Nomadiq is an innovative travel service that utilizes would-be-travelers’ skills for a collaborative travel experience. Nomads are users interested in traveling but with minimal finances to do so. Dwellers are would-be-vacationers held back by responsibilities or obligations. Nomads are paired to Dwellers through Nomadiq agents, using a LinkedIn approach of skill endorsement, an Airbnb approach of connecting supply and demand, all while leveraging a Nomad’s interest in adventure and a Dweller’s desire to leave home with peace-of-mind.

The service concept includes a market & competitive analysis, target market and persona, brand identity, business model, and prototyping results.

This was a 3-week radical innovation project in SERV 724, a class within in the M.F.A. service design program at SCAD.

In less than four weeks, our challenge was to understand the function of travel agencies, use creative-thinking systematical develop ideas, evaluate and strategically select strongest concept, and then create a comprehensive service package and brand to communicate the concept. The modern travel agency is relatively outdated with few recent innovations, providing plenty of room for new service formation.

Perhaps the hardest point to keep in mind is that we were redefining the role of the travel agency and not necessarily travel. It would have been easy to remove the travel agent all together so, creating a service that actually added value for a traveler was a more difficult task than we originally anticipated.

Our service specifically addressed that travel is expensive, not only in terms of money, but also in terms of time and obligations. We set out to find a way to remove these barriers and increase access for all users that would like to travel more. It was important that our service concept was financially viable, grounded in a feasible reality, different enough that it would stand out, and actually desirable to the target market. In order to achieve these four goals, we needed to completely develop the service from market analysis to service prototyping, with all elements demonstrating the strength of the concept.

We realized from the start of the concept phase that we would need to be very open about our ideas of travel and the role of the travel agent. Our team had some personal knowledge regarding travel from our own experiences, but none of us had ever used a travel agent to book travel accommodations. We were also limited by the fact we were all about the same age, with about the same travel experiences.

The short project timeframe meant we needed to make quick but thoughtful decisions, and we needed to use both our designer and our strategist skills to create a successful concept. With the minimal beginning parameters of creating a new travel agency service, we focused on using our creative abilities to invigorate a less-than-exciting industry in a fun and exciting way.

We also had to address the fact that online brokerage sites are now the norm and most commonly utilized method of travel booking. However, we wanted to emphasize the role of the travel agent as person rather than a website. Our research indicated that people (across travel and similar activities) were often most frustrated by the impersonal and automated service they received. We weren’t naive enough to expect there would be no digital component, but we wanted that to emerge as part of the service system rather than start with that as a solution.

Half of our team had previously researched the travel agency industry so we started from their findings to brainstorm at least 100 ideas using a series of lateral thinking tools. From these ideas we clustered and combined the ideas until we had more concrete concepts as opposed to concept pieces. Some of the clusters were more categorical in nature so we folded those into the concept clusters or used them as parameters to further flush out the concept clusters. We then revisited the concept clusters to descriptively package the concept for strategic evaluation.

We started the evaluation process by returning to the previously developed personas, eliminating or revising any concepts that did not meet the segment or primary user needs. As a team we defined a scale of incremental to radical innovation and used that scale to rate each concept. We took the time to negotiate with each other until we all agreed on the rating, averaging when necessary the rating of each team member to come to the collective rating. Out of the rated concepts, the five with the highest rating were placed in a decision matrix. We returned to our original goals of feasible, viable, desirable, and different to set the headers for each concept to rated. We did feel that there were different levels of importance to each header and weighted them accordingly with desirability being the most important because if users do not want the service, the rest is a non-issue. This brought us to the final selected concept.

At this point it was still a rough concept with few details. We created an initial service package, value prop, and delivery encounter map with storyboards. This allowed us enough to prototype the service. We created a persona that reflect the Nomad and role-played the interactions between a Nomad and a Nomadiq Agent. Creating the service script and interacting with each other highlighted a few issues we had not considered, so we revised our service concept to address those issues. From there we interviewed individuals that represented our Nomad persona to see if they understood the concept with minimal explanation. Their feedback was extremely insightful as they had specific ideas of facilitating and enhancing services they would expect from such a service. To communicate the service cycle, we developed a desktop walkthrough that forced us to consider the physical evidence and branded touchpoints required for successful service delivery. We were able to clarify stakeholder interactions but staging photo storyboards as we had to physically think about what people would (or wouldn't) be comfortable doing. The last step was to craft 4 different length pitches that would entice investors.

Nomadiq reflects trends in collaborative consumption, resource sharing, emotional value, and increasing social emphasis on exploration and adventure. The business model is based on a self-perpetuating cycle in which a Dweller can become a Nomad, a Nomad becomes an Agent.

The Nomad receives discounted travel fare as trade for creating value for the Dweller. A Nomad is now able to afford travel and travel to locations they had never considered using their skill as an alternative kind of financial resource. The more a Nomad travels the more marketable they become to secure better fare rates. A Nomad could be a full-time Nomad with no ties to any certain location.

A Dweller can depend more on a Nomad than a friend because of financial accountability, and disruptive task/activities are completed while the Dweller is away, both of which result in Dweller peace-of-mind. Dweller and Nomad have the option to continue the business or personal relationship beyond the onetime “job” for an expanded personal network.

The Agent serves as broker paring Nomads and Dwellers so they do not have to expend personal resources of time and effort. Nomads and Dwellers benefit from the Agent acting as match maker ensuring that expectations are appropriately stated, set, and met.

Nomadiq is not tied to a certain location utilizing the “third place” for reduced overhead, and putting the Agent in a convenient, easily accessible location for both Nomads and Dwellers.

An individual observes a Nomadiq Agent in a coffee shop (branded touchpoints), the individual approaches the Agent to learn about the service (as the individual is reading a travel book published by Nomadiq). Through the agent the individual signs-up to be a Nomad based on stated personal skills. The Agent and Nomad schedule a time for the agent to come for a skill-vetting assessment. In between sign-up and vetting, the Agent identifies Dwellers that are interested in the Nomad’s skills to present to the Nomad at the vetting visit.

During the vetting visit, the Agent assesses and verifies the Nomad’s stated skills by the Nomad actively demonstrating claimed abilities. The Agent generates a profile for the Nomad, the Nomad indicates preference for the recommend Dwellers based on Dweller location, desired activities during Nomad stay, and travel discount the Nomad would receive.

The highest-preferred Dweller is notified of an available and interested Nomad. The Dweller reviews the Nomad’s profile for skills and initial rating. The Dweller approves Nomad pairing, and the Agent books travel accommodations for both parties. During the Nomad’s stay, if requested by Dweller, the Nomad updates Dweller to completed tasks or other requested formats (statuses, snapshots, etc.). Upon return to home location, both Nomad and Dweller rate Nomadiq experience and both the Nomad and Dweller profile are updated to reflect reviews.

At any time a Dweller or Nomad may explore basic profiles, but must contact an Agent to facilitate appropriate pairing and travel arrangements.

It was early on in our brainstorming that we identified the value of the traditional travel agency was in the curation and packing of travel accommodations for complete vacation experiences. We also saw the opportunity to combine this with the prevalence online brokers, but in a way that wouldn’t lose the human element, and value of curation. Taking the best from both delivery channels highlighted the non-customer segment of “wishers” that would like to travel but do not have the means. Following this path, we realized that even frequent vacationers have their own anxieties with travel from pet care, to housesitting, to mail piling up. It seemed obvious to us that the wisher and the jetsetter both had needs and resources that complimented the others needs and resources. Nomadiq emerged from figuring out a way to pair these target markets using the curation value of an agency with the accessibility of an online brokering platform.

Prototyping the service was the most important part of realizing the need for a rating system but in both directions of the Nomad and the Dweller. During the interviews of potential Nomads, they expressed that they would not necessarily just go anywhere because the travel was cheap, they would want their own ability to pick and choose Dwellers to be paired with. The would-be-Nomads emphasized they would want their skills to be utilized by not to the extent that they were on a working-vacation. It was out of this that we incorporated tiering that would change the discount rate based on “working” hours of Nomad.

Even discovery of the service was clarified through prototyping. We originally worked from the assumption of an agency office, but with the desktop walkthrough we realized we could fore-go a traditional location (cuts overhead) and utilize the third-places most frequented by our target market and persons. This pushed us to develop the brand more in depth as we were not using typical communication channels (a physical agency location) which resulted in some of the enhancing services that brought in physical goods to the service.