These are all great innovations. However, I am wary of a trend towards badges & other virtual assets to reward donors. For some donators, a badge prominently displayed on a social profile for all to acknowledge them as Mother Teresa reincarnated provides the requisite incentive that motivates giving to charity. (Fred Wilson sums up some of the reward systems that have benefited the Haitian crisis). I am equally skeptical towards people whose charity is motivated in this way, as I am towards designers who integrate these status symbols into their social systems. They are submitting to the deepest reaches of psychological egoism, tinting our actions with a self-serving spin, re-framing donation as an activity that demands acknowledgement and adoration by our peers and strangers. Social networking helps spread ideas, but when the main idea is that “I donated, I am awesome”, we are cheapening the act.

Is there a need for these symbols in the humanitarian space? Are organization failing to demonstrate that your money, charity, and actions are creating a better place, so they need to give you a virtual goodie to donate? Perhaps traditional donation methods that leverage the direness of the situation and empower the compassionate individual are failing and there is a need for these crappy incentives. I don’t think they are. Let us rely on the skills of the journalist, copywriter, photographer, and graphic designer to build bold and illustrative campaigns that draw attention to the situation on the ground & open the hearts of the reader.

I still believe in coming up with new ways, even social ways, to increase donations. But I think the pat-you-on-the-back badges is moving in the wrong direction. Here are some alternatives for low-cost incentives to motivate charitable action:
1) Phone call or letter written by someone you’ve helped
2) Unlocked premium content
3) Tax returns
4) Removing ads and banners

Services can also be re-designed to allow for donating in small amounts. (A creative re-use of Bank of America’s “Keep The Change” campaign is one example)

Although badges might be increasing donations, we are also increasing narcissism and the act of donating for self-interest. We should design for compassion, which unlike virtual assets, has lasting benefits for society.

From “Nudge”:

The false assumption is that almost all people, almost all of the time, make choices that are in their best interest or at the very least are better than the choices that would be made by someone else.  We claim that this assumption is false—indeed, obviously false… It seems reasonable to say that people make good choices in contexts in whic they have experience, good information and prompt feedback—say, choosing among ice cream flavors… They do less well in contexts in which they are inexperience and poorly informed, and in which feedback is slow or infrequent—say, in choosing between fruit and ice cream.

“Nudge”, and its psychological approach to responsible thinking, draws attention to the reality that sustainability can be achieved only when people are motivated to act responsibly.  The book claims we can empower people to make better choices for themselves and their futures through giving attention to the “choice architecture”.  His ideas toes the line between guidance and coercion, but I agree with the premise that we are all faulty decision makers.  Sometimes, we need our hands held to lead us to the best decisions.

From an interview with Nathan Shedroff author of “Design is The Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable” (taken from the core77 blog):

There are a bunch of things to understand about the principles of Sustainability. Most of these focus on building and using a Systems Perspective and why that’s critical to understanding Sustainability. These include why topics like Decentralization, Diversity, and Cooperation/Competition are important to understand. Next, all of Sustainability, including these principles, cross three main categories or domains. These are: Social Issues (or Human Capital), Environmental Issues (or Natural Capital) and Financial issues (or Financial Capital). Essentially, Sustainability just asks us to manage all of these forms of capital well. In theory, it sounds easy but, of course, in practice, it can be difficult since each of these (especially the social issues) can get complex. This is the first realization that many people come to when learning about Sustainability: that it’s not just about the environment.

I give props to anyone who can distill the essence of a global movement into a few understandable parts.  Cognitive scientists love categorization   I haven’t ordered his book yet but I believe he has a good lay-o’-the-land.  You can tell from the above analysis he’s put a good deal of thought into the theory behind sustainability.

Also interesting are his critiques of the current efforts, NGOs and blogs and start-ups (he also hates the term *GREEN*):

There are so many new NGOs and foundations and socially entrepreneurial start-ups but not enough conversation and cooperation between them all to be a more powerful force for positive change. Some of these are started out of ignorance of the other initiatives but many are started simply because someone has a passion and vision and doesn’t want it contaminated by someone else’s vision. We’re duplicating a lot of effort and we need to be more effective.

But most important of all, Shedroff is author to a well-respected book on User Experience, making him a winner in my book.

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Read Shedroff’s interview and tell me what you think about him.
You can buy DiTP by Shedroff at his website.

Buy Nudge from Amazon, or just ask me to borrow it

If there’s anything that serves as a universal mentor, it’s the written word.

I’m an avid reader of blogs.  Anything related to UX and design, and I’m probably subscribed to it.  Blogs are great spaces for engagement, they provide multiple perspectives on a single topic, and they’re a great way for invisible and unrepresented populations to make an impact on larger bodies of knowledge.

I’m also a lover of novels.  Transporting the reader to another time and place, a good novel is both a creative exercise and a relaxing release from the world.  They can also provide in-depth instruction that most blogs are unable to provide.

Today, DailyBlogTips asked its readers: Is there still a need for reading books in this information age?

My answer, like most, is an emphatic yes; both blogs and books are valuable mentors.  Their differences merely imply different use contexts.

Picking up a book requires a sitting of at least 45 minutes (for me).  Chapters are longer than blog posts, and it usually requires at least reading through one whole section or chapter to gain the sense of closure and progress in the narrative.  Admittedly, due to the amount of devotion required to get through a book, I have a bad habit of leaving books un-finished (sometimes with less than 20 pages left!).  However, the time investment has a huge return: finishing a good book can be a formative experience, and with the right author and public acceptance, a book can create a shift in the cultural perception of reality.

Blogs on the other hand are quick fixes of information, meant to be skimmed during a coffee break or read on the subway.  They can be left unfinished and saved for later reading –  there are times I have more tabs open in Mozilla than I know what to do with.  Furthermore, the nature of hypertext implies an interrupted narrative.  Through hyper-links, readers are transported elsewhere in cyberspace not through their imaginations but through disruption of the perceptual stream, analagous to changing the channel on the tube.

Is blog consumption any better than TV consumption?  I fear that this medium, which I admittedly am infatuated with, has slid down with “baser” modes of communication and authorship.  The very freedom that allows anyone to create a blog does clog the airwaves with noise.  Though I am all for open source media, there is something to be said about the institution of the publishing house that serves as a gateway to quality content.

Like the author of the original post, I’ve not been reading as much as I probably could be.  It may indeed be a sign of the times that people are blogging more and probably reading fewer books.  Many people probably share with me the problem of not having time to devote to reading a book; whether it’s coding, tweeting, writing the blog, or researching new gigs, I find it hard to set aside time for good reading.

However, these differences don’t stop me from buying and enjoying books. (some of my favorites I’ve listed above)

There are good and bad sides to this experience economy. A lot of bad stories get made up: McDonald’s as a lifestyle brand for the youthful and active, cigarette smoking as narcissistic and nihilistic cool.

It is time we begin to craft real experiences through products we design.  What do I mean by that?  First, a well-meaning and thought out experience is one that serves to please the consumer (or user, or audience) through total engagement: tapping into emotions of anticipation and satisfaction, create responsible narratives, and form bonds in a trusting relationship. Furthermore, a real user experience informs the consumer directly and responsibly about their product’s consumption and the context of use.  This implies a built-in understanding of the user’s experience outside the web (or whatever platform we design our product).

We must be aware of how the experience we craft interacts with and compares to the audience’s lived experience.  We must provide experiences that consumers are comfortable with, are informed about, feel are genuine and authentic, and allows them room for freedom and empowerment, much like the kind of life choices that humans actively and happily engage in.

Addendum: Wow there’s so much to be said about Jesse James Garrett’s closing statement at the IA summit this year. For now, this quote stood out in my mind. I’m literally losing sleep over this, writing 3 hours after I intended to go to sleep.

They take people, they hook them up to mRIs, you know “brain wave scanners” and then they show em tv commercials and they look at what parts of their brains light up when they watch these tv commercials… and they can figure out how to craft a tv commercial that will illicit a feeling of safety, or trust, or desire. So yeah, my first reaction when I heard about this stuff: wow I gotta get my hands on some of that…my second reaction was wait a minute, what are we talking here? A process designed to illicit specific patterns of neural activity in users; back in the 50s they called that mind control.

Now in a lot of ways we’re already in the mind control business: IA and interaction design both seek to reward and reinforce certain patterns of thought and behavior… So there’s always been an ethical dimension of this work. But who’s talking about this stuff, who’s taking this seriously? I don’t hear anybody talking about these things.

Web 2.0.

Since entering a more “corporate” (non-profit) setting, I am realizing how new these concepts are to a lot of company cultures where everyone is pining for a blog or a recycling program.  Everyone’s got their own opinion about what these things are.  Here are two such opinions I found to be interesting:

Green Design:

a UX podcast speaking with Marc Ettig of Fit Associates.

Ettig talks about the green design being contingent upon two important organizational behaviors which are emerging in the consumer market: 1) the move from worrying about “me” to worrying about “we”. 2) being concerned about quality of life, rather than (and independent of) just “having stuff” (about 45% of the way through the podcast).  These new collective ideas are what is charging the movement towards greener products and services.  What I like about his discussion is that green and sustainable means more than how we use materials, but it is an ethical attitude towards creating a better future (however that may be broadly defined).

My quest continues to find a green video game company.  Who’s improving quality of life in the market?

Web 2.0:

Posted a week ago on DESIGNING *for humans, a blog post compares web 2.0 to older, nostalgic devices which serve as the web 2.0’s precursors.  The Sony Walkman and Polaroid camera set up a culture of sharing media which made web 2.0 possible.  D*fh takes their definition of web 2.0 from O’Reilly media:

2.0’s key attributes, O’Reilly presciently suggested, include “harnessing collective intelligence” (think Wikipedia) and “rich user experiences” (think YouTube).

They do a great job of illustrating how nebulous this concept really is, by tying the “2.0 concept” to devices which existed long before the web.

This week’s mentor is Van Jones, who hails from Oakland and brings his message of building green collar jobs to Washington D.C. as recently appointed green jobs advisor for the Obama administration.  VJ is not only a local hero, aiming to bring men and women out of poverty through the creation of green jobs, but he’s also a wonderful example of how people can leverage the power of social technology to amplify their message and escalate it to the national stage.

A quick bio:

• 1993: Jones graduates from Yale Law School
• 1996: he founds the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which advocates for juvenile justice reform, police reform, youth violence prevention and green-collar jobs
• In 2007, Van helped the City of Oakland pass a “Green Jobs Corps” proposal. Also helped pass the “Green Jobs Act” of 2007 through congress.
• In 2008 he is showered with awards from various youth, African-American, urban, and green companies and publications

Van Jones has been a tireless advocate for putting green jobs and green issues at the forefront of our economic and social discussions.  What makes this man great is that he is a cultural mediator: his work is translating the theoretical in the practical, making green ideas accessible to those who can put them into action,  and providing a working man’s guide to the green revolution.

As he puts it, he’d like to facilitate the discussion between the Ph.Ds and the Ph.Do’s — the farmers, laborers, and builders, to create a populist green movement.   He describes the current niche-status of the green economy in a way that displays both his affinity for the working man and his attitude towards the status quo.

VJ: Well, I did have a eureka moment. I’ve been working in urban communities for a long time, working with kids in trouble trying to reform, police departments and juvenile justice systems, and I just burned out and started going from Oakland to Marin County, where there’s a lot of meditation centers, and just discovered a whole new world.,You know, a lot of stuff over there they don’t have in Oakland, like salads and, you know, stuff like that. Tofu and hybrid cars, and I said, “Jeez, all this beautiful green stuff, services, products, new industries that are rising, the solar industry. You know, we should have that, some of that stuff in urban America — people who are disadvantaged, poor people in rural America, Appalachia. How do we get this green economy to be expanded to include more people, get it strong enough so it can lift people out of poverty and create jobs for people?” And it was in that inquiry that I wound up writing this book.

Although using a different rhetoric than Obama (President Obama would probably not talk about urban youths needing more salad as high priority), the message is the same: economic opportunity for more people, not just those who can afford it.  Jones points to the fact that the green economy has too long been a niche market populated by affluent Prius-drivers or hemp & dreads-sporting vegan counter-cultural renegades.  He seeks to extend the green movement to people beyond those with surplus cultural and economic capital.  He is hoping that more people can participate, not only in green buying but green building.  He sees green as a moral imperative that must not be devoted not only to products but average joe services and job opportunities.

There is little I can say about this man that he hasn’t once said himself or someone else has said about him (you can see some of his interviews on the web: @GreenBiz.com & @ Treehugger) His public relations staff has executed flawlessly in employing social technology for getting his ideas out there.

Van Jones’s relevance and the reason he is my mentor is not only his message, but in his delivery of that message.  VJ’s ideas have spread virally through blogs, twitter, and viral video.  His book scaled the NYT bestseller’s list through a faithful following in the blogosphere, including Arrianna Huffington.  Perhaps because these personal successes with social media, he has recently acted as an advocate and proponent of social technology, preaching its power to create a greener and better world.

You can check out Van Jones videos all over the internet for more insight into this potent figure.  One in particular caught my attention: a powerful talk he gave at the Personal Democracy Forum — a must see http://personaldemocracy.blip.tv/file/1050990/.  In this talk he praises social media as a tool for bridging the idea makers to those who can execute the ideas and build up the infrastructure. VJ sees a communication gap that’s preventing wonderful ideas from reaching fruition.  The gap exists between progressive idealists (users of social technology) and those who can execute the ideas but have not been brought up in the niche culture of the green economy.  Van Jones advocates expanding these social technologies to those who have not yet adopted them, and passionately believes social media has the power to connect idea and action, bringing about the fundamental changes we need to survive our economic and climate crises.  For this reason, he is our Monday mentor.

Follow him on twitter: @greenforall
Or check out a conversation between him and David Gottfried (March 31, 2009): http://bit.ly/I5X1R

Head to San Francisco this week and you’ll hear about the hottest trends and news in video game platforms, graphics, and interaction design at the GDC, or Game Developers Conference.  Multimillion dollar developers preview long-awaited releases amidst indie developers pitching their ideas hoping to be the next hot WiiWare game at this  exciting event.  But what you probably won’t find amongst all the buzz are discussions about the social impacts of these new interactive technologies. For instance, what do you think about the Wii-mote extension that mimics a handgun and trigger for Nintendo shoot-em-up games?

I’ll keep this post short because I don’t want to sound like an old man, and don’t intend to spoil the fun and enjoyment this conference is all about.  I have not yet researched whether there are conferences dedicated to exploring the cultural implications of video games and their development, so I can’t claim that all developers are ignorant of these issues (though I doubt many people in the industry would find such a conference as exciting as GDC).

However, I’ve not yet heard of any emerging companies stepping up and acknowledging their role in shaping our collective futures.  I would really like to see a ‘green’ gaming company that markets itself as a company that spends significant time developing socially responsible games that can improve our world, rather than provide distractions from it.  I would also like to hear a story about a ‘green exec’ on the board of one of these huge gaming companies.  Does such a role exist?

Last night, a good friend confessed to me she “didn’t get Twitter”, and that she wasn’t going to. Fearing I was going to lose one of my followers, I told her about an upcoming blog post I was writing (this very one) about the virtues of Twitter. She rolled her eyes at the idea,  unimpressed by my efforts. Ten reasons she’s already heard this wasn’t about to change anything.
She’s right, many of these lists make it onto blogs somewhere. Despite these doubts I persisted, and with a different approach, I think I might have caught her attention a bit. I told her about a day in the life using Twitter.

Here’s what I did using twitter, yesterday:

It started a slow morning, but by 12pm the tweets were flying.
12pm – 1pm :

• Heard from Alison Doyle, from About.com’s job searching blog about resume writing on the internet. Gave some real thought to changing the format of my resume so it doesn’t confuse automated readers. Also considered including my china trip to “fill in the gaps” in my work experience.
• Heard about a track by the duo ‘Themselves” from anticon.

1 pm – 3pm :

• Searched for designers and UX professionals, using search.twitter.com and found IBM Design. Proceeded to follow them and download their recommended podcasts on User Experience Design. Am also following IdeaKitchn, self-described UX ninja.
• A search for Wordpress experts yielded the twitter of a blog writer for Marvel comics
• Gave thanks to IBM design for pointing me to the UX podcasts. Received thanks back
• Was linked to a video released by Microsoft, showing the vision of the future in technology. Very cool
• Someone tweeted about a tool to integrate Twitter into google searching. Get liver news at it happens!

3pm – 6pm:

• Was on Berkeley campus studying, and going to a career fair where Salesforce and Intuit were to be present.
• Salesforce flaked and their rep didn’t show. Intuit’s did and gave me really good advice on my resume and job possibilities. I twitted about how helpful intuit was and how I got stood up by Salesforce.
• As a result, I have one new follower from Salesforce and one new follower from Intuit
• Read about Typography and Photoshop (courtesy of Smashing Magazine)

7pm – 12pm:

• Casual time: I found out about my friend’s new dubstep track, some new Oakland grafitti, and a friend’s bowel movements.
• Caught wind of new social software, started by two ex-Googlers, in beta version. Likaholix is a personal recommendation micro-sharing service. Could it be the next big thing?
• Found out about Indie-mart this Sunday. DIY and vintage market/swap meet. Sounds cool

Hope this ‘day in the life’ was informational for you all. Twitter is years old and many of you are already signed up. I thought I’d chime in to talk to those who have not picked up this quick and addicting form of communication,  or have not yet considered how it might be applied creatively. My advice to those who want to expand their use:

1) Find interesting people. This doesn’t have to be people you know!
2) Cross-polinate. This mean repeating (or re-tweeting–RT–, as it’s called) any interesting links or information you might hear. This will spread it to your followers, who may attract other followers from their sphere.
3) Post links, create a response
4) respond to others using the @ symbol

Thanks again for reading!

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For those who are interested, here’s the original draft for this blog post, ten reasons why you should be on Twitter (which I started earlier but decided to abandon in favor of this day in the life posting):

1. Talk with your friends quicker

2. You become known to people who care – What do 160 letters communicate about you? Actually, quite a bit.  A few tweets from a person could tell me more about them than a whole profile does on anther social networking site. Tweets are more personal, they’re random, mundane,  but there is a certain genuinity to these thoughts. And then in turn attracts other people interested in your tweets.

3. Networking with the right people - Finding people in a given profession is a difficult task, communicating with them can be even harder. LinkedIn, the social network for professionals puts barriers and permissions, making networking with professionals an involving task. Not to say this shouldn’t be the case, or that LinkedIn doesn’t have its uses, but on Twitter there is little to stop you from. Depending on who you follow and what they share, Twitter like being over the water-cooler overhearing the talk in a given profession.

4. Get breaking news on Twitter – see Mumbai terror attacks (noticed by Twitter employees through tweet aggregation) and the US Airways crash in the Hudson River was first revealed via a twitpic.

5. Changing the social and cultural sphere - Following bands, brands, business trends is easy on twitter. Use Twibs to find out which businesses are on twitter.

6. Companies are picking up on it – The quickest adopters were news companies such as CNN, BBC, and ABC. However, companies looking to increase their Public Relations influence using social media have caught up on it. Are you a business person or in a band or creative industry? Market yourself better with Twitter!

7. It’s better than a Facebook status update – Are you ever on facebook and find your newsfeed swallowed up by status updates from people you barely care about? But you feel too lazy or too nice to un-friend them? And you can’t seem to get the Facebook filter to “Show me less” of that person’s updates? If you would like to know what’s going on right now, in the lives of the people you are actually interested in, use Twitter.

8. You can communicate from anywhere with a smartPhone – Anyone with a BlackBerry or an iPhone can tweet from a phone. That also means that with an unlimited data plan, and a social network that uses twitter, you could potentially text for free. This was one of the inspirations behind the 140 character limit. Most SMS/text services only allow 160 characters, and Twitter employees wanted to circumvent that.

9. Search

10. No Ads, and it’s free!