{"id":1091,"date":"2015-08-17T13:30:27","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T12:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/uommaterialsblog\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2018-05-22T16:38:28","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T15:38:28","slug":"mondaymaterials-episode-5-dr-gianpaolo-vignali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mub.eps.manchester.ac.uk\/uommaterialsblog\/mondaymaterials-episode-5-dr-gianpaolo-vignali\/","title":{"rendered":"#MondayMaterials Episode 6 \u2013 Dr Gianpaolo Vignali"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gianpaolo Vignali was one of the first academics I met when I started working for the School<\/a>\u00a0of<\/a>\u00a0Materials<\/a>. Just a few days into my job I was sitting in his office and discussing the intricacies of the Fashion SOC, a web app he is creating with his colleagues. So early in my time here, I didn\u2019t feel I was very helpful that day, but Gianpaolo and his team were\u00a0very patient and they\u2019ve ended up being some of my most regular contacts here. I’m happy to say the app is now well on it’s way!<\/p>\n

\"Gianpaolo
Gianpaolo and his lovely family enjoying their holidays!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From that first day, I could tell that Gianpaolo was involved in some exciting research. I could also make\u00a0a pretty good guess that he\u2019d come across well on camera and in interview \u2013 some of the reasons for that will become clear further down the page! Enjoy episode 6 of #MondayMaterials<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Can you please explain your research, for the layman, in ten sentences or less?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, with regards to the research that I do within the School there are two main avenues that I pursue. There\u2019s what my traditional research is based on, and obviously my current projects, too.<\/p>\n

In regards to traditional research, it\u2019s very much around the marketing and the strategy of fashion organisations and seeing how they can improve their business performance and capabilities within the industry. I\u2019ve got a number of publications along that route.<\/p>\n

One of the areas that I\u2019ve developed is through the mix-map method<\/a>, using very much your traditional marketing tools such as the four P’s<\/a>, the product life-cycle<\/a>, and the Ansoff matrix<\/a>, but amalgamated into a piece of software. So all these variables can be changed, if you will, to manipulate for each individual business \u2013 and it provides recommendations of what they need to do in the future to improve their positioning.<\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s my traditional research, and then what I\u2019m currently working on now is very much related to my role within the School. I\u2019m working on a Fashion SOC, which is a small online course. Within the Fashion SOC we\u2019re trying to manage the transition between fourteen years of age right through to university, to try and encapsulate and encourage, and start the conversation with that group of students, to get them thinking about fashion as an education at a university. So, we\u2019ve got a web app that\u2019s currently being constructed in that area.<\/p>\n

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Gianpaolo presenting at a UoM Open Day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That all sounds very interesting, thank you. Can you tell us a bit about how\u00a0your research benefits the general public? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

In regards to the general public, the research that really fits in quite well would be through the Fashion SOC. It\u2019s really trying to raise the awareness of fashion as an education area for prospective students to go and study in. And it\u2019s a free web app that we\u2019re creating so anybody can take part.<\/p>\n

Now, with the construction of MOOC<\/a>s in the past \u2013 they\u2019re great, but one of the things that we\u2019ve found in our research is that only 17% of participants finish a MOOC and actually go through to create a statement of achievement.<\/p>\n

For young people, spending all that time on a Massive Open Online Course isn\u2019t beneficial. So the SOC is really a taster into the degrees that we have here<\/a>, within the fashion environment, which allows them to sample it and have a taster and create that little bit of inspiration.<\/p>\n

So I would say that would be the biggest amount of impact at this time, with regards to what I\u2019m currently researching into.<\/p>\n

Could you tell us how you first got interested in your research area?<\/strong><\/h2>\n