Transmutation of Mindbenders

We are MindBenders and working with a Global Human Research project.

We’re on our way to clarify the challenge and the expectation of our clients. This Trend Lab week could be a motivating guide for us, having an overview of our process and getting ready preparing for the next steps.

Analyzing our project we found many fields that we could take into consideration. We could search for everything related to human beings. Regarding this Trend Lab, we have specifically chosen the need that people have had during this pandemic to improve themselves. Analyzing this need we have selected 4 "signals" that show or represent a change in a specific direction:

-Having a "tasty" app on his device,

-Spending more time with family than usual,

-Doing a gym at home,

-Having “skillshare” app on mobile devices.

The signal part was a little confusing for us. We had just met our client and had not decided on the project area. What were the signals for us? Now we understand that actually anything can be a signal in our case. We should detect what is happening on the streets and at home? How are people coping with this uncertain post-epidemic period?

We discovered there is a pattern while we were observing signals. People have started to use applications to learn some skills such as cooking, drawing, gymnastic at home in the 1st wave of covid-19 lockdown. Then we understood that three signals adopted and applied to different things in different ways, so they became a “Self Improvement via Application Pattern”.

Discovering patterns is not enough to understand the specific behaviour. Hence, we tried to understand the frequency. Is something interrupts this pattern, we should find how long it occurs and what is the repetition of the pattern. The significant point of understanding the cycle of a pattern is when we make it, we can see all flow from start to end. Our findings show us this self-improvement pattern had started with daily to evolved weekly.

Cycle canvas was very helpful for our team. When we finished this canvas we had have visualized phenomenon of self-improvement pattern.

We tried to identify which type of the trends mentioned in the presentations are related to the global human research project. We found staying safe & secure has almost become a global megatrend, assisted self-development is the most related trend to our insight. And we found some other trends related to the effect of covid-19 on human behaviour. Briefly, when talking about trends, it is vital to describe clearly without seeming like a pattern or signal.

After we related some trends, we started to empathize. Who are the people that move those trends? So we created 2 different kinds of personas:

-Carla is a working mom, her age is between 35-45, she worried about the current situation, seeking a balance in her lifestyle

-Simpson is 25-30 years old young adult man, he is jobless, living far away from home, he is trying to figure out how to find a new job opportunity during the pandemic.

In both cases, we looked at their needs, values, feelings, strugglings...

Identifying the Personas we discussed which might be the drivers and needs that motivate this persona to lead, support, or follow.

In our case, to use fictional personas pushed us a little. We thought we should work with real people, make as much as possible interview to have a broad perspective about the subject.

Through the cycle canvas, characteristics of our personas, predicting drivers and needs that behind the pattern have become evidential. What makes our persona doing that? What is the motivation for this manner? We found drivers of our personas. They want to avoid wasting their time and negative feelings. Also, they think this could be a good chance to develop themselves.

In the light of our knowledge from signals, patterns, cycles and drivers we attain precious data. Initially, our personas use applications via devices to distract their attention from covid-19 to different things in the 1st wave. However, in the post-pandemic period, they realize they like developing themselves. Now they are using this application for their interests and improving a new version of them.

Toward the knowledge gained from all steps mentioned above, we started to think about the scenarios on our subject. We created dystopia and utopia. These two contrasts guided us to find how we can change dystopia to utopia, what we should recommend to our client to take a measure?

We predict what will happen if everything opened and people want to learn new skills traditionally? What will happen when people finish their current courses? Will these applications become infertile to users? If these applications want to grow up, how will they reach the people who don't have internet or devices? This was our dystopia.

In our utopic scenario, these applications have new investors, collaborators, contents and users. Assisted online learning will become popular although there is no lockdown. They will have prestigious courses almost like academic institutions.

Based on this dystopia and utopia we established our strategic vision. Now, this application creates contents with its sources. But the application developers should take a step to avoid the worst scenario. Today people use those applications because they don’t finish all the lessons they can find new courses. When they finish all steps, they will start to get bored and stop using them. Thus, application developers should add regularly new content they can’t stay stable. Therefore, they need more, such as investors, collaboration with some institutions or people. They have to make reasons to be chosen for people. We recommend it as a marketing strategy to application developers or online education institutions,

For tactic actions;

• They should work with UX/UI designers to reach customers and to be more user friendly,

• They create content with individuals like influencers, professionals, craftsman to raise the quality of their contents

For strategic actions;

• They should work with universities and educational institutions to create professional courses

• They should create their certification system and take accreditation for global users. So they can expand their customer range

For future visions;

• In the future these applications will become a mega ecosystem. Today’s students will be the educators of the future. They should think that they are going to create a new culture,

• The range of customers expand according to content variety,

• They will establish online conferences, talks, workshops etc to engage with users beyond than just an app

• With these actions we foresee people will use online learning applications not only for self-improvement but also be in an ecosystem, to get an identity and social status, be in contact with professionals.

We already experienced in as short as a week how our thoughts are changing by exterior drivers and conditions. Our minds were like earth and you put seeds on it. Day by day you give water, sunshine, feed us… We believe our minds start to create new knowledge from now to the future. Trends Lab week was like a tiny module of transmutation.

You can watch our presentation. There are detailed canvases in the video.