This month, Allyson Allen visited the Mini-Hack and presented a problem relating to her work for the City of Cambridge.
As Employment Planning and Development Director in the Office of Workforce Development, Allyson works with many nonprofit and community organizations to help young people (age 14 and up) find meaningful work and internship opportunities that will develop their skills and connect them with potential future employers.
Allyson came to the Mini-Hack seeking to brainstorm ways for businesses to become more involved with young people through recruitment activities, building meaningful relationships, and going beyond “plans for outreach”. This month, the Mini-Hack tried to apply a problem-solving methodology adapted from IDEO’s human-centered approach to design thinking. We began by brainstorming wild ideas individually and, then, collaborating to build off of those ideas.
Some of the broad conclusions reached include the following:
- Offer exposure to a wide variety of experiences – students should have not only options to pursue their known interests but also chances for “serendipitous” discovery of new skills/fields/interest areas
- Paid or unpaid, student experiences should be real and applicable
- Foster a program environment in which students feel responsibility to perform at a high level *without pressures that create a fear of failure*
While discussing how students want to learn, we found that one of Allyson’s main problems centers on how to attract businesses and entice them to actually provide opportunities for young people. We came up with a couple suggestions – to use “reference selling” (leverage your most successful partners to bring in new partners) and to pare down program offerings to ensure a clear message for potential corporate partners.
There are many more good ideas out there…
Let’s have the discussion continue here on the Youth CITIES blog.
If you have further ideas that could help Allyson attract businesses to become more involved with the young workforce in Cambridge, please add your comments below.
To comment on any of the Youth CITIES blog posts, you must register here by creating a username and password. Once your registration is approved, you’ll be free to contribute to all of the Youth CITIES discussions online. Don’t wait…register now, and make your ideas known!