Note from our Editor:

In his last blog post of this series, Innovation Lab’s intern Marc Velten-Lomelin takes us on a journey to explore how his generation sees education. He centers his article around Tim Brown’s (IDEO’s CEO), design thinking quote: “the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success.” In his view, education is a partnership between the teacher and the student. This generation views passive education with the same sense of disbelief with which we saw our parents’ stories of physical punishment at school. His thesis is that education has not been disrupted by technology as much as it has been by his generation’s demand for a collaborative approach where the teacher/student hierarchies of the past no longer make sense.

Written by: Marc Velten-Lomelin

Education, disrupted

Learning is not what it used to be. The days of passively sitting down while being lectured for hours are counted. The times when the ability to memorize facts and data was confused with the mastering of a skill are gone. Uninvolved students are on their way to extinction. Education, disrupted by a generation that was brought up in the give-and-take world of social media and gaming, will never look the same.

That’s good news for all…

Just as our parents saw the days when teachers physically punished their parents with a sense of disbelief, we see the days when our parents sat in classrooms for hours listening to an uninspiring teacher while taking copious notes with the same sense of incredulity. My generation demands to own our education by taking an active role in what we learn and how we learn it. Thankfully, schools and teachers all around the world are cooperating.

A few weeks ago, two executives from Lego came to visit my high school and my engineering teacher gave them a tour of our maker space. Their visit also included a tour of Stanford University’s famous D-School (Design School), which is just a few blocks away. To my surprise, they were more impressed with our engineering, architecture and design facilities than with Stanford’s. This is not because our shop, while impressive, is bigger or better than that of the D-School – they’re famous for a reason. Their awe had to do more with, as they indicated, the fact that they were not expecting to find a space like this in a high school.

Our engineering shop empathizes with the way my generation wants to learn. Our maker space is designed under one simple principle: flexibility. The entire shop can be quickly re-purposed to fit any project. Everything has wheels and the space is never the same. We have every tool you can imagine, including tools invented by students. Our teachers act as mentors and coaches, we’re never lectured and we have no textbooks. The engineering space acts as an extension of our physics class, so when we learn about the laws of energy conservation, or the parabola formulas, we get to build stuff to learn what they mean. I bet that if past generations had learned this way, there would not be a shortage of engineering talent because more students would have learned – like us – to love physics by tinkering with stuff rather than taking formulas for granted.

Innovative learning starts with organized teachers

It would be naive to say that re-designing the learning space does the trick when it comes to teaching. It takes empathetic, innovative and hard-working teachers to leap us into this new era of learning. Happily, Tim Brown’s definition of design thinking applies to teachers as much as to spaces and to everything else: it starts with empathy.

Empathy can be as simple as being organized so that students know what to expect. Teachers who are organized are well liked and respected among students and faculty. Nobody wants to be around someone who has no idea what is going on in their own classroom. When a teacher is not organized the class does not function. Teachers who forget to do simple things like set up the schedule for the week, arrive on time, or even remember a student’s name lack empathy, which translates into lack of organization, and results in unengaged students.

A teacher must know everything in their curriculum and plan innovative ways of teaching it. For example, my Engineering teacher, Marc Allard, is the most organized teacher on the face of this Earth. Everything in his class is planned out. Nothing is forgotten or misplaced. The grading system is impenetrable. I’ve had a class with him for three years in high school. The first year I had him for Freshman Physics, where his strict deadline policies and testing schedules morphed me into what some sort of super efficient learning machine. The next year he was no longer my science teacher but rather my engineering teacher. Even though it was a different environment I was prepared to take on whatever was thrown at me, only because I knew what he expected of me and what I expected of him. His empathy resulted in better learning that motivated me to understand a tough subject like physics.

Inspiring teachers are ‘optimized’ around design thinking

My dad once told me that the most ineffective and uninspiring teacher he ever had was at Harvard. This teacher was no small academic guy with a safe teaching career: he had won the Nobel Prize in Economics. What this teacher had in brilliance he lacked in empathy, one could say that he was not optimized for teaching around design thinking. Even Einstein, arguably the most brilliant academic of his generation, was famous for zesty, inspiring lectures at Princeton that made students understand complex concepts like relativity and quantum mechanics.

Time and time again educators forget how to empathize with their students because they’re too focused on being eloquent, efficient, or simply keeping their jobs. No man is smarter than machine. If education was about ensuring pupils record the information they get while idly listening in a classroom, machines would already rule the education world. My generation asks things like: why shall we learn by memory the capitals of the world when we can Google them from our mobile whenever we need to know them? Human teachers, those that inspire rather than feed us information, will not become obsolete because true empathy, which we demand in this partnership, can’t be delivered by artificial intelligence.

Technology was not the disruptor

Apps and e-books have undoubtedly changed the way education can be delivered. However, the new way to learn, where teachers and students talk, joke around, and learn from one another, is the real culprit of the wave of change you’re about to see in this area. Pupils not only become students to the teacher, we become their partners in our education. A dominant teacher lecturing passive students is a postcard from your past. The next time someone tells you that education is being disrupted by technology, bear to correct them: it is my generation who disrupted your old ways of learning.

Photo courtesy of friend of Innovation Lab and photographer Christopher Michel.

Note from our editor:

In his last article of the series, Diego takes us to an uncomfortable space where the concept of generations ceases to apply. In this lively piece, Diego explains how technology – specifically the part of it that has connected the world – creates a paradox he calls “polarization-unification,” that brings people of a similar age closer together and at the same time separates them. He gives vivid examples of how him and fellow blogger Marc, separated by just a couple of years, use social technology in markedly different ways.

This is good advice for all of us in business. Approaching the way we design, hire and market using a concept that is not longer relevant – like the concept of generations – will only ensure we hit a wall we didn’t even know was there. Another insight from a kid who just left the neighborhood playground and is now playing in ours. Take note.

Written by: Diego Martinez

The concept of generations has prevailed throughout modern history as a socially constructed and widely accepted differentiator between ages. Traditionally we’ve used this concept not only to help us group cohorts of people together, but also to distinguish between them. It’s easier to analyze advances in society when you split society into the comfortable intervals of time we call generations. Even at the personal level it’s easier for us to relate to and find comfort in the people of our own age – our generation has traditionally felt like our “tribe.”

So what marks generations? Traditionally anything from advances in technology to cultural eras such as the baby boomers, the rock-n-roll or the Apollo was enough to mark the differences amongst generations. But that handy way of segmenting is fading. We’re currently advancing so quickly that we can no longer distinguish between technological or artistic epochs. There no longer exists the idea of an artistic “trend.” Artistically, there are infinite niches one could fit. Simply put, the Internet has expanded the social realm so much so that it has completely redefined what it means to belong to a generational period.

Generation gaps, by tradition, are the core agents of societal conflict. It is nearly impossible to change that because it’s in our nature to exploit seniority. What is changing is the separation between generations, both polarizing and uniting age groups. Let’s have a look at the different ways generations are brought together and are completely separated in 2017, and reflect on what that means for you in terms of businesses and innovation.

In a way, we are living in an era which both polarizes age groups and unites them like never before. This paradox of polarization-unification through technology can be seen in media, art, business and most social trends.

For example, ask any twenty-year old, like myself, if they use Facebook and the answer is most definitely. I was there when it launched, and I’m still here. Ask any seventeen-year old that same question, like my friend Marc (go read his blog if you haven’t already), if they use Facebook and the answer is most definitely no. Email? His answer is “Why would I want to write letters to everyone?”

Wait: kids are not on Facebook?

The simple nuances in technology use between age groups now take place within an impressive one or two-year span of time. It no longer takes us 10 to 20 years to find major differences in social upbringings; the newer “generations” are separated by a small margin that only shrinks in size every year. I remember my first phone, the Motorola Razr flip phone, as a revolutionary step in communications and cellular tech. My brother is a mere three years younger than I am and doesn’t even know what Razr is. This is the “polarization” part. What does that mean for you as an employer? It just means you have to be wearier of your new hires’ age gaps and understand that in 2017, we don’t really connect with people on the age basis as much as we used to. Don’t trust two employees to get along just because they are in their twenties, one or two years’ difference may mean completely different approaches to the world.

Now to the “unification” aspect of our social paradox. Technology and especially social media have broken the typical marketing barriers that small companies faced before. All you need these days is a well set up Instagram page and you can take your product straight to your consumers. Forget the laws of supply and demand. Haven’t you heard? It’s trendy to be “rare” these days. Forget professional experience, too.

Just look at Mo’s Bows, the bow-tie company which was started by twelve-year-old entrepreneur Moziah Bridges a couple of years back and has now struck a seven figure deal with the NBA. When was the last time your savvy professional marketing team landed a similar feat for your company? Again, there is the paradox of the polarization in technology trend and the unification of social trend. Mo and I may have grown up in two completely different periods of time in terms of technology (mind you we are only 5 years apart) yet he built a million-dollar business and I didn’t, using the same tools I have at my disposal. The older generational standards are centered on a strict level of seniority, experience and hierarchy, but the digital era has thrown us all in the same jungle and said: “play!” Any game is anyone’s game, and the social image of the generation is slowly fading into a synonym for anti-progressivism.

Why not be unified? Why not work with competitors simply because it will make a better product? Imagine if we took age out of the equation when hiring employees and took them on based on their ideas for business innovation. These are the questions that the unification aspect brings along with it – the total re-invention of what it means to be with, act like or work with people your own age. At the end of the day, age is just a number, right?

What’s next?

So we find ourselves in this paradoxical mess of society losing the ages-old concept of generations, where things don’t seem to make sense yet they flow as easily as ever. What can we take from our current state of affairs to help us make wiser choices in the future? Luckily, the ages-old advice for businesses and managers to be open to new ideas without bias towards the source of innovation still applies. Every single year businesses will harvest new minds and cater to new audiences, so it’s essential to keep up to date with how social trends are affecting people regardless of age.

Designs need to keep track with movements and innovators need to keep track with new innovators. Age should be no factor here.

Photo courtesy of friend of Innovation Lab and photographer Christopher Michel.

Note from our editor:

Last week, our lively post-millennial interns Diego and Marc wrote about how their generation sees innovation and the workplace; and gave us tips on how to design for them. This week, they focus on their collaborative mindset, with Diego debunking some assumptions companies have about social media and Marc explaining how the new innovation formats fit their work ethic. On this article, Marc explores three formats of innovation that are made for the way his generation approaches life: collaboratively and using technology. And although some of these new formats, like hackathons, have been going on for 20 years, it is not until now, as the new generations take over, that it left the realm of code-only competitions to approach innovation for all kinds of problems. Enjoy the words of new wisdom from our youngest ilabbers

Written by: Marc Velten-Lomelin

Innovation is not what it used to be… thankfully.

Hiring the best minds from the best schools and throwing money at their pet projects no longer produces the transformative innovations that companies across all industries, and even government organizations, need to stay relevant and agile. Even the traditional methods of figuring out what customers want no longer work at ensuring you stay on top of your game. Relevancy has never been more fragile and you know it.

Welcome to the world of technology-enabled collaborative innovation that produces the next big thing and solves the world’s most pressing problems.

• 1. Crowdsourcing innovation

When a startup like Bragi raises $3.4 million from strangers to bring to market “A.I. for your ears,” its success doesn’t have to be predicted by a know-all venture investor. Kickstarter didn’t simply invent a platform for funding ideas using the crowd. They invented the most accurate success-prediction funding model ever. The people who paid Danish inventor Nikolaj Hviid $299 for a pair of earphones that didn’t exist demonstrated real demand with their wallets while funding the company, making Bragi one of the “ten most successful companies built on Kicstarter,” according to Forbes.

In 2015 energy company Tesla used the same crowdfunding model and “pre-sold” the non-existent Model 3 to 400,000 customers who paid $1,000 each, not only demonstrating overwhelming demand for a cheaper electric car, but raising big money towards building the plant to actually manufacture it. In 2006, even before Kickstarter even existed, Doritos transferred the creativity for its Superbowl ads to the crowd – having consumers use their cameras to film their ad entries and other consumers vote for the best – saving millions of dollars and time in creative talent from ad agencies, and most importantly, not having to guess what their consumers wanted to watch.

From raising money for a startup to predicting demand for the next Tesla to coming up with the Superbowl Doritos TV commercials, crowdsourcing as an innovative way to bring about transformative solutions is now pervasive. The new generations actually expect it from you. You’re most likely already part of somebody’s crowdsourcing innovation – comments on social media like “I wish this app could do…” go up to the cloud and into big data systems to help companies like Instagram and Linkedin develop new features people actually want without ever having to ask them. Several companies in Europe are applying crowdsourcing principles internally, using platforms like ProjectPad to foster internal innovation and have their employees come up and promote ideas that other employees pay to work on.

• 2. Incubating innovation

In February, Entrepreneur magazine published an article for entrepreneurs advising them that “You may need funding, but the benefits of corporate incubators and accelerators may do more for your startup than the money.” The benefits go both ways. When dozens of people are already working on the next idea that will make your product irrelevant, the best way to survive is by bringing them in to collaborate with your team while they develop their idea. You can also do the same for technologies that make you more efficient and say goodbye to your traditional vendors before they’re gone.

Incubating startups is a low-risk way to pay-to-play and ensure you’re on top of the next big thing before it is on top of you. Time and again, big companies with plenty of resources to innovate simply don’t, and before they know it, the market is disrupted by a bunch of twenty-year olds working from their basement. This is why AirB&B, and not Holiday Inn or Hilton, is the largest hospitality company in the world, or why you order an Uber before even thinking if taxis still exist.

No matter what you do, odds indicate that if you’re a big company, you will not see transformative innovation coming your way until you’re playing the catch-up game to the next Mark Zuckerberg. Unless, however, you expand your innovation capabilities by incubating startups, inviting those needy twenty-somethings to ruffle some feathers around and show your people unexpected ways of doing things better. Check out some of the incubators we run at Innovation Lab here.

• 3. Hacking innovation

Paradoxically, the marketing team at now defunct server giant Sun Microsystems came up with the term “hackathon” in 1999 as a mash up of the words “hack” and “marathon.” Which is exactly what a hackathon is: a group of people competing to solve one issue in an “impossible” amount of time – usually a few days. Since then, organizations of all sizes run hackathons to tackle problems their internal teams have not been able to crack within their normal environments and timelines. Despite the constraints of time and focus, it is actually a rare occasion when the “hack” problem has not been successfully tackled – no matter what the hackathon was about.

Hackathons are used by forward-thinking companies and organizations to innovate in a myriad of areas. For example, earlier this year, Innovation Lab and Siemens ran a two-day hackathon amongst Siemens’ internal team of engineers to make wind turbines more efficient. Just last week Innovation Lab ran another hackathon for Maersk. This one was with outside teams to source ideas for the future of tankers.

Also last week, fuel cell developer Arcola Energy in the UK ran a hackathon amongst teams of 8 to 18 year-old kids to “hack gadgets, appliances and toys to make them move faster, longer or to take first steps as an animate object,” using hydrogen. This hackathon was also sponsored by Toyota and Shell, two companies definitely interested in things that move and the stuff that powers them.

Energizing innovation

From energy sustainability to education and health, the world needs transformative innovation. Us, the new generations that are taking charge, know that collaboration and sharing, magnified by technology as never before, is the way to get you there. Expect to see these new collaborative innovation models proliferate, and new ones sprout as we take over.

Photo courtesy of friend of Innovation Lab and photographer Christopher Michel.

Note from our editor:

Last week, our amazing post-millennial interns Diego and Marc wrote about how their generation sees innovation and the workplace; and gave us tips on how to design for them. This week, they focus on social media, debunking some assumptions companies have about it. Whereas Marc wrote last week about the real reason his generation is not on Facebook (not what you would guess) while Diego doesn’t even mention Facebook on his post about the “big 3” social media platforms you need to be active on. Diego focuses on seven “laws” of the social media game and dares you to play it. He shows vivid examples of awesome social media moves, even by companies who are not at all sexy. One of “laws”- Law 1 – Don’t over-empathize – hones in on one very stupid move by someone who tried really hard not to be sexy, and succeeded, and tried even harder, unsuccessfully, to appeal to his generation.

By: Diego Martinez

Let’s be clear here. When I say “social media” I mean the platforms which dominate most smart phones and, in turn, much of the youth interaction with media overall. Namely Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. The big three. Business wise, it becomes more and more apparent each year how the more successful companies and brands are the ones who know how to maneuver in the social media world and establish presence with their consumers through this trio of apps. In the near future it may not even be possible to successfully run a business without social media presence. That being said, mere presence in social media is not enough; you need to be smart. Here are seven important tips for your business, whether large or small, in whatever industry you are, to empathize with my generation and successfully turn social media into a company asset.

Law 1 – Don’t over-empathize. When you try to be funny, you’re not.

This first point is arguably the most important. Social media may be a jungle of complexities and a seemingly lawless abyss of information, but in terms of the big three apps, there’s usually a pretty wide range of relevance in terms of what’s deemed trendy and what’s not. The reality is that most of the information being shared on the three platforms is essentially the same, differing only in the methods and forms of delivery. This means that if you are successful with your target audience on Instagram, for example, you will likely be able to carry that buzz over to Twitter and Snapchat. Vice versa, if you are deemed “uncool” or simply uninteresting on any one of the platforms, it will be difficult for you to revamp your name on the others. Therefore, the first law of the land is do not over-empathize.

Seriously. Don’t try to post or do things just because you think it’s “in” with the kids. We see through when your social posts are not genuine and will be very happy to expose them. Hillary Clinton made an example of how not to relate to the youth when she made an appearance on the New York radio show The Breakfast Club. She appeared on the show around the time Beyonce’s highly beloved LEMONADE album was released. One of Beyonce’s most popular quotes from the album was: “I got hot sauce in my bag, swag”, and in an attempt to appeal to young voters, Hillary brought hot sauce (in her bag) with her on the show. Yup. That’s how stupid she looked. It was so embarrassingly clear how hard she was trying, and it was terrible. Don’t pull a hot sauce on us because it won’t work.

Empathy is great, but it has to be smart and genuine, especially if you want to reflect the light of someone else, Remember your Mom’s advice: “don’t try and be someone you’re not.” The best way to connect with the youth is simply being genuine and naturally cool.

Law 2 – Make it interactive. Make us think and do, not just stare.

No matter what type of business you run, you will be able to add value to your company through social media. Social media is all about interacting and expanding your network in ways you wouldn’t otherwise be able to. A great tip for business social media use is making your social presence interactive. This doesn’t just mean posting online deals and promotions, that won’t draw much attention to your business from the people that matter online. The best way to engage online is by giving consumers and users a way of feeling like they can really connect with you. If you sell a product, encourage your followers to post pictures or comments related to their experience with it. If you provide a service, encourage your followers to test it out and share their views. You can post coupons and interactive opportunities in social media, but make them exclusive. Whatever it is, make your customers know you are just as connected as they are, and that you will respond and react to their social media posts.

They are ready to reply to comments and also post holiday tweets and trendy blog posts. Overall, their twitter account makes users feel like they are following an artistic and up-to-date company which blends their business in with careless social media pleasure. The result: sticky social media presence even for an unsexy company.

Law 3 – Be genuine. Turn the table on us without turning us off.

If you’ve followed the first two pieces of advice, then you’re already on your way to turning your smartphone into an asset to advance your for business. Be careful, though, because number 3 is where a lot of people and companies fail.

Law 4 – Be in the loop. Show us how smart you are.

Many companies are afraid of app and social media use because of the idea that it is mainly geared for a younger age group. That is precisely why businesses should be investing heavily in social media use. Do you really want to age with your users? Think of social media as a constant stream of trends. It’s important that you, as a company, catch on to those trends, because that’s how the youth will catch on to you. First we see that you are relevant and informed about what’s going on in social media culture – which BTW, is the only culture that matters to us, and then we will move on to follow you and accept you as part of our social media experience. Take Whataburger, for example; a fast food chain in the south of the US. Though they only do business in 10 states, they are widely known for their smart use of Twitter. As most people know, Kanye West has been a popular staple of youth culture and music in the last decade, and in one of Whataburger’s many clever Twitter endeavours, they took advantage of one of Kanye’s tweets to span a whole range of their own tweets and generate a comically geared buzz towards their account, while still advertising their fast food. I hope you see the difference between Hillary taking a bottle of sauce to a TV show and this.

Law 5 – Be creative. There is no box to think outside of anymore.

In 2014, Sourpatch Kids did a Snapchat campaign with a famous youtuber named Logan Paul. They had him do a “Snapchat Takeover” where he controlled the company’s snaps for a whole day and went around New York City pranking people. Would you dare to cede control of your Snap to a teenager?

This is an excellent example of a well aged company staying current and creative. Remember, social media platforms break all rules. There is no such thing as “thinking outside the box” because there simply isn’t a box anymore. Anything goes, and everyone is always waiting on the next creative feat. Obviously, not every company is Sourpatch Kids and not everyone can get in touch with millionaire youtube stars, but it’s all about catering to your specific audience the best way you can. There are no boundaries to creativity, so, for lack of a better term, get creative.

Check out AirBnB’s Instagram. Somebody at AirBnB was clever enough to not underestimate the far reaching capacity of quality photography, and thus they have turned their instagram account into a haven for aesthetic photographs. They now have 2.2 Million followers, and not because they offer deals or promotions, simply because they are very dedicated Instagrammers that post pleasurable pictures that we love to be inspired with. AirBnB, along with so many other companies who put emphasis on social media use, has proven that you can sell yourself without selling yourself at all. Not only is it absolutely brilliant, it’s absolutely the future of business.

Law 7 – Be consistent and confident. Dare to open up and participate.

The big three apps may seem scary, but they are super easy to master. Don’t be afraid, just start posting, see what ticks us and be consistent, we will catch on. Even if you start with two followers, it’s all about growth. You should approach social media consistency the same way you approach it in your product and service. You’re creating a social brand and if you send us mixed signals, we will not understand what you’re about; we will move on; we will ignore you.

Remember, customer loyalty is created by establishing a genuine connection with people, not by shoving your product/service down anyone’s throat… especially when it comes to social media. There are no excuses for not taking these tips into account. Whether you are Apple California or a one-person company in the middle of nowhere, you have access to social media, and if you truly want to expand your business potential in 2017 you must be an active member of at least one of the big three apps. So be confident and trust that a genuine social media effort can really add value to your name and make me and my friends like you.

Photo (header image) courtesy of friend of Innovation Lab and photographer Christopher Michel.

Note from our editor:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos once said that when thinking about the future, most people focus on guessing what will change in order to innovate. His approach is the opposite: focus on what will not change, and innovate around it. Amazon knows that not matter what, twenty years from now consumers will still want to pay as little as they can for an article, and to get it as fast as possible. His job is to simply make sure that innovation from his company makes this desire possible. This summer, we publish a series of articles written by the future generation, two interns, Diego (19) and Marc (17), who helped us innovate for their peers. Their desires, wants and needs are exactly the ones we had when we were their age – those do not change. Innovation to fulfill them – for example, a phone line in your room in the 80s or a mobile today, enable the unchangeable teenage need to be hyper-social with their friends.

In the first two articles of this series, Diego, who is midway through university, writes about what you need to do to attract and retain his generation to your company. From the physical space to the definition of what an employee is, you need to think differently to deal with the new workforce about to knock at your doorstep. Marc opens your eyes to the fact that 17-year-olds are post-millennials, just to add to your to-dos in case you’re still catching up on learning how to deal with millennials. He writes about three principles of design you need to pay attention to if you want his generation to pay attention to you.

Enjoy what this amazing generation of mindful thinkers has to teach you.

By: Marc Velten-Lomelin

If you’re wondering how to design for millennials, you’re too late. It may comfort you to know that many confuse us with millennials. We’re completely different. We’re the generation after them and we’re almost ready to come out of the shell. Our generation – those born at the turn of the century, is tech savvy and always on the move. To design for us you must think like a seventeen year-old, and be mindful that “new” things like the Internet or mobiles already thrived before we were even born. To design for us you must be mindful.

Bridging the gap is simple, not complicated.

The only Instruction Manual you need

Dieter Rams, a German industrial designer and one of the giants of industrial design, came up with “10 Timeless Commandments for Good Design” in the 1970s that kick-ass designers all around the world use as an inspiration for their work. Since these commandments are timeless, here’s a quick guide on the three commandments you should be on the lookout for in order to appeal to my generation, no matter your line of business.

1. Good design innovates by moving us forward

When you design for us, be more like WAZE and less like MAPS

A map shows you the route between point A and point B. A talking map guides you from point A to point B. Waze helps you go from point A to point B in the most efficient way in real time. A Driveless Car with a Map powered by Waze frees you to do something more interesting while en route from point A to point B.

See the difference?

Good design is innovative. It adds value. All help you get from A to B. Yet only Waze incorporates the here and now – which make both the map and the driveless car way more useful.

Homogenous is not only boring, it is useless. My generation strongly believes one can’t design and move the human race forward by being the same as the guy next door. That’s a waste of energy and resources. That’s a waste of our time. That’s why we are not of Facebook, and are all over Snap (more on this later). You just need to launch something differently useful, with the same overall purpose, to ensure we pay attention.

Take music for example. Music has always been there for humans. It has withstood the test of time. It’s been tattooed into the human experience. One can’t find a human that doesn’t like music, but every human certainly has unique music tastes, and that’s why there are countless genres and forms of music. Genres of music can contrast a mood or evoke feeling within us humans. Imagine if the world of music only consisted of a handful of songs. Can a handful of songs evoke every human emotion? Could they reflect the richness of the human experience? A world with one song would bore us to sleep. Music would become irrelevant quite fast. This would be “the day the music died.”

Music is music. Yet, every new generation invents its own kind of music, evolves the forms it takes, and even the ways they listen to it. iTunes did not become the world’s largest music store by inventing music, or the business of selling music. It added. It moved music forward, and people happily followed.

Our generation expects design to work that way. We like to buy things that are not only original, but move us forward. We love unique experiences. We rave for the undiscovered clothing label that has a story to tell. For us, your brand and your product must be different, original and meaningful to stay relevant.

A product must be self explanatory to appeal to us. If a design is understandable, it will overcome any other shortcomings. Take Snapchat. We love Snap. It’s fun to use and unique. Its edge over other social media platforms is how easy it is to use. Simple design is not simplistic design. We will take Snap over Facebook every time, even when Facebook has way more features than Snap …or maybe because of it. For us Facebook is so complicated, it is totally irrelevant. Most of you think we’re not on Facebook because you are. Sorry to disappoint, but your generation is not that important to us to keep us from using any tool we find useful. The answer is not you. For all its features, Facebook is static. That is the little overlook fact that keeps us away. Snap is the new king of communication not only because it has one button, three user interfaces, and has one primary objective, but most importantly, because it is designed to move at our speed.

3. Good design is honest

When you design for us, be more like BERNIE and less like HILLARY

Honest design is the hardest design principle to fulfill. Trust me, even the masters of design keep messing this up with us. You cannot fake with our generation – just ask Hillary Clinton. Despite being the generation of inclusiveness, we fell in love with an old while male over an energetic woman. No expert could have predicted that. We did it because we felt Bernie was authentic and she wasn’t. First impressions are everything because our attention span doesn’t leave time for a second chance. An old guy who dares to take controversial positions right on was a million times more appealing than an experienced politician who wanted to be everything for everyone. Had the older generations voted our way in the Democratic primaries (we can’t vote yet), we would not have a clown in the White House.

If the story behind a product (or a person) is not clear and honest to us at the get-go, any interest in it fades from our always distracted minds. Despite living in the era of fake news, the days of products and people with great marketing but with fabricated stories are over. Over-engineered products that serve no clear purpose fall into the same category of “gone from our ADD minds because we have no time to go deeper.”

The one time Google launched a product that was not honest, it failed miserably. When Google launched their over-engineered Google Glass, a head mounted ubiquitous computer, my friends and I we were in awe, star struck by the things we could do with it. When show-time came, however, the reality was quite different. Did we really need to learn how to use glasses? Was there an obvious use for them? Google definitely thought so, and designed “clever” marketing that included a friends’ list, scarcity, and a price tag that made a statement on how stupid you were. Over-engineered AND dishonest. No wonder.

Thinking like a 17-year-old can feel alien to you. However, design thinking is easy to conceptualize, and that’s all we are asking for you guys to do. Appealing to us is not rocket science. Stop overcomplicating things because you think we will like those useless features you added to make your product perfect. Stop making products that need an instruction manual because you want to explain to us how hard the product is to use. Stop creating things that you wouldn’t even use. We aren’t that different from you guys, after all, our generation is still human. We still empathize with good design just like anyone else. But, the products that pop out to our generation are the products that innovate forward, are simple to figure out and are honest. We have no time to second-guess you.

Photo courtesy of friend of Innovation Lab and photographer Christopher Michel.

Note from our editor:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos once said that when thinking about the future, most people focus on guessing what will change in order to innovate. His approach is the opposite: focus on what will not change, and innovate around it. Amazon knows that not matter what, twenty years from now consumers will still want to pay as little as they can for an article, and to get it as fast as possible. His job is to simply make sure that innovation from his company makes this desire possible. This summer, we publish a series of articles written by the future generation, two interns, Diego (19) and Marc (17), who helped us innovate for their peers. Their desires, wants and needs are exactly the ones we had when we were their age – those do not change. Innovation to fulfill them – for example, a phone line in your room in the 80s or a mobile today, enable the unchangeable teenage need to be hyper-social with their friends.

In the first two articles of this series, Diego, who is midway through university, writes about what you need to do to attract and retain his generation to your company. From the physical space to the definition of what an employee is, you need to think differently to deal with the new workforce about to knock at your doorstep. Marc opens your eyes to the fact that 17-year-olds are post-millennials, just to add to your to-dos in case you’re still catching up on learning how to deal with millennials. He writes about three principles of design you need to pay attention to if you want his generation to pay attention to you.

Enjoy what this amazing generation of mindful thinkers has to teach you.

Written by Diego Martinez

Technology has advanced more in the last 30 years than the last two thousand

One way or another, we’ve all heard the saying about technology’s accelerating pace. It is especially relevant to us now in 2017. There isn’t much to question in terms of analysing the impact that technological advances have had on design, communication, societal mechanisms, personal lifestyles and cultural tendencies in the last thirty years. The question is whether or not companies have been following and adapting these trends that affect the workforce, and whether or not they are ready to evolve according to the standards and expectations of my generation, which is about to enter the workforce.

1. Structure the workplace around the new ways of working and collaborating

Most companies are still stuck trying to figure out how to cater to millennials… and most have missed that window by an embarrassingly large margin. Any organization, small or large, who wishes to conserve good health in the decades to come must recognize that they are not only going to have to prepare themselves for the post-millennial mindset, but must make it a habit to adapt themselves to their employable labour market, year by year, just as exponentially as the youth evolve.

Today we find ourselves interacting in an almost exotic condition in which the employable is an alien to his or her employer. To put it in simple terms: we are just too different. You may think that’s not new but we were educated in a radically different way from any generation before us. One of the more immediate dimensions of this gap between us, which managers need to seriously consider, is the workplace. It goes down to everything from the smallest details such as space floor plan and environmental workplace nuances, all the way up to corporate cultural norms.

A good example of a bad way to approach us is to expect that we will seamlessly adopt the business casual, cubicle, 9-5 hierarchical structure. We consider the idea that work processes have to be strictly uniformed in order to function outdated and completely out of touch with current reality. Progress is not, and never will be, birthed from the fixture of normality. Any good manager would know that flexibility builds comfort and thus builds confidence. That’s why graduates are attracted to the workplaces that companies like Google and AirBnB offer – and that’s why those companies are doing so well. No, you can’t just put a couch in the office and sell yourself as an innovator. It’s about transforming your workspace from a place that demands mechanic undertaking to an entity that inspires ideas and creates the communal energy we need to thrive.

The great majority of companies brand themselves as free flowing and creative organizations when the reality is that the spirit of their physical space feels more like the reception at a county jail. The worst part is that most managers and employees don’t realize the extent to which simple angular changes in attitudes and fine-tunings in workplace norms could completely change their work experience. The incoming youth have completely different perspectives in regards to what it means to be comfortable at work and what it means to collaborate and to network within a physical space. For companies catching up with already outdated ways of organizing their workspace, it will be difficult to break through and accept the idea that their workplace requires radical innovation to meet us there.

2. Re-design the nature of your relationship with us as employees

The current state of affairs between the new streams of employable youth and the premise of social corporate norms consists of an ever expanding gap between what the new generations want to get out of their experience in the workforce and what industrial-mindset organizations can offer. Giants like Google, Facebook and Apple are not only leading and constantly innovating the socio-technical realm, they are crafting and expanding new horizons of the workplace.

The more technology and social platforms advance the more we realize we aren’t workers, we are learners. Take a look at Luca Todesco, the 19 year hacker who was hand picked by Apple to help them find and fix bugs and recently made Forbes “Europe’s 30 Under 30” list. Or look at Pewdiepie, the Swedish Youtuber who went from posting game commentary videos to being the most watched channel in Youtube history to working for Disney. These are just two examples of seemingly infinite new ways in which business and the new socially networked youth can come to meet and exploit each other’s skill sets. Ten years ago it would have sounded absurd to say that the future of employability would come to depend not solely on one’s degree of education and experience but on one’s degree of innovative socio-technical capabilities and one’s ability to adapt quickly.

What is the business world destined to look like when most newborns know how to navigate an iPad and find their favorite movies before they even learn how to speak? Managers have to recognize that the people who will enter the workforce in 5, 10 and even 20 years will have been raised in an environment which will have brought them up to have extensive group networking and project-based collaborative learning skills. The social media information driven generations to come will redefine not only the relationships between co-workers but the whole concept of employment hierarchy. Simply being a ‘worker’ or a smaller part of a larger machine is slowly but surely expiring, as new waves of youth continue to innovate on how to interact and make a living in the digital era.

3. Consider the future impact of today’s digital era

It’s not hard to see that as society progresses we move further away from the well established individualistic national system and towards the collective global community. The steady exponential development of socio-technical tools in recent time has brought with it a complete reconstruction of what it means to educate, interact and work.

The idea of what a “generation” is has been completely reconceptualised. Generations are no longer measured in comfortably timed intervals or in artistic/political crusades. Generations are measured in iPhone releases and social media trends. I’m not kidding. One of the larger ripple effects of this Digital Era phenomenon is that of youth social consciousness. Not only do we as the new youths become exponentially more connected, we are becoming exponentially more concerned and unsatisfied, and more importantly, social media gives us the platform to do something about it – in real time.

It is quite plausible that in five years the incoming workforce may not even consider certain companies or jobs if they don’t feel that the ability to influence and act upon their social, environmental and political concerns is a presupposed entailment of their career development. Not only will we redefine business within society but we will also undoubtedly change the nature of business within business. We love to collaborate and mix things that have never been mixed. Whether it be art with sustainability or music with fashion, there never seems to be a limit to what we will blend and turn into a trend and subsequently turn into a market. The point is that there are no boundaries to where we should allow our creative aspirations to take us – there may even be a point in time, when we take over the leadership of your organizations, when competitors turn into collaborators and industries behave more like think tanks for approaching social problems.

It’s hard to grasp the radical transformation that the Digital Era will continue to bring about. The only thing that is clear is that with every year that comes and goes the youth and the older generations look more like aliens to each other than the counterparts they should be if they want to function well together in the workforce. As a 20-year-old I can see how adults underestimate not only the extent to which we are different, but more importantly the exponential rate of change, which for us is the norm.

My plea to the people who will be in charge of employing us in the near future is to see us as an opportunity to radically innovate. Innovation, by the way, can no longer be seen as a discipline; it’s a pillar of our social being, so let us bring you our version of what it means to work and collaborate. Be ready to accept us as the future of the business world, and to embrace this extremely bizarre, unprecedented and necessary digital-era relationship we will undoubtedly come to form.

Photo courtesy of friend of Innovation Lab and photographer Christopher Michel.