- Jase Schattner - Senior Service Designer, Telstra
Most organisations talk about customer centricity. Far fewer spend time with the people who are showing us where customers are heading next.
That’s why working with Telstra Foundation’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC) has been one of the most valuable parts of my year, so far.
Recently we got together to explore the role connectivity plays in young people’s lives, I partnered with YAC members from across Australia. I didn’t bring them in to validate a hypothesis or react to a finished idea. I wanted to start with questions that were still open. Through group discussions, diary activities and co-design workshops, they helped me see the world through a very different lens.
And that’s the thing about working with young people. They don’t just give you answers you might not have anticipated. They make you question what you’re asking, and why.
I’m not thinking about young people as ‘future customers’
One of the most persistent mistakes organisations make is treating young people as ‘future customers’, with the implication being that their relevance arrives later.
But young people are already navigating emerging technologies, new forms of creativity, evolving social norms and changing expectations of digital experiences. They’re often the first to encounter shifts that eventually become mainstream. So, for me the research needed to frame young people as today’s lead users, offering an early signal of where we all might may be heading next.
In these conversations I wasn’t looking for clues to the future. I was hearing about the present, just from a vantage point I don’t always have access to.
And that’s the beauty of working with the YAC offers. It’s not about seeking certainty or consensus. It’s a mix of perspectives. And perspective is incredibly valuable when you’re trying to design better experiences for people.
It’s important that the value goes both ways
What I’ve been able to see consistently through working with the YAC is a genuine exchange. Young people bring lived experience, fresh thinking and an ability to challenge assumptions that adults often don’t realise they’re carrying.
In return, they get a window into how large organisations actually work. They get exposed to research, service design, strategy and customer experience practices. They see how questions become insights and how insights can influence decision-making. They experience what it means to contribute to a piece of work that extends beyond school, beyond their immediate community and into systems that could affect millions of people.
The best learning happens in both directions
One of the reasons I enjoy working with the YAC is that it creates the conditions for mutual learning. The young people involved aren’t passive participants. They’re active contributors.
They’re curious. They’re thoughtful. They’re often willing to interrogate ideas that adults take for granted. The result is that everyone leaves smarter.
Our team gains insight into experiences we don’t live every day. The young people gain exposure to professional environments, different ways of thinking and opportunities to build confidence in their own perspectives.
More organisations should make room for youth voice
If we genuinely want products, services and systems that work for people, we need to involve people in shaping them.
Young people are still rarely invited into decision-making conversations in meaningful ways. Too often they’re consulted at the end, if at all.
The Telstra Foundation Youth Advisory Council shows what’s possible when you do the opposite. When you create space for young people to contribute early and treat lived experience as expertise.
When you approach engagement with curiosity rather than certainty, what emerges isn’t just better insight, it’s better learning and better questions.
And sometimes, better questions are exactly where better decisions begin.
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