Flexing the empathy muscle

On 16th March we welcomed eight Lancaster Business Improvement District (BID) partner companies to the Campus to meet the students learn about their lifestyle, their relationship with the city centre and their motivation or barriers to spend more time in the city. The students who joined our event were equally curious about what companies we have in town and how they run their businesses. Simply an excellent learning opportunity for both parties!

But why bother? You may just give students some leaflets or point the to an FB page with what’s on in town.  Equally, companies can just promote student discounts and wait for the youngsters to walk through the door of their business, or not, … Well, as good innovators we know there is more to it. We were keen to get that empathy talk going and live the aha moments together to learn about each other’s perspectives.

The University Campus can feel a bit like a city in its own right with shops, bars, social spaces and cafes making it far too comfortable to stay in and hang out with friends without ever venturing to our beautiful town of Lancaster. So what motivates students to step over the parameter road? From our journey mapping exercise we learnt so much! Did you know that the main barrier is the cost of transport? We were surprised that none of the students go to the theatre! We confirmed that Facebook is not the channel to communicate with your students anymore…. And we learnt that the city is simply invisible most of the time, perceived as a focus for grocery shopping and clubbing and rarely a place to have fun with friends and hang out…

Our companies were keen to figure out how to change their value proposition to make it more attractive to our students. The round table debates opened up many innovative ideas for the business managers who were frantically writing up action points to improve their communications channels.

So what did the companies make of it?

“Wonderful opportunity to speak to the students to find out what they want but also to let them know what was available on their own doorstep!”

“t’s great to actually get in the mind of students in 2022, what they want, need and expect from the city they are studying in”

And our students? Well, they loved it!

“It was a fun event. I enjoyed talking to the business owners and giving my ideas on how they can improve their business reach. ”

“It was a huge honor to be part of this event organized by Lancaster BID. Chatting with local businesses to look for improvements, expand their customer base and enhance their business development was a very valuable experience.”

And at the end, the magic happens! Co-created proposal was put on the table to pilot a student advocate scheme that would be affiliated to the town centre businesses and act as a bridge between the town community and Campus. Let’s see what happens!

As good innovators, we believe empathy is a muscle that needs to go through a few training sessions….We have certainly exercised a great deal and the result are very rewarding!

If you have an appetite to run an engagement session like this, check out our resources where you can find the session engagement tools free to download.

Be good and keep flexing!

Good Place Innovators are Ready to Strike!

What is the project about and how is it funded?

Our project is funded by Enterprise Educators UK who have commended us on the multidisciplinary nature of the project and iterative testing of our concept based on our core belief of co-design and co-creation. We simply love involving everybody and anybody as we believe in diversity of voice in creating meaningful learning journeys.  

The core of our project draws on the connection between placed-based approach to enterprise and design recognised as the route to productivity and intentional innovation resulting in more resilient economy. The project addresses the diversity of the meaning of enterprise and puts emphasis on students’ employability skills including a self-belief that starting a business is a viable career choice and encouraging students to identify their own ‘place’ in identifying entrepreneurial solutions. 

So in a nutshell, we are going to have a lot of fun and come up with a big bank digital resource that students and staff will enjoy as a journey of discovery, curiosity, creativity and most importantly greater sense of belonging and responsibility towards our surroundings.   

Where are we with it?  

Well, we have been working undercover on a series of small iterations that in truth started as vague ideas, boring word documents, clunky digital spaces and eventually our first prototype of a self-guided Digital Design Lab piloted by twelve postgraduate students. This stage of the project has been focused on innovating our Campus and the wicked challenge was:  

How might we create supportive University community connections in the post-pandemic world whilst keeping everybody on Campus safe, comfortable and happy? 

Has it worked?  

Oh yes! How do we know? All students completed the challenge, the quality of their work was exceptional, the smiles on their faces said it all. So what did the students say about their digital experience? 

“Study could be fun and you would never know you learn so much when it’s fun!” 

“Because its fun you are enjoying it and you are motivated to learn more. You are eager to dive deeper. Study should be like this!” 

“It took my fear of perfection away. I felt freed up to have a go!” 

“It was fun and enjoyable and prepared me well for my studies.” 

We nailed it! It was hard work and we are still not perfectly happy with it so we are having another go, making some really cool improvements.  

Things that need our attention are: 

  • Helping students unlock their creative potential – most students said they got stuck at the sketching stage so we need to figure out how to take that fear away and make it more accessible  
  • Making our materials more localised – in our prototype we drew on publicly available materials like YouTube videos, templates etc. – we have loads of Lancaster based talent we want to integrate in our digital space. This is going to be really exciting!  
  • Lastly – keep it light and fun, but don’t take all the challenging aspects away – we learn when things are enjoyable but challenging enough – let’s strike the balance right 😉 

Next steps? 

We are ready to steam ahead, refine out first prototype and get on with our next exciting stage. Follow our blog to keep up with our progress. We sure will have some downs and we may need your help so stay right here!