The after party #digiconx

Here they are just a few notes and reflections from the conference Digital 2011 (Glasgow), organised by Interactive Scotland, Amb:IT:ion and SC/ET.

I have lately been to a few conferences, seminars and workshops. But the quality of speakers and the excellent organisation of Digital11 far exceeded my expectations. Superb.

However I feel obligated to mention how challenging it was to find sockets. The SECC (Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) is a great space lacking sockets.

Please, architects of the future:                                                                                                           If [Conference = tweeting] then [(conference > 4h) = please sockets]

Jokes apart, the reasons for holding the conference (as well as for many of us to have a job) are fairly clear, and were recurrent topics throughout the whole conference:

• Freemium content challenging quality and/or profitability
• Tangibility losing adepts VS the attractive of instant & mobile access to content
• Fragmentation of audiences and niche markets
• The difficulty of building and sustaining high engagement communities
• Lack of skills to become multi-media and multi-platform
• Integrating digital thinking into traditional systems

As they are great challenges they also present great opportunities. Scotland (and UK) has a great potential for taking the lead in many aspects. But in my opinion we will need to join efforts if we really want to be competitive.

Back to the conference, I was especially charmed by the first session of seminars and the panel debate, both of them as inspiring as challenging.

THE MORNING SESSION

Douglas McCabe (Enders Analysis) made a great overview of the situation of the UK’s industry. Apparently the consumption of media content is increasing (but music). What are drastically changing are the consumption patterns.

Regarding music I have to say that Scotland might not be the strongest producer/buyer, but it has an amazing love for (live) music and it is plenty of good creators/listeners (1). (Maybe not everything has to be tangible or digital).

Another interesting fact is that niche markets and mass markets are growing! Apparently the biggest challenge is for those who are “middle ground”.

Both great content and great speaker, Nicholas Lovell (GamesBrief) went directly to our minds and smiles. Three highlights:

• This is the best time for content creators, internet makes distribution easy: Publishing is (or should) be about content, but till now most of the “value” was added throughout the distribution chain. Summary of creator’s revenue: 10% (in books), 15% (in newspapers) to a 25% (in games).
• Internet makes distribution easy… but: But all those roles played by the different elements of the chain (such as marketing, distribution or finances), now fall onto the creator who needs to skill up in order to skip intermediaries.
• Making free content profitable: A good technique might be to get it out there for free to get it known, create a community and identify high payers. Bring people in, so the high payers can show off. Make it easy to get it (free/cheap), but also make it possible to pay much more.

Finally Tim Collins came with a great example under his arm. Pure strategy: How to diversify your business, become multi-media and multi-platform. Very quick overview

• In order to promote their comics for future generations they started an animation series for TV. So the youngest could recognise them and engage with them. Instead of spend money on advertisement; they are dragging awareness by investing in a different media! Love it.

A very interesting question that came up during the first session was “How do you integrate digital thinking into a traditional thinking company?” Wowhow

What I grabbed from a few talks is that the general mentality has to change from specific product to service as what really matters is the user’s whole experience.

DEBATE, DEBATE, DEBATE… Brilliant panel and better discussion

It was very interesting to see the different approaches they had as they came from very different backgrounds and sectors, and equally stimulating to see how many of the opportunities and challenges are shared. An important part of the discussion focused on the topic: Money. How to make it?

Andrew Chitty said that information (content) wants to be both, free and expensive. The clue is to know what is “meant” to be free and what has enough value to be charged for.

Murray Buchanan defended that giving out some content helps you to distribute. We need to stop thinking of what we can’t charge for and start thinking of what we can charge for. The key is to create great content and try to create a community that can engage with it.

Stephen Whitelaw “corrected” a question by the public saying that what you get in your website is not “traffic”. Those are the customers you need to engage with.

LOWLIGHTS

Not everything is perfect. I have to say that I felt some of the speakers were “selling air”. Things that sound great but aren’t quite there yet.

I agree The Guardian website is brilliant. I use it every day. But still it is generating a third of the revenue they get from printed material (2). So not a business model to show as example.

Some other company used their 30 minutes to make a great advertisement. Unfortunately, when the public started asking how did you get there? Well… they weren’t quite there yet. We love learning from failures and challenges, don’t reduce the process to an advert.

Wow if you read till the end… I only can say thank you. I should stop writing… Other things to look at: Distrify, WeDidThis… and check the conference material!

I leave you with a question raised by Stephen Whitelaw:

If you have a digital product, does it worth nothing?

——Ref

(1) Scottish Enterprise, Mapping the music industry in Scotland, 2003 … bit old… but fair enough

(2) Alan Rusbridger (Editor, The Guradian), BBC Newsnight, 23/02/11 on i-player

The value of co-creation

Co-creation means collaborative practise during the creation process. It is opposite from what is called top-down design, where the input from the users or other disciplines is very limited.

Involving the future users and stakeholders from the very beginning of the thinking process has many advantages.

Saving resources

If the design process is carried out without that external input and the concept is not put to the users test until it has been prototyped, it runs the risk of getting it wrong. The users’ expectations might not match the design features. In that case, the product or service will have to be re-designed with the new specifications.

However, if that external input is considered since the first stages of the process, the time between conceptualisation and user-evaluation will be minimised. So it will be faster to reach the desired outcome.

As well, prototyping ideas at earlier stages will have the same effect, as meaningful feedback can be obtained in advance and the design process is shortened.

Insightful input

Users and stakeholders are a great source of tacit knowledge.  Using the right tools that tacit knowledge will become explicit and turn into project specifications. If they are not consulted nor observed, all that information will be left out and the quality of the outcome will decrease.

User engagement and ownership

Users are more likely to engage with a company/organization that actually listens to them. Trust is a key factor to achieve user loyalty. Getting the users involved in the design process promotes that feeling of ownership.

Sustainable outcomes

The longevity of a project is deeply related to the user engagement. But to generate a real bound it is necessary to visualise the link between user-feedback and the company’s actions.

The ideal of co-creation is to generate a continuous conversation between users and providers, and extend that collaboration to the future.

 

Starting up a project

When a research project is starting, especially when there are several different organizations involved, it is absolutely necessary to establish certain issues from the beginning.

It is essential that all the involved are in the same page from the very first day. But how can we make sure we all agree?

Usually there is a long project plan where the main objectives and procedures are settled. However, that does not mean that everyone involved has read it in detail and understood completely what is written in such a document.

What I propose is to change the strategy and turn a boring document into a fun workshop. Design techniques provide us with the tools to open discussion in a harmless but effective way.

So the idea is to gather all the stakeholders involved in the project to establish a working framework. The topics to bring up:

• Global aims of the project
• Building trust:  Background, Needs and Aspirations, Fears and Concerns, Degree of involvement
• Criteria for decision making

Global aims of the project:

What: We will walk a long way together, but where to?

Why: To make sure that everyone involved understand the objectives and procedures to be used in the project.

How: From the initial document it is possible to come up with a list of main topics and aims to be looked at during the research. That list can be exposed from the beginning to have an open discussion over it, or the facilitator might prefer to start up over a blank sheet to see if it matches at all what the stakeholders think.

Key questions: Is there anything we missed out in the initial plan? Do we all agree?

Building trust:

Why: In order to value other’s input into the project it is necessary to fully understand what they do and why they are involved in the project.

Background:

What: Who are the rest of stakeholders and why are they valuable to the project.

Why: To show why they have been chosen to be part of the project.

How: Each stakeholder will write up a bit of its company’s background, its strengths and how its contribution will be valuable to the project. This information will be shared in the workshop by themselves or the facilitator.

KQ: field of work, strengths, valuable contribution.

Needs and aspirations:

What: Needs, aspirations, motivations and expectations of each of the stakeholders involved.

Why: To share why they are interested in being part of the project.

How: It can be done individually by the different stakeholders or in groups. In any case it will be presented and shared with everyone.

KQ: reasons to be involved (needs & motivations), how do you think it will benefit you/your company (expectations-aspirations)

Fears & Concerns

What: Sharing worries before they become a problem. Both aspects will be analysed: concerns regarding the outcomes and related to the internal running system of the project.

Why: to identify possible areas of distress.

How: Propose themes of both internal and external factors that might affect the project. Have an open discussion leaded by the facilitator.

KQ: what might fail? Concerns regarding the strategy, internal structure, external factors that might affect the outcome…

Degree of involvement

What: how the stakeholders will contribute

Why: to have a clear idea of the available resources, skills and information that everyone brings into the project.

How: each stakeholder identifies what they can offer and what they might need from others. Afterwards needs and offered contribution will be compared to see if there are requirements that the team does not fulfil yet. It is intended to achieve an agreement on individual and collective contributions.

Criteria for decision making

What: giving priority to the subjects brought up as objectives and fears

Why: to have an established criterion for later decision making

How: Ideas identified in the previous sections will be put to the vote in order to agree on the weight of each of the subjects.

Last step:

a short-visual document should be generated with the information gathered in the workshop and distributed among all the involved, becoming this a reference document for the development of the project.

Self-perception versus External-perception

I am sure you have a very clear idea of which are your personal qualities and faults as well as your professional strengths and weaknesses. If I asked you, you could quickly write up a list of both.

But are you sure that those who are around you think of you the same way?

There are several studies that reveal the discrepancy between self-perception (how we think we behave or what we think we are good at) and external-perception (how others perceive our actions).¹ If that discrepancy is significant it can generate considerable problems in team work.

That is why providing a feedback platform for the teams is so important.

Usual feedback platforms

Personality tests are used to build teams and find out this sort of things. However it is important to highlight that this sort of tests are based on personal preferences and perspective.

That is why in many companies it is used the technique “feedback 360º”. In this case every one in the team will also evaluate the rest of their colleagues. Obviously for this method to be useful it is necessary that the team members know each other and have been working together for a while.²

These tests are a good framework to provide that feedback, but being honest they are quite boring – especially if you are part of a big team – and the feedback is limited to a few questions which might not be relevant for a specific situation.

Well, open feedback dialogue is another option – always done through an intermediary who has not been involved in the team experience to avoid unnecessary tension and keep the positive tone of the dialogue.³ But its main problem is that criticism is seen as a bad thing. We are scared of getting feedback, just in case it does not match our assumptions. But “questioning should not be understood as a sign of mistrust or invasion of privacy, but as a valuable opportunity for learning”.⁴ It definitely is necessary to improve the understanding and the effectiveness of the team dynamics.

Joining Feedback and Design Techniques

So, as tests are boring and limited and open feedback is scary, we created a new way of doing it.

How we do it?

- Using a design workshop format, making it visual and fun.

- Using basic design tools as story-telling

- Creating visual tools with open questions

Around the same table, every body works individually on the tools we give them.

Feedback is written instead of spoken, so it is less threatening. People feel more comfortable to express their opinions as it is proposed as a sort of game.

Open questions enable the team members to provide and receive feedback on the topics they find important. Working this way information becomes much more insightful.

At the end the tools and stories are shared within the group. It is then a good opportunity to establish an open dialogue as with the “games” the feedback pressure is gone.

Why self-perception and external-perception don’t match

One of the most interesting findings I got from the research is the uniformity in the external-perception. Independently of the differences with the self-perception, everybody gives similar feedback about the rest of the team members. This confirms external-perception as a solid judgment of the team members’ personality and behaviour.  However, in some cases the self-perception can differ enormously from the firm team’s opinion. I find three main reasons for that fact:

1.     Self-perception is just wrong

2.     Self-perception is based on previous experience which was not shared with the rest of the members

3.     The personal reasoning is not coming across, so people cannot understand what causes that behaviour.

So, does your self-perception match the way others see you?

___________________________________

Ref:

1. Swann, B., 1987, Indentitly Negociation: Where Two Roads Meet, Personality and Dyadic Interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1987, 53(6), pp. 1038-1048

2. Belbin Spain, Roles de Equipo Belbin, [online] Available at: <http://www.belbin.com/rte.asp?id=263> [Accessed 24 July 2010]Souter, N., Breakthrough thinking, using creativity to solve problems. Lewis, UK: ILEX, 2007, pp. 136

3. Hicks, David., 2010. Discussion on team work, interdisciplinarity, collaboration and design. [interview] (Personal communication, 10 June 2010).

4. Argyris, C., 1991, Teaching Smart People how to learn. Harvard Business Review, May-June 1991, pp. 108

Interdisciplinary thinking: when does it happen?

The creation process has to pass through four main stages. These are: research, concept, evaluation and implementation. Obviously this process (especially the first three stages) is not linear but cyclical, going backwards and forwards as many times as necessary to reach the desired outcome.¹

Still, there are important differences between the different phases and also a different approach to interdisciplinarity.

In the last stage, the implementation, it does not make much sense to speak about interdisciplinarity. It is in this stage when the specific knowledge of the different disciplines is required to develop the different components of the outcome. Although still well organized they can work more independently.²

The evaluation stage has always been a multi-disciplinary task. Before the project can be implemented, it is necessary to take in account all the possible limitations such us social and cultural factors, technical feasibility and economical viability.³

Therefore, interdisciplinary thinking is to be applied at the beginning of the process on the two first steps – research and concept – where innovation is born. It is in these two stages where new ideas are generated, and the different points of view acquire more value.⁴

This graphic is based on the hypothesis that the creation process is formed by four main stages: research, concept, evaluation and implementation. It represents three different models of its execution depending on its approach to interdisciplinarity.

In the first case both research and ideas come from the independent work of specific disciplines. This model can present problems at the evaluation stage trying to merge the conclusions reached by the various fields.

The second and third models are based on the collaboration during the problem solving. The second one would happen when experts from different fields are brought together to find solutions. Whereas the third one also the research would be done collectively.

——————————————-

Ref:

1. Alvarez, V., 2006. Proyectos, 12707 Ingeniería Industrial. Universidad de Oviedo, unpublished.

2.  Buchanan, D., Huczynski, A., Organizational behaviour , an introductory text. Milan: Prenice Hall Europe, 1997, pp. 1-14

Hollins, G & B. TOTAL DESIGN _ Managing the design process in the service sector. London: Pitman Publishing, 1991, pp. 137

3. TEDGlobal, 2009, Tim Brown urges designers to think big,  [video online] 2009, Available at <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_brown_urges_designers_to_think_big.html> [Accesed 14 June 2010]

4. “Research studies (Surowiecki, J., 2005) suggest that the product of group creation can often be better than that of an individual with specialist knowledge in a particular area. This is due, in part to the provision of new, unadulterated concepts from individuals within the group with little or no knowledge of the subject planting provocative statements, which spawn and encourage enhanced, creatve thought.”

Griffiths, R. Wilgeroth, P., Who’s degree is it anyway?” [from the book] Rodgers, P. Brodhurst, L. Hepburn, D., Crossing Design Boundaries. London: Taylor and Francis Group plc, 2005, pp. 231

The Second Phase of Co-creation: Co-implementation

A quick definition first:

Co-creation means just that: to co-create, to create with the people it is being created for. Its aim is to achieve outcomes which are sustainable and have longevity. Therefore, involving the future users/members of the public in the design process it is easier to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the designs, as well as to create something that suits the needs and wants of the users, which generates ownership and engagement.

 

Now, our case study:

We did social research using design tools. So it was creative, eye-catching and visual.

We did not make assumptions but gave voice to the community.

We were lucky and found some of the community champions.

We gained the trust of the community so they worked with us.

We co-designed a social enterprise working with members of the community and local stakeholders.

We got funding to make it real.

Now the community is taking over. You can see at the meetings (and it is really exciting) that the community members involved are not just involved – they own the project now.

Till that point: awesome. We got it!

But now implementation season has come. We have reached that point where we need to put things in place if we want the implementation to succeed. It is, out of any doubt, a great challenge.

As designers we have worked with them to create something of value. We now have to step out and let the community take the lead. But sometimes the meetings become a bit wild. Some of us are still involved. We have become part of the community. But we are there just as support.

So now my question is:

Reached this point, where should we stand? Should we step back in and act as facilitators? Or should we let the project evolve and take its natural course?

 

Interdisciplinarity: what is it?

First of all it is essential to define interdisciplinarity as the collaboration between disciplines (different areas of expertise) during the creation process in order to generate and develop new ideas and solutions.

The key word is collaboration, but its meaning (working jointly and cooperatively) is misunderstood sometimes. For instance, in a big project as a computer, different components have to be worked out (interfaces, the technology behind and the product itself). To develop the final product it will be necessary to have working “together” graphic and interface designers, engineers and product designers, computer scientists…  But actually, once the concept and its specifications have been defined, they do not work together but well coordinated.

But interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary thinking has to be bounded to team work and collaboration.

Our approach to knowledge and education has evolved a lot in time. During The Renaissance, known as an era of change and innovation, global and interdisciplinary knowledge was sought. The value was in gathering the basic knowledge to be critical in every field. They were not experts but had a great understanding of almost everything. Gathering knowledge of different disciplines was beneficial for the innovation process then and it is still now.

But now education and professionals have become much more specialized. We have reached a point where it is possible to become an expert of a specific field of a sub-discipline. Achieving that degree of detail we cannot expect to become experts of everything. Actually, becoming an expert of something is already an achievement.

But “when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. When we achieve a very deep knowledge in one subject, we tend to lose perspective. We cannot see external factors anymore. That limits innovation and narrows down the possibilities of finding good solutions.

So it is here when interdisciplinary thinking as collaboration comes into scene. We actually do not need to be experts of everything but to be able to collaborate with other disciplines. Unfortunately in many cases we are not ready to share our knowledge and accept others’ input.

Lately high education is also taking this path, preparing professionals to have a more open approach to problem solving and believe in collaboration. Hopefully in a near future this will become a common approach.

____________________________

Ref:

Fung, A. Lo, A. Rao, M., Creative Tools. Hong Kong: School of design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2006, pp. 6

Boelsifte, P. Jorgersen, U., Design & Innovation: Developing a curriculum for future design engineers at the technical university of Denmark [from the book] Rodgers, P. Brodhurst, L. Hepburn, D., Crossing Design Boundaries. London: Taylor and Francis Group plc, 2005, pp. 401

Environmental design: does it have anything to do with the environment?

The word environment has always been linked to location. Unconsciously we think of sustainable buildings. However, I believe that environmental design is much more than that.

Nowadays, location is relative. New technologies allow us to visit virtual places or to virtually visit real places. So the word environment might now entail new meanings. The social environment can sometimes be much more important than the physical one.

With this new definition of environment as the social, cultural & physical context, I would say that environmental design is based on a community: “individuals who share something”.

That “something” can be the location, but can also be a common interest, a need or a way of thinking.

As it is no longer bounded to a place, this opens up a new range of possibilities for environmental design. And in many occasions it will overlap with product or service design, and the techniques used will also be similar and transferable.

So at this point, I wonder how necessary it is to label what we do or how we do it. After all, designers (though it is not always the case) are meant to design for people, taking in account their needs and wants, the context and their environment in all their meanings.