Last week I received an email from Mrs. Sokolinski's third grade students inviting me to come in and speak with them. It wasn't really an invite for me to speak, but an opportunity for me to hear their feedback and suggestions after using Reading Glue for the past month. While hanging out with these students, I realized that there is something special about working with kids.
A third grader is more honest than you.
Over the past couple of years, I have spent hundreds of hours performing customer development interviews and discussions with parents and teachers. These customers often give well thought out responses to my questions. I often wonder if a well thought out response is truly an honest response. Rather than fire off the first thing that comes to mind, could these customers be molding their answer to avoid being judged for a problem they face? We have all been there. You get asked a question, and your initial answer seems like it might be kind of stupid. Rather than giving that answer, you think something else to say in order to save face. Do you know what third graders are really good at? They love to blurt out responses before giving a lot of thought to it. If you are a parent, then you know exactly what I am talking about. When I asked a question to Mrs. Sokolinski's class, you would see 10 hands instantly pop up in the air and start shaking around as if to say "Call on me first!" These kids were eager to blurt out the first response that came to mind. Many of the responses are likely the same that an adult would have, except there was no brain filter telling them "Oh that is too stupid or silly to mention." Third graders also don't mind telling you what sucks about your product. When I work with adults, they try to be very nice when telling you what they don’t understand or like. Kids have no problem telling me what they don’t like, and they don’t sugarcoat it.
A third grader is more creative than you.
One thing that amazes me about working with young kids is the fact that they have not been molded to think about reality. They live in a world where their imaginations can run wild, and there are no boundries. Don't believe me? Go ask a young child what he or she wants to be when they grow up. I bet you won't hear accountant, lawyer, project manager, etc. Some of the best product input I have received has come from my own son who thinks he can one day grow up to be a stealth ninja. Their solutions to problems are usually simple and creative, because they do not have previous life experiences telling them how something should be done. There is no second thought about what can or cannot actually be done. I love this type of thinking. It is almost as if the older we get, the more we start to wrap boundaries around or set rules on how things should work.
I found it very refreshing to hang out with 28 third graders and watch their minds run wild with ideas and honest feedback. It really opened my eyes to how boring and like minded we become as we grow older. I am not sure when it happens in life, but there is a point in time where we stop thinking big. Where we start placing limits on what is achievable. As an entrepreneur, developer or designer we need to stop thinking like adults, and start thinking more like third graders.
