Reflections on BIMA Digital Day

By: Morgane Tanguy, UX Designer at This is Milk

Once a year, BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) organises the ‘Digital Day’. A day where professionals working in digital and technology go back to school, to spend a day with pupils in a school they’ve been matched with. 
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This year, one of my colleagues and I went to a school. It was the first time I was going back to school, since I left. 

We started the day by talking about the digital industry, presented how to respond to a brief and put the pupils in the shoes of people working in a creative agency. The problem they had to solve was the following: “How can digital play a part in improving these experiences, tools, and services to educate customers on sustainability, and make fashion kinder to our planet for you, and for future generations?” for the company Primark.

This day was a great opportunity to be outside of my comfort zone by talking to 30 kids in a theatre which was a completely new experience as well as mentor them to answer the problem through discovery, design and delivery. I challenged myself and helped these pupils to get a chance to win a prize for their school. Here are some of lessons I took from the day: 

• Be super pragmatic when picking the best project. Preferences and biases can take over easily, especially pupils’ creative thinking is incredible. 
• Keep pupils focused throughout the creative process steps (and the day!). It’s a new situation on both sides, they had to put themselves in the shoes of people working in a creative agency and we had to behave like schoolteachers. Not easy but luckily there were schoolteachers in the room!
• Keep everyone engaged, help the quiet ones to share their thoughts. As part of my role is to facilitate research workshops but you don’t get the same dynamic with pupils, so it requires a bit more awareness to ensure the quiet ones come up with ideas and no one gets left out!
• All pupils engage at a different pace and in different ways. At some point I even thought that one of the groups would never be able to present something at the end of the day, but it was a bad assumption and a pleasant surprise!
• It’s easier than it looks. BIMA does a great job to support the day by providing all materials necessary to run a successful day.

Overall, It was a great learning opportunity for the pupils to work directly with businesses and learn the process of implementing new solutions, understanding what works and what doesn't. It gives them insight into thinking about how their ideas would work in the reality of business. Then from a business point of view, it's also good to see things from a different perspective. Young people can bring some fresh ideas and approaches. 

​By contributing to initiatives like BIMA Digital Day, this means we are taking an active role in ensuring young people gain exposure to  the range of opportunities and creativity that could become a part of their future skills pathway.

Therefore, it's important we take part because, as well as benefitting the students, it also helps us learn how students learn so we can make Neve the platform which provides the best possible learning experience.

I left the school, feeling fulfilled and proud to influence the young generation. I felt passionate to show them what it's like to work in our industry. I hope my learnings will help some of you who might still hesitate to take part in BIMA Digital Day. 

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Thank you for reading :)   

If you have any thoughts, i'd love to hear from you. You can contact me on Linkedin or at [email protected]. I also host a podcast called Fairtales about discrimination in the work place - follow me on instagram @fairtales.podcast 

​Thank you to Angela, Piotr, Jamie and Leanne for their input on this blog.