The Gravity Student Program
Earlier in the year we spent a week with the Red & Yellow post-graduate students, teaching them about behavioural economics and social psychology, and how to apply the findings from these fields to marketing, communications and design. It was an incredible experience from our side, and in terms of the feedback we got, it seemed the students thoroughly enjoyed it too.
Upon finishing, we felt that there was more we could offer the students, especially from a practical perspective, as the module was largely orientated around the theories, insights and important ideas within the field. This pushed us to set up a second phase, called the Gravity Student Program. This program was a lot longer than the one week module we initially did, and more of a practical, interactive workshop feel, than a lecture series.
The objective of the program was to get the students, who shared our enthusiasm and interest for the field to find solutions to specific behaviour-orientated problems that exist within the city of Cape Town. Just over 20 students chose to take part in the program, and were split up into groups, based on data they gave us regarding who they work well with, and the behaviour changes that they would like to work on. This democratic sort of system worked well, as we got some really interesting projects going that focused on important behaviour such as pedestrians crossing roads, texting and driving, student productivity and online donations to NPO’s.
The groups partnered up with real organisations, that their chosen behavioural problem was important to. They worked with these organisations to get data and insights, which were used to develop low cost tactics that these organisations could implement to change the relevant behaviour. The students are currently waiting on feedback from their partner-organisations on whether they would like to pilot any of the tactics they have developed.
Overall its been a great experience for us, and something the students who participated, found extremely valuable.
Originally published at www.gravityideas.com.
