Presenting first ideas to the participants and the online community (spot the live headcam).
From June 17-21 WorkPlayExperience was invited to be part of the Hellobank co-creation workshop exploring the future of banking. Hellobank is an initiative of Cortal Consors Germany's leading online bank.
This co-creation workshop by Cortal Consors is an innovative new format in terms of customer involvement. Prior to the workshop, 1500 questions were collected from their own customer community and condensed into the biggest 3:
- How can banking wow the customers?
- How do I mananage my money fast and simple?
- How can banking be more personal?
These were the starting points for a week of ideation and sketching. Facilitated by the capable Ron Hofer of USeeds, a team of experts (which Markus was part of) and designers spend one day on each of these questions.
The whole workshop was streamed live, so the community could contribute anytime using the chat function on hellobank.de. Fabian Klenk, aka The Avatar, wore a live webcam all the time. It was through him that many meaningful interactions between the ideation teams in the room and the community were possible. It was amazing to see how an online community could enrich, ground or even completely change discussions in the room. Surely a format that is well worth exploring more.
Each day we generated an amazing number of ideas that were then condensed into 6 presentable ideas which could be voted for by the community over night.
On Friday, we were able to present 6 ideas to the community, Cortal Consors and the public. But what is the actual outcome of this workshop? From our perspective there is more (and that might be the most valuable of them all):
Apart from the actual project ideas the community and the co-creation team raised some valuable questions about the role of banking in people's lives. Most of them not easily answered.
Markus selected two inital question blocks that proved insightful for him (caveat: other participants might have different opinions):
- For meaning: Are we working with a bank because we like banking? Or are we working with a bank because the bank can help us to reach our own individual goals and make our lives more meaningful? And how does this change the way a bank advisor needs to talk with their customers? How do we make sure this happens in an authentic way even though we might have to scale? How can we help customers proudly show who they are especially through the choice of their bank and their investment portfolio?
- In good times and in bad: How do big life events affect people and how can the bank support them in these situations? How can the bank be a trusted partner when times are bad (emotionally and financially)? E.g. how can the bank support me and my family in case of my death? Before? After?
But most of all, it is the very idea of cocreation and the active involvement of the community in the future of the bank that might prove the most valuable. It helps both the bank and the community of its customers to understand more about the complex world banking and finance and from this understanding create awesome products and services that help us achieve what matters most to us and our lives.