From research to business. How to keep heritage alive.Sustainable Business Model, long-term solution
The innovation model allows one to get the experience of craft work. Combining the elements of tradition and modernity gives a sense of creation and influence physical reality. The main idea of this revitalization project is: less products, more experience. The experience is understood as accessible for everyone because the project is about maximum social inclusion. It’s concerns the crafts in 21st century’s economy and the development of the creative competence of the whole world’s citizens.
Cross-border/international
Poland
Poland
{Empty}
Not relevant
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-10-19
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): the Serfenta Association Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Paulina Last name of representative: Adamska Gender: Female Nationality: Poland Function: President Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Srebrna 1 Town: Cieszyn Postal code: 43-400 Country: Poland Direct Tel:+48 507 933 191 E-mail:biuro@serfenta.pl Website:https://serfenta.pl/
We represent the Serfenta Association from Poland, we’re the authors of the Sustainable Business Model (SBM), which we present in New European Bauhaus Award 2023.
The main core of this model is a revolutionary approach, which means moving away from the products in crafts to the services. They are built on the values from the world of craftsmanship, which are attractive and important for a modern man. We describe also a transition to the broader category of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). We show the crafts as a set of intangible experiences and this intangibility is the essence of the SBM we created.
The SBM includes 3 parts: RESEARCH – DESIGN THINKING – BUSINESS
First part RESEARCH took place in years 2009-16, when we conducted interviews with traditional basket makers. Our goal was to gather the knowledge about techniques of basketry and natural materials accessible in Poland, which is more and more difficult to encounter. We mapped basketry also in Ukraine, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Japan and Rep. of Korea. We follow the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which focuses on the skills of traditional craftsmanship, not on the products.
In 2016, we’ve started the process of DESIGN THINKING, which highlights understanding of the user’s needs. We started to create services in cooperation with craftsmen, designers, people in every age and situation. We found new ways for tradition in a modern world.
BUSINESS part started in 2016, when we connected our approach with the market. The main idea is “less products, more experience” and its derivatives: craft experience for all with workshops, craft tours, also presence in new media, online shop with products, a book, tools, materials.
After 15 years of experience – Serfenta has the know-how and is recognizable in the world.
The SBM is complete, clear, replicable to other crafts and ICH areas. The strength lays in sustainable economization and exemplary.
innovation
sustainable business
revitalization
experience
inclusion
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) cover 5 areas: people, planet, prosperity, peace, partnership - 5xP. Our activities are mainly visible in 3rd: healthy lives and well-being, 4th: quality education, 8th: sustainable economic growth and decent work for all, 10th: Reduce inequality, 12th: responsible consumption, 16th: peace, justice and strong institutions.
Sustainable development means for us e.g. long-term thinking. It’s very important in our work and our Business Model. In the process of researching and redesigning we discovered the need to move away from products, even if we love natural plant materials and handmaded items. There are fewer artisans in our country every year. Now, we work in Serfenta with a a group of elders craftsman (around 80-ties). We don’t like to describe crafts as „dying” but we see those challenges in the ICH area in whole Europe. This situation was a motivation to discover that not the products are the core of our work but the knowledge and skills, which we share through generations. We found this as a long-term solution – from products to well designed services connected with user’s needs. Our SBM is a proposal for revitalization of crafts.
Moving away from the products is also caused by market observation, where we is the overproduction. This is connected with sales and marketing circle – everyday battle focused on items. Going into the services is the foundation of our SBM. Our answer is the craft experience. This change can be suprising, but it is the answer for many challenges and problems – in a global scale and also in everyone’s life example. This year we are co-creating a „School of crafts” in our town, where the main idea is to share the experience and skills with participants during a whole year of teaching. This project for sure can be exemplary in the future. The scale of applications is amazing, we see the resonance in world, people needs craft experience. We can recommend it to any kind of ICH area or craft.
The basis of the SBM is being in deep contact with the needs of modern man and responding to the challenges of reality. That’s why we chose the path: less product, more experience. Therefore, when referring to aesthetics in our approach, we focus on the experience of creation. The creative process is not for the selected, exceptionally talented or especially interested in ICH, but for everyone: craft experience for all is our claim.
Creativity is a space and time for experiments. It’s learning by doing and discovering. We can make another basket but we can also think wider and design f.e. pellets for a hamsters – with the same way of creation, with the same natural materials, but beyond the traditional effect. It is about touching the nature, commune with the natural, raw materials in everyday life. This approach is visible f.e. in Japan, important country for us, where the cities are full of concrete. There, less products means more experiences. This is what ICH can give to the world nowadays and we see that we can share this result with other its domains and crafts. People visit us in our space in Cieszyn and take this power of experience to their areas, works, proffessions. Partners from other countries appreciate this truth in our work – what make us sure, how precious treasure we still have in our hands.
After pandemia, lock downs, the war in Ukraine, people need to find the way to deep rest. The need of hand-makeing is primal, when using hands to create the tools was one of the substancial features of humanity. In the craft experience we create, we touch natural materials, we use tools, finally we smell, feel – all this give us special, atavistic pleasure. It’s a about connection with something lost in life, a missing but still important point. When the hands are working – the head is resting. It’s a clue to build good mental health and well-being. The craft experience is very individual – we let participants to discover it on many different ways.
One of the key aspects to consider when designing the SBM was to take into consideration the issue of financial availability of crafts. Working with the craftsmen, we’ve understood that they don’t have any competence to price their products and their own work. They’re elderly people who had mostly grown up in poverty and are used to it. They aren’t able to realize the value of their own work, which is a cultural heritage.
That is why we launched three processes in this area at the same time:
1. educating craftsmen on how to appreciate their own work,
2. finding markets for their products which are able to appreciate this kind of hand work,
3. opening crafts to services which made it more accessible and available for everyone
This simultaneous movement in three directions served to change the situation of traditional craftsmen and make the experience of craftsmanship accessible to everyone, regardless of the wealth of his/her wallet.
Our very important role in the inclusion process is that we try to undertake activities for representatives of completely different social groups: corporate employees, seniors, children of all ages, people with disabilities, students of design or art and others. This is a very wide group, who gains practical skills thanks to us. Another our goal is to make the society aware of the value of manual work. Number of participants who took part in our activities: more than 5000.
We see potential exemplariness of our project in the process of opening up and leaving the hermetic. Especially the hermeticy can be a big threat to continuation, transmission and free creative development. Described idea of inclusion could be applied it in other contexts and areas of social or cultural life.
The project meets the training,information,promotion, digital and architectural standards and takes into account the principle of equal opportunities for women and men. The innovation meets the Accessibility Standards for EU Cohesion Policy.
The engagement of the citizens and civil society is visible on many particular levels. The basket makers from many countries whom were invited to our ethnographic research had the possibility to share their voice about the way we published the results of the research. They took part in our publication, films, exhibitions. We showed their faces and told about their lives and work according to their agreement. Our goal was to show them as authors and subjects of the basketry craft. The character of our activities always has cultural anthropology foundation.
Very important step, in the development of our SBM was invitation the local basketry societies to the process of implementing basketry skills on the National List of ICH. We choose 2 different, small village communities and prepared 2 inscriptions for the Polish ICH List. We taught them about the values of the heritage which they have and showed the way to share the knowledge and skills, gain a sense of pride and influence and learn how to use the achieved result also financially. We also pass these values on to children during our classes. The economic support is the way to built conscious society, which will be able to appriciate the craft in the future. Right now Serfenta is in the process to entry of Polish basketry on the Representative List of UNESCO, which involves the cooperation of all interested basketry communities in our country (10 different societies). Our commitment results in the support flowing to those communities whose local heritage will be recognized at the international level.
Important for the social impact is the scale of craft experience proposition which we lead in PL and many countries for years - 440 workshops for over 3000 participants, we create a space for modern experiments. We are really proud of it. We provide the economic education, we teach about the value and price of heritage and handwork in many contexts and levels.
The first part of the SBM concern years of research conducted within the traditional basket makers from Poland and other countries. Our model was developed with the participation of different stakeholders from many various levels, both national and international. We have been inviting partners from the beginning of model development, i.e. from the stage of conducting ethnographic research. It’s important to name: group of traditional makers, individual craftsmen from the whole country, who were involved by sharing their knowledge and experiences. Their involvement was crucial to the development of our model, especially the research part on which it’s based on.
We're cooperating with Polish and international partner institutions which are responsible for implementing the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH. UNESCO itself is the example. At the Polish level - the National Heritage Board of Poland. Cooperation with them gives us the scientific grounding and proof of authenticate on the international arena.
Many different public and NGO institutions from the whole country are invited to cooperation. Primary and secondary schools, universities (especially of Fine Art), public libraries, museums, art galleries, design centers, ngo's. Their role is to hold the message about the vitality of the craft by engagement in developing the visibility of our activities like exhibitions, workshops, lectures.
The engagement in the preparing the entries of the basketry skills on the ICH List also resulted in cooperation with local communities and municipal offices from particular regions. Until now, we prepared 2 inscriptions on the ICH List (willow and spruce root weaving).
We invite private companies, individuals, as well as partner institutions from abroad, especially Norway (f.e. Viva Basket! project in 2014, Craft Tour 2021 with 5 Norwegian partners) – which inspired us in the field of education and thinking about designing the services based on people's needs.
Due to the complexity of contemporary problems and the fact that the process of creating knowledge, innovation, its circulation and absorption requires the involvement of many actors of social dialogue and numerous fields of science, we decided to create a space for cooperation for the following fields:
Cultural Anthropology – when planning the research process, collecting and developing ethnographic documentation.
Botanic knowledge - necessary when working with the natural materials from which we create.
Psychology – required when working with people, both individuals and teams, during engaging in group processes, for example joining the participants during the workshops – when they experience various expectations, also disappointments.
Economy - without embedding the entire project in an economic framework, its final shape would be impossible to function. Anchored in the foundations of economics and based on basic business analytics, the process is a self-financing, independent of public funds. This fact is a key indicator for us to say that we really meets the needs of modern people.
Management – is based on regular dialogue and uses integrity and social innovation. Our team constantly improve its competences in this area. It’s obligatory when we want to make changes in so many areas and on such a scale.
Cultural animation – we have a real impact on the world around us and we influence the people who participate in this proces. Our activities in the area of culture animation are very wide (as wide as the target groups we covered).
Combination of anthropological, psychological fields and experience with economics makes possible to connect these worlds, which often don't meet. Adding an economic component to typical ethnographic activities allowed us to implement SBM in the reality and share this innovative project. It is work at the interface that gives value and effects that cannot be invented by working only in one circle.
The results, outcomes and impacts of the SBM are the result of a consistently implemented strategy by our organization. We want to highlight again the core idea for all undertaken activities, which is craft experience for all. For us, this means maximum openness to all groups of recipients and a departure from the hermeticity that we have observed so far in the area of ICH.
We need to list:
• 3 popular-science publications „On the basketry trail of Vistula River”, „Viva basket! Why do we weave?”, „Basketry in Cieszyn Silesia region” (available in PL/ENG)
• 64 published videos on YT channel
• 4 exhibitions prepared in PL/ENG, 1 also in NO
• 6 international conferences about craftmanship and modern market (a.o. Social Face of Basketry)
• 4 governmental projects for connections basketry masters with young pupils “Masters of Tradition” which covered systematic learning throughout the year in each workshop
• „Craft experience” special basic program of learning basic skills of basketry available for all without any special experience
• 440 workshops for more than 3000 participants
• educational program of teaching the math in primary schools through the calculation of the handwork
• Special educational proposal – “Craft Tour – craft experience for all” which is an answer for modern people needs
• System of teaching the basketmakers and young artisans – how to create the prices and how to sell the products in a modern world (using SM)
• online and offline shop with unique basketry traditional products www.sklep.serfenta.pl
• redesigned basketry tools, access to the natural materials
The benefits of the project include: access to the crafts in an attractive and contemporary way for every professional and age group, support for traditional artisans, development of a model of support the crafts and ICH areas.
Every part is important, but especially work with children, who will create the future of a ICH.
A relatively high availability of technical solutions can be observed, there is even talk of saturation of the economy and society with new technologies. An opportunity for innovative activities becomes the recognition and adjustment of knowledge to the needs of specific individuals, groups, regions and communities. At the same time, broadening the perspective of looking at innovation creates new opportunities in non-technical fields (like arts and culture). As a consequence, we start talking about the so-called creative industries based on individual ingenuity and creativity.
Innovation in Serfenta's approach to craftsmanship takes place on three levels:
A. less product, more experience - we do not add more products, we do not waste energy on exuberant marketing, which is supposed to help break through product oversupply, we search deeper, we study people's needs and we draw from the craft what can be most useful to modern man
B. openness - going beyond the hermetic circle of already interested people - disseminating the experience of the craft on the widest possible scale.
C. a new role of materials science - focusing on the material that was the basis of traditional crafts and looking for completely different contexts of use for it. Focusing on the botanical properties of the plants from which it is woven and an attempt to use these properties in a completely different way.
All this long-term design work served not only to transfer the craft base to new, wider contexts, but also to design an economization model for a non-governmental sector entity. This huge amount of work in order to pay attention to the needs of modern people and the entire design process resulted not only in innovation for innovation's sake, but also in the influx of unprecedented financial resources and interest in this approach by entities from around the world.
We’ve started from research build on ethnographic methodology. First step was a scientific query within ethnographic literature and previous research on crafts. It was necessary to prepare a proprietary research questionnaire, as the project's methodology was innovative. The cognitive aspect has been supplemented with a learning craft skills from the basket makers. It was possible thanks to the suitably matched team of the researchers - cultural anthropologists and handicraft instructors, experienced in basketry skills. With a filmmaker’s cooperation we documented the practical process. The result is a base of skills and knowledge.
With the knowledge we’ve started using design thinking methods and including User Experience. It is an organized and team process of creating innovative solutions, emphasizing understanding of the User's needs and motivation. The selection of the project team, including its diversity, was very important. Our team consists 3 members: Paulina Adamska, a cultural anthropologist/researcher, Łucja Cieślar, a social media, communication and e-commerce expert and Urszula Szwed, a business advisor, who has been working with the social economy sector for 10 years.
Szwed has developed a method of teaching counting funds and drawing conclusions from number’s data called „Basic math skills lessons for entrepreneurs and crafters”. It’s a set of useful calculation sheets, but also a package of advises for changing thinking habits in the area of finance of NGO (which is often the reason for economic failures in this sector). We have been using this method and Urszula's advice for 8 years. In our team’s work we use also business model canvas as a tool. This is how we work on the way to sustainable economization which is not a very popular way in the NGO and ICH world.
The methodology has been successfully tested in local, regional, EU and global societies.
It can be transferred as a result of scaling to a wide range of socio-economic practice.
From the beginning of work on the SBM the main goal was to create a universal tool also for other crafts and domains of ICH, which would work also in other countries. Therefore, the entire methodology, course of the process and its effects are applicable in much wider contexts. SBM has been designed so it can be divided into pieces and it is possible to benefit from any part.
Researchers, designers, entrepreneurs, (mostly institutions) who want to cooperate with craftmakers can use the RESEARCH part - from experience and particular tools. Craftsmen and artists, especially with own businesses can follow our work in a DESIGN THINKING and BUSINESS part to prepare a new services for a modern market. A way of work with groups not connected with craftsmanship, including primarily simplifying techniques and changing the attitude from imitation to creation, is another proposal that can be used.
We work with SMB with different groups in various countries and we see it is a useful and universal method. At the moment Suriname is interested in this solution, where the situation of the ICH and craft is completely different than in Poland. Despite this difference, there are many elements of our SBM which are interesting for their case (primarily the theme of the design thinking process on the marketization of products already at the level of thinking about them, and not just marketing).
Another example can be an online workshop which we led in 2022 for our Partners from India, Thailand, Rep.of Korea. Using a part of the SBM, in which we examine the needs of recipients (design thinking/persona) we conducted a process which leads to an international (Europe-Asia-Australia) platform for the distribution of heritage. We mapped the needs of recipients from very different parts of the world and tried to find points of contact that could make such a platform a viable place for selling crafts. How to work with ICH nowadays – is the important question and we have the answers.
The global challenges we see: aging of the population, a reduction in the number of people of working age, climate change, what leads to difficulties in life, business and food delivery conditions, limited access to raw materials. During the 17 UNESCO Symposium held in Morocco 2022, we discussed how changes in the climate influence ICH. Our idea of craft experience bases on the natural materials which need water to grow. Drying Europe will be soon a challenge for the ICH keepers. We believe that sharing the skills and ideas is the key to the future, even if we can’t stop climate processes. What people need is realizing the creativity and well-being, so we believe that our project can let the crafts live long. We all produce and consume too much products (and rubbish) in our everyday life – a huge problem to the whole world. Our SBM is a proposal of local solutions to produce less in the cooperation with our town, region and voivodeship.
Pandemia closed us as a society, hid us into the online world. In Serfenta, we were curious if we, humans will still need real crafts, after years of isolation. Now we know, we do, we need to rest offline, create something real, touch, smell, feel and meet other people.
The war (in our neighborhood) influenced us also. We believe, that building a strong society is the way to survive crisis. In our craft experience we connect people from different professions, areas, countries, in every age. Being together makes us stronger. We build a bridge to others, this is the base of understanding and solidarity. We’re sure it prepares us for harder times, we’re more helpful, more sensitive to the others, more solidarity. This is the power of ICH which we can be used in the future.
The SBM matches the Cohesion Policy of EU 2021-2027 and contributes to the implementation of the objective Investments in jobs and growth, including developing skills for smart specialization, industrial transformation and entrepreneurship.
