When we look at digitalisation, many may will come with a perception of a radical transformation; out with the legacy way of doing things, in with the new.
This report follows a hybrid workshop ran for NECSTouR members at their first in-person conference since the pandemic, hosted by Tirol Tourist Board in Austria. We explored digitalisation in the frame of the European Commission's S4 Specialisation Programme.
When we look at digitalisation, many may will come with a perception of a radical transformation; out with the legacy way of doing things, in with the new. Some may even detach digitalisation from sustainability, as though these two seemingly different subject areas have nothing in common. Look a little closer however, and it soon becomes clear that the radical transformation brought about by digitalisation and the pressing urgency of global (and local) issues highlighted, when we consider sustainability, are almost certainly going to redefine the world around us.
To make that a positive change, we as individuals and leaders who can inspire it, must use our human capacity to make change happen.
In this double forty-five minute session, we explore empathy as a means to achieving that.
Setting the scene, the session started by exploring some of the critical issues when looking at the opportunity to establish more competitive and sustainable destinations through digitalisation and data. A wide range of perspectives were shared on this, which point to the complexity of each and the relationship which exists between cooperation, strategy, development and digital transformation. To highlight just four of the challenges, participants explored:
The session then looked at the actions considered six priorities, here is what came out of this:
For the second part we used co-design to explore empathy. To apply this approach, we started by exploring 'the users', asking the question: "who is impacted by sustainability?" By personifying those impacted by sustainability, we can better understand their realities; from those enacted to steer solutions, to regular consumers who are able to act with purchasing power.
Participants considered the issues from a wide range of perspectives, including:
We then took time to consider their 'day-to-day realities', thinking about everything from the desire to simply enjoy life, lack of time and busy schedules, the search for quick and easy information to enjoy the destination, the need for structure and clarity in decision making processes. Taking this further we looked at their needs, from efficient transportation to affordable experiences to infrastructure to connect urban and rural experiences. At a business level, the need for training, investment and governmental support, whilst helping sustainable revenue models to come out on top.
Lastly, we looked at their struggles. For industry this meant looking at opportunity creation, rural investment, creation of sustainable product and managing investment. Perhaps not all of these seem either radical or unexpected, but this exercise of exploring human empathy is the first step to considering users and their day-to-day realities. Too often, solutions are designed without this perspective leading to a heightened risk of failure and a misalignment of objectives.
So where does technology come into this? Well, we are all too familiar with the 'we need an app' syndrome which defined the early days of digital. The goal here is to avoid that with the latest period of change, which brings digitalisation and sustainable transformation together, in large part underpinned by data.
We have established that the challenges of sustainability are in fact human challenges, not only structural challenges. In many ways this helps to change our perspective, from insurmountable academic exercises, to a set of more achievable, broken down tasks, such as 'how might we convince visitors to take action?'. Of course, when we also understand how we can leverage technology to achieve this, we are on to a winning formula to start exploring solutions. This is digitalisation and sustainability in action.
So here's what we do next; we 'frame a vision'. Here are some, which emerged in a rapid-fire round of HMW's:
By hypothesising how we might address these 'human' issues through digitalisation, we considered the barriers to getting there. This included what stands in our way, considering the primary challenges to leveraging data and technology for sustainable development. Here are just a few:
This is a lot to cover in just 45 minutes, so we can't possibly explore all of these issues or go further in our co-design session. Where we take these quick-fire observations will be for another session. For many, this form of collaboration was new, perhaps even a little daunting, but two key takeaways emerged.
Curious to jump in and explore the Mural? Take a look here.
This report follows a hybrid workshop ran for NECSTouR members at their first in-person conference since the pandemic, hosted by Tirol Tourist Board in Austria. We explored digitalisation in the frame of the European Commission's S4 Specialisation Programme.
When we look at digitalisation, many may will come with a perception of a radical transformation; out with the legacy way of doing things, in with the new. Some may even detach digitalisation from sustainability, as though these two seemingly different subject areas have nothing in common. Look a little closer however, and it soon becomes clear that the radical transformation brought about by digitalisation and the pressing urgency of global (and local) issues highlighted, when we consider sustainability, are almost certainly going to redefine the world around us.
To make that a positive change, we as individuals and leaders who can inspire it, must use our human capacity to make change happen.
In this double forty-five minute session, we explore empathy as a means to achieving that.
Setting the scene, the session started by exploring some of the critical issues when looking at the opportunity to establish more competitive and sustainable destinations through digitalisation and data. A wide range of perspectives were shared on this, which point to the complexity of each and the relationship which exists between cooperation, strategy, development and digital transformation. To highlight just four of the challenges, participants explored:
The session then looked at the actions considered six priorities, here is what came out of this:
For the second part we used co-design to explore empathy. To apply this approach, we started by exploring 'the users', asking the question: "who is impacted by sustainability?" By personifying those impacted by sustainability, we can better understand their realities; from those enacted to steer solutions, to regular consumers who are able to act with purchasing power.
Participants considered the issues from a wide range of perspectives, including:
We then took time to consider their 'day-to-day realities', thinking about everything from the desire to simply enjoy life, lack of time and busy schedules, the search for quick and easy information to enjoy the destination, the need for structure and clarity in decision making processes. Taking this further we looked at their needs, from efficient transportation to affordable experiences to infrastructure to connect urban and rural experiences. At a business level, the need for training, investment and governmental support, whilst helping sustainable revenue models to come out on top.
Lastly, we looked at their struggles. For industry this meant looking at opportunity creation, rural investment, creation of sustainable product and managing investment. Perhaps not all of these seem either radical or unexpected, but this exercise of exploring human empathy is the first step to considering users and their day-to-day realities. Too often, solutions are designed without this perspective leading to a heightened risk of failure and a misalignment of objectives.
So where does technology come into this? Well, we are all too familiar with the 'we need an app' syndrome which defined the early days of digital. The goal here is to avoid that with the latest period of change, which brings digitalisation and sustainable transformation together, in large part underpinned by data.
We have established that the challenges of sustainability are in fact human challenges, not only structural challenges. In many ways this helps to change our perspective, from insurmountable academic exercises, to a set of more achievable, broken down tasks, such as 'how might we convince visitors to take action?'. Of course, when we also understand how we can leverage technology to achieve this, we are on to a winning formula to start exploring solutions. This is digitalisation and sustainability in action.
So here's what we do next; we 'frame a vision'. Here are some, which emerged in a rapid-fire round of HMW's:
By hypothesising how we might address these 'human' issues through digitalisation, we considered the barriers to getting there. This included what stands in our way, considering the primary challenges to leveraging data and technology for sustainable development. Here are just a few:
This is a lot to cover in just 45 minutes, so we can't possibly explore all of these issues or go further in our co-design session. Where we take these quick-fire observations will be for another session. For many, this form of collaboration was new, perhaps even a little daunting, but two key takeaways emerged.
Curious to jump in and explore the Mural? Take a look here.
Some may even detach digitalisation from sustainability, as though these two seemingly different subject areas have nothing in common. Look a little closer however, and it soon becomes clear that the radical transformation brought about by digitalisation and the pressing urgency of global (and local) issues highlighted, when we consider sustainability, are almost certainly going to redefine the world around us.
Some may even detach digitalisation from sustainability, as though these two seemingly different subject areas have nothing in common. Look a little closer however, and it soon becomes clear that the radical transformation brought about by digitalisation and the pressing urgency of global (and local) issues highlighted, when we consider sustainability, are almost certainly going to redefine the world around us.