Small Businesses are the heart of the economy, yet because of their limited resources their growth is linear and often is threatened by economic shifts. My design, Twine, focuses on designing a creative and accessible problem-solving and growth system by acting as a connector and a collaboration facilitator for small businesses.
Twine, not only helps small businesses to grow, but also fosters long term intercultural collaboration that can lead to shaping a cluster of small business which ultimately change and impact the big picture of the future economy. I worked on this project for two semster as my graduate thesis.
Twine includes a toolkit (prompt questions, feedback form and a time management tool), an interaction face-to-face session and an online platform. The toolkit is to be used at the interaction sessions and the online platform is a supportive component to sustain and refine the tools and processes.
Twine’s tools and processes are designed to address the barriers to collaborations and were refined and iterated over time after going through tests and critiques.
Firsthand research included interviewing 50 individuals over the course of six months. My interviewees were from local small businesses, educational institutions, government, nonprofits and for-profits in Rhode Island. Secondhand research included reading books and literature about innovative economy, cluster and interdisciplinary collaboration, intercultural collaboration and the history of small businesses in RI.
After laying out the information and reviewing it, I defined the design principles. I then used the method of brainstorming to come up with the idea for the design.
The design was tested by ten businesses in Rhode Island, in two sessions and went through several iterations and refinements based on feedback and observation.
Aside from match-making and connecting buisnesses, Twine online platform informs buisness about local buisness enviroment by visual maps. The maps shows the cloud of active buisnesses in each industry sectors and provide useful statistical information. I created these maps using Matlab and Arcmap softwares.
The mock up for online platform is now ready and I am working to develop the final live model. I would like to thank my thesis advisors, John Lauermann, Alan harlam and asher dunn.