Twitter and Facebook let me peek in on people. But they can't replace meeting someone face to face. So in the spirit of learning from others, I've developed a list of ten people I'd love to have coffee with this year. Believe me, limiting it to ten was not easy. There are a lot of interesting people in the world! Here's what I came up with (in no particular order):

1. Paul Polak: 25 years of experience counts for something. I respect Paul's unswerving commitment to appropriate design in emerging nations. (Update: I got to meet up with him at a talk in June 2010)

2. Jacqueline Novogratz: I resonate so closely with her time in Rwanda and respect the way she's built her career based on respecting others. I could learn a lot from her.

3. Erik Hersman: I had one email exchange with Erik where we discussed the difference between rural and urban when it came to addressing needs in Africa. I'm inspired by the commitment to technology for "the dark continent."

4. Alfred Sirleaf, The Analog Blogger: Because he saw a need of the people.

5. Maggie Breslin: She has worked as a design researcher at the Sparc Lab/Mayo Clinic for the past 4+ years. To watch the complexity of a hospital and apply design process in this arena is something I want to learn more about.

6. Dambisa Moyo: One of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people ain't too shabby.

7. Eddie Izzard: Not only is he hysterical but he also runs marathons. And speaks French fluently. Also born in Yemen.

8. Lucy Orta: Anyone who cooks a meal for 70 people as a creative act has my attention.

9. Tina Fey: Because apparently, I'm her doppelgänger.

10. The women of Gashora: Because our conversations aren't finished yet. (Update: We got to meet up in May 2010!)

Bonus? Lady Gaga: A woman who can get an audience with the Queen, become a CD at Polaroid and dress like nobody's business, could likely teach me a thing or two about brand (or perhaps more likely how to speak your mind and still get ahead).

(image source: Nokia via Rutgers School of Communication and Information)

I really wanted to pursue a deeper understanding of mobile applications in my graduate research. Problem? The rural women I worked with couldn't afford a mobile phone, thereby limiting my testing options with my participants.

Instead of creating a long post about my thoughts on learning #11: The mobile phone is the new computer, I'll let these links speak for themselves. While I think Yves Behar's tablet is pretty sweet, it still comes back to accessibility. Even in my own life, my iPhone offers a new kind of computing experience (and my back is delighted to not be carrying a laptop so much these days). I love how these groups (and many others) are taking this accessible and more affordable tool and innovating new opportunities to offer immediate and relevant outcomes:

Frontline SMS Medic
Frontline SMS
Credit SMS
Ushahidi
Nokia mBanking
Nokia Life Tools
Phone Power
Katine Market

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Learning #5: Poverty can't be solved by a campaign. Or a website.
Spending time working on a sustainable development project in Rwanda exposed me to all sorts of new ideas. As the "outsider," I realize I still have much to learn. I was grateful to be given a Kinyarwanda name and told that I was 50% Rwandan but these affirmations don't replace understanding the actual needs of a community. The thing I can't shake is how often we try to solve problems using ideas or technologies that we assume will work everywhere.

Quick back story: I made a website. For a group of individuals who did not have access to the Internet. The hope was that this tool would improve the sales of their products. But the analytics prove there is little activity on this site. Without a business plan, they have no means of owning their own outcomes either. So I've struggled with my contribution for the past year or so. And have come to realize that creating an isolated outcome is no longer an acceptable way to look at my design practice.

Lesson learned? Poverty can't be solved by a campaign. Or a website. We must be asking bigger questions about entire systems before acting on solutions.

Campaigns with slogans and accompanying websites bring awareness to issues. Twitter feeds support the ideas being spread to the masses. But at the end of the day, I think we need to ask, "Are the people who we're trying to help actually seeing some sort of benefit from all this?" Whenever designers get connected to a development project, I think we need to ask the right questions.

Maggie Black helped me understand that development is complex (in her book, The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development):

Even at the purely semantic level, the term 'development' is difficult to replace. If you dislike it and its derivatives - 'developing', 'developed' - and try to avoid using them, nothing else quite works. To understand that development is an artificial construct and has earned much discredit does not help get rid of it. The concept has become ingrained in economic language and philanthropic endeavor. In default of some better terminological alternative, we will probably go on using the one we have. It would be helpful, however, if it was more used with greater care, and not assumed to be invariably beneficent and politically clean.

From this experience, I would advise any designer to simply be aware. I won't create a list of dos and don'ts because I'm not the expert. But learn from those who have gone before you, as best you can. One person I've learned from (from a distance) is Jacqueline Novogratz (head of Acumen Fund). I devoured her book, The Blue Sweater and found her talks to offer a strong case for the type of posture and action we need take.

Novogratz shows, in ways both hilarious and heartbreaking, how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called "patient capital" can help make people self-sufficient and can change millions of lives. More than just an autobiography or a how-to guide to addressing poverty, The Blue Sweater is a call to action that challenges us to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink our engagement with the world.

These are but two examples! The list is much longer. But preparing yourself to have your eyes on the system, rather than just the product, will go a long way in producing results that have a measurable impact. In reflecting on this and seeking to move forward, I'm grateful to have been approached about a project in Rwanda (still in very early discussions about this). If it actually comes together, it would enable my new learning to be applied to pursue valuable outcomes related to maternal health. The first order of business will be to pursue an understanding of the whole system before applying any finalized solutions.

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Recently, David Stairs posted a commentary about the colonization of sustainability. His post presented a great conduit for me to chat about #6: Solving anything complex requires perseverance in everything in my list of learnings from 2009. While the topic of sustainability is not the only idea that I'd fit into this learning, it offers a great lens to frame this point.

In my own process of understanding the S word and all it entails (that until recently would have shown up as a spelling mistake in Word), I continue to find myself both overwhelmed and frustrated. When I first began to explore it seriously three years ago, the word on the street for communication design was, "Change your paper, change your inks and you're good to go."


Advertising used Papyrus, the color palette was beige and the only word you needed was green. Clearly, we've come a long way since then. Or have we?

Stairs' blog post is valuable as it chronicles where we sit. But without alternatives as to how we might not colonize something yet again (which we've apparently not learned from history), we're doomed to repeat our (in)actions. I don't mean to suggest that he necessarily be held accountable to provide the definitive answers for them. We're all responsible. But to expect that every designer has all of this ideology under his or her belt and can then act on it is naive. I've read almost all the authors listed in the post yet I still find myself grappling with the complexities of this sustainable dialogue. Up to now, I've been told that I can earn a living at this thing called design and now you're telling me that all I've done before needs to change? Many designers are still asking, "How exactly do I do that?" With all the content we're wading through, we might find ourselves a bit insecure about confidently proposing or delivering the best alternatives.

The corporate entities listed seem to have more money to ask these questions and act on them while grassroots organizations likely have something to contribute but find themselves reduced to minor projects they can realistically champion. Educators may hold to different perspectives, leaving students to grapple with the best way while the rest of us might be getting our education via 140 characters:

"Designers are bound to muddy the distinction between the scientific meme and the cultural one. Since design is increasingly a hybrid of the creative arts and the social sciences, designers are destined to have it both ways, often with confusion and conflict (not to mention “conflict of interest”) ensuing."

Clearly, a collective voice is emerging. Some of it will be concerning (as Stairs rightly points out) and some of it will continue to remind us how little we really know. And I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing (unless we keep creating from this place!). Not knowing is the first step to understanding. And we're seemingly in a long process of understanding what it means to be in this world with all its diversity. But if we're going to pose concerns, are we not also responsible to suggest options to reduce the risks we witness. This isn't necessarily a comfortable place or a quick fix but one I think we have to figure out. Or at least, I have to figure out. Not so we can title it "sustainable" but so we can continue to make wise choices with what's been offered to us. To get us all on the same page might take a bit of time and patience.

These posts are aimed at being reflective and proactive so I guess I'm wondering if David has ideas of how he might change what he sees so we can avoid falling prey to what he has pointed out? Stating reality only brings us to a certain point. Providing ideas for how we might move forward is a valuable next step. If this is where we sit, what do we do now? Anyone else have ideas to reduce our interloping ways? Sketches and visuals welcomed.

(image via Keri Smith)
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Harrison Ford might have something to say about Design Education

I know I said I'd start writing about my 12 notable learning moments this year but I couldn't resist posting about my experience of watching The Mosquito Coast today. In case you haven't already seen it, it's the story of a family that leaves America to move to an island called Geronimo in order to start a new life far from the trappings of the "first world." The 1986 film is based on Paul Theroux's novel of the same title and stars Harrison Ford. His character, Allie Fox, is a Harvard drop out - now inventor - with nine patents, six of them pending. His disgust for the commercialization of America (and ongoing commentary) could find itself well placed in our current discussions about the the what, why and hows of making.

We eat when we're not hungry, drink when we're not thirsty. We buy what we don't need and throw away everything that's useful. Why sell a man what he wants? Sell him what he doesn't need. Pretend he's got eight legs and two stomachs and money to burn. It's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.  

In the early scenes of the film, Allie brings a small scale model of an innovative air conditioning system to a local asparagus farmer who only sees the mock up as tomfoolery and a waste of his money. This puts Allie over the edge and in no time, he's moving his family to Geronimo. Upon arrival, they work diligently to create a life for themselves and the "natives." Allie's optimism and inventions seems to sustain him; eventually claiming the title of Father. Life seems perfect on Geronimo until rogues arrive with guns and a desire to dominate the community. This leads to the destruction of the village when his full scale air conditioning/ice machine blows up from all the chemicals needed to make the thing work (that has obliterated the village and surrounding waterways). Because of this, Allie moves his family to another location and is seemingly invigorated by the conquest of another land.

Everything we need is here. Right here. We can live simply: gardening, beach combing. I'm a changed man, mother. No more chemicals or poisons. If what you want isn't washed up on this beach, you probably don't need it. 

While Avatar has a lot to say about nature and our relationship with the world, I would suggest that The Mosquito Coast could be postured as a tool to teach about design today. Design for development, sustainable design practice, design ethics and human-centered design are but a few topics this film (and book) could address. 

It's an absolute sin to accept the decadence of obsolescence. Why do things get worse and worse? They don't have to. They could get better and better. We accept that things fall apart. 

Design and development: Allie's ideas about reforming Geronimo offers a great case study of how one should be aware of the impact of design in another context and culture. Huge topic but valuable for the growing number of designers who wish to design cross-culturally.
Sustainable design: We'll give Allie points for using the resources he has (even though we're not sure how he got those chemicals to Geronimo). But we might also recommend that making an ice machine might not have been the best option?
Human-centered design: Allie initially acts in a very participatory manner so you're led to believe he's all about collaboration. But his ideas of how-it-ought-to-be win out over any kind of co-design session to plan their future community.
Design Ethics: We might suggest this as a catch-all topic. How you make things, why you make things, what you make, where and when you make it are all relevant questions that get exposed in Allie Fox's character.

Nature’s crooked. I wanted right angles. Straight lines.

By using this film as a catalyst for discussions, a myriad of projects could surface to counter or re-imagine the process that Allie Fox goes through. We are all searching for the value in design and want to be people who contribute appropriately. If the future of design requires a broader understanding of our world and its various systems, I think this film offers a creative means to discuss what it might look like to sustain something in the face of uncharted territory. We're thinking of calling it DESN 370: Design For Survival.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Søren Kierkegaard had it right. And his quote is perfect for the start of a new year. Whether it be the past month or the past ten years, January 1st offers us a chance to consider all that we have been or could be. Like starting a journal with a crisp new notebook, we seem to get a stab at starting over.

But before we go there, a sort of purging needs to occur so as to avoid dragging unnecessary characters or plot lines into the next chapter. We find ourselves noting accomplishments and failures, asking questions about the future and likely proposing ideas about how we vow to change our wayward ways. A few blogs have offered up their accounts (I'm sure there are more):
Decade in Design
Cracking Open A Time Capsule from 1999
The Decade's 14 Biggest Design Moments

In the spirit of this, I wanted to recount some significant moments from the past year. I suppose I do this because I have been working through my own vision of what my discipline and career choice will entail. I've found myself wrestling (in the best possible way) with what I understand about design and what role I see myself playing in its vastness. I obviously can't speak for everyone else but as I mark the last 12 months I realize that I find myself in the middle of something that is both exciting and complex.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I respond, "I'm a designer," which used to mean I was a graphic designer. Translation? You make logos and websites. After this year, I now see design as a discipline that has moved beyond concept and production outcomes alone (which was how I was essentially taught). Happily, I find myself working alongside industrial designers, occupational therapists, health care professionals, educators and many others who want to make a difference by using our skill sets to shift the way things have traditionally be done. I find myself relieved to be connected to others who are seemingly content with what feels like a broader definition of design.

Below is a list of my chapter headers for this recap (or so I think so today). I'm going to spend the next week or so writing more on each topic so as to handle them in manageable chunks. I come to these ideas after spending my holiday break watching Long Way Round and Long Way Down (A BBC series where Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman travel the world on motorcycles). If you read my blog or know me personally, you are aware of my ongoing interest in how design can be used to impact communities with limited access to the resources we are privileged to have. I'm also keen to access their ideas so as to improve my own practice and process. The journey taken by Boorman and McGregor offers a window into the inherent complexities that surface in our attempts to make this world a little more livable. As I watched them journey, I began to reflect on these ideas:

1. Innovation is a tricky business.
2. Just because it's old, doesn't mean it's broken.
3. Just because we speak the same language, doesn't mean we understand each other.
4. Don't underestimate the ingenuity of others.
5. Poverty can't be solved by a campaign. Or a website.
6. Solving anything complex requires perseverance in everything.
7. Designers should be schooled in economics and politics. This affects everything.
8. When it gets hard, you might just need to wait.
9. Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone.
10. Honesty is such a lonely word.
11. The mobile phone is the new computer.
12. To whom much is given, much will be required.

So as I live the beginnings of this new year, I will attempt to understand it better by looking back. Stay tuned for more!

It's been awhile since I Wordled

We are looking forward to this.
Hosted by Debbie Millman.

Dinner with a side of design

This is design research at its finest. Or pretty darn close. Polar Design, a firm in Barcelona, worked on this Eurocities project back in 2002 but I think this concept could be an amazing way to link design practice and process to industries or communities who may not yet know of its value in navigating the complexities we are faced with in our world.

Imagine inviting some of your city officials to an amazing dinner. The table cloth, instead of being a mere accessory to beautify the event, becomes a place to actively dialogue with those around you. While you eat, you are visualizing the conversations presented to you on the table cloth.

Could this be a new alternative to local democratic exchange? If Obama can have a state dinner, could the local community do the same and address issues over a meal? We may not have a presidential budget but each community will have vendors who would likely benefit from the opportunity to be included in such an undertaking.

Lucy Orta has pursued this idea as an artist with her 70x7 Meal Acts. What if this was the new way that policies were introduced and discussed? And what if, instead of having a town hall meeting to address new by-laws, you invited a few members of the community to also join in at this table? Maybe it becomes the way that new ideas get introduced in order to test their validity and acceptance?

The designed table cloth offers a creative conduit to exchange activity, food and conversation around any topic. This activity could allow for new ideas to emerge when considering how to collectively work toward a common future. By treating complexity with a measure of comradery, perhaps we can see each other and the problems differently.

Editor's note: Since posting this idea to Twitter and sharing it with a couple Design Week 2010 friends, it seems we have some interest in making this a reality!

Update: Three dinners occurred during Design Week Vancouver. We have since had requests to host this event in various locations. We're very encouraged by the positive feedback we received and enjoyed putting on an event that included good food, good people and good conversation. Watch for updates!

Just playing along with my own ABCs. What's your alphabetic site list?

A ace hotel
B blogger
C core77
D design 21
E ecuad.ca
F flickr
G good
H hello health
I ideo
J join red
K kcrw
L linked in
M mocoloco
N nokia india
O objectified
P pa press
Q quaker oats
R raise the cloud
S something's hiding in here
T tablet hotels
U urban outfitters
V vitamin daily
W wendy macnaughton
X xanga
Y yahoo
Z zack arias

How the internet sees me?

Personas from MIT's Social Media Group. Apparently, I got someone else's illegal behavior included in my algorithmic process. Click on each image for a closer look. The top reflects my name being processed and the bottom reveals the outcome.

Diffusion Shareables (eBooks & StoryCubes) caught my attention today. They are playful digital/paper hybrids. They combine the tactile pleasures of tangible objects with the simplicity and reach of sharing digital media. Diffusion inspires and enables public authoring and cultures of listening – creating and sharing knowledge, stories, ideas and experiences. 

Great design tool (lo-tech and easy to create) and can act:

• as a brainstorming tool to help people share ideas in workshops, conferences and creative labs
• as an evaluation tool to build up multi layered and multi faceted responses to an event (conference, workshop, performance etc.)
• as mnemonic devices helping participants recall activities and outcomes of workshops and mentoring sessions
• in school projects to help students collaborate on group work, enhance negotiation and debating skills and develop tactile and spatial construction skills
• in community projects for intergenerational work – helping people see each others’ perspectives on shared issues
• with young children: make your own alphabet and number cubes or create StoryCubes with photos of friends and family to assist recognition and memory skills
• for storytelling games – where each participant adds elements to their cube and take turns in telling a story with them
• for storyboarding: to help organise storylines for writing, animations or films
• for urban gaming: use StoryCubes as props in urban game scenarios

Rumour has it that Story Cubes are currently awaiting their digitized realization (in the form of approval from the App Store).

Manifest This.

In light of a few of my posts this week – where I questioned if people really understand sustainable consumption, asked if visualization could offer a more valuable evaluation of literacy and imagined what design education would look like in the future – I found this information interesting and even, hopeful. While there have been many manifestos over the years, there is something significant when a mission statement gets presented a) outside of your own discipline and b) on a global scale. For some reason, perhaps naïve, it makes me believe it might have some stick. Here is an excerpt originally posted on Brian Collins' site, (which has now seemingly disappeared and I'm not sure why?):

The Global Agenda Council on Design is committed to applying design thinking to analyzing systemic problems, and to inventing and delivering creative solutions. We have identified six design principles, which should help us – and our fellow Global Agenda Councils – to develop new ideas and strategies to address the problems facing us all.

• Clarity: Complex problems require simple, clear and honest solutions.
• Inspiration: Successful solutions will move people by satisfying their needs, giving meaning to their lives, and raising their hopes and expectations.
• Transformation: Exceptional problems demand exceptional solutions that may be radical and even disruptive.
• Participation: Effective solutions will be collaborative, inclusive and developed with the people who will use them.
• Context: No solution should be developed or delivered in isolation but should recognize its context in terms of time, place and culture.
• Sustainability: Every solution needs to be robust, responsible and designed with regard to its long-term impact on the environment and society.
Based on our discussions with fellow councils we have developed three proposals for projects intended to fulfill the World Economic Forum’s mission of improving the state of the world:

Universal symbols to encourage sustainable consumption – Many consumers wish to behave more responsibly but are unsure as to how to do so. We propose to develop an internationally-recognized set of symbols – one to indicate the water footprint of a product and its packaging; the other to indicate their combined carbon footprint. This simple system will also encourage more consumers to follow suit in future and companies to behave more responsibly.
Design thinking within education – As design thinking is an invaluable tool to help us to think and act creatively, we propose to introduce it as a core subject on the K-12 curriculum all over the world. By providing students with a methodology for understanding global challenges and giving them the means with which to conceive and develop solutions, this would be a simple but effective way of nurturing a new generation of instinctive lateral thinkers and problem solvers.
Lifecycle-adjusted value system – This looks at the cost of existence including utilization and decomissioning costs. By visualizing and revealing these costs to society, this offers a new way of measuring value. It strives to convert a debt-focused society into an asset-focused society by changing the valuation system. It is a paradigm shift so that one generation creates assets for the next generation instead of debts.

Action plan, anyone?
Having attended a few conferences while in Rwanda, which looked at ways to respond to all sorts of development: urban infrastructure, environmental management and science/technology (to name a few), I was introduced to a popular question: What is your action plan? (which always sounded so lovely when said with force by my colleagues there: "Ack-shun Plahn").

In light of this mission statement, I am curious to see how the design community can and will act on this ideas. I know there has been much in the works to get to this stage. But how will we individually and collectively respond to this blueprint? What forms will it take? Grassroots? Corporate? Others?

I love to be inspired by grand ideas. I'm fairly sure I procure such notions on a daily basis – Just ask my friends! I am realizing more and more that what keeps me inspired is not the declaration of the hopeful future; rather it is the witness of tangible actions, which often seem to be inconsequential or perhaps even, dare I say, failures, that allow me to live into the declarations. In saying this, I suppose I'm suggesting that while I look forward to a collective action plan from the design community, I am also required to filter this into my own paradigm and act on it accordingly.

Visually Literate

While my current research focus is on design for health care, I can't shake the thoughts I'm having  about technology and literacy (which I suppose aren't completely unrelated). When I first started my design training, I was given an assignment to create a newspaper ad that would present a concept of the how the rate of HIV/AIDS in Africa would lead to increased deaths, which would have a direct affect on the next generation's acquisition of knowledge. I take note of this piece simply because the quote suggests that these statistics will arrive by 2010. That's coming up soon, right?



I also recall my participation in a science and technology conference in Rwanda (and how the research activities of the participants could impact the economy of the country). What was notable to me during this experience was how many of the researchers did not have a backed up copy of their work that could shared (because it had been typed once on a typewriter). In this case, how does their knowledge get passed on and/or developed further? If there are hidden innovations, how can we learn about them?

---

This article caught my attention this week because it speaks to how we value literacy in this media age. How this gets measured is a whole other conversation but I'm left wondering how media literacy applies to those who might still be waiting for the media to show up? I continue to hear about technological advances in the urban space but am getting more excited to see how this gets translated to those who dwell in a rural context. There are innovations waiting to abound but how do they get realized, shared or built upon?

---

What would it look like if we allowed people to create a visual business plan instead of a textual one? What if presenting an evaluation to a potential funder meant creating a video? Or a book of sketches? What if a farmer, looking for remedies to a low crop yield, received all his information visually?  On a mobile device?

If text hinders someone from moving forward economically or otherwise, are we limiting the innovators who have ideas but can't write them down?

These are lofty questions at this point. I'm not completely sure what to do with them, except get them on a page and consider how their adolescent qualities might mature. If you have thoughts or ideas to contribute to my ramblings, I'd love to hear them. Or better yet, see them.
Image source

Perfect. Desktop wallpaper from Veer. Click on image to see it larger.

Last year I wrote a wee book that posed the idea that Barbie should become the poster child for the "green movement." While I think we're well beyond some of our naive ideas about the word "green," I was reminded that many continue to be overwhelmed by the shift in conversation — and are left wondering how to uncover the truth in this message of a more sustainable future. Here's an excerpt:

And so, this is why I have been toying with (pun intended) how Barbie (a fake plastic pop icon) might speak to the issue of changing to a greener life. If the switch to green continues to be about how we respond to the external qualities of our life (and not the deeper roots of our existence), maybe Barbie could justify our wayward ways. In her 50-year history, Barbie has represented many things. She is both traditional and controversial. She has responded to various cultural realities by turning herself into an animal-loving anthropocentric or a calculator-carrying corporate maven. Last year, a Muslim Barbie was developed to allow for a new era of doll based on the values and traditions of the Muslim culture. If this culture wanted a doll to reflect its values with alternative external apparel, could Barbie speak to the ideologies of green similarly? Are we suggesting that what you add to the outside reflects what is really going on inside?

Do you agree? Do you think people continue to be overwhelmed or have we navigated a reasonable path at this point?

If you want to read more, here's where to get your hands on it: I Am Not A Plastic Bag

Drawing: A Fundamental Instrument to Understand Reality

After using drawing as part of my design process in Rwanda, I have taken a great interest in its role as a means for communication in low-literacy communities (and how this might affect the way mobile systems are designed and implemented). Beyond that, I am also keen on how it can help us access other cognitive levels in the complexities of daily experience.

This short video (via BoingBoing) about Milton Glaser highlights how drawing can play a role in looking at things more carefully and encourage a consciousness about what we see. He also suggests that it need not be "accurate" in order to have benefit. To me, this becomes extremely interesting when we are seeking to understand complex issues in our world.



If "drawing is thinking" then we have a broader capacity for understanding these complexities as we move beyond a typical read of them. Statistics and texts offer one dimension of this information. And while this is valid, it is often postured as the most reliable way of understanding complexity (especially when said complexity incorporates unknown cross-cultural or demographic details). Visualizing this information seems to allow for a broader read and allows for new possibilities to interpret what we see. When we are dealing with complex issues, like those I witnessed in Rwanda, I believe that we need other ways of seeing if we are to find ways of addressing new solutions.

Could drawing help us show this information in a more accessible way? Could this activity make something like the MDGs more understandable to those who are being evaluated by their success or failure? I don't presume to have all the answers but I can see that there is room to expand:

The impact of communication can be jeopardized by not having accurate information about the needs of the counterparts and by the reliability of available tools. Experience in monitoring and evaluating the impact of communication initiatives is comparatively weak, leading to the re-use of formats and campaigns regardless of their effectiveness in improving conditions of marginalized groups. Paola Pagliani, The MDGs as a Communication Tool for Development

Map source

Tweet Translations: The Number 25

After my talk at Practivism II last night, a few people tweeted this quote so I wanted to clarify its source and some of my thoughts around it for those who weren't able to attend.

If you haven't had good conversations, with your eyes open, with at least twenty-five poor people before you start designing, don't bother.

This quote comes from Paul Polak's book, Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail. It contains an amazing amount of information for a designer who has interest in designing with rural communities. In one section, Polak suggests there are some basic principles when designing for the “other 90%.” The former quote represents one of them.


The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%. (Polak)

His recommended design principles put the poor customer at the centre of the design process in order to develop the most sustainable offerings. To know your customer, you need to talk to your customer. I'm not sure why he suggests that it should be twenty-five people. I don't know that it's a magical number but I'll assume that talking to more people will help overcome the large assumptions that can surface after only talking to one or two. It may take more time but this is a much better option; otherwise, we have the potential to waste a lot of money and time on a product or service that won't actually be useful or successful.

At my talk last night, I suggested that if we are to design appropriately at this time in history, it shouldn't matter what demographic we are working with - talking with and including people in the process will be a key to the quality of deliverables we produce. My work in Rwanda forced me to consider how to have these good conversations when language was not shared. I highlighted how this diversity of language and culture we exist in requires us to think creatively about the best ways to design and deliver appropriate solutions in this very global world.

If you're interested in more, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum has presented a wonderful exhibit on what this type of design could look like.

Stanford Social Innovation Review recently published an article by Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt of IDEO. The whole article highlights the many ways that design thinking and process are being applied to complex global problems. You can download it for free here.

This quote is from the article and describes my adaptation of the HCD toolkit:

Earlier this year, Kara Pecknold, a student at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, took an internship with a women’s cooperative in Rwanda. Her task was to develop a Web site to connect rural Rwandan weavers with the world. Pecknold soon discovered that the weavers had little or no access to computers and the Internet. Rather than ask them to maintain a Web site, she reframed the brief, broadening it to ask what services could be provided to the community to help them improve their livelihoods. Pecknold used various design thinking techniques, drawing partly from her training and partly from Ideo’s Human Centered Design toolkit, to understand the women’s aspirations.

Because Pecknold didn’t speak the women’s language, she asked them to document their lives and aspirations with a camera and draw pictures that expressed what success looked like in their community. Through these activities, the women were able to see for themselves what was important and valuable, rather than having an outsider make those assumptions for them. During the project, Pecknold also provided each participant with the equivalent of a day’s wages (500 francs, or roughly $1) to see what each person did with the money. Doing this gave her further insight into the people’s lives and aspirations. Meanwhile, the women found that a mere 500 francs a day could be a significant, lifechanging sum. This visualization process helped both Pecknold and the women prioritize their planning for the community.

I talked to a radio reporter today. She'd learned that I was going to be speaking at Practivism II. In the course of our conversation the words, "human-centered design" came up and she didn't understand what it meant so I attempted to explain it to her from my perspective. In light of this chat, I'm curious to know how others might define it (especially to someone outside of design)?

I came across this image in Wendy Macnaughton's work and it acts as a great visual reminder that while there are things we can't know, don't know, possibly fear or suspect, we have the chance to imagine what could be. So perhaps I'd draw a circle around it all and suggest that this is "the place where designers live everyday."

View image larger

I suppose my thoughts have been heightened by reading a few books and watching a few TED talks that are focused on the role of design and how it is shifting/has shifted. Last month, I devoured Tim Brown's book on a flight to New York and I'm about to ingest some Glimmer.

Another manifesto has surfaced and of late, I'm particularly drawn to #3, #7, #9 and #10 because they remind me I'm not crazy:

1. A designer does not have the luxury of cynicism.

2. It is easier to react than to create.

3. You must keep moving away from what you know.

4. A designer’s gotta have the guts to be truthful at all times.

5. People don’t fund problems, they fund solutions.

6. Many believe the world just is. Designers believe we can make the world be.

7. It can be helpful to think about an idea from a point of view that makes no sense.

8. Through the act of making things, we discover ideas.

9. When you’re totally unqualified for a job, that’s when you do your best work.

10. The goal is to be an expert coming out, not going in.

11. To bring about real change, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.

12. When the world isn’t working well, you have the makings of a great design project.

Processing these statements leads me to consider the idea of how this shift will be addressed in education. Equipping the next generation of designers is a concept that gets me really excited! I would love to see what could happen when a group of design students worked collaboratively with students from other disciplines on current wicked problems. I know some schools are already moving in this direction (and I look forward to hearing some ideas from Nathan Shedroff's talk at Practivism II) but I can see how there is room for more. I hope to explore some of the possibilities in a course I'm preparing to teach in the spring.

In the meantime, I'm trying to live in the space between what I may not yet understand and that which I can imagine. Here (or after September 14, 2009, according to Wendy Macnaugton), life gets interesting. View image larger

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
--Goethe

To arrive at the point that you don't know, you must take the road that you don't know.
--St John of the Cross

Think of the poorest person you have ever seen and ask if your next act will be of any use to him.
--Ghandi

In searching out the truth, be ready for the unexpected, for it is difficult to find and puzzling when you find it.
--Heraclitus

Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
--Robert F. Kennedy

Our inventions are likely to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
--Henry David Thoreau

I just returned from a ten day trip to New York and San Francisco. One of the highlights was being able to visit the Cooper Hewitt and see the Design USA: Contemporary Innovation and Design for a Living World exhibitions.

During this experience, while visiting Jonathan Ives' work for Apple, I overheard these two women bantering about the problems they were having with their interactive tool: the iTouch program designed by 2x4 that would help them to interact with the exhibit.


In her thick New York accent, Marge calls out,"Blanche! It's not working! It's broken."

Notably, their frustrations were not quiet musings in the corner. With headphones on, they were talking quite loudly in the midst of a large group of museum-goers. One women, who was just as unfamiliar with the iTouch, attempted to assist. I walked over, seeing the irritation on other people's faces, and attempted to offer my two bits. I tried to demonstrate how the interface worked (at one point, the screen was completely black) and eventually saw them move along with some measure of ease.

There are multiple layers to this experience: from human to environmental to technological. Did it matter that these women were seemingly disruptive? Should the museum be quiet? Or is interactivity meant to be a bit disruptive? How else could interactivity create conversations with people? Was this disruption actually a way to connect the human quality of the museum experience? Did the technology that was intended to assist create a profitable distraction? Could it be more communal and less individual?

As you can imagine, the list of questions could go on.

I don't know these women so I didn't want to intrude on their museum experience anymore than I already had. But I would be curious talk with the "Marge's and Blanche's" to uncover their ideas about an "interactive museum experience" to see what might have surfaced. Maybe they would have suggested improvements to the current and familiar system or maybe their ideas could push it in a new direction that wasn't expected?

Ironically, after this trip to New York, I headed over to California to participate in the ACM Creativity and Cognition conference. The Berkeley Art Museum hosted a diverse group of individuals who were focused on creativity research. The final keynote was Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, who is best known for his work on creativity and flow. During the 3 days of conferencing, I also heard from a group at Queen Mary University of London who are looking into democratizing technology for marginalized communities. Specifically, they have worked with elderly individuals who often find themselves outside of the "third wave." The presentation revealed their research and demonstrated the power in accessing the voices of those who are least connected with technology. It would seem someone is talking to the Marge's and Blanche's of this world - and inviting them to participate in the process.

What does design thinking look like?

I just got back from the IDSA conference in Miami. I've never been to one before so I can only compare it to other conferences I've attended. And on many levels, it follows a similar model of other organizations: workshops, keynotes and vendors all hosted at a fancy hotel or venue.

I tracked the Twitter feeds to find out what others were thinking about this event in real time. Since I'm not a member of the IDSA, I knew no one upon arrival. As I was going to present during a breakout session on the last day, I wanted to see if anyone had 140 characters that could help me understand this diverse group of people. Notably, there weren't many tweeters compared to some other events I've tracked but I was able to gain some perspective. Regardless, what continued to emerge throughout the event was the hope that design could change the world in ways it hadn't before.

Various other voices have weighed in on the experience. I would suggest that these thoughts are completely valid but tend to suggest the notion that the IDSA might not be able offer what these times demand. I'm not here to reject their ideas or the IDSA but I will say that one notable moment occurred during the conference that seemed to represent "design thinking" at its finest.


(image from Tim Brown's new book Change By Design)

A group of students led an impromptu session to ask the question, "What would your ideal conference experience be?" I told a fellow attendee, "That is where the ideas will come from at this conference. You want to find out the pulse for the future? Go there." Don't get me wrong. Everyone contributed many layers of value. I attended great sessions with amazing content and conversation. I was grateful to have people participate in my session for that matter (especially at 9am on Saturday morning!).

But for me, the student "charrette" and their final presentation offered an envisioned future that I believe we are meant to investigate as "design thinkers." And in my opinion, our thinking is best reflected when accompanied by some sort of design doing (if it is to make an impact). The student's approach acted as a microcosm of the topics covered during this event. We talk a lot about this notion but their actions represent what we are meant to be striving for in this process: they sought to engage a group, be user-centered, collect data and then present scenarios to the audience. And they did it all in a rapid prototyping fashion. With a healthy dose of humor. Brilliant.

I'm sure I could offer many event improvement suggestions. As designers, I think it's in our blood to figure out better ways to do everything. But I want to affirm that the students led the way through their innovative approach to evaluating the future of this type of conference. And to me, that is what design thinking looks like in real time. It becomes a testament to how our discipline can model ideas in the midst of our own learning. And gives us a chance to practice before we begin to approach these "wicked problems" filled with complexity.

Edit: It has been brought to my attention that P&G actually initiated this impromptu session. So credit to them for creating a means to dialogue about improving this event. See comments for more details.

Human-Centered Evaluation

Some folks led a session at SoCap09 that I wish I could have been sitting in on. Twitter allows you to catch a glimpse of the topics but I would have loved to hear the dialogue beyond the 140 characters.

Two people I follow on Twitter were on this panel: Aaron Sklar & Tatyana Mamut (both work at Ideo and are connected to designing for social impact).

Here's the description:
Social investors and social entrepreneurs have been struggling for years to align on the right tools for measuring new-to-the world offerings. These offerings often take years to show results and many initiatives run the risk of stalling or failing due to lack of demonstrated progress. In addition, the evaluation of new solutions is often uncharted territory in terms of how to measure and what to measure. In this session aimed at funders and social entrepreneurs, Ideo, Jd Power and associates and Keystone will share their frameworks and experiences for creating a strategic measurement portfolio based on human centered measurement and evaluation methodologies. In the workshop portion of the session, participants will break into teams and create a human centered evaluation strategy to meet their current measurement challenges. Participants are invited to come with an evaluation challenge of a new-to-the-world initiative that they would like to work on in the workshop. The session is part of a collaboration between Ideo and Good magazine to advance dialogue about evaluation in the social sector.

Twitter began feeding these 5 principles for making change happen:
1. Put people at the center of evaluation
2. Take a systemic view
3. Navigate uncertainty
4. Zoom out to a portfolio view
5. Measure what you care about

Having pursued a focus on human-centered design in my graduate studies, I can relate to the struggle to adequately evaluate. There are so many factors that play into this! Notably, this becomes difficult when you are seeking to access evaluations from those who don't share the same language but who could benefit from your offering. Professor Ranjan at NID has a great diagram that reinforces how to keep people at the center of the evaluation by constantly revisiting the community at all stages of design. His diagram infers being present to these individuals: "You have to get your hands dirty on the ground to be able to really understand your customers' needs." (Lucky Gunasekara)

What Ranjan's diagram can't address is how you should interpret the feedback you receive in order to establish some sort of metric. It likely presumes that a conversation has occurred that will allow you to move onto next stages of evaluation. To me, this presents another reason why meaning and metrics are worth investigating. I continue to return to Jacqueline Novogratz's words in The Blue Sweater where she assesses how social programs have often created a culture of charity that don't empower people to say what they really mean. How can we access what people really think when money (or lack thereof) might affect their decision? Check the Twitter feeds under #socap09.ideo for much more on this. The diversity of discussion is worth perusing.

I'm definitely not a pro in the area of social innovation and/or its measurement. I am keen to grow in it because of the witnessed frustrations of ineffective offerings. I don't want to suggest simplistic ideas on such a far-reaching topic either; my limited experience continues to remind me that the number one principle suggested in this session is the one which will define the remainder on the list. Organizations like the ones included on this panel are asking good questions in order to link us to the broader topics of democracy, transparency and governance (for the sake of those who aren't physically present to lend their voices to their own social innovation but who are the beneficiaries of these discussions on some level).

But that's another blog entry altogether.

For more on this discussion, check out the Innovation in Evaluation forum.