Expert problem solver and project lead at DORIS Research, Emily Coy is an Irvingtonian resident that finds answers to society’s biggest questions with human-centered design. Outside of her time finding solutions, she is continuing her thesis research on applying motivation methods from video games to physical events – mind blowing, right? We sat down to get to know more about her, her work, and why she calls Indy her home.
IndyHub: At IndyHub, our motto is People Make the City. So can you start by sharing why Indianapolis is the place you choose to work and live in?
Emily Coy: Indianapolis is an incredibly vibrant city with a lot of beautiful things happening. I think it’s important to use my privilege, voice, and power to amplify the positives and work toward progress in this city. In Indianapolis you have the exciting opportunity to be a pioneer of change. Is Indianapolis slow to adopt in your field? Bring the innovation here. Are there political shortcomings in Indiana? Volunteer, organize–heck, run for office. People really do make the city. Individual people have more power than they think they do. I was born and raised in Indiana. It’s my home, and I’m dedicated to making it a home I’m proud of.
IH: What does a day in the life look like for a Lead Project Strategist?
I’m sure everyone says this, but there really is no typical day, so instead I’ve included a screenshot of a recent day from my calendar.
9:00 am: I started my day by attending a presentation about a recent study DORIS did in partnership with RJE about the future of the workplace. In this presentation, DORIS outlined the findings of our qualitative and quantitative research study about the effects of remote work on collaboration. (Reach out if you want to hear this presentation – it’s free).
10:00 am: Daily standup. We call it a stand up, but we actually sit down most of the time. This is just our company-wide meeting where we briefly touch base on what we’re working on.
10:30 am: Challenge Review. This is a meeting where I work with another project strategist to review the challenges I wrote for our client. Previously, I conducted around 25 stakeholder interviews and synthesized all of that data into a list of challenges. This meeting is a peer review of my findings!
12:30 pm: Anti-Racism meeting. This is an internal meeting DORIS holds every week to progress our research practices and values to reflect our anti-racism stance. We believe in all human-centered design, not just white human-centered design.
1:30 pm: Back to Basics is a monthly, virtual gathering where we invite a speaker to tell us about the basics of a topic. Back to Basics is meant to be an opportunity for us to come together as a community to take a break from big, new ideas and instead relish in the knowledge we already have. Whether it’s an opportunity to strengthen your fundamentals, or learn something new in an approachable way, we do Back to Basics to take a break from the big picture and deepen our perspective.
3:00 pm: Protocol Review. As a project strategist, I do a lot of research protocol creation. For every interview, focus group, workshop, or survey, we have to carefully craft each and every question we ask or activity we facilitate. That’s why it’s important to have your peers review your protocols. During this touchpoint, I reviewed my colleague’s interview protocol.
IH: Take us back to the beginning. How did you get started in this work? How did you discover this was your passion/interest?
EC: Believe it or not my undergrad degree was actually in advertising. I really liked the idea of empathizing with people and communicating with them in a way that’s approachable. There’s a lot of that in advertising. Through my experience with advertising, I discovered user-centered marketing, and that eventually led me to design thinking. After that I was very lucky to have a mentor invite me to apply to a specialized design thinking graduate program. While I was in my grad program, Sam Julka, the president and founder of DORIS, came to speak to my class. From the minute she began her presentation I knew that this was my dream job.
IH: You’re off the clock, there are no expectations. What are you doing?
EC: Oh gosh, I love having no expectations. On any given Saturday after I sleep in, you’ll find me listening to a podcast (currently Dungeons and Daddies) with a cup of coffee. Then I’ll do some meditation and yoga. My husband and I might walk to Lincoln Square Pancake House in Irvington to pick up some brunch. After that we’d likely come home to each play our respective video games (for me, it’s The Witcher III). Sometimes I chat with friends or family over Zoom, or read a book, but my husband and I will always reconvene to cook dinner together.
IH: A picture is worth a thousand words. What photo would you use to describe DORIS’ work in action?
IH: DORIS works to provide services that empower you to create your ideal physical space while keeping people at the center of the process. Tell us more about this people-first approach.
EC: Ha! What a fantastic description of DORIS, thank you! Our people-first approach is almost exactly what it sounds like. At DORIS we put people at the center of everything we do. We believe that individual stakeholders are the experts, because at the end of the day they’re the ones using their workspaces every day. They know the ins and outs, the workarounds, what’s working well, and what’s not. Our job is to give individual people a platform to voice their wants and needs.
IH: Our home life has become blurred and now operates as the space where we work, eat, sleep, do virtual school, Netflix-binge and more. DORIS is constantly creating, developing, and running new innovative ways to improve the physical workplace. How has your work pivoted to meet the needs and challenges of a virtual workplace?
EC: This is a great question. DORIS has had to pivot quite a bit, but maybe not in ways you’d expect. While the majority of the work we do is about how to improve the physical workplace, we usually focus on employees wants, needs, and values rather than the space itself. Shifting our research to how wants, needs, and values have changed now that we’re working remotely or from a hybrid office has been an easy shift in theory. Now it’s just a matter of collecting that data and turning it into something actionable (which we’re in the middle of doing now!). For DORIS, the big challenge has been recreating our tools and protocols so they can be facilitated virtually in a way that still builds the trust and confidence that we were able to get in person.
IH: DORIS uses a problem solving method called design thinking. How is this process unique to DORIS’ work? And how is it applied in real time to solve complex problems?
EC: It’s true, most of us at DORIS are design thinking fanatics. Design thinking is not something DORIS made up, nor did we pioneer it. In fact, the term has been around since the late 50s. At DORIS we use an 8-step process, adapted from the 4 original steps (which are empathize, define, ideate, and prototyping). Design thinking is all about making design decisions based on a solid foundation of user-centered insights and research. We talk to stakeholders to gather information about how to best design something that will make their work easier and more appropriate for them. However, at DORIS, we don’t make decisions or recommendations in a vacuum. We co-create with our stakeholders through every step of our process.
IH: A new year brings a fresh start and the commitment to new habits and routines. This is easier said than done. How can individuals and companies work to improve productivity and efficiency through their workplace?
EC: I think organizations as a whole need to make sure they’re communicating clearly and frequently, they need to set clear expectations, and they need to recognize and honor the human element of their employees. I think employees have a responsibility to keep their minds regulated and healthy, as well as set healthy boundaries between work and home life, which can be hard to do when you’re working from home.
Additionally, according to a study DORIS recently conducted in partnership with RJE Business Interiors, we found that most stakeholders believe they are more productive from home. This is usually because they have more control over their time and environment, which allows them to focus more easily. We found that stakeholders believe there is a deficit in collaboration, creativity, and innovation. There has to be a balance between focused productive time and accessible collaborative time.
IH: Looking to 2021, it is important that instead of just returning to the workplace, we think about redesigning. How is this practice implemented in both professional and personal settings?
EC: That is spot-on. I think redesigning and rethinking the way we use space is going to be so important when looking toward the future. What’s tricky about this question is that it might look a little differently for everybody. Depending on what type of work your organization does, you might need to focus on different kinds of spaces. I don’t think, “Is the office dead?” is the right question, rather, “In what ways does the office support us that home does not?” When we identify those factors, we can redesign our space to amplify and optimize them.
In personal settings, I suspect we’ll see many more home offices pop up. I think we’ll also see more intentionally designed backgrounds for web calls. For example, I don’t have an office, but I do have a laundry room. I’ve added a curtain and some plants to hide the water heater and washing machine in my background. You’d never even know (if I hadn’t just told you!).
IH: What research have you found, specifically relating to Millennials and Gen-Z, about returning to the workplace?
EC: Funnily enough, a lot of people are curious about how age affects many values and attitudes when it comes to the workplace. However, most of our research shows that it’s less about age, and more about attributes like job level.
One difference I can speak to is with regards to onboarding and mentorship. Those who are just now entering the workforce (primarily Gen-Z) aren’t getting the traditional onboarding or in-office experience that the rest of us got when we started as young professionals. It can be intimidating to start an entirely new phase of your life while you’re isolated. We learn a lot from exposure alone. Without exposure to the traditional office, some new professionals could feel a little lost.
IH: As we find ourselves thinking about the future, what are the lessons you hope we take from what has been an incredibly challenging year? What do you think the future of work looks like after COVID-19?
EC: To address the first part of your question: I believe that this global tragedy has forced us to pull back the curtain on our professional facades. We’ve had the privilege of really seeing the humanity in our peers, friends, coworkers, bosses. Everyone has been humanized by this. I hope we don’t lose that moving forward. Acknowledging humanity in one another has led to giving individuals more control over their work schedule and environment—because there’s more at stake than ever before. I believe this control is going to be incredibly difficult to take back from the individual, and why would we need to? There are ways to balance individual agency with the goals of the collective workplace.
I think the future of work looks different but not THAT different. It’s likely that we’ll still need to accomplish many of the same goals. We’ll still need to strive for productivity, collaboration, strategy, innovation, and creativity. It’s just a matter of HOW we do those things that will change. We’re going to have to relearn the way we think about technology—it’s going to become more than just a tool. It’s going to become a metaphysical space.
