Dynamic #1

Collective individuality

Our social benchmarks are evolving profoundly. For decades, we've classified individuals by age, generation, and function. But today, these fixed references are fading. What connects us is no longer birth dates, but shared values, lived experiences, and chosen paths. The collective is no longer decreed; it's built from the singular. From what each person chooses to share, defend, or experience.

In this new environment, expectations change. Many seek to feel fully in their place, to be recognized in their journeys and to evolve in less rigid frameworks. The desire for meaning crosses generations, as does the need for balance between the individual and the collective. Atypical narratives, singular trajectories, chosen vulnerabilities gain visibility. They become vectors of connection, not anomalies to correct, and gradually find their legitimacy in social discourse and workspaces.

This transformation is embodied in everyday spaces. Places traditionally associated with work no longer come down to performance venues. They become transit zones, conversation grounds, stages for impromptu or scheduled reunions, because we know: today, 67% of time in these spaces is devoted to exchanges and interactions, far more than to individual tasks, breaks, transition times, or less productive tasks according to a Financial Times study (2023). This evolution reflects a need for human contact, reinforced by the effects of remote work and the feeling of isolation due to technology and accelerated exchanges that individuals may experience.

This movement toward a more open collective redraws the contours of living together. It questions old norms to let emerge new forms of belonging, more attentive to singularities. It's no longer the group that dictates identity, but the connection that's invented between individuals, from what they are and what they wish to build together.

These evolutions also transform the experience of shared places and moments. The experiential becomes a terrain of living expression, where everyone can project themselves, tell their story, recognize themselves. A place where diversity asserts and celebrates itself. Spaces, physical or digital, are redesigned to foster inclusion, spontaneity, and co-creation. It's no longer just about consuming an experience, but actively living it, in connection with one's values and with others.

Intergenerational collective

Intergenerational mixing has always existed in business, but differences between generations become more visible in a workplace where boomers, Gen X, Y, and Z now coexist; each bringing their own values, methods, and expectations.

As communities (re)define themselves by affinities of values, needs, and projects, a new vision of belonging emerges: intergenerational, hybrid, evolving, which invites unlearning age-related stereotypes and opening new narratives of living together. In this context, companies have a key role to play: create conditions for dialogue between generations, identify shared interests, and support employees at every stage of their life journey. This renewed diversity, a joyful generational melting pot, doesn't always guarantee dialogue: gaps in cultural references, values, or relationship to digital can also be sources of misunderstandings, even divisions.

What if this collective potential became a terrain for exchange rather than a wall to overcome?

→ Experiences to share

To create connection, it's necessary to redefine frameworks and establish conducive moments. Organizing a free discussion, crossing perspectives, transmitting without imposing: this is what gives body to a living intergenerational collective. Beyond age, it's curiosity about the other that creates momentum. One generation learns from another, not just in skills, but in ways of being in the world, a true wealth to foster business success. This is at least what 83% of business leaders worldwide believe according to an AARP study (2020).

→ An imagination to reconcile

Facing major current transitions—digital, ecological, and social—everyone seeks their place. The arrival of AI in particular raises doubts among younger people about the future value of their skills, while the most experienced sometimes must learn to transmit differently and learn from younger people. These frictions are real, but can become strengths if worked on together, in places where hierarchy is desacralized.

→ Experimenting to better understand

What if experiential became the engine of connection? An event, a role-play situation, a collective creation, an immersive workshop allow experiencing, beyond discourse, what a true intergenerational encounter can be. These are concrete, shared, sincere, and open moments that transform perspectives. Where ages listen to each other to bring forth a new common narrative.

Beyond age, it's curiosity that creates momentum.

Tina Müller and Yaël Meier

Tina Müller, 56, CEO of Weleda, and Yaël Meier, 24, entrepreneur, have been exchanging since March 2025 as part of a 'reverse mentoring' on LinkedIn, blending elders' experience and younger people's fresh perspective. To rejuvenate Weleda's image, Tina Müller (former director of Douglas perfumeries) relies on Yaël Meier's vision. Together, they worked on the logo, new product ideas, and the brand's TikTok strategy.

Timeleft

Timeleft presents itself as a remedy for loneliness by organizing dinners between perfect strangers. Every month, the app connects some 80,000 strangers across more than 300 cities in restaurants in 60 countries.

Les Jardins du Tanchet

Delivered in March 2025 in Les Sables-d'Olonne, Les Jardins du Tanchet, an intergenerational residence awarded at the Challenge de l'habitat innovant, brings together 150 housing units designed to foster cohabitation between generations. Shared spaces, micro-forest, and sustainable design make this project a model of living together, where social connection becomes a lever for urban innovation.

Individual vulnerability

Sensitivity is no longer taboo, it becomes a terrain of expression, narration, creativity, and collective construction. What was long perceived as a sign of fragility now asserts itself as a resource: to create, connect with others, bring forth a fairer collective. Everywhere, voices rise to rehabilitate emotion, listening, attention to others as so many forces in a transforming world.

What if cultivating sensitivity opened the way to new collective narratives, more human and deeply transformative?

→ A growing need for connection

If studies on living together, fraternity, or loneliness multiply, it's because the desire to create connection has never been stronger. Being connected no longer simply means being surrounded but feeling seen, recognized, heard. As psychologist Jamil Zaki reminds us in his work Hope for Cynics, The Surprising Science of Human Goodness (Grand Central Publishing, 2024), believing in human goodness isn't naivety, but a future strategy. It allows communities to open up, innovate, strengthen in a fragmented world.

→ Spaces that make visible

It's in this dynamic that new spaces emerge: seen places. Literally 'visible places,' they are spaces that highlight individual creativity. Unlike safe spaces, which seek to protect vulnerable people by creating a secure environment, seen places invite everyone to show themselves authentically, tell their story, and share their ideas, without filter and without judgment. They're places to imagine together, to let joy and imagination circulate. These spaces come to life through varied formats: workshops and collective projects, more personal and informal conversation spaces. By creating these places of chosen vulnerability, we make emotion a starting point, not an obstacle.

→ Creativity through lived experience

A step back from social media is taking place: users increasingly seek authenticity. Many content creators now opt for more authentic communication, revealing behind-the-scenes of their daily lives and openly exposing their doubts and vulnerabilities. A way to reintroduce sincerity into spaces long dominated by 'glossy' images, smooth and controlled. In the workplace, this aspiration asserts itself: 74% of employees say they're more engaged when they bring their personal touch to a project (State of Work, 2024). So it's no longer just about participating, but fully existing.

Moka.Care

Moka.Care is a company that defines itself as 'your organization's mental health ally.' It allows employees to attend sessions with practitioners and helps organizations implement action plans to promote workplace well-being. Its support is based on three pillars:

– offering employees access to sessions with practitioners with varied approaches (psychologists, coaches, etc.);

– providing the opportunity to train with collective sessions on a number of themes (stress management, conflict management, nonviolent communication, etc.);

– access to a self-care app where one can find lots of content to train at one's own pace, via multiple formats (videos, meditation, cardiac coherence…)

Label Alwarda

'Sober parties' or 'clean parties' are experiencing growing success in the party scene. In May 2025, the techno music label Alwarda organized its first clean party at Dock B in Pantin, inviting participants to rave in broad daylight, around a selection of alcohol-free drinks and a wellness workshop, such as a sophrology session. The idea for this sober party was born from an observation: the lack of safe spaces where one can fully enjoy electronic music without being constantly exposed to substance consumption.

Librairie Luce

In Naples, the Luce bookstore defends emotional intelligence as a compass and reading as an act of gentle resistance. Sadness, joy, anxiety: Italy's first 'emotional bookstore' classifies books by feeling rather than by genre. Designed as a hybrid space, Luce hosts book clubs, a literary cafeteria, and two daily workshops. One of the co-founders, also a writer, leads sessions dedicated to literary creation, therapeutic rewriting, and the search for beauty. His co-founder, meanwhile, conducts workshops focused on self-esteem and dialogue between parents and children.

Event scenarios

Key Trend #1 / Intergenerational collective

By breaking down generational silos, the event activates dynamics of transmission, exploration, and common projection.

1. Cross visions to better understand each other

An immersive mini-festival at the company: DJ set, world food trucks, karaoke corner, photo booth, fun challenges.

2. Weave intergenerational bonds through common action

Instead of top-down mentoring, the event encourages reciprocal duos. Two generations partner to test an AI, co-host a discussion, or visit a third place. These are active exploration formats that favor horizontal transmission and stimulate mutual curiosity.

3. Align on a common future narrative

Rather than dwelling on the past, the event invites building a shared future. Through collaborative frescoes, design fiction, or desirable company scenarios, generations together imagine their ideal work environment and reveal visions to reconcile.

Key Trend #2 / Individual vulnerability

By valuing emotions and personal narratives, the event becomes a tool for transforming workplace relationships: more human, more sincere, more engaged.

1. Open a space for expressing taboo emotions

The event becomes a gateway to releasing emotions undervalued in business: anger, fear, doubt, shame… Through immersive experiences (rage room, scream box, guided talking circles), participants can deposit the unsaid and initiate collective awareness.

2. Offer intimate expression formats

No need to say everything or speak loudly. Silent booths, anonymous narratives, sensitive installations… The event allows everyone to express themselves without pressure, in a framework that respects intimacy while valuing each voice.

3. Create spaces to show oneself as one is

Here, no filters or norms. Creative workshops, open stages, collective projects: everyone can share their story, ideas, emotions, and fully exist within the group. We celebrate singularities and strengthen the sense of belonging through authenticity and creativity.