Right before COVID started we wrapped up a wonderful project with EquisLabs. EquisLabs is led by Stephanie Valencia and Carlos Odio and they focus on building political power through the LatinX community. They reached out in the fall of 2019 to collaborate on defining a strategy for using technology to reach Latino voters.
Pivot Pivot Studio led the effort to figure out a way to bring together a cross functional team and build a strategy using co-creative methods. In collaboration with EquisLabs we identified an awesome group of 15 people that included progressive political organizers, technology and digital media experts, designers, researchers and strategists. We got together in New York City and for 4 days I led the team through a series of creative exercises to ultimately come up with a testable prototype. We based this work loosely on the google ventures sprint model with some adaptations for the social sector.
We started Day 1 with a big group (15 people) defining the week’s goals, setting up requirements and assumptions, developing a journey map to deeply understand our users and their needs and coming up with quick solutions. It was a long and very productive day especially for a team that has never worked together before.
On Day 2 and with a smaller group (6 people) we evolved the winning concept into a more detailed storyboard and started prototyping our solution.
On Day 3 we built a prototype that looked like the real thing.
On Day 4 we tested it remotely with progressive organizers and leaders. This allowed us to test our assumptions.
As a result of the 4 day workshop we developed a more detailed solution that will hopefully be piloted in June 2020 and we believe could help both in reaching Latinos for the 2020 census and for the upcoming election.
This work represents exactly what’s at the core of Pivot Point Studio- applying design strategy to solve hard social problems. It was evident during this process that the public sector is craving design strategy work and that there is a huge opportunity for design and strategy to help. Progressive organizers were wonderful workshop participants and innovators and the design processes and methods worked really well to help the team align on the problem they were solving and solve it together.
Especially now when we are faced with the realities of going back to basics and relying on technology to do the job of social connection this kind of work becomes even more important.
Last week EquisLabs published a very interesting op-ed in the New York Times around the importance of reaching Latinos in the next election and at Pivot Point Studio we sure hope that we continue to further develop and pilot these ideas so we can ensure a better future for this country.
I was born in Bogotá Colombia and I am an immigrant. I moved to the US in 2004 and established myself here with a career in Innovation and Strategy. I moved to Massachusetts in 2009 and started a family here. I am very proud to be raising two bilingual kids in Cambridge MA and as a Latina this work couldn’t be closer to my heart. I am deeply committed to applying my design and strategy skills in areas that have direct social impact at a time of great need for this country. I believe that we have an incredible opportunity to redefine the way we lead politically and socially and as a creative and human-centered Latina I would love to be able to help in whichever way I can.
Pivot Point work in collaboration with Carl Tsui and Giana Gonzalez