“Simply put emotional intelligence is the ability to make emotions working for you, instead of against you”
Overview
More and more recruiters have started looking for Emotional intelligence in candidates
Job searching is never easy but for college seniors, anxiety heightens as navigating the stress of finding a job can be overwhelming at times
Introducing
Background
This project was done as a part of the course, Design Innovation Development and Marketing Strategies. The project kick-started with a thorough market analysis to find an opportunity space for a new business. This was then followed by identifying the user groups, conducting ethnographic research, analyzing the data, defining the user needs, competitor research, prototyping the user experience, brand development and finally creating a business strategy.
The project was executed in 10 weeks
Objective
The project is about generating a blue ocean business strategy, understanding the needs of a social network and providing emotional intelligence tools as solution to those needs.
Why do we need this project?
The transition between school and the workplace tends to generate feelings of stress and anxiety related to job searching and the fear of the unknown once you find a job. The positive reinforcement of an emotionally intelligent environment enhances the school environment, helping students to find not only academic success, but also life success outside of the classroom.
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence or EI describes an ability or capacity to perceive, assess and manage the emotions of one’s self, and of others. Our EQ(Emotional quotient) is how one measures Emotional intelligence
What are the advantages of being emotionally intelligent?
Being emotionally intelligent reduces negative emotions, helps individuals to stay calm and manage stress.
Market Analysis
We began our secondary research process by identifying initial trends and opportunity areas in the education industry. We used mind maps to explore the field more extensively, and find some obvious gaps and opportunities areas. Key facts and broad market analysis are presented below.
SWOT analysis
While a SWOT Analysis is more commonly used for individual businesses, we applied it to the Education industry as a whole, in order to identify macro-trends
2x2 Matrix
The 2 x 2 axis chart below has been used to do this. Axis charts such as this are commonly used to compare two characteristics, in this case Cost, and Seriousness of gamers
Porter’s Forces
We used “Porter’s 5 Forces”: a tool for analyzing competition of a business. It draws from industrial organization (IO) economics to derive five forces that determine the competitive intensity and, therefore, the attractiveness (or lack of it) of an industry in terms of its profitability
Defining Users
Following our initial findings, we began planning our direction by creating a stakeholder map, complete with relationships and value flow, and selected 4 user groups that stood out as most interesting, or ripe for innovation. We then defined the characteristics of each user group in the form of a User Group Analysis table, and completed our plan by outlining a creative brief.
Research & analysis
With our direction clear, and plan ready, we began the process of primary research. But first, it was vital to define our “How Might We” statement in order to guide said research. We then conducted primary research to gather user data, through a survey, personal interviews
Data analysis
Once the data had been collected and transcribed into individual, singular meaning-based points, we began the analysis and synthesis processes using tools like Empathy maps, Persona generation
Empathy maps
An empathy map is a simple, easy-to-digest visual that captures knowledge about a user’s behaviours and attitudes.
The mapping process helped us synthesize research observations and reveal deeper insights about our user’s needs
User Personas
A persona is a fictional, yet realistic, description of a typical or target user of the product.
The real value of a user persona is to list down the goals/motivation of the people who will be using the application. Understanding the users, their motivations, their requirements helped us to build a user-centric product.
Value Proposition Canvas
The Value Proposition Canvas is a great tool for understanding how customers make decisions, and therefore it helped us create offers that they will find appealing.
With the help of our Value Prop we were able to identify the “Pains & Gains” our users, we used them to come with the Design Criteria for our product
The goal of any blue ocean strategy is to search for and gain uncontested market space instead of engaging in traditional competition
We rated the current market leaders offering emotional intelligence for students & working professionals based on how they aligned with our design criteria must haves
Business Canvas-LinkedIn learning (our competitor) Blue ocean strategy framework- Linkedin learning
Business model Generation
Using the business model canvas format from the above case studies, we developed our own service. The 17 steps for effective branding from “ZAG” by Marty Neumeier, was used to develop our concept branding.
6. What makes us the only? : How do we differentiate ourself from our competitors
7. What is our Add or Subtract? : Add or subtract anything that doesn’t support our onliness. The wider the competition, the narrower our focus has to be.
8. Who loves us? : “Every brand is built by a community.” We needed ours
9. Who is the ENEMY? :The goal is not to topple our competitors, but to employ the principal of contrast to throw our zag into sharp relief
10. What do they call us? : A brand’s most valuable asset is often the one given the least attention — its name.
Who are YOU? : What do you want others to say in your obituary about your business life?
What do you do? : You need a fundamental reason to do what you are doing beyond money.
What is your vision? : Lacking a clear vision leads to confusion, anxiety, and distrust — never good for communicating with people.
What wave are you riding? : Barring a fluke piece of viral content, riding an existing trend is the best way to gain momentum quickly for your idea.
Who shares the brandscape? : In business, success order is dictated by consumers based on two variables: who’s first and who’s popular. If your category is already lead by someone else, start a new category
14. What do they experience? : Customers experience your brand at specific touchpoints. So, choosing what those touchpoints are and influencing what happens there is important work.
15. How do you earn their loyalty? : Strategies to ensure customers keep using our service/ product
16. how do you extend your success? : If our business is a success, it’s tempting to start leveraging that success through product extensions
17. How do you protect your portfolio? : Strategies to ensure we stay ahead of the curve
11. How do we explain ourself?: All brand communications should emanate from an internal positioning line or “trueline.” A trueline is the one true thing you can say about your brand, your value proposition, or the reason your brand matters to customers.
12. How do you spread the word? : Strategies to ensure that people get to know about our service/product
13. How do people engage with you? : Strategies to offer a systematic way to reposition yourself from competitors and engage people.
We then defined the features of our product that would meet the needs of the user.
Prototyping
Low-Fidelity Prototype
In order to validate the user experience while using Emoach, we designed paper prototypes and tested them with users.
High-Fidelity Prototype
We created User scenarios to capture the artifacts of the product vision.
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