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Join Joe Laufer as he explores the global alumni network of the University of Twente, one conversation at a time.
In each episode, he connects with an UT'er somewhere in the world, often found through a simple LinkedIn search and message, to hear their story, career journey, and insights.
Whether you're a current student, a recent graduate, or have been away from campus for a while, this podcast from the University of Twente Alumni Office aims to inspire you to also start accessing your worldwide UT community - reach out, make a connection, and start a conversation!
Comments or Suggestions? Reach out to us! alumni@utwente.nl
Welcome to Access
Twente, one alumni connection
away. The podcast where
we explore the global
University of Twente alumni network, one
connection and conversation at a time.
I'm Joe Laufer from the Alumni Office, and
in each episode, we
connect with an UT'er somewhere
in the world, starting
with a simple LinkedIn
search and a follow up
message to hear their story,
career journey, and
insights. Let's get started.
In this first episode,
we're joined by Michelle
Geerlings, an UT'er now
working as country director
Switzerland at Flatland, based
in Zurich. A role
she stepped into just a few months ago.
What is Flatland?
Flatland is a design-driven
consultancy based in Rotterdam
that uses visual thinking
as a tool for
facilitating teams. We'll hear a
bit more about that
later. She joined Flatland in
2020 and is now building the company's
first international office
in Switzerland. Welcome, Michelle.
Thank you, Joe. Happy to be here. How is
the weather in Zurich?
Well, it's a bit rainy,
Right now, but
it used to be pretty
sunny here. Yeah, I think
there are other attractions as well
for Zurich. But let's first
go back to the beginning
to your time at the
UT. You studied in the
Bachelor Programme in Industrial
Design Engineering from 2014
to 2018, and you were very active on
campus in groups like Daedalus
and the Bedrijvendagen Twente.
You also had a chance to do a study abroad
in Sweden, as well
as a five-month-long thesis
assignment at Grolsch. Whoa, that is a lot
of things. This is going
to be hard, but is
there one particular moment that
comes to mind when you
look back at that time? Oh, wow. That's a
tough question. I think
I just really loved the
University of Twente as my
first encounter with the
university because it was
so such a friendly
space. People really know you as a person.
I really love that
about the university. And yeah,
Other things that come to
mind is that, yeah, I
think one of the coolest
things that I did during my
studies at the university was
also to be able to do
the exchange semester in Luleå
in the northern part of Sweden.
And I think that's also where the
whole international ambition
or passion also came
from, which in the end made me
go to Zurich as well for work.
And you were a very
active student leader on campus.
What skills did you
develop outside the classroom?
that you still use today.
Oh, yeah, okay.
So outside of campus, yeah, I was very
active in the sorority that I was part of.
So I think I was in
the bar for quite a few evenings.
And I just really love to be creative.
And I think where I
learned the most was by just,
just organizing events.
I think that's where also
one of my passions lie.
And just to be able to
connect people together and make friends
and organize or being part of
a committee of study association
Daedalus was also something.
Yeah, I'm just happy
to bring people together.
Was there a particular event
that was a mission impossible?
But afterward, you were like,
whoa, this was a dream.
Yeah, I think my year as being part of
the board of the Bedrijvendagen
Twente was a big achievement.
for me because you
work your entire year. I
think it was three
fourth of the year we worked
towards the big event where
we had a big tent
on campus and uh that
was my first real encounter
with companies which I
I thought was yeah kind
of exciting but also a
bit scary in the beginning
because I didn't work with
companies before um to be honest
yeah and so to be able to have a big stand
with over 200 companies
having their own, like,
yeah, shops as a
marketplace to bring students
together with these companies
and have them have speed
dates, etc. I think that
was one of the biggest
achievements. I, you know,
I really take my hat
off to both your generation
and the current leaders of
Bedrijvendagen Twente, which is now
called Business Days Twente.
They achieve the impossible
and the fact that
students organize it. I love that. I think
that is a wonderful
Twente experience outside the
classroom. But let me
go to your next chapter
because you sort of
combine the best of both
worlds. So you have
Twente for your bachelor degree.
And then you continued on
to Delft to do your
master degree in strategic
project design. And you were
there from 2018 to 2020.
And you were a bit
busy also at
Delft from social entrepreneurship
project in Kenya, to a startup
bootcamp at Silicon Valley,
to a collaboration in
Japan with companies like
MUJI and Ricoh, and
finally, Seoul Korea, participating in the
KPMG ideation challenge.
I'm going to challenge
you again. What stands
out during that period for
you? Oh, well, I think it's not the most
fun answer to say,
but COVID definitely was
part of that chapter
as well. I did graduate
during COVID time, so that was, of
course, well, a bit challenging in a way.
But what I liked the
most about that time was
that I was able to,
yeah, learn from my experience from
the University of Twente and
then also have a critical stance
towards the, yeah, how teaching
was happening at the TU Delft.
And I think what made me help make sense
of it all was that Delft also has the
Delft design guide, which
is like the holy grail
for industrial designers or
product designers, I would say.
there a lot of methods that I learned also
in my bachelor's finally also
made sense in a way
that they were captured
in different bottles or
theories. And yeah, I
really like that part.
And if I can add one other thing is that
we also did a lot
of projects with companies. So,
for example, we were able to do our pitch
of our presentation at
Ford in Germany, for example,
to present our findings
to the head of design.
there, which was something,
yeah, that that was
just amazing for a student to be able to
go to these kind of places as well.
It's incredible when you have the
student label. How that opens doors.
Definitely, yeah.
Yeah, it kind of sucks that
we don't have that label anymore.
So now ... You would not believe how I
tell students, use the label while you can.
It opens doors, but the minute you
have that diploma, it's a bit harder.
But another thing that
was amazing to me, so
of course now AI is
everywhere, but you were involved
already with AI in
2020 for your master thesis.
You worked with the
Dutch Ministry of Justice and
Security on a very
relevant topic, how to keep
AI beneficial for society.
As part of your thesis,
you developed a
framework for agile policymaking
and human-centered AI adoption.
And I was curious,
what was the core
idea behind that work? And
with all that's happening
today, what can we take
away from it now. Oh,
wow, that's a good question.
So the idea was that I already saw that AI
would become a big thing.
So I just wanted to
have like half a year
to really dive deeper into
what AI is, what
the potential could be, but
also what threats could be.
And I found a really
great spot at the Ministry of Justice and
Security, where they were
also interested in seeing
how we could cope with that by creating
policies around it, just
to prevent things from happening
or mitigate a different part of it.
So I think when I
did my graduation assignment there,
I just thought about
the value of designers
and how we are able to iterate fast
and come up with ideas very quickly,
be very solution-oriented and
also prototype things very quickly.
And I thought that
aspect is super important.
So when it comes down to policymaking,
they should also include
that kind of process
that's by iterating fast and quickly
and check it with the audience,
like does society like this or that
or what should we mitigate right now
and just see how people respond to
that to be able to be much faster?
I mean, the whole rise
of AI is going pretty fast,
and I think it's only, well,
getting faster and faster in a way.
So I think that should be the way to go.
But unbelievable that you were
dealing with that back in 2020.
I mean, now when we
look at the world today,
Yeah.
And, of course, you had to graduate, and
you interned at Flatland,
but after a few months,
you also joined, and you grew from
a visual thinker into
a visual strategist role.
You mentioned the studio you had before,
so you also
had an entrepreneurship element
in your personality, I would say.
And again, another hard question.
In those early career years, is there a
key turning point that
helped shape you professionally
to who you are
today. Was there some experience
that directed you? Yeah, I
think, I think it started
actually between my, finishing
my bachelor's and starting my
master's, because I was at a phase where I
really doubted if I
should move to Delft to
pursue that strategic product
design master, or if I
should stay at the University
of Twente. And then I just
said, you know what, I
have to figure it out for
myself so let's just work
at a coffee place and
just see what comes from
there and then I started
doing some calligraphy stuff
so drawing on walls etc
and then my boss actually
said like oh you should
give a workshop about that
and was like okay yeah
yeah let's do that let's
attract new clients and do these
workshops and then at
some point Studio Mies yeah
existed which was my own
little company where I helped
companies in calligraphy,
calligraphy workshops or creating
fonts for websites or doing other kinds
of design and that's
where the whole entrepreneurial
mindset or spirits came
to life and I really
love that part about
exploring and just being very
curious and I think
that followed me also during
my master's where
I joined the AI startup
in the Hague where I
could also craft things from
scratch because I really
love to see progress visually
in a way. And from
that drawing aspect or the
affinity and passion about
drawing, I met Flatland
at a marketplace at
the University of Delft.
And then I was like, wow, this can be a
job, you know? You can
make work of using your
analytical mindset, but also
the creativity of drawing and
work can be really fun. And I was super
interested in Flatland as a
company and then i joined
them as an
intern and from there I after
my graduation because I
did want to experience what
it was like to be part of a public sector
organization to also make the yeah see the
difference between a more
corporate setting or a more
public setting and then
I said yeah the
whole startup scale up
scene is something I'm super
excited about so i was happy that uh
Flatland could offer me a really cool job
And hopefully it's still fun because as of
six months ago or
something, you have a very
different role opening an office, the
first international office
for your company.
What does your day-to-day
look like and what
excites you the most
about this new position?
Yeah. Okay. So what
does my day-to-day look
like? So typically, I
would say I have different
calls or I work on a proposal for a client
that I had a coffee
with. So it ranges really.
really from like every
day is different and I
also like that part
because it's kind of
exciting to not know
everything already and yeah
so I'm I typically work at the co-working
place which is called the Impact Hub Zurich
and it's really nice
also a feeling of having
colleagues around you and
go for a coffee or
go for a walk after
lunch but typically I would
either post something on LinkedIn to
gain more visibility about the brand or
work on a project
or collect different cases that
I could show but this morning I was or
this morning I will
work on my keynote that
I will give this evening
at a culture house here
in Zurich so I'm trying to find different
like spotlight times over
here to just because my
my whole goal or objective
of this year is to first
expand my network a lot
talk to a lot of people
reach out through either just a LinkedIn
DM to people that I find interesting and
match our target audience and
then yeah go on a
lot of coffees and show
the value of what we
as Flatland can offer and
show a lot of materials
as well and try to
shape these projects and then
I get my colleagues over from the
Netherlands with the
sustainable transport called the
Nightjet which is the train connection
that's directly from Amsterdam
to Zurich and then
we pursue these really cool
projects. So talking about the
projects and the concept
of visual thinking. So
you've been in that
area since, well, according
to LinkedIn, since around
2018. Can you briefly explain
to people what is it and why it works
so well for complex
challenges? Yeah, great question.
So visual thinking for me is a method to
unravel different forms
of complexity by drawing
life in the moments
together. So it's about
checking if my
mental model that's in my
mind links to your
mental model in your mind.
So we can verbally agree
on a lot of things,
but then once you try
to draw it out, you're
forced to become more concrete.
And then you can look to that drawing
as a third reference
point and discuss if you're
really agreeing about that.
So I think the whole power of visual
thinking is that you
can really fasten alignments
between people, but
also visual thinking can
help you to just
structure your own thoughts
visually, right? It can
already be like adding
a square around a
certain sentence to highlight it
or say that that's a priority to me. So it
can mean different things, but
just the act of drawing
itself in the moment to iterate fast and
quickly together with people
and improve the drawing
in a way. I think that's super
powerful. Yeah, it brings everyone
on the same page, but
it also, it creates
sort of
shared, a shared output
that you, as a group create
and that also has a strength.
Yeah, it's really about
creating a shared image, literally.
Another thing I loved
about your LinkedIn profile,
so you're not just about work,
you also are very active on the
volunteering side. You've worked
with children. You've
organized camps. You also
did some fundraising.
What role is volunteering
played in your life?
And has it influenced how
you approach your work? Yeah.
Well, let's say it like
this. I love to see how I can be of value
to other people. And I
think in my field of work,
it's, I mean, when a client is happy,
that's already an effect
that you obviously create.
But I really like to be super
close to a customer or a client or
a person and see how that person
can grow into a really cool human being.
So I think I wanted to touch upon the
more like the playfulness of
working with kids and helping
them get a bit rid
of all the negative thoughts
and just be a kid,
you know, and play around.
and if I can help those kids out
with, yeah, happy or
now it's called the 'forgotten
kids', that's something I,
yeah, I'm just, it brings
a smile to my face as well to be able
to help others.
Yeah, it's a bit
looking at the work-life balance,
trying to have a
full, well, a full approach
to what you're doing.
And your most recent thing as a hobby, so
hobbies are also very
important, you have a hiking
website.
Yeah, that's right.
So was that just something that
came about when you moved to Switzerland?
Oh, well, no, it
started actually earlier on.
So I think I even
got the hiking virus or passion.
Bug.
Yeah, yeah.
When I did the Erasmus exchange, actually.
So when we were in
Sweden, we just, every weekend,
we just went for a
hike somewhere in the mountains.
And I really love that feeling
of just being outside of your daily.
work or just enjoy the mountains and
nature and yeah I actually just wanted to
learn how to create a website so I
thought let's do that as a hobby project
and see where things go from there
so I love to yeah to just collect
information about my hikes so people ask me
a lot like oh Michelle do you have
any nice hiking tips and I was like yeah
of course and I have this that and that
that and then I was like well we should ..
I should put that into a website so I
can just share the
link with everyone, where they
can see where we park
the car, where we started
hiking, how many hours it
typically is, how difficult it
should be. And I love
to use Komoot as a tracking
device where you can also
upload or download the GPX
files of your hike and
add a lot of pictures
to it. So yeah, then
'Hike with Mies' came to
existence. And yeah, it's been
fun. I still have to upload
a lot of hikes that
I did here in Switzerland already.
But it's also for me a way to look back
at my hikes and just,
yeah, I enjoy that again.
Okay.
Well, toward the end, of course, we have
students, hopefully listening to
this, also recent graduates.
Is there one key lesson that has
really helped shape your journey so far?
And do you have some advice to offer them
about people that are
still figuring their path today?
Yeah.
So I think it's kind of my motto.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
I'm not sure if that's a right.
Well, translation also in English.
But, yeah, if you're very
excited or passionate about something,
I think you should
just try to pursue that.
And when you don't
know what you really want,
I think one of the coaches that
were also offered at
the University of Twente
also really helped me to
map out, really, like map out,
for example, the decision if I wanted
to go to Delft for continuing my master's
there or stay in Enschede.
So I really did an exercise where I had to
walk towards Delft physically in
the space, in a place,
and then look back from, how do I look
back at the moment where
I still needed to decide?
Oh, well, I feel more rested now.
Okay, how do I look at Enschede as
the place where I
could also pursue my master's?
And I think doing these
kind of exercises really help you.
So map it out for yourself in a
way, try to experience that in a space.
Yeah. And I think it also comes
back to what I love about my work
as well. It's just try to create overview
in a visual way. It doesn't need to
be drawing, but just
using post-its to structure
your own thoughts and have a look at
it from a perspective,
like some distance. That
will really help you decide what you want.
Okay. And I found
you via LinkedIn. And you
mentioned LinkedIn as well. How
do you use it? And
what would you say to
someone hesitating to reach out
to people in the UT
network like we are doing?
doing here?
Yeah.
The responses that I
got so far from people
that I reached out to
that I didn't know were
like, wow, oh, you want to talk to me.
Oh, that's really cool.
Of course.
I'd love to learn from a new perspective
or I think every
connection can bring new insights,
especially if you're also
not from the same background.
And it's just cool
to just have a conversation.
You don't need to have
like your objective super, super clear.
It's just a way
to get connected to others.
And I think everyone appreciates that.
And if they don't, then
you at least try it.
So I would just encourage
everybody to just go for it.
And if you find a
really cool profile, just reach out.
Cool.
Well, Michelle, thanks so much.
It's great having you
on this first episode.
And if listeners want to connect with
you or learn more about your work,
what's the best way to reach you?
Well, go to LinkedIn and
send me a message or a request.
Perfect.
So don't hesitate to
reach out to Michelle.
and continue the conversation.
And to everyone listening, this
all started with a LinkedIn search
and a follow-up message
and yours could too.
Thanks again for joining us
and join us next time.