Farmer-Centred Design: An award winning project from Hellon

The finalists for the Service Design Global Conference awards have just been announced, so we thought that it would be a good time to catch up with one of last year's award nominees to hear about their project and how they benefited from participating in thew awards.

In this episode we talk to Andy Pattichis  and Pinja Piipponen from  Hellon, the design an innovation consultancy. They tell us about their project  helping farmers navigate the  decisions that balance crop yields and carbon footprints to drive better outcomes for a complex partnership ecosystem.

Andy and Pinja also talk about how participating in the awards has helped them deepen their relationship with their client, the crop nutrition company Yara, whilst also giving them an fantastic case study that's driving new sales with new clients. The project also won a Fast Company Innovation by Design  Award, giving rise to Hellon being hails as the "surprising middle man" of Innovation.

We also spend time discussing which Moomin best represents Service Designers. If you disagree.... and I'm sure that you will, why not try the "Which Moomin Are You" test and post your results to the SDN UK instagram account.

To review and vote on this years SDGC Award nominated project click here. There's a simple log it to keep people honest.

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• Episode Host: Stephen Wood
• Production Assistance: Jean Watanya

Transcript

 Welcome to another in an occasional series from Service Design Yap that focuses on The service design global conference 2024, which this year is coming from Helsinki.

In this episode, we're going to be looking at award winning work and how it helps designers to develop and  businesses to thrive. 

I'm joined on this episode by Andy Petitius and Pina Pipponen from Helon. How are you doing guys?

good here. Thank you for inviting us, Steven.

All good? 

And we've invited, , And we've invited these two designers because they're part of a Hellon team that were nominated for a service design award last year.  So let's start off by doing some brief introductions. Andy, can you tell us a little bit about yourself  what you do, where you've come from and where you're based?

so I am a half Finnish, half Cypriot actually. So having this tie to Helsinki is quite an important thing for me as well. I was born in Cyprus and then moved  to Finland  right after my army did my studies there and eventually. Ended up in Hellen in Helsinki. So  my startup, my Helen career actually was from the Helsinki office working there on different projects and then eventually moved out from the Helsinki office into London.

And I've been now based in London for the past five years   my role is design director. So I'm directing the team here in  London . Really managing the whole impact team as we call it. So the impact team is predominantly in charge of the delivery work that we do.  But prior to my time as a design director, I build my career through a route of being a service designer. So I started my time in Helen as a senior service designer and then gradually progressed to becoming a director today. And I also have a commercial kind of side to my role where I'm involved with, account building scoping work.

and making sure that whatever is being sold and scoped actually makes it through as promised. So that's briefly about myself.

Fantastic.  Thanks for joining Andy. And Pinya, , tell us a little bit about yourself.

And from the name you could guess that I'm also from Finland. But I have a little bit of a reverse story to Andy's and my background , in design and at Hellon. So originally I was born in Finland, studied my bachelor here in Finland focusing on interior architecture.  and after that, I found my way to London.  Where I studied my master's in service design at the RCA and during that time I found Helen and started as an intern in Andy's team. So Andy welcomed me to the London team  worked then as an intern joined full time and then I think I worked there for two years before deciding to move back to Helsinki and then continue to work with the London team remotely as it was COVID times and it was quite easy still to be a remote member of a team.  My role currently,

And moving back to  go ahead. 

currently

go ahead.

senior service designer and what I also specialize in is sustainability and design ethics and looking at how we can develop that field and our expertise in the area as well as our internal strategy. 

Fantastic. And returning to Helsinki what are the things that you think designers visiting Helsinki  should visit or should pay attention to, to get the most out of their trip.

is a lovely place even if you're staying for a short time. It's quite small to get around. It's a beautiful place. You can see the seaside almost every direction you go. We have some really nice restaurants. If you're into like bistros or kind of modern Finnish food, I would recommend looking for but also fun, fun places.

clubs and bars, especially in the Kallio region,  is a little bit further out from the very main center of the city. So really recommend that area if you're into arts, culture and good bars. 

And there are any specific bars that you think we should definitely visit?

in mind? 

Yes Kalliog, that was just mentioned, , there's Kuudeslinja  and Siltanen those are definitely pretty, pretty good. cool hip places to go and check out.  if you want a bit more of an industrial vibe, you can go a bit further out of the city in an area called Teorastamo, where you have,  it's actually a complex of different types of cafes, restaurants.  also DTM, which is a queer friendly bar and club that recently has opened yeah, definitely something for everyone, in very close proximity to each other in the city. 

Fantastic. I think Pina, you were mentioning a good cocktail bar that does novelty cocktails.

have to go, but I heard of this new place that do cocktails based on your  astrologic sign. So could be interesting to explore. 

Fantastic. I know we've got some studio trips planned for the time of the conference, but I think we should also do a shadow tour of some of the cocktail bars, always good. And always a part, even if it's an unofficial part of service design, global conference.  

 So as we said on this issue, we were going to focus on awards.

I know that you were nominated for an award last year. Can you tell us a little bit about the project that you were nominated for?

Yeah, so we got nominated for a project we collaborated on with Yara International. And if you're not familiar with Yara, they're the largest crop nutrition company in the world, very global and focus on crop nutrition products, but also a digital product supporting farmers.

Absolutely. We'll just cut that out. It's fine.

to us with a challenge of how might we decrease the carbon footprint of farmers?  And how could we through the farmer centric design methodology really understand where we could have opportunities to do that and help them with the transition?  It was a brief that had also third key stakeholder involved a biofuel processor that we also wanted to factor in as they were looking for more low carbon crop to feed into their production cycle. Do 

And how did you meet the client or how did you get introduced to the client? Was it a competitive bid or did you already have a relationship?

So Yara actually has been  a key account of ours for a few years . So there was already a few pieces of work that we had done that enabled us to  be immersed in the world of the farmer in different markets. Were lucky enough to obviously have a very good relationship. They trusted our expertise, both on the side of service design, but also in our sustainability expertise that has been mentioned yeah. And then we had these initial discussions with them on things that they were exploring on how can they incentivize farmers to actually behave in a different way.

And this initiative came through. What's maybe worth adding to also Binya's introduction was that even though this was done with Yara International, we were exclusively focusing on the French market as that was the pilot market really for this approach which is now.

Based on the learnings and the piloting that resulted after the project  being scaled in other markets as well. 

Fantastic. And you talked about pharma centric design. How did you conduct your research to assure that you were really focused on  the farmers? 



. So we started the project with a kind of,  outside in view and really trying to understand the farmer's perspective , in this world and their reality and what they're experiencing. So we conducted qualitative interviews. Where we learned a lot about the farmer's world, but we also looked at the systemic level and did  study and future foresight trend research to understand where the industry is heading, what the expectations are towards the farmers as well as then the inside out.

Looking at our partner and interviewing them and really. Getting the stakeholder understanding of what their visions are and where are they heading and what, where it's a strategy leading so that we can then eventually bring these perspectives together. And after gathering all of that richness, we Pulled these together into a ecosystem map, looking at the value chain where the crop travels to the plate and all the different stakeholders involved and identified different opportunity spaces from that insight.

So it was a really interesting piece of research. We did. 

And were there any sort of aha moments that came out of that research? Anything that really surprised you?

For me and doing other projects with Jara and having talked to farmers in other projects as well, it was quite impactful to hear about their day to day and the industry , they operate in. They are put under a lot of pressure and expectations to bring down the carbon,  but also it's a tight space , to work within. There's different regulations coming in, but also the methods and investments they need to do, for example, to use different digital tools is quite a big one to really start to get that ball moving and making it financially smart for them to do those steps and do . Those changes there's lots of different things that they need to factor in.

There's the weather that keeps changing together with the climate change as well. There's different pests and then there's different regulations of how to control them. So there's really a lot of things that they need to constantly think about and adjust through their day to day on the field and at the home office.

Learned a lot about that. And then. Or able to identify where Yara could have a space to support them. 

Fantastic. So it sounds like , it's the complexity of the system that the farmers are operating in. I think that often we think about farming as quite a straightforward sowing, harvesting and then taking products to the market. But can you tell me a little bit more around the digital services that you mentioned?

Yes. The digital services that they use, or the digital services that we would then create as concepts, what they currently use. 

And ,  what were the functional footprints of those? What did they do? 

Go for it.

itself that didn't really actually do much of a deep dive on the current existing digital services. They were, of course mentioned briefly,

Okay.

they,  Work that we delivered, of course, had a very significant digital  to be able to give the support that the farmers would require in order to increase their sustainable practices. So  one of the most important enablers of the work was a.  We're utilizing

A world of different types of sensors that farmers already actually have integrated in their farmers, and in some cases also using satellite imagery that farmers  use quite comprehensively in their current practices. We were able to capture , this data. And then provide to them  calculations of  what would happen to the carbon footprint if they , execute certain types of interventions in their field. And

To that, there was, yeah, there was the calculator. And then there was also the  artificial intelligence based simulation of  what would be the impact on your field if you were to do certain things. So it also helped a lot with decision making and giving prompts to the farmers of how they could actually improve the efficiencies in their farm, 

the farmers already feel that they're doing something right. Doing very well in terms of their efficiencies, but they recognize that there are  things that they should be doing, but because of the green act, for example, that will that came out at the time of the project, which was not very specific. It was very open to interpretation. They felt a bit lost of what should I be doing really to be better  at something that I'm already pretty good at. So then the calculator and the simulation features helped to address exactly that question. 

So it's taking data from Internet of Things devices they already had on the farm to show a very specific example of the business case of certain interventions. , it sounds a lot like  an industrial model doesn't it?  When we tend to think about farming as not industrial, but the scale at which farmers have to act in order to, , make it a decent profit margin, it is very much part of the industrial complex now.

Yeah

A lot of small farms are being integrated or absorbed by bigger farming complexes. There's a trend of farming businesses decreasing in number, but increasing in scale.  that, of course, is something that we had to consider in this project as well, as there were very early signs of that happening already during the piece of work that we did. 

And I think in the UK that's definitely happening, but half of it is down to economies of scale, but half of it is down to the fact that agricultural land is not subject to inheritance tax. So there are lots of international wealthy people. Investing in large scale farms to ring fence some of their money, but there we go.

I think that's less of a service design question, more of an economics and an ethics question there.  You talked about focusing on the French market.  Were there any specific cultural barriers that you had to address or , culturally specific things that you had to factor into your research or project?

To be honest, not as much as you would  expect. Really, the project was executed by the London office. And because of the fact that we already had a pre existing relationships with the client and quite a few of the stakeholders involved in the project,  there wasn't really as much of a kind of. Cultural shock if you want to call it like that in the project itself. Maybe actually what really was a bit more of  a spanner in the works was the   biofuel processor that was involved in that. So that was actually a completely new type of stakeholder that we've never really engaged with before. And, as part of the research that was conducted   

they were engaged with in the beginning and  they had not entered the contract with Yara at the time,, we had to be really careful of what we can and cannot say. And, of course, understand also the world of biofuel  which was definitely not something that we were as privy to before.

 And , what  would be their requirements and needs from the farmer's side of things and how Yara could incentivize that. That was, I think, definitely more complex. So it wasn't really a cultural thing, but it was more of an industry related cultural shock of having these, . Farmer centric experience design agencies such as ourselves. Then there's the crop nutrition company, the farmers themselves, and then a biofuel processor who speak about similar things in different ways. And  being in the middle, had to interpret everyone to make sure that 

So the system has become more complex and suddenly we're talking about a similar outcome, but expressing it in different ways. So how do we make sure that there is coherence rather than confusion? Yeah that's an interesting challenge. And I think In lots of service design projects, when you start mapping out the stakeholders, there are always ones that maybe appear partway through the process and  missing them out would have a material impact on the solution that you propose and the impacts that you develop.

Fantastic.

a middleman and translating the customer farmer understanding in this case and the different stakeholders needs, desires and challenges and hopes and, bringing everything together  to a solution that everyone can be happy with and take forward and commit to.  so that's something definitely that was a great learning and something that we will definitely need to do more as a design community as well, if we want to really start changing things.

. And interestingly enough,  the circular economy aspect off the final work. It actually came a bit by accident. It wasn't really the intent from the very beginning off the project that we need to force this certain model in order to make it work. But because of the complexity off the stakeholders and wanting to make sure that everyone Is incentivized in their own ways and making sure that it's a win scenario for everyone. The only way to actually address that was with a circular model, and so I think it's a fascinating  showcase of how. sustainable thinking, which sometimes might be perceived as this thing that is more expensive and causes more friction . Actually, in this case, it was the only way to make it really make sense for everyone involved. Even all the way down to the farmers who were  the ones who are the most skeptic about this. Yeah, and definitely a

yeah,

good story around the  of sustainable thinking in the project and how it benefited everyone. 

fantastic. So it sounds as if you won hearts and minds ultimately for all stakeholders in the system.

that was, I think, my most memorable aha moment in an internal ideation session after workshop where we started building these concepts and started drawing these ideas together where we started putting value exchange after one another and drawing it out and it all made sense in the end and it was so simple, whereas all the insights were so complex, so I still remember that moment with Andy and the team, Eloise and Jukka. 

. It's always good to have one of those memorable aha moments. You were nominated for an award.  Can you tell me a little bit about  the nomination process? How did you come to be nominated for a service design award?



Yeah, so we have a long history with BSDN and always like to participate find the best projects and collaborations and distill them into applications. That's always A nice process for us as well to really dig into that past work what really stood out there in terms of the approach that we used and the impact and the outputs.

And so it's a nice moment to reach out  to our partners and see where the project is at and what's happened. And we were also happy to find out that project in question was being piloted with great results and getting actual data from DigDev. GHG reduction. So the greenhouse gas reductions at the piloted farms. So it was a really nice process to distill everything into a package and tell a story about it.

  And in terms of the benefits that you felt as a business as hell on  has winning, being nominated for this award. And I know you you'd won another award with the same project. Has that had a commercial impact for you? 

To the nomination, we had also won the fast company innovation by design awards.  it was exhilarating obviously for the team to get so much recognition in different global domains.  There was definitely the mental side of it, of really creating that boost in the morale, in the spirit, in the team.

And really getting some validation on trusting the process because this was definitely a good indication of it because we when we entered this project, we did not know exactly what we were going to come out of it, which is often the case.  so there was that aspect internally.

In terms of other commercial impact, I would say there were two bigger streams that came out of it. The first one obviously being the fact that it definitely strengthened our relationship with Yara because, being publicly seen as an award winning duo in different forums and different domains  has been very beneficial also for the client themselves to be able to Promote the way of thinking that this project required and how we could socialize it and  incentivize other work streams potentially to approach their projects in a similar way.  So that was from Yara's side and of course from Hellon's side we were able to have So much actual proof off the impact because off the attention that this piece of work received and we needed to have, hard facts and numbers to demonstrate really the impact of the work that we've done, and I think that actually changed the mindset,  of how we pitch and how we present our work and the Yara case study. That became one of our hero case studies and still is to this day case on point, this podcast this very moment,  it has definitely  us in a different way. Fast Company actually profiled us specifically as the surprising middleman. So if one was to read their.  the press release around the win itself. And funnily enough, both of our founders  they love that semantic off the surprising middleman, and it has been used quite a lot  in how we position ourselves because it happens to be very often the case that we are the middleman and  We bring some surprises along the way to reevaluate and restructure things in a way that the client themselves would not be able to. Imagine

 Fantastic. And I think when we listen to the stories of all of those nominated projects and and the winners as well, you're always learning something. You always pick up either sort of new approaches or you can always  have an aha moment yourself by listening to the aha moments from the projects. So it's definitely something that I look forward to hearing about at the global conference. 

On the subject of the conference are there any of the sessions that you're looking forward to attending? Fuck.

agenda and  what is quite nice about it is that it's quite a very carefully selected in a small cohort of speakers.  definitely very much looking forward to the workshops. Of course, I do have to mention that , I am going to be one of the speakers myself as well,  about debunking the myth of service design. I think it's fair to say that  since its advent, service design has potentially been seen more. Conceptual and fuzzy, especially in its earlier days, but that definitely is being challenged and it's changing a lot. And we're seeing that also in our practice.  In my keynote, I'll be presenting some anecdotal evidence of how our work has changed as a consultancy. To be able to deliver more impact. We see less and less reports to be delivered. People don't have any more the attention span or even the need to read 150 pages long PowerPoints.

Sometimes there is space for that, but I feel that there's definitely a bigger diversity in our deliverables, which I'm looking forward to sharing with our audiences at the SPGC 24.

, so get there early because I know seats are limited and I think some of the sessions  last year people were queuing up and actually had to watch them on the follow up video which you also get access to if you're a ticket holder, virtual or in person. That's fantastic. I think the very last question that we said that we we would touch on is at one.

Probably at the heart of many Finns cultural identity.  And that is, as we go into a Helsinki based conference, which Moomin do you think we should focus on for this conference?



Ooh, for the conference. That's a twist.

Is there a Moomin that you think is is one that represents a design mentality?

one, and I think represent a designer as well, if it, if I think it could represent myself as well. Not sure of the English pronunciation as I am Finnish and I'm accustomed to the Finnish names. 

It should be Finnish. It's a Finnish book.

so the character is Hemuli. I think it's Hemulen. 

Oh, yes. Hämeenlinna. Yes.

that pronunciation.

We say Hämeenlinna.  In Finnish it's pronounced  Hämeenlinna. Hämeenlinna. There we go.  Hämeenlinna. Close but no close. No, I'm going to go until I get it. Say it again. Hämeenlinna.

if you

Hämeenlinna. There we go.

is it's the, I think the older soul really like a researcher at heart going around the gardens of the Moomin world and really appreciates the beauty of nature and collects plants. So I think there's a comparison , to designers and being curious about the world around us. 

Excellent. Andy, if you had to add  a Moomin character to your design team, which one would it be and why?

SN or the Finnish name of it, which is much more complex, is no 

Really? I can see why that was changed to Snufkin.

word. No.

Ha!

translates to something between snooze and fish.

Yes, fishing snooze. Yes.

Fish?

a lot. He fishes a

Yeah!

And for the ones

Okay.

the character, he's the one who is always seen wearing green and with a big hat  actually  is a bit of a loner. And what I like about Snufkin is he's a, he, and how I feel he represents the design communities that he's very reflective. He likes to ponder very philosophical. And likes to keep to himself at times, but then would always. Share his reflections to the rest of  Moomin land. And I think that's very reflective of us as designers that sometimes we need to be  in our own bubble to process the complex world that we surround ourselves by and then go out into the world and challenge what others think about anything.

So yes, Snufkin. 

Two fantastic choices and I'm glad you both avoided Moominpappa, who's obsessed with writing his own memoirs. Certainly not focused on the client. Brilliant. I'd just like to thank Andy and Pinyar for sharing their stories about their Yara, , award nominated project from last year. And I look forward to seeing you both in Helsinki this year.

to, yeah, Binia will be welcoming us with hopefully a glass or two of

Definitely. That's a promise. 

I think we need to be, this is, these are service designers. I think you probably need to specify what's in the glass before people book their flights. Yeah, there we go. It's a surprise. Thanks guys. And have a great day.

Thank you.

Cheers.