Design Thinking and the Launch of Action’s Antidotes
As someone who loves solving complex issues, one of my favorite processes is design thinking. Design thinking is a process a lot of businesses and innovators use to address issues that are not necessarily linear in nature and determine product direction. There are several common ways to describe the process, but the easiest manner in which to understand it is the following series of questions.
Outlined here, is the series of events that lead to the launch of this podcast…
What is?
For nearly a decade prior to the launch of Action’s Antidotes, I had been moved by observing so many people not exactly lit up, or satisfied with their lives in general. Over the course of the 2010s, our increased use of smart phones and social media would make us even more lonely and depressed.
I also observed a work culture that was not exactly working for most people. According to nearly every annual survey from Gallup, there are more employees in American disengaged than engaged (the latest number is 34%). Additionally, many studies indicate that these employee engagement scores are worse in most other countries. Job dissatisfaction was found to be at a whopping 84%!!!
This coincided with some alarming trends for overall happiness.
For a variety of reasons, life had gotten less satisfying for a lot of people.
More Observation and Narrowing My Mission Down
The key to any product launch is to think big, but not too big. It needs to be big enough to actually be worth anyone’s time or money, but not so big that it is not feasible. Righting the ship on job dissatisfaction, lack of community and all of the reasons too many people are living a less than satisfying life is a problem that requires many innovations and efforts from many organizations, groups and individuals. I had to pick something that I am able to start, have the skills to implement, and would make a difference. So, I talked to my communities other innovators and would-be innovators at the TEDxMileHigh conference in November 2019.
Many of the people I talked to gave me different versions of the following message…
“These TED talks are inspiring, and I have a lot of ideas. But, Monday I’m gonna go to work. Tuesday, I’m gonna go to work. Then Wednesday I will meet up with my well meaning but risk averse friends and family. Soon, I’ll be right back to feeling how I felt last week, stuck in this job and not feeling like I can do what I really want to do.”
What if?
Brainstorming what I can do, I asked, what if I am able to provide the people who attend conferences like these and aspire to a more aligned life some additional inspiration. Currently, most of these people have the following being input into their brain….
What if there were more encouraging stories for people to listen to, on a more regular basis, to counteract what they see, hear and are encouraged to do and think? And, what if some of these people, hearing more stories, getting unstuck, are inspired and take on their own initiatives that help bring the general population around to more satisfying lives? But how can we do that?
Empathy and Journey Mapping
While not one of the questions, empathy and journey mapping are key components of this process. I mapped the journey of the millions of Americans (and possibly billions worldwide) who are in this dissatisfying place in life. Specifically, I tried to look at a typical day, the kind of day the other TEDxMileHigh attendees were talking about when they mentioned this story.
First, extensive research showed that the morning may be the best time to reach my audience. It sets the tone for the entire day, and an inspired person may be more likely to take initiative at work, or alter this cycle in some other kind of way. I also envisioned the audience I am trying to reach having roughly half an hour to listen to an inspiring message. Finally, I chose podcasting as the means by which to distribute this message because in this half an hour I envisioned a lot of people doing tasks like making breakfast, getting dressed, driving or other tasks that would make looking at a video inconvenient.
What Wows?
The creation of the podcast had three phases…
- Determining what the content is going to be. This involved some follow up discussion with some of the TEDxMileHigh attendees and others also interested in the topic. At this point the feedback provided to me helped me determine that I was going to….
- Interview guests, as opposed to just talking about a different topic
- Have these guests be from diverse perspectives, with many different interests, with the goal of having something everybody can personally relate to
- Not address politics and other potentially polarizing issues as they would unnecessarily alienate some of the people I am trying to reach
- Getting the sound quality and pacing right- which involved trying a bunch of different recording methods and conversation directions with my first episode (Chris was very helpful with this).
- Recording 12 episodes before launch to get more feedback
What Works?
Most of the feedback I have received has been very positive. I have heard stories of people rethinking their daily routines, leaving bad jobs, developing better relationships and even hiring new people for their business based on episodes of this podcast.
I am also continuing to get feedback from friends and mentors regarding things like…
- Suggestions for people I should interview
- Suggestions for topics I should seek out
- What aspects of the podcast process are important (such as detailed editing removing some repeated content)
- Ideas yet to be implemented regarding how to connect the resources offered by my guests with the people who need them – stay tuned for more news from Action’s Antidotes!