The Empathizer Approach

The Empathizer

Put on an empathizer’s hat to live in the shoes of others and develop a visceral sense of their needs.

 

Before delving into the development of a new product or service, many successful innovators step into the shoes of their potential users. Spending time in a community is an excellent way to develop a sense of how its members are affected by particular challenges.

 

A community can be a geographic one —defined by physical boundaries — or a demographic one—defined by age, gender, ethnicity, race, religion or other physical characteristics, like disease. The community can alternatively be a psychographic group — defined by shared interests, hobbies or passions, whether personal or professional.

 

Here are some examples of palpable problems identified by entrepreneurial journalists who knew their communities well:

 

Geographic: A community of newly-settled refugees lacked a reliable source of news in their native language. Furthermore, crucial community service information wasn’t easily accessible. This led to a startup venture idea for an online radio station for refugees developed at the first Athens Entrepreneurial Journalism Startup Weekend.

 

Demographic: Fathers were under-served by parenting-related media that tended to focus on mothers. An understanding of this underserved community led to the birth of Fatherly, a popular new media brand serving dads.

 

Psychographic: Those who work in the world of e-commerce lacked an easy way to sift through the hundreds of outlets providing daily coverage of industry developments across the world. This led to the development of TheEdge.ai, launched by a graduate of the Tow-Knight program.

 

Sometimes this means moving to a place that you want to cover. It might alternatively mean covering something you yourself have experienced. If you are part of a particular demographic group, or have a health condition, you may have a good sense of what others are feeling or what information or insight they’re seeking. Or you might have experienced a personal or professional circumstance, and as a result, can identify needs shared by others with similar experiences.

 

Empathy is at the core of the design thinking process. It begins when you set aside stereotypes and allow yourself to see through the eyes of others. Sometimes it happens when you yourself have the same experience others have. This can happen when you experience ups and downs of life that affect your health, financial status, personal relationships or whatever else. When it comes time to developing ideas to consider pursuing, looking empathetically at the experiences people live through can prove fertile ground.