A LIFESTYLE IS A VERY SPECIAL COMMITMENT, AND HOW IT CAN BE BOTH EXHAUSTING AND FULFILLING and how when it's raining, no you cannot run after a young pony without rolling in the mud!
Thanks to El Cielo de Mallorca
