PROJECT: DOUGH
CLIENT: TELEFONICA ALPHA
GROUP: ALLY ROSAM, DONGLIN kim, KAREN ROZENBAUM
*SHORTLISTED BY TELEFONICA ALPHA*
MY ROLE: SERVICE DESIGNER (EXPERTS/USER INTERVIEWS, workshop coordination, prototype, SERVICE PROPOSITION, VALUE CREATION, IDEATION, INSIGHTS)
THE CHALLENGE
Alpha, the Innovation Hub from Telefonica, approached us to develop services that could help young people to increase the personal agency they have upon their own lives, so they can be healthier and happier. We tackle the Future of Work and focus our project on a key moment in their young people’s lives when they are between 16 to 18 years old and have to decide ‘what do I want to be in the future?’.
THE PROCESS
I immersed myself on secondary research and reached out to experts on the field to understand how the world of work is changing. I realised that new careers and new ways of working are already happening, and we have to learn to be comfortable with constant change.
After that, my colleagues and me interviewed young people and, surprisingly we found out they weren’t aware of new ways of working or new careers. Because the process of deciding ‘what do I want to be in the future?’ is very stressful and anxious, pressured by parents, schools and society in general, they are very influenced by their parents jobs and immediate network, and are still choosing very traditional careers.
OUTCOMES
To develop the strategy on how to tackle that issue, I had the insight of harnessing that positive ‘pre-experience’ phase - where young people can actually manage their expectations when interacting with real professionals - and expanding it throughout the whole decision-making journey.
We created Dough: a peer to peer discovery app for helping young people to better understand themselves and others in the world of work.
To further understand their main pain points, I helped developing a Journey map with the key moments and phases of that decision making process and validated in a workshop we run in a High School in Essex/UK. We observed that they are making decisions on almost on an auto-pilot mode and are expecting to work “in a non-toxic environment” or “not be bored at work”, using negative language in relation to their futures. The only moment when they seem to have a more optimistic view is when they interact with professionals to compare their expectations with reality.
With these key insights in mind, we identified a clear opportunity: How might we empower 16-18-year-olds to imagine their ideal future selves so that they can positively reframe the decision-making moment by considering future possibilities?
The service helps young people approaching the question ‘what do I want to be in the future?’ enabling them to interact and learn from young inspiring professionals. By showing them random videos recorded by the professionals themselves, of how they work and their work environments, the service stimulates them imagining their future work possibilities. Watch the video above to see how it works.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Among 23 groups and 95 people, our project has been selected as Finalist by the Health Moonshot from Telefonica Alpha. We also received very positive feedback from the Department of Education and keep advancing with the project.
