The PINOY PERSPECTIVE is back with three times more Pinoy perspective! For this week's Design Thinking class, we were assigned to conduct a Generative Research Activity. As I was in Miami doing a reunion of sorts (15 years overdue!) with my cousins and brother, I asked my two cousins (one is based in the Philippines and the other lives in London) to do the activity while at the beach (how fun!).
Jules and Bea, both of whom are millennial cousins of mine, handed over two very interesting outputs. It was interesting to see how some of their answers were consistent with one another and how many others were very different. Jules, who is a doctor in the Philippines and is in her early 30s, answered using icons and drawings. Bea, a marketing professional in London who is in her late 20s, did the same, but with so much less words to elaborate. For the first item, they handed a range of varying life priorities. Bea pointed out some interesting cannot-live-withouts: foreign language, cognitive activity, and even yoga. Jules, on the other hand, talked about sleep, and other very tangible items like her iphone, contact lenses, and a sunblock. For the second questionnaire, I must admit that I was not surprised to see a very diverse set of media and information sources. While they both said that they they use a lot of web search, they had different alternative sources. What's interesting also is how both of them did not say TV is a main provider of information; which is quite validating for the generation that they both belong to. The third and final item was very interesting. Bea's answer, this time, showed more time spent on health and sports. Her lines also suggested that she has more to-do things in mind when she goes about her day. Jules, on the other hand, who mentioned health on the first item, had two main buckets where her time is most spent in - work and traffic (YES, that struggle is sadly very real in the Philippines). Reading their responses, I learned that there seems to some non-negotiables can be similar in people - possibly because they are basic human non-negotiables. At the same time, it was interesting to see how my two cousins gave varied answers that I did not see coming.
Conducting this research gave me some unexpected realizations. First, it was simply fascinating to see the little surprises. It would be easy to have expectations on their responses because 1) their demographic profile; 2) I know them. But there were a number of answers that I did not see coming. I knew Bea was into fitness, but I thought she'd say fitness is something she cared about; she ended up saying it's something she cannot live without (now the 2x a day yoga when she visited me in Austin last week makes sense). Jules also surprised me that she cannot live without sunblock. We went to beaches together and got 35x shades darker and when I talked to her after, I did not know she cared so much about preventing wrinkles! Conducting this survey on my cousins, I found myself telling myself "yes, that totally makes sense" and "ha, I did not expect that." All that led to a second and deeper main realization I got from this exercise. People always surprise us. We have our perceptions of them and we think we know exactly how they will respond to prompts like this activity. For instance, I was totally surprised to see Jules put contact lenses as a non-negotiable. As someone who does NOT wear contacts, I now realize how this can indeed be something people cannot live without. I totally missed that. For Bea, I was pleasantly surprised to see a brain-and-light-bulb icon in her cannot-live-without circle. When I asked her about it, she said she just cannot live without substantial and challenging cognitive work. Considering that I am an MBAstruggling working with things like regression models, I was impressed at how important this was to her. In the end, I might have gotten some answers that I expected,but inevitably, there were a lot of things that I did not know. And this is true to the many people around us. This activity really helped me appreciate the fact that we can never limit people to our perceptions of them. It will never hurt to put more effort to get to know people more. Working toward empathizing with them will uncover some insightful truths about even the closest people to us.
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Jules and Bea, both of whom are millennial cousins of mine, handed over two very interesting outputs. It was interesting to see how some of their answers were consistent with one another and how many others were very different. Jules, who is a doctor in the Philippines and is in her early 30s, answered using icons and drawings. Bea, a marketing professional in London who is in her late 20s, did the same, but with so much less words to elaborate. For the first item, they handed a range of varying life priorities. Bea pointed out some interesting cannot-live-withouts: foreign language, cognitive activity, and even yoga. Jules, on the other hand, talked about sleep, and other very tangible items like her iphone, contact lenses, and a sunblock. For the second questionnaire, I must admit that I was not surprised to see a very diverse set of media and information sources. While they both said that they they use a lot of web search, they had different alternative sources. What's interesting also is how both of them did not say TV is a main provider of information; which is quite validating for the generation that they both belong to. The third and final item was very interesting. Bea's answer, this time, showed more time spent on health and sports. Her lines also suggested that she has more to-do things in mind when she goes about her day. Jules, on the other hand, who mentioned health on the first item, had two main buckets where her time is most spent in - work and traffic (YES, that struggle is sadly very real in the Philippines). Reading their responses, I learned that there seems to some non-negotiables can be similar in people - possibly because they are basic human non-negotiables. At the same time, it was interesting to see how my two cousins gave varied answers that I did not see coming.
Conducting this research gave me some unexpected realizations. First, it was simply fascinating to see the little surprises. It would be easy to have expectations on their responses because 1) their demographic profile; 2) I know them. But there were a number of answers that I did not see coming. I knew Bea was into fitness, but I thought she'd say fitness is something she cared about; she ended up saying it's something she cannot live without (now the 2x a day yoga when she visited me in Austin last week makes sense). Jules also surprised me that she cannot live without sunblock. We went to beaches together and got 35x shades darker and when I talked to her after, I did not know she cared so much about preventing wrinkles! Conducting this survey on my cousins, I found myself telling myself "yes, that totally makes sense" and "ha, I did not expect that." All that led to a second and deeper main realization I got from this exercise. People always surprise us. We have our perceptions of them and we think we know exactly how they will respond to prompts like this activity. For instance, I was totally surprised to see Jules put contact lenses as a non-negotiable. As someone who does NOT wear contacts, I now realize how this can indeed be something people cannot live without. I totally missed that. For Bea, I was pleasantly surprised to see a brain-and-light-bulb icon in her cannot-live-without circle. When I asked her about it, she said she just cannot live without substantial and challenging cognitive work. Considering that I am an MBA
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BEA
JULES
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