In a recent Design Thinking camp for future coaches, we worked on the challenge of "how to re-design the professional networking experience". On of the teams came up with the idea of a platform to bring older and younger generations closer together. This was based on some key insights concerning the need of younger people to gain professional experience and built up a personal network as well as the fact that older generations often look for new challenges but do not feel so comfortable with the latest tools and technology, e.g. facebook and linkedin.
The German city of Wiesloch on the other hand is supporting generation-spanning ideas and projects - hence, we will train a team of students with business and computer science background to apply Design Thinking in these kind of projects, where it is key to understand the needs and concerns of distinct user profiles and develop empathy as well as innovative solutions.
Impressions and first results from these workshops will follow...
