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The Future Gets Going

The Future Gets Going

By Tanya Wolf

This year we from We Shape Tech had the pleasure to participate in the Future Day at two companies – Namics and Google. It was exciting – and also a little overwhelming. Let’s put it this way: the future is really pushing us forward!

We all know it: jobs in the software industry can be pretty abstract. Not exactly very tangible. And that doesn’t necessarily make them very attractive either. After all, what exciting stories can be told about our projects? And a detective group with the nice name “The Three Bites” or “The Three Pixels” still has to be created.

When I was 12, I think I wanted to be an archaeologist and dreamed of excavations in remote places around the world. That at least sounded exciting and mysterious. But consultant? Or developer … Seriously? Nevertheless, we managed to have all eight kids walk out of our offices at Namics happy and excited at the end of Future Day. How did we do that? And how did we hook the kids?

Ultimately, it’s a bit like the story of the mason who doesn’t say he’s cutting stones, but rather building a cathedral: in this case, too, it’s about the vision of what we do for our customers. And thus, for us, it wasn’t about how to properly create wireframes for apps and then design and implement them; it’s about the story behind them. And once the story is in people’s heads, it runs by itself. So we developed the idea for an app with the kids.

The idea we prepared: an app that lets you take a picture of yourself in the dressing room and send the image to your girlfriends for feedback and comments. Admittedly, a real girl topic. But we especially had the girls hooked on it from the very first moment. Our heroine was quickly named Anna. It soon became clear: she’s invited to a wedding (OMG! What century are we in, anyway?). And she tries on four dresses (light blue, dark blue, red and silver). All her friends like the silver one best, if it weren’t for Veronika … So it’s a story full of emotions and a little bit of vindictiveness. Nothing works without drama at that age. I had to swallow many a time during the development of the story. But they had fun and developed a super storyboard and great wireframes on this basis.

On the legal side, they also learned a few things. The next day at home, I was asked in an inquisition-like manner whether I actually knew where my WhatsApp photos were stored. Well?!?!? And how design and frontend are doing was asked as well.

At the end of the day: a lot of fun. Just as it should be on the job.

How important the whole thing is, by the way, was shown to us by the thank-you email from the parents of a participating boy: they thanked us for the excellent information provided by the lawyer. No, our Head of Legal is not a lawyer, SHE is a lawyer. Never mind.

If we managed to broaden the understanding for gender role models in the children’s minds a little in this way, we will have fully achieved our goal. What a pleasure!

 
 
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