Plot | strategic design & innovation agents

Hearing voices

Well, it's been increasing for a while now...

First, I started hearing announcements about where the bus was heading to, and roads we were passing, then bus stops. All quite loud, and unavoidable. The tube also started announcing destinations (in addition to any the bus driver wanted to make).

"Cranley Gardens, this is a 43 bus to (pause) London Bridge"

No, actually, now I think about it, it started in the Post Office.

"Window number (voice rises significantly) three, (then drops) please"

On the platform, an announcement would tell us where the next train was headed and what the next station was.

"The next train is for Morden via Bank. Next station, (pause) Highgate"

Recently I waited on a over-packed platform for the overground train from Stratford to KentishTown, which put the automated announcements in a rapid-fire queue of what they might be saying next. One was apologising for the delay to the 13.10, which was an increasing amount of minutes late. Then there were additional warnings about leaving bags unattended. Then further announcements, all in a lined-up sequence of each other. It was exhausting! And once on the train there were more.

So I was really excited to try out automated checkout counters in Finsbury Park Tesco's. Of course I did not read the instructions fully, put things in the wrong area, and didn't have a clubcard when it asked me for one. Probably the most impersonal service pretending to be a humanised version of a machine I have come across.

"Please place your items in the bagging area"

I think it also thanked me for shopping at Tesco's but I was long gone, swearing 'never again'.

Don't get me wrong, I love the potential of what good announcements can do, and have been secretly collecting the ones that made me smile. But they were exclusively messages spoken, by a person in a particular context and with a sense of humour that lifted people's spirits at the time. When I worked in Canary Wharf, there was a guy at ASDA who would announce bargains of the day, and his way of pronouncing a cockney version of "mange touts" would make you grin. The kind I'm making a point about are the automated announcements that are programmed to 'deliver the message' at repetitive times. The bus announcements are aspects of accessibility, but in effect they work to the detriment of everyone else.

Here's some thoughts about why companies should really think about audio messaging in confined spaces:

• People stop listening when they are bombarded with repetitive messages
• Audio bombardment can cause people to feel pressured, and significantly raises the ambient level of noise
• If you don't want to alienate people, consider a human tone of voice
• Don't assume they know what you mean
• They need to be prototyped in context for levels and reactions
• If you can (and why not) have people giving the announcements around a flexible script that encourages their personality to shine.
• audio messaging is unavoidable, unless you have difficulty hearing - with visual ones you can look away

"We hope you have not been inconvienienced by the lateness of this arrival."

Thankyou fellow travellers Peter, Tim, Roger...

Probably the best podcast we have ever listened to. Clicketh here (mp3). This is where Plot comes from...

Game on? Enough already!

I've been trying to listen less hard to the news, and more to the patterns behind it.

The trickle of you-must-listen-to-my-doom-laden-message just drains me. It reminds me of how people not so long ago were trying to impress upon all of us how important it was that we go to war. Hmmmmm.

The list that has penetrated my defences seems to have a theme. People who abuse people get protected. Whistle-blowers are punished first, and get listened-to second. The business culture surrounding sport seems less than sportsmanlike. The UK tacitly (or explicitly) supports torture. Politicians base their actions on the letter rather than the spirit of the law. Arrogant banking executives get away with blaming what happens on the "circumstances" and not their actions. (Yet the  exact opposite is claimed when they are successful.)

Trust is a precious thing — hard to build and easy to lose.

Onora O'Neil made trust the subject of her 2002 Reith Lectures. This was right in the middle of public collapse of trust in major institutions like the National Health Service. I wonder how she might re-frame the lectures in the light of current events?

The real point is how institutions respond to the changing demands made on them. If they are allowed to change that is. For the bankers' "bonus culture", read the public sectors' "targets culture".

The micro-management of public service reform in the UK has been comprehensively reviewed (and demolished) by John Seddon in his new book Systems thinking in the Public Sector Seddon has a  background in Deming's quality philosophies and their practical application, and he has written a brilliant follow-up book to his "Freedom from Command and Control". Anyone working or designing in the service arena will find it fascinating.

His analysis leads him to the conclusion that targets and measures always deflect an organisation from it's purpose if they are not derived from the actual work of doing the work. Targets generate their own proxy-purposes, and they don't embody the knowledge of the people who work in the system. In our terms the sub-plots multiply and overwhelm the main plot. The result is always waste.

The Japanese word is 'muda' (pdf 114k). It means 'pointlessness', and can apply to a stupid result (like pollution), or a stupid activity (like keeping people in an ambulance so that it doesn't 'count' that they have arrived at the hospital), or a stupid system.

He also highlights the inevitable 'gaming' that follows —  if you set a target then people will find the most expedient way there for themselves — which may or may not be the best solution for the organisation, and is rarely the best solution from the user's point of view.

Studying the way people game systems is a hugely creative space — what if we could harness that creativity? @pistachio gives a perfect example:  if you set up a 'beauty contest' that works on numbers (like the Shorty Awards) then it's unsurprising that people will try to game it by getting people to vote for them. In this particular case they engage the talents and bodies of Amazon's Mechanical Turk to inflate the numbers.

Gaming is a natural skill, but it requres accountability and transparency to generate value. That's the point. See, I got there eventually, and without shortcuts.

Making made easier part one

Oh I love this from Ponoko.

Regenerative Dirt

We're working with those Dirt people again - this time Claire Hartten, Sarah Benjamin and Patricia from la Fromagerie and Maria Weedun have hooked up with nef and the Open University on 1st July for Interdependence Day.

More details of the whole day, booking etc. here

Don't just take our word for it!

We have a different vision for what RFID could be doing than the main industry applications. We've been trying to share this with them for a couple of years now...

Changing how people think about things they are able to influence is impossible without credible evidence of the kind they consider good sources. It's been a Plot change-conspiracy project for the past 2 years to bring user-centred approaches into the mainstream RFID industry. Why? Because it's currently all very much about a deep fascination for the technology potential; lots about security; mostly about logistics; and so far so little about what people might actually want.

It's been a fascinating journey finding out how the industry thinks, what's important, and what's driving change.

In preparation for a workshop I'm doing at the RFID Forum in May, I thought I'd enlist some of the vocal creative brains who are motivated enough to air their views about what they might like to see it used for. And what views!

Good to spend time with people getting them to imagine what it is they would like to see. Instructive to hear what they don't want their world to be filled with...

Gill

Independents at Christmas

We ran a second Independents Christmas lunch at Blacks for all of the people we know who don't have big corporate parties to go to. It's becoming quite a thing. And here they are - what a gorgeous bunch!

Phew, it's christmas

Just a quick word to say happy christmas, hannuka, or any holidays you're celebrating.

We had a great time with a gathering of independent designers, provocateurs and researchers this week, and will be planning another for July. It's a part of the Plot conspiracy to get people to collaborate more.

Gill + Nick

Jobs we'd like to see No. 1

Chief Innovation Officer.

Responsibilities include developing programmes to encourage collaboration and interdisciplinary ways of working, inspiring the organisation through initiatives, identifying soft and hard measures of success, and encouraging learning from experimentation, and developing strong organisational innovation muscles.

Developing the organisational response to encouraging innovative ways of working changing work processes to encourage collaboration – incentivising and rewarding employees for the work they do with others, rather than the work they do alone, and their progress in developing their skills in sharing knowledge and building on each others ideas.

Wouldn't it be nice?

Plastic on film

The film of the "Plastic" debate at the Dirt Café London, with Gill as facilitator, is now available

cheers, Plot