Simon Nkabinde: Company General Use

Storytelling

Challenge and Selection:

The first tool that I used was storytelling in order to bring language learning alive and create  participatory and immersive experience that allows the listeners to enjoy and entertain in a way.

Diagnostic imaging procedures are cutting-edge technology, but at the same time they are an  unpleasant experience for patients especially children. I remember when I saw a little girl who was  continuously crying on her way to the scanner. I suddenly noticed that this room that contains the  scanner looks just like a brick with a hole in it and with kind of dark and those flickering fluorescents and  I realized how scary this experience was to all patients. Therefore, I spent a time with those patients and  have focused on children and used stories to visualize and understand their concerns. I used this  information to develop different strategies to try and solve this issue by trying to find a way that works  for them and how to create scanners that patients would love.

Application:

I started the process by telling a story with a company that has interests in new technology and  discussed with them the need and importance of these diagnostic scanners in general and what benefits  they can provide. Then, I began to explain the urgency to figure out and study how changes can be  implemented to these scanners that will make patient fall in love with them. I started by sharing a story  about the little girl that was on her knees crying and followed it with the story of an old man who could  not enter these scanners and after several week when they finally used anesthesia, they found out that  he suffers from brain cancer. These scary incidents should be taken to consideration otherwise we will  lose more patients in the near future.

Insight and Approach:

Well, wow, that was an eye-opener. The agency offered tools that ignited my confidence and I learned  about human-centered approach to design an innovation. Going through human-centered design  process with people in diverse industries and roles from management to human resources to finance. I  started to imagine how powerful this tool could be if I brought it back and got cross-functional teams to  work together. I observed and gained sympathy for young children at a day care center.

I talked to child life specialists to fully understand what pediatric patients went through and reached out  for help from people around me, including a small volunteer group from a local children’s day care  centers and doctors and staff from a nearby hospital. After that, I created the first prototype of what  would become the adventure series scanner.

