Introducing Mi:Voice
Co-creation is a phenomenon that integrates services users in each stage of the design process, to ensure we are solving the right problem for our users and creating meaningful solutions to this problem. Co-creation in higher education ensures that each individual within the Higher Education community has a voice and a stake in the development of their own experiences. We have spoken in the past about how co-creating with service users leads to greater impact. Co-creation offers the potential to create numerous opportunities to design more integrated and superior outcomes than if only one group tried to satisfy the needs of the other alone, by students interacting with staff, sharing their own experiences and perspectives (Dollinger, Lodge and Coates, 2018).
Motivated by the potential impact of co-created experiences, Mi:Lab created Mi:Voice — a new collective for the institution, inspired by both students and staff of the Higher Education community. Mi:Voice is designed to tackle some of the most prominent problems faced by staff and students today. Both students and staff are experts of their own experiences and so, we seek to actively listen to their stories and experiences, to gather insight into their needs, goals, frustrations, hopes and ideas. We then transform these insights into actionable design challenges and co-create solutions together.
The Mi:Voice charter was derived and co-created with our ambassadors to guide and define the purpose of Mi:Voice. In a nutshell, Mi:Voice is powered by empathy, harnesses the wisdom of the crowd, and co-creates for greater impact.
Powered by Empathy- Mi:Voice begins with empathy. The traditional ‘Satisfaction Survey’ is no longer fit for purpose. If we are to truly understand our students’ and staffs’ needs and goals, we need to get out from behind our desks and involve them in the co-creative process.
Wisdom of the Crowd -The Mi:Voice Collective harnesses the wisdom of the crowd. We work directly with our team of Mi:Voice ambassadors to help gather real and textured insights into needs, goals, frustrations, hopes and ideas of the Maynooth community. Mi:Voice ambassadors are our finger on the pulse, our ears to the ground and our co-creators of the Higher Education experience.
Co-Create for Greater Impact- Genuine co-creation is the only antidote to the ‘Empathy Delusion’ (Reach Solutions, 2019); the cognitive bias where we drastically assume what others want and need. We see Mi:Voice ambassadors as the experts of their own experiences and we empower them with the tools and mindsets to become changemakers in their own right.
The ‘Experiment’ Lab- Mi:Lab takes a human-centred, strategic design approach to exploring and tackling Higher Education challenges. We are Maynooth University’s Innovation and ‘Experimentation’ Lab. By treating everything as a prototype, we make abstract ideas tangible, iterate and experiment to unlock powerful new ways of ‘doing’ in Higher Education.
