Week 4 <-Direction->
“Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
Inferno, Canto I, La Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri
One of my favourite book is La Divina Commedia by the famous Italian writer Dante Alighieri. Everyone remembers the first lines of the long poem. Of course, the connection may sound exaggerated, but, this week, my group and I had to redesign the direction of our project, the cardboard one, exactly as Dante did. After the initial rush of the first weeks, in fact, we found ourselves a bit lost. The reason was not a lack of inputs, on the contrary, after many interviews and laboratories we had so many notions that we weren’t able to organize them properly and decide which direction to take. We started to feel the pressure of the acquired knowledge, we understood that the solution we were thinking could have worked was actually going against the will of the users.
After some days of confusion, we finally decided to change our initial path. As every change, it was not easy to accept it, because we spent so many hours and effort on it that we were almost loving it. Innovation sometimes is really close to a love story: you break up with your first project, but then you find a better path. By re-reading the interviews we made during the first three weeks, in fact, we were able to see the problem in a different way. We are so lucky that we find two alternatives to our initial intention and we can propose something closer to the needs of our target. This week and the next are the heart of the Bootcamp being that all groups are approaching a more defined design of their projects and next week they will test their solution. The link is the development of a prototype, such as a moke up or a storyboard, and I am really curious to see what the different crews will create.
Apparently I am not the only one interested in the direction of the Bootcamp. The member of the Bootcamp had, in fact, the pleasure to meet the major of Treviso, Giovanni Manildo, and his collaborator Franchin. The representatives of the citizens of Treviso were really satisfied seeing our work and we all felt really motivated by the visit. After all, we are working for Treviso in Treviso and the connection with the urban dimension is what gives us a lot of energy and inspiration. The Bootcamp is half way, the path is still long, but the direction is clear!
