Focus Group Pt. 1
On Thursday, we held a focus group session with youth from the Lower Northside of Pittsburgh, PA, at Jefferson Recreation Center. The site is a program location for the after-school program YouthPlaces, which also helped us organize a focus group with adult after-school providers on last Wednesday. YouthPlaces, led by director Lori Schaller and supported by Director of Education Tyra Good, continues to be a major supporter and partner as we move forward.
The focus group with the youth was remarkable in too many ways to count. Too often, we’re cooped up in our office like mad scientists or on the road pitching potential investors and partners. It’s easy to lose sight of the certainty that kids are the ultimate judge of what we do. If they don’t like the product we’re developing and become more financially savvy as a result of it, then our product and our business have failed.
Well, I’m happy to report that we seem to be very much on the right road. We’re in a bit of stealth mode right now — so I can’t get too deeply into particular responses the youth had to different features. It’s more than fair to say that some of their comments and reactions caught us by surprise. Kids are funny that way, you know. We spend so much time debating a particular point that their words immediately put to rest in a way that goes almost entirely against the grain. We were particularly pleased with how well this group, which ranged in age from 15-18, responded to the look and feel of the experience. Even more, we gave a short assessment of the youth’s financial skills after taking them through a “quest” on Checking vs. Savings Accounts and wouldn’t you know that it seemed as if they had learned a thing or two.
On Monday, we have a focus group scheduled with teenagers at YouthPlaces Beltzhoover site. We’re also presently setting up focus groups with youth from the Pittsburgh Project and Mount Lebanon School District. We’ll try to get in all on video and share a few pics down the road.