Publicis.sapient
Make Some ROom Workshop
Hidden biases lurk within every organization. While evidence of discrimination is statistically obvious, the daily experience of exclusion can be difficult to see, much less to address. Seeing an opportunity to marry story, space and technology in pursuit of more heartening outcomes, we designed an immersive intervention to help Publicis Sapient employees understand what bias feels like rather than simply learn about it.
An ordinary office becomes a narrative soundscape where participants navigate their everyday environment with superpowers, stepping into coworkers' shoes to feel the impact of implicit bias firsthand. The experience awakens a deep sense of empathy and helps participants channel those feelings into action through this three part workshop.
Participants are given tailored wearable devices to use for the duration of the experience. The wearable devices guide participants around their office, where they encounter candid, first-person accounts of everyday bias, voiced by real employees. Stories are heard in locations where they actually might have occurred, creating a visceral and often emotional experience.
After piloting the workshop in Atlanta, Toronto, and London, our team expanded our content library, created a scalable platform by developing an app and beacon system, and developed robust facilitation guides. The workshop scaled globally and traveled to over 20 Publicis offices.
