Objective:
The objectives of this session are to:
- Support students to link their values, experience and skills to the competencies required to innovate and develop social enterprise ideas
- Create an understanding of how students own strengths and passions can be used to solve or contribute to world needs.
- Provide students with a framework for understanding their purpose in context of how they can contribute to solving world problems
- Provide students with tools that they can use for idea generation
- Creation of three 5 year odyssey plans to identify routes to actualization and highlight key challenges and questions
Overview:
The focus within this task is open idea generation, pooling the expertise/wisdom of the group to create ideas that can then be evaluated and explored.
This session looks at models for idea generation for social enterprise. The first part of the session built on previous workshops supporting students to step back and consider their personal values. By following the initial step in the design thinking double diamond process, students first explore divergently and come up with a volume of ideas before then narrowing down. The Ikigai venn diagram will be used as a framework to build on the personal strengths, competencies and values to further look at their life purpose in the context of their contribution to resolving community and world problems. The session concludes with the creation of three 5 year odyssey plans for social enterprise or socially conscious working futures.
Activity:
Activity 1: Ikigai
Introduction to the Ikigai model and meaning.
Ikigai worksheets have four sections: What do you love, What are you good at, What could you be paid for and What does the world need. They are provided for students to complete. Students work independently with group discussion and reflection at the end of each activity. Each of the following exercises relate to a section on the ikigai worksheet.
Exercise 1: What do you love?
- Students visualise an ideal day
- Students list what they love and what fulfils them
Exercise 2: What are you good at?
- Students reflect and acknowledge each other’s strengths
- Students list their strengths (in context of competencies and skills)
Exercise 3: What you could be paid for?
- Students share what job(s) they wanted to do when they were growing up
- Students share what their parents wanted them to be when they were growing up
- Students list all jobs and activities they could be paid for
Exercise 4: What does the world need?
- Students return to their list of values – how aren’t their values being honoured in the world?
- Students use these to create a list of what the world needs more of based on identified problems
Activity: 2 Idea Generation
Exercise 5: Random selection from Ikigai worksheet
- Students identify a word at random from each of the four ikigai sections, so they have four words in total
- Students come up with a business idea based on the connection of words identified.
For example [what do you love: music], [what you are good at: bringing people together], [what you can get paid for: event planning], [what the world needs more of: less lonely people]. The connection could be a concert for lonely people with similar music taste.
- A student volunteers to provide words and group comes up with ideas
Exercise 6: Mind mapping model (using Zoom whiteboard)
- Students select one word from their “What the world needs more of” section to create a mind map
- Example of mind map
Exercise 7: The “Yes and” Technique
The idea behind the “Yes and” -technique is following: Person A suggests something or pronounces a sentence. After that person B continues: ”Yes and…”. You always have to reply starting with the words ”Yes and”. That is, starting with ”yes, but”, ”right, but” or ”no” is forbidden
- Facilitator gives and explanation of the “Yes and” model and gives example
- The theory behind the Yes and model is that you build on someone else’s previous idea
- Ask for identified problems from Ikigai
- Individually students come up with an idea, by saying what they like about the previous idea and adding to it
Activity 3: Odyssey Plan
Introduce and demonstrate the Odyssey plan template with examples.
An Odyssey Plan is a brainstorm about how you would like your life to look in the future. Flash-forward five years from now and come up with elements that make up the version of you that's “living your best life.”
Exercise 8: Completion of odyssey plan
- Students complete a future plan for the next 5 years
- Students complete another plan which is a plan B
Students complete a third plan which describes a wild idea/ the one which they would never share but would really like to happen in an ideal world
Skill Development:
Learner Outcomes
- Explore the full potential of a social enterprise idea using design thinking’s ‘double diamond method’; embrace divergent and convergent thinking in small groups to innovate and exhaust thought.
- Find your ‘Ikigai’ by visually mapping your life’s passion, mission, profession and vocation; connecting what you're good at, what you love, what the world needs and how you can earn money.
- Understand how to apply design thinking to imagining purposeful careers from your Ikigai map; practice generating unpredictable ideas with others through chance and positive improvisation.
- Scope different possible, probable and preferred future paths; complete a 3-tiered ‘odyssey’ plan that considers the specifics of plan a, plan b and plan c (an idealised, big sky idea).
Resources:
- Ikigai activity sheet
- Odyssey plan activity sheet
- Zoom whiteboard
References:
- Ikigai
- Life Design
- Designing your Life, Bill Burnett & Dave Evans