Thinking It Through:
Using design thinking to connect with your community
Using design thinking to connect with your community
This week, the students of the CUNY Social Journalism program descended upon the Sheraton Times Square Hotel to host a day-long innovation challenge using design thinking at NYC16, the College Media Association’s Spring National Media Convention.
The challenge was pretty straightforward: Use design thinking to come up with ideas to improve the media experience of women on college campuses.
First, we had to explain what the design thinking process actually entails. We started by giving them an overview of the process, before moving on to a more detailed breakdown of each step in the process.
I’ve been exposed to design thinking a few times in the past, and all of this year’s CUNY students went through a design thinking workshop during orientation at the beginning of the semester. But I’ve never actually had to explain it to someone at such a detailed level, so this was an interesting experience for me.
Honestly, I was kind of worried going into the sessions. I wasn’t very confident that we would be able to provide our audience with enough valuable information to make the experience worth their while. I didn’t want them to waste their entire day sitting in a room with a bunch of kids who had barely just learned what they were trying to teach, especially when there were so many other interesting panels going on at the conference that day.
Boy, was I wrong.
Not only did each of our groups collectively kill it during our presentations, the kids who participated in the challenge ended up pumping out two FANTASTIC prototypes that could easily see some traction in the real world.
The whole experience got me thinking about how important it is for local publishers and journalists to incorporate this type of thinking into their daily routines. You don’t have to take an entire day-long workshop to benefit from this stuff, either. All you really have to do is take the time to listen to what your community wants and respond to those needs in whatever way you can manage.
It’s really that simple.
On my way home from the event, my head was reeling with ideas for engaging with my community, which consists of local publishers and media makers in New Jersey. It’s the same community I’ve been working with for the last two years at the Center for Cooperative Media, and I started thinking about how I might do a better job reaching out and engaging with their needs and their concerns.
Once I got home, I started going through old emails and notes from conversations with the Center’s partners to see if I could find something concrete to work on. After some digging, calling, and comparing, I decided to tweak our Hearken module to act as a portal where our partners can ask questions about the ins and outs of local publishing and media. I made a quick graphic, set up a post on our homepage, and blasted it out via Facebook, Twitter, and our MailChimp newsletter.
My plan is to compile all the questions I receive from our partners into a giant Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, where I can investigate their questions and provide the best answers I can find. Eventually I’ll turn some of the more popular questions into video tutorials, as per my recent conversation with Matt Skoufalos of NJ Pen.
I’ve already received a handful of questions and the module has only been up for a few hours.
All I had to do was ask.
Questions for my classmates:
Aside from using Hearken, what are some of the ways and methods you plan to use to reach out to your community to identify their needs?
How might you incorporate design thinking into your daily lives, outside of school or your careers?