1
List of Illustrations
3
Preface
4
Introduction
5
Chapter I: Mindscape
6
1.2 Flaws and Bad Habits
8
1.1 Human Nature
7
1.3 Effects on Behaviour
9
1.4 New Ways of Seeing
12
1.5 Existing Theories
15
1.6 Case Study
17
1.7 Summary
21
Chapter II: Designer - The Explorer from Mindscape to Landscape
22
2.2 The New Age of Discovery
25
2.1 The New Ecosystem
23
Chapter III: Landscape
26
3.2 Changing Landscape
28
3.1 Today’s Challenge
27
3.3 Habit Architecture
30
3.4 Field Trial
34
Conclusion
40
Bibliography
42
*Word Count: 9472
2
List of Illustrations Illustration 01:
Mindspace mapped with the nine most robust effects on behavior, “Mindspace: Influencing behaviour through public policy”, the Cabinet Office, http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk (2009)
Illustration 02:
The golden circle with three levels, TED Talk “How great Leaders Inspire Action”, Simon Sinek, http://www.ted.com (2009)
Illustration 03:
The Mindscape, by the author
Illustration 04:
The Big Dig website, http://www.thebigdig.org (2012)
Illustration 05:
The Facebook Stories website, http://www.facebookstories.com (2012)
Illustration 06:
The Mindscape and the universe, by the author (Photography credit: Davidsy Yen-Hsun Shih)
Illustration 07:
Paradigms in Value Creation, Rethinking Value in a Changing Landscape: A model for strategic reflection and business transformation, Phillips Design (2011)
Illustration 08:
The Habit Architecture, by the author
Illustration 09:
Mapping current theories with the Habit Architecture, by the author
Illustration 10:
Images of Droplet, , by the author
Illustration 11:
The framework of Droplet online platform, by the author
Illustration 12:
Concept demonstration, by the author
Illustration 13:
Interviews with National Trust rangers, by the author
Illustration 14:
The map of TEIA’s visit of Neptune Coastline Campaign, by the author
Illustration 15:
Beyond The Seen website, by the author
Illustration 16:
The universe (Photography credit: Davidsy Yen-Hsun Shih)
3
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle 1 This dissertation is my personal reflection on what I’ve seen and experienced as a young designer. It’s about the way I look at the world and the idea of human being, trying to find the harmony between them in these changing times. While I was looking for a topic to write about, my favorite song came to mind: “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” I sincerely hope my piece of writing could be a clear guide for myself after the first year of study, and perhaps even be valuable for others who also wish to engage in social design. It might be a long way, but it could be much shorter if people tried to help each other. That’s my simple belief, and here is the overture of my story.
1 Aristotle, Politics, 384 - 322 B.C.
4
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 2 This dissertation aims to find out potential solutions for today’s social problems from my own study of two disciplines: social design and social science. There are three main chapters in my dissertation, and this structure comes from the interaction between human beings and the environment they belong to, which means the connection between the “Mindscape” and the landscape. To begin with, I’ll elaborate my insights about human nature from an analysis of current studies and theories. This is the first chapter, “Mindscape.” After that, I will develop the insights from my designer’s perspective in the second chapter: “Designer - The Explorer from Mindscape to Landscape.” Eventually, in the last chapter, “Landscape”, I would like to go through the observation of today’s social problems, and explain how I could apply this research to my own future direction. Mindscape, which means the inner world, which all human beings share, is the ultimate treasure to explore. The reason is that, we all, as part of the natural creations, are living in a closed world of limited resource and spaces, but at least we still have a universe to discover. It’s not something far away from the earth, not something hidden deeply underground, but just located in you and me, and that would be the greatest view of the world. That is human beings’ Mindscape. Landscape, which stands for the outside world, is a metaphor for today’s environment. It’s filled with human-made chaos and conflicts, and there are overwhelming social problems waiting for solutions. Indeed, these problems are massive in scale and very difficult to solve, but just as Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, said: “Many global problems are man made, therefore they can be solved by man.” 3 Reflecting upon that, I’d like to position today’s designer as the explorer between the Mindscape and the landscape, to discover the last unlimited asset on the earth, and then to develop potential solutions for a better future. Now it’s 2013, the beginning of the 21st century, a time full of uncertainty and difficult challenges. I quoted the above sentence from A Tale of Two Cities at the beginning of my paragraph for a simple reason: This famous quote still speaks to the times we live in today. We’re living in a world divided into wealth and poverty, the developed and the developing, those with ownership and those with nothing left. Classic literature consists of tales, fables, which can awaken people from the past to the present. Therefore, I believe this quote is still valuable for today. Here, my piece of writing begins, the journey from the Mindscape to the landscape, which hopefully leads us to the change we wish to see in the world. 2 Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859, the opening paragraph 3 Jeffrey Sachs, the Great Convergence, 2007 http://www.chathamhouse.org
5
1.1 Human Nature 1.2 Flaws and Bad Habits 1.3 Effects on Behaviour 1.4 New Ways of Seeing 1.5 Existing Theories 1.6 Case Study 1.7 Summary
6
1.1 Human Nature The notion of “human nature” is a common one across history. It derived from classical Greek philosophy, is discussed by modern neuroscientists, and then became a prominent subject of social science. But over 2,300 years ago, Aristotle had understood that human beings are creatures of habit, and until the 21st century, the following generations have been developing profound explanations and research based on Aristotle’s point. Therefore, this section aims to discuss different current studies about human nature and human habits in the beginning, and then, I’m going to elaborate my own thoughts, transformed from a designer’s perspective. For the past 20 years, there has been a great deal of research on human nature within social science. To begin with, I’d like to refer to a great trans-disciplinary work of non-fiction: “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” This creation gave me a clear picture about human development and helped me build up the first understanding of human nature. Looking back through human history, sadly we will find that conflicts never stop and chaos never settles down. Even today, people still continuously hurt each other instead of helping each other. The author, Jared Diamond, a professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, addressed that issue: “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.” It’s definitely true, and I would like to add one point: Across different cultures or countries, people think alike; they just look different, and one thing in common to all of them, is the flaw of human nature, not the virtues developed by education and civilization. This natural born flaw runs through human history and development. Jared Diamond claims: “Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots.” 4 The name of the book, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a metaphor: If we consider global conflicts as a never-ending circle, so the same goes for guns and germs: once the weapon is invented, the war will never stop; once the germ is spread, the disease will never disappear. The book was published at the end of the 20th century, and until today, the situation remains the same. In the next section, I shall examine these flaws in human nature further, and consider how human bad habits originated from them.
4 Jared Diamond, Guns Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies, W.W.Norton, 1997, p.25 and p.272
7
1.2 Flaws and Bad Habits It’s said that there are seven deadly sins existing in human nature from early Christian times: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.5 These seven sins originate from the flaws of human nature, therefore they are engrained and unchangeable, and, as William Golding, the author of “The Lord of Flies” suggested, the flaws of society can be traced back to the flaws of human nature.6 Considered with regard to today’s conflicts, such as the financial crisis of 2007-2008, we can identify the trigger: greed. Greed comes from the need for material ownership, which is like a double-edged sword. Greed encourages people to pursue a higher quality of life, and it also influences some virtues such as curiosity and diligence. Looking into human history, it can’t be doubted that greed has been one of the most important motivational drivers for thousands of years. Nowadays, we still can see the influences of the flaws of human nature upon our behaviour, which is composed of habits. In Aristotle’s philosophy, we are all creatures of habit. However, there are two kinds of habits: one is making a positive impact, and another isn’t. We simply categorized them into good habits and bad habits. And it’s common that people cannot resist the strong driver from bad habits, such as addicts to smoking, drinking, gaming and social networking. I’ve been wondering about this for a long time. What exactly are the motivational drivers for bad habits? And why are they so irresistible and even determining to people’s life?
5 University of Leicester, Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Corporal Works of Mercy, http://www.le.ac.uk 6 William Golding, Lord of Flies, Faber and Faber,1954
8
1.3 Effects on Behaviour This section is based on a social science study from the Cabinet Office “Mindspace: Influencing behaviour through public policy”7 , which lists nine of the most robust influences on people’s behaviour. These work in a highly developed and complex way within human brains. The nine robust effects on behaviour are: 1. Messenger: we are heavily influenced by who communicates information 2. Incentives: our responses to incentives are shaped by predictable mental shortcuts such as strongly avoiding losses 3. Norms: we are strongly influenced by what others do 4. Defaults: we ‘go with the flow’ of pre-set options 5. Salience: our attention is drawn to what is novel and seems relevant to us 6. Priming: our acts are often influenced by sub-conscious cues 7. Affect: our emotional associations can powerfully shape our actions 8. Commitments: we seek to be consistent with our public promises, and reciprocate acts 9. Ego: we act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves Annex 1: MINDSPACE mapped Socially-grounded Positive selfidentification
Psychological reactance Perceived intent / motivation
Over-optimism bias / superiority bias
Desire to preserve self-image
Association / halo effect
Defensive attribution
Goal-setting Hot-cold empathy gap
Self-serving bias
Messenger
Commitment
Excitation transfer Multichannel encoding
Subliminal effects
Affect
Hedonic adaptation
Mood congruence
Need for consistency
Mereexposure effect
Formal authority
Impairment of cognition and adaptation
Desire for fairness (procedural utility)
“Ego” Pygmalion effect
False consensus effect
In-group / out-group effects Life stage changes
Choice overload
Recency effects Mental accessibility
Fear of loss of face
Implementation intentions
Anchoring / primacy error
Priming
Fundamental attribution error
Reciprocity
Anonymity / Spotlight effects
Diffusion of responsibility
Self-efficacy
Norms
Social influence
Confirmation bias Habit
Salience Peak effects
Declarative norms
Ambiguity effect Mental accounting
Impact / durability bias
Framing
Endowment effect
Loss aversion
Reference point / zero price effect
Range of practical barriers
Status quo bias
Market provision Resources
Key to nodes
Primary drive
More details on the terms in the diagram can be found in: Hewstone, Stroebe, Jonas (2007) Introduction to Social Psychology: A European Perspective. Chichester: Wiley, Fourth Edition.
Social proof / herd behaviour
Defaults
Rewards crowd out intrinsic motivations
Incentives
Hyperbolic discounting
Diagram presenting the concepts related to the elements in MINDSPACE. The solid lines indicate that a given psychological process is considered as being an essential part (as a direct consequence, cause or manifestation) of the principle in question (e.g. framing is making something salient, while salience causes recency effects). The dotted lines are secondary connections, while the red/orange/yellow colouring of the circles denotes whether the factor is a primary drive (e.g. affect) or whether it is more applied (e.g. defaults). The red grouping lines denote the boundaries of MINDSPACE.
Environment
Scarcity effects Overweighting of certainty / small risks Reinforcements
Prices
Price signals value
Infrastructure
Formal sanctions
Internally grounded
Practical intervention
Discussion document – not a statement of government policy
Design (e.g. as choice editing)
Environment grounded
80
Illustration 01: Mindspace mapped with the nine most robust effects on behavior
7 Paul Dolan, Michael Hallsworth, David Halpern, Dominic King, Ivo Vlaev, Mindspace: Influencing behaviour through public policy, the Cabinet Office, http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk, 2009
9
Based on this study, I’d like to quote from Dr Sarah Caddick, Senior Advisor for Neuroscience: “Your brains are not definitely programmed for long-term thinking. It really operates most effectively in here now.”8 This simply explains how human brains work, including the ability to think, react, and behave. It’s by nature that people are always shortsighted because our brains are programmed better for the present rather than the future. Considering the linear progress of time, I’d like to add a final tenth factor, “time”, to the other nine factors above. Time is a very influential and powerful factor in human behavior. Therefore, I developed my own ten most influential effects on behaviour, as follows: 1. Messenger: we are heavily influenced by who communicates information 2. Incentives: our responses to incentives are shaped by predictable mental shortcuts such as strongly avoiding losses 3. Norms: we are strongly influenced by what others do 4. Defaults: we ‘go with the flow’ of pre-set options 5. Salience: our attention is drawn to what is novel and seems relevant to us 6. Priming: our acts are often influenced by sub-conscious cues 7. Affect: our emotional associations can powerfully shape our actions 8. Commitments: we seek to be consistent with our public promises, and reciprocate acts 9. Ego: we act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves 10. Time: the key factor that influences all of the above. So far, I’ve developed my points based on my readings of philosophy, psychology, and social science. I would also like to add some points from neuroscience. Simon Sinek elaborated his findings from social science and neuroscience in the TED Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”9
Illustration 02: The golden circle with three levels
8 Sarah Caddick, Dare to Image, Skoll World Forum, http://skollworldforum.org, 2013 9 Simon Sinek, How great Leaders Inspire Action, TED Talk, http://www.ted.com, 2009
10
He firstly drew three concentric circles, called the “golden circle,” which is the symbol of human brain, and then he explained how the human brain is divided into three major components that correlate exactly with the golden circle. In the golden circle, the three major components are related to different levels, from “what”, “how”, to “why.” The outer component is the neocortex, which is in charge of rational and analytical thought, and language as well. It stays in the “what” level. And then, the inner two components make up the limbic brain. This part is responsible for human feelings, and most important of all, it is also in charge of all human behavior and decision-making. The important limbic brain stays in the “how” and “why” level; however, it doesn’t have the capacity for language. Sinek suggested that, when people communicate from the outside world to the inside world, the information such as data and numbers cannot drive human behaviour. In other words, people can understand the way of communicating through figures and features, but it cannot itself be the motivational driver. However, if people communicate in a different way, starting from the inside world, it means the way of communication is directly going to speak to people’s heart - where we feel, and then make decisions. Only this can become the motivational driver, and then can change human behaviour and habits. He mentioned the following example: people always say “I know what all the facts and details say, but it just doesn’t feel right.” The reason is simply because there are two different parts separately controlling language and decision-making in the human brain. It’s the limbic brain, the “why” level brain, which makes humans feel, love, and make decisions. And it is exactly where good communication should start. To sum up, only the feeling, the emotion, can become a human’s motivational driver. Simon Sinek continuously elaborated how a leader can inspire their employees from emotional appeal instead of tangible benefits. It’s one of the most viewed talks on TED. If we look at this talk from a different perspective, it would be very interesting that so many audiences are seeking for a way to become an inspiring leader, instead of an inspired employee. I totally agree with Simon Sinek’s point of view, and I appreciate his golden circle, which is based on science and psychology. Otherwise, from my own perspective, does this talk reveal the importance of ego, and greed as well? Why do people want to become a great leader? What do leaders want from their inspired employees? I think that is another way to look into the golden circle – all the human beings want to be at the centre of the golden circle. It not only reflects the human brain, but it is also a metaphor for today’s society.
11
1.4 New Ways of Seeing Considering the ten most influential effects on behaviour together with the golden circle in the previous section, here I came up with a concept - the “Mindscape,” which is the overview of human beings’ inner world, and shows where our feelings, thoughts, decisions, behaviours and habits come from. Also, based on research, I emphasize the importance of ego and time. This is exactly supported by social science and neuroscience. The Mindscape indicates motivational drivers and it can be regarded as an anatomy of human behaviour, and here are the key insights from the Mindscape:
TIME
MESSENGER
COMMITMENT
NORMS
AFFECT EGO DEFAULTS
PRIMING SALIENCE
INCENTIVES
Illustration 03: The Mindscape, by the author
12
1. Human nature is a double- edged sword, which has a bright side and a dark side, but the only thing in common among cultures and centuries is its flawed, dark side. The flaw of human nature is the key player in human development and human history. 2. The flaw of human nature has been classified, from ancient times onwards, as the seven deadly sins, and today also, they still thrive in modern society and influence all individual’s behaviour deeply. One of the prominent examples is greed. 3. Human behaviours are very complicated and I came up with ten most in fluential effects on behaviour: messenger, incentives, norms, defaults, salience, priming, affect, commitments, ego and time. The last two – ego and time – are the focus I’m going to discuss in Chapter II. 4. The research on social science and neuroscience are transformed into my new concept, “Mindscape,” which I develop in order to understand the origin of human behaviours better in my own way. 5. Considering the variety of human behaviours across cultures and centuries, and thinking about the timeline of our typical day in the 21st century, what kind of the human behaviours influence people the most? 6. The highly repeated behaviours become key players in people’s lives. And it is not an act, but a habit. Therefore human beings are creatures of habit. 7. With the understanding about human nature, the unavoidable flaws of that, and the effects on behaviour, I develop the concept of “Mindscape,” which helps me to analyze habits - especially the irresistible habits that may bring negative impacts on people’s lives: the bad habits.
13
In the midpoint of this chapter, “Mindscape,” I’d like to emphasize that this dissertation doesn’t aim to change human nature, human behaviours or bad habits either. My writing is intended to find new ways of seeing and understanding, and then I would be able to analyze the Mindscape, and to develop a new application for my future direction. My argument is not meant to change anything that already exists, but aims to explore the potential possibilities in the existing reality - through new ways of seeing. I would like to reinforce my point of view, and explain why I picked up “bad habits” as my focus. There are countless research works and theories about human nature, from social science and neuroscience. Moreover, the number of academic articles about how people can quit bad habits is overwhelming as well. However, I’m a designer; I begin my research from my designer’s view. I would like to refer to Albert Einstein, the great scientist I respect very much, to elaborate my perspective: “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” 10 I believe in nature because it contains everything within, that is related to each other, and it becomes an ecosystem. I think it also works for human society if we do consider human nature to be also a part of nature. Could humans change everything on the earth and then repair it later? The answer is absolutely not. Making change in the nature may be difficult, but repairing it or bringing it back is almost impossible ... and so is human nature. Step by step, we’ve agreed the human nature is flawed and unchangeable. It’s also a part of nature, and it has its own role in the system. Then, looking deeply into that, I developed the “Mindscape” in order to map out the anatomy of human behaviour. And, what is the most influential behaviour responding to the outside world, the landscape? The repeating behaviours build up habits, and those irresistible habits become our daily life, especially the bad habits. They occupy a big amount of time and have become engrained. Therefore, this becomes the starting point of my research, and I believe the return on investment of this topic will be valuable. And that is the reason why my dissertation aims to discuss how designers can transform bad habits into new assets.
10 Albert Einstein to Lina Kocherthaler, http://www.asl-associates.com, 27 July 1951
14
1.5 Existing theories As I mentioned in the first paragraph, human nature has been a prominent subject in recent years. In this paragraph, I’d like to discuss current theories which focus on behavioural change, and then I’d come up with my point of view in the end. “Choosing” The book The Art Of Choosing: The Decisions We Make Everyday of our Lives, What They Say About Us and How We Can Improve Them, written by Sheena Iyengar, a renowned Psycho-economist. It stated: “In reality, many choices are between things that are not that much different. The value of choice depends on our ability to perceive differences between the options.” 11 This book explores the complex process of decision-making from cultural, social, and biological perspectives. I agree with Sheena Iyengar at some points, and then I’d like to discuss about the art of choosing. If everything depends on the ability to perceive differences, why is it that people somehow make an unreasonable decision in the end? Is it because, according to neuroscience, our limbic brain is in charge of decision-making, but not logic and analysis? Moreover, what shall exact a better choice to be? Is this for a win-win situation for human beings, or is it more beneficial for individuals? It’s difficult to judge. I value the importance of the ability to perceive, and the art of choosing. It’s true that all the decisions we have made shape us. But, where does the decision-making process come from? I believe it’s from the Mindscape. As I mentioned before, the human mind is very complicated and irrational. It is capable of great beauty, but at the same time, it still has flaws in its very nature. There is a lot to discover in the Mindscape before people perceive and choose the decision. “Nudging” To “nudge” is to influence or even lead human behaviour in a natural way, according a book on popular economics, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.12 This notion of the “nudge” could be applied to different disciplines such as products design, public service like traffic signs, and more even. To begin with, I’d like to provide some examples of how “nudging” could have an impact, and then I will elaborate my point of view.
11 Sheena Iyengar, The Art Of Choosing: The Decisions We Make Everyday of our Lives, What They Say About Us and How We Can Improve Them, Abacus, 2011 12 Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Penguin, 2009
15
Give More Tomorrow (A charitable donation campaign) The challenge: It’s assumed that many people have the intention to give to charity, but in reality, what they donate is, in fact, far less than they wish to give. Solution: Asking a simple question to the donors: “Would you like to increase a small amount to your favorite charities immediately, or commit to increasing the donations starting in two months?” If these donors decide not to join Give More Tomorrow, what they need to do is just call or send an email. The team assumed that people would be willing to join this program. Result: The pilot experiment was conducted by Anna Breman in 2006. The second group increased their donations by 32 percent. The Charity Debit Card and tax deductions. The challenge: Some donors feel burdened when keeping track of donations, and listing items on their tax returns. Therefore, they opt to donate less if they’ve got an automatic tax saving. Solution: The collaboration between banks and charities provides people with a charity debit card, so that donors can see the value of their charitable donations, including of money from their normal account and non-monetary items, from their bank statement. And then, the value of the donation will be automatically processed to the government for the tax deductions. Result: Now many organisations, like charities, banks and governments, take this approach. Reviewing the above two cases, I totally agree on the point that nudging exactly help people to make better choices in a positive and natural way. However, just like some questions I raised in the last paragraph on “Choosing”, the “nudge” is also criticized for the following two reasons: 1. Nudging cannot change anybody’s mind, attitude, value, motivation and so on. Therefore it’s not transformative. 2. With fears of government manipulation and coercion, nudging would become a policy makers’ tool.13 From my point of view, I really appreciate the contribution made possible by the idea of the nudge. And I’ve learnt a lot from this theory. But I have to agree with those who criticize it, and I’d like to add some points: First, nudge only works when there has been a motivational driver existing in the human mind, and it doesn’t create any new motivation, although the nudge does provide an easy channel to connect the outside world and inner world, the landscape and the mindscape, and help people archive their goals more easily. However, the real behavioural change only comes from motivation, from the core of the human brain, which nudging cannot reach at this moment. To summarize, these two current theories mentioned above are worthwhile, and I would like to go beyond choosing and nudging from my own Mindscape. It’s almost the end of this first chapter, and I’d like to provide three case studies, as a hint to connect the following Chapters, II and III. 13 Jonathan Rowson, Transforming Behaviour Change: Beyond Nudging and Neuromania, RSA, 2011
16
1.6 Case Study As a designer, I’d like to give two successful case studies from my own perspective. Both the two cases reflect on common behaviours or bad habits, but eventually they are transformed into beautiful solutions. The two case studies are: “The Big Dig” and “Facebook Stories.”
Illustration 04: The Big Dig website
1. The Big Dig 14 “The Big Dig” is an incredibly successful charity campaign that aims to bring clean, safe water and sanitation to 134,000 people in Malawi. It began from June of 2012 with the fundraising target of £1.2 million. After 13 weeks, it amazingly turned out to raise £2.25 million, smashing its original target by more than £1 million in such a short time. This is an unbelievable successful project by WaterAid, one of the leading UK-based charities specializing in water and sanitation issues. How could they make it? Here are the two key reasons:
14 The Big Dig, WaterAid, http://www.thebigdig.org, 2012
17
(1) Smart application of social networks The Big Dig team used social networks, such as Instagram and blog posts, to promote the positive impact that the donors are creating right now. The Malawi-based team used smartphones to take photos, capturing the progress on the ground, and then spread the latest information via internet from the rural villages to the world. By doing that, supporters and donors were able to see the change they are making day-by-day, and it became the real-time interaction. Instagram was the best digital channel to spread first-time stories, and The Big Dig blog daily posts provided more details, photos and even films. They both worked very well for the overseas audience far way from Malawi. This digital approach brought the stories into live. (2) Reliable collaboration with UK government During the period of this campaign, every pound donated by the public would be doubled by the UK Government from the aid budget until 18th September 2012. That made the value of donation twice as much as it was originally. It was just like a strong back from government, helping WaterAid to enhance their credibility and reliability. The reason I raised this successful example as the first case study is that: It’s common sense that the young generation, the Y Generation, are addicted to social networking, enjoying reviewing and sharing online contents, rather than reading newspapers or books. And this daily, repetitive behaviour becomes their bad habits. However, how a charity approach to that? This campaign cleverly targeted on the above audience and their bad habits on social networking. Therefore they have done beautifully on the application of Instagram and blogs.
18
Illustration 05: The Facebook Stories website
2. Facebook Stories 15 “Facebook Stories” is an online campaign with a powerful slogan: “People using Facebook in extraordinary ways,” which clearly indicates its appeal and approach. It was launched in August 2012, and, presently it has 845,000 Facebook fans, and more and more inspirational stories are being shared on its platform. One of the most well-known Facebook Stories is “Beyond The Yellow Boat.” This story concerned Zamboanga City, in the Philippines, in December 2012. When Jay Jaboneta heard that local children have to swim 2km to school, he posted it on Facebook. Then, one of his friends challenged him “What are you going to do? ” and he got inspired to start a fundraising company, “Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation” to buy the local children boats to schools. So far, it sounds like a fairytale, but it is not the end of his story. After providing the local children with yellow boats, his team found out that these vehicles didn’t work during the slow tide of a day, so these fancy yellow boats became useless at that time. In the video, Jay Jaboneta said: “You can’t just give whatever you think they need. You have to really understand what their needs are...... So it’s really a learning process and it’s becoming a sort of relationship.” Therefore, his foundation is now looking at the social problems in a more holistic way, enabling local students to get better educational support, like scholarship and knowledge, to get out of poverty and improve the quality of life for the whole community. From this case, I see the bright side of human nature and understand that real solutions only come from an appreciation of more local perspective as well as more holistic thinking. 15 Facebook Stories, Facebook, http://www.facebookstories.com, 2012
19
On the other hand, I’d like to discuss social networking again, especially Facebook. Up to June of 2013, Facebook had 1.15 billion monthly active users.16 The number is about eighteenth times the UK population17, and it is even approaching to the China population.18 It’s like an independent country in the digital world, and the citizens post, share, or like overwhelming online contents. Why? Why does using Facebook become an ordinary thing in people’s daily lives? According to statistics19, the total amount of time people spend on Facebook every month is 700 billion minutes, and the average time spent on Facebook per visit is 20 minutes. Why people are logging on to Facebook? Social networking is criticized as a waste of time. Indeed, the most popular social network, Facebook, is regarded as “the web’s ultimate time sinker,” but it’s a trend, and it’s almost impossible to change - just like a bad habit. Therefore, I’d rather think about how designers can utilize people’s bad habits rather than quit them. Since the tech savvy enjoy using Facebook and spend a lot of time on that, how can designers empower them to share or create valuable contents? The second case study has already showed a beautiful story to us.
16 David Cohen, 2Q: Facebook Reaches 1.15B Monthly Active Users, 819M Mobile MAUs; Revenue Up 53% Vs. 2Q 2012, GAAP Net Income Of $333M, http://allfacebook.com, 2013 17 Office for National Statistics, http://www.ons.gov.uk, 2013 18 XinHuanet, http://big5.xinhuanet.com, 2013 19 Facebook Statistics, http://www.statisticbrain.com, 2013
20
3. Reflections from case study In this section, I’d like to ask the following questions: What motivates people to use social networking? And why does the behaviour eventually become irresistible as a bad habit? According to a Harvard Study20, it was claimed that: “the act of disclosing information about oneself activates the same part of the brain that is associated with the sensation of pleasure, the same pleasure that we get from eating food, getting money or having even having sex.” Therefore, the social networking users get sensational pleasure while sharing a status update, and their brains consider self-disclosure to be a rewarding experience. Moreover, the reward region of human brains gets more activated when people have an audience for their self-disclosure. It simply and scientifically explains why people enjoy showing off so much on social networkings. Take Instagram, for example, the most popular tags are: love, instagood, and “me.” - there are 80,693,198 photos hash tagged “#me” available on Instagram, incredibly.21 To conclude, we have already witnessed the power of social networking. It can rapidly spread information within a short time; it can create real-time interaction between people across physical boundaries; it can connect everything together: your friends, family, news, entertainment, and education and so on...... Everything is all becoming the online context of social networking, and this is going to make a big impact, whether positive or negative. Therefore, I will focus on the bad habits of social networking in the following sections. 1.7 Summary In summary, as the ending of Chapter I “Mindscape,” I’d like to time-travel from ancient Greek philosophy to current social science developed in the 20th century, and up to the flourishing of social networking of today. To embark on the journey, I referred to a quote from Aristotle at the very beginning of my dissertation - “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” This idea, that the human is a creature of habit, has been guiding my argument so far. Meanwhile, I’ve talked about human nature, flaws and bad habits, effects on behaviour, existing theories, and case studies from the perspective of social science and neuroscience. It’s been a long journey for about 2,300 years so far. On the other hand, how long for the history of Internet and social networks? The Internet is barely five thousand days old, and the history of social networking is much younger – Facebook was launched 9 years ago, which means it is only 3,500 days old. However, Facebook has nearly as large a “population” as China. Throughout thousands of years, human nature hasn’t change too much, but the outside world – the landscape – has changed dramatically. This dissertation aims to explore the connection between the Mindscape and the landscape, and how designers can transform bad habits into new asset, and then apply it to social design. 20 Diana I. Tamir & Jason P. Mitchell, Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 2012 21 Brian Honigman, The 100 Most Popular Hashtags on Instagram, Huff Post Tech, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk, 2013
21
2.1 The New Ecosystem 2.2 The New Age of Discovery
22
2.1 The New Ecosystem I’m going to build the new ecosystem for today, based on the previous discussion about the Mindscape and landscape. The new ecosystem is a metaphor for the inner world and the outside world, both of which are highly related and reflect each other. I’ve discussed human nature and its flaws in a depressing way, and today’s situation of the 21st century - both in the socio-economic and environmental perspective - are not optimistic either. Therefore, how can I picture the new ecosystem on this premise? To begin with, I have to say that people are also the asset of the earth22, and the last unlimited resource to discover on the earth is people’s Mindscape, where we could find possible solutions for social problems of today’s landscape. And that is the core idea of the new ecosystem: the Mindscape is infinite, and it does exist in, interact with, and reflect, today’s landscape. In Illustration 06, I have mapped a photography of starry night along with an illustration of my Mindscape, and it shows the only two things that are infinite in the world: the universe, and the Mindscape. The new ecosystem consists of landscape and Mindscape, the former is limited, exhausted, and filled with human made chaos and conflicts; otherwise, the later is infinite. The Mindscape is an anatomy of human behaviour, therefore it has a bright side and a dark side as well. But the most important thing we can do with that is to find out new ways of seeing, just as our ancestors came up with constellations after hundreds of years of stargazing. Therefore, I believe that, the task for today’s designers is not to create something new from limited physical resources on the earth, but to explore the possibility from the infinite, intangible human minds - to discover the beauty of Mindscape. And that is the point I’m going to discuss in the next section.
22 Ezio Manzini, People-as-asset, A Radical Social Innovation And A design Opportunity, DESIS Public and Collaborative Lecture Series, UAL, 2013
23
Illustration 06: The Mindscape and the universe, by the author (Photography credit: Davidsy Yen-Hsun Shih)
24
2.2 The New Age of Discovery I believe that the new role of designers will be that of explorers of the relation between the Mindscape and the landscape, and here comes a new era - the new age of discovery. From the early 15th century, European voyagers explored Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, to create the world map. Nowadays, experts from different disciplines - scientists, historians, psychologists, economists, artists and designers and so on - are all trying their best to explore the world in their own ways. From my point of view, as a designer, I believe that design is, by its very process, a cross-disciplinary subject. It begins with research, with the process of understanding the problem, absorbing the knowledge, and analyzing all the above information. After that, it comes to ideation and then implementation eventually. It’s an art of how you can bring everything together and come up with a beautiful solution. Consequently, only a good understanding can generate a good solution, and that is the reason why I view today’s designers as explorers from the Mindscape to the landscape. There is still much to discover in the human beings’ Mindscape, and only when designers deeply look into that, can we understand everything better. This is a new age of discovery, upon which we are just about to embark - the exploration from Mindscape to landscape. As a designer, in the last chapter, I’d like to picture today’s landscape as a guide for our new voyage, and afterwards, I will provide some of my design projects, as a pilot experiment of my concept, at the end of my dissertation.
25
3.1 Today’s Challenge 3.2 Changing Landscape 3.3 Habit Architecture 3.4 Field Trial
26
3.1 Today’s Challenge According to the UN Millennium Development Goals23, the eight main challenging problem of today are: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and global partnership for development. It provides us with a big picture of what today’s challenge looks like. It’s depressing that all the above social problems are not really getting solved, even though there has been an extraordinary increase in technological and scientific development over the last half-century. These social problems are massive in scale, but there are only a few organisations or individuals trying hard to sort them out. Therefore I think, today’s challenge is not only located in the landscape, such as tangible as poverty and diseases, but is also located in the Mindscape, and it is created by the flaw of human nature. I’ll give an example: why is the effort for the philanthropy so tiny and almost insignificant, compared with the flourish capital market, the overwhelming investments and stocks? We’ve talked about the flawed human nature and bad habits in Chapter I, and once again, here we can see the influence of greed and ego in this case. It’s definitely human beings who created these social problems, and they are supposed to be responsible for that. But in reality, it’s also human beings that get the problem-solving process so stuck and undeveloped. My statement is built from a famous TED talk, “The way we think about charity is dead wrong.”24 In this inspirational talk, Dan Pallotta said that “We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make very much money helping other people. Interesting that we don’t have a visceral reaction to the notion that people would make a lot of money not helping other people.” I was deeply impressed after watching this talk, and I may say, it’s the very starting point of my dissertation. It is the belief system deriving from human nature that keeps these charitable actions tiny and stuck. People are always used to have the double standard for themselves, and this repeating, common reaction becomes one of the most prominent bad habits in today’s society. In my view, the charity workers, they are fighting with not only social problems, but also human nature, such as egotism and greed, which are naturally built in the Mindscape. That is exactly today’s challenge: not only the tangible social problems existing in the landscape, but also the intangible flaws of human nature engraining in the Mindscape.
23 The United Nations, the UN Millennium Development Goals, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals, 2000 24 Dan Pallotta,The way we think about charity is dead wrong, TED Talk, http://www.ted.com, 2013
27
3.2 Changing Landscape I’d like to emphasize that the outside world, the landscape, has been changed dramatically from the Enlightenment to the Information Revolution. Therefore, the beliefs and values are changed as well. According to a paper “Rethinking Value in a Changing Landscape : A model for strategic reflection and business transformation”25 by Philip Design in 2011, we can see the changing of value creation from 1950s to the near future: In the 50s, people believed in product ownership, therefore they pursued modernization of their lives. In 80s’, people turned to be believe in experience, so they were seeking for lifestyle identities. Nowadays, people believe in self actualization, and we are looking for individual empowerment. This is a reflection of ego that derives from human nature.
Illustration 07: Paradigms in Value Creation
25 Reon Brand & Simona Rocchi, Rethinking Value in a Changing Landscape : A model for strategic reflection and business transformation, Phillips Design, 2011
28
What is next? The authors of this paper, Reon Brand and Simona Rocchi, project the future value creation based on today’s changing landscape, and here we have a prospective picture of tomorrow. In the near future, with the emergence of the transformation economy, people will believe in meaningful living, and will reach to address collective issues. In the section on the “Transformation Economy,” it points out: First, from the people’s mindset, the Y generation who are becoming active and independent in the economy are gaining more interest in meaningful work than in wealth or material status. The belief in quality of life is more related to personal fulfillment. Second, from the business mindset, more and more entrepreneurs and corporations are looking for value creation or new business models that go beyond just satisfying consumer needs and desires. That is, social innovation and ventures have been moving further, even beyond traditional philanthropy, and then turn social problems into business opportunities. As the famous quote said: “The future is already here - it’s just not evenly distributed.”26 I’d delightedly add some points to back the above statement. It’s true that social enterprises are thriving all over the world gradually. Take the United Kingdom, for example - one of the leading countries involved in ethical markets. According to statistics, the predicted growth of social enterprises is even better than Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), and almost two in five social enterprises are working in the most deprived communities in the UK, and one in seven of them is a start-up.27 Meanwhile, evidence indicates that more and more countries have social enterprises that are taking off, such as Taiwan, Japan, Korea and even China.28 Why does it happen? We all know that human nature and its flaws are engrained and impossible to change. “Human nature can be modified to some extent but human nature cannot be changed” said Abraham Lincoln.29 Tracking back to Chapter II “Designer - the explorer from Mindscape to landscape”, I can explain the answer step by step. I’ve mentioned that the new ecosystem consisted of the landscape and the Mindscape, which are related and influence each other. Therefore, what would happen to the Mindscape if the landscape were to change dramatically? This is an ecosystem, so it will find a balance of nature eventually. Maybe it’s just about now, not the past or future; the new ecosystem is going to find the balance in response to the changing landscape and the stable Mindscape. Human being is the only channel connected to the landscape and the Mindscape - our patterns of behaviour are created, shaped, influenced in the Mindscape, and then respond to the landscape. People are what they repeatedly do, and therefore they become creatures of habit. In the next section, I will develop another new concept - “Habit Architecture” - as the extension of the Mindscape based on the changing landscape. 26 William Gibson,The Economist, 4 December 2003 27 Charlotte Ashton, Why are social enterprises thriving in the UK, BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17104953, 21 February 2012 28 Juliana Liu (Hong Kong correspondent), Social entrepreneurship takes off in China, BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19652712, 23 September 2012 29 Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address, New York, 27 February 1860
29
3.3 Habit Architecture In this section, I’d like to propose a framework that I wish to apply to social design as my future direction. It’s based on the interaction between the Mindscape and the landscape. In the human Mindscape, from the perspective of neuroscience, there are two systems working together: a controlled system and an automatic system, which include the nine effects (messenger, incentives, norms, defaults, salience, priming, affect, commitments, and ego). However, beyond the two systems, there is the third factor: time. Time represents the outside world, the environment, the changing landscape. And the relationship between the above three contributes to human behaviour. Most of the time, human behaviour is habitual, which means that people act without thinking in situations that appear familiar. Habits are important because they directly respond to the landscape from the Mindscape, and then they define who we are. We breathe automatically, we see automatically, and then, most of the time, we act habitually and we are all creatures of habit. I’d like to build an architecture of habit based on Simon Sinek’s golden circle, and I would like it to be a constellation map. When our ancestors stared at the starts in the sky, telling their names and signs, did we really create new stars? Of course not, but they were mapping them, linking one star to another from their knowledge, and by doing this, the stars would lead travellers on their way. And this is the concept of the Habit Architecture I’m going to build. Illustration 08 is the visualization of my Habit Architecture. The foundation is that human nature is impossible to move, and this area covers motivation, intention, belief, values and so on. Then, the framework is structured by the ten robust effects, including, messenger, incentives, norms, defaults, salience, priming, affect, commitments, eco and time. Next, the material that supports and sticks on the framework which is human habit, and the last thing: the exterior, that is human behaviour.
30
MESSENGER
A HUM
AVIO UR
TIME
COMMITMENT
HUM
AN
ABIT
BEH
NH
AFFECT
NORMS EGO DEFAULTS
PRIMING SALIENCE
INCENTIVES
HUMAN NATURE Illustration 08: The Habit Architecture, by the author
31
We could apply current theories we’ve discussed in precious chapters, such as nudging, choosing, and the changing landscape to this illustration. This is the map of the new age of discovery. Choosing fundamentally relies on the specific effects of the Mindscape - ego, and all the individuals have different abilities to judge or determine which one is the best choice for them. Nudging is about providing better, more accessible and easier choices from the changing landscape, but it doesn’t speak to the core of the Habit Architecture – human nature. It doesn’t influence people’s motivation, intention, belief, and values, but it is a programmatic method to implement good ideas. My concept – transforming bad habits into new assets – is focused on the connection between human habits and the landscape. As I have already said, it’s impossible to change the foundation, so how about going with the framework and its materials, in order to develop the interior? Following people’s pattern of behaviours, those which are repeated and are connected with strong motivational drivers – the bad habits – we need to find a new way to utilize that. Look into bad habits in a new way, and you will discover a new possibility. In the following sections, I’ll focus on the bad habits of today’s social networking. It’s not only because people are by nature social animals, but also because social networking does make a big impact – whether positive or negative – to the changing landscape. Reflecting upon the two most influential effects of Mindscape, ego and time, social networking exactly reacts to both of them. Social networking is the best place to broadcast people’s ego in the limited short time in an efficient way. To conclude, I’m going to talk about my two recent projects, which are both work-in-progress social design projects with an application for social networking.
32
NUDGING
CHOOSING
LANDSCAPE Illustration 09: Mapping current theories with the Habit Architecture, by the author
33
3.4 Field Trail 1. Droplet Online Platform (December 2012 - now) Droplet is an UV-solar water purification system that harvests rainwater and solar energy through schools infrastructure, aiming to provide children in the developing world with access to clean, safe drinking water – with corresponding health, social and economic benefits. This is a collaborative project between Service Design students of Royal College of Art and EMBA students of Imperial College London, In June 2013, the team Droplet went to Kenya, collaborating with local NGO, Ogra Foundation, and built the first trial prototype in Ringroad Primary School in Kisumu, Kenya. We utilized existing infrastructure such as the roof, guttering, and the big water tank, and built the UV-solar water purification system in place. Now this Droplet system works well and provides clean drinking water for 400 children. In the upcoming mid-October of 2013, the Droplet team is going to build five more units in local schools in Kenya, and this is our next challenge: We’ve achieved awards, grant funding and private donations from the UK charities and institutions, and we have to promote this project to the broader audience if we’d like to move further. Social networking and crowd funding are our next steps, but how could we approach the internet-savvy as a young and micro social entrepreneur? To begin with, this project originated from a school programme, therefore our resources, including contacts and financial support, are fundamentally from our team members and tutors. Next, many international charities with good reputations and long histories are also working on the water crisis in developing countries. Considering the capability within the team and the environment of this flourishing market, how could we come up with an innovative approach to the target audience, the Internet savvy? The Big Dig campaign had already done beautifully last year, so what can I learn from that?
Illustration 10: Images of Droplet, by the author
34
Illustration 11 shows the framework of the Droplet online platform, including that of the website, the video channel, and its social networking, and also how I adapt the platform to my research. The point is that I add the situation when and where the target audience may access our online platform. The situation is related to water issues, but in a different context – using smartphones in the bathroom. There was a funny idea which was based on a survey commissioned by Telefónica’s O2 UK and Sony Mobile.30 In this survey about mobile habits, it claimed that 75% of respondents used their phone while using the lavatory, and about half also used their handsets while in the bath. There were also 59% of respondents who admitted to text regularly while using the toilet, and 45% who sent emails. The statistics reveal mobile users’ bad habits – when daily life becomes busier so your time is limited, and here comes an easy means of entertainment and communication, what will you do when nature calls? It may sound funny, but actually, there are 2.4 billion people in the world who do not have access to any type of improved sanitation facility31 – more than twice of all the Facebook monthly active users all over the world. Therefore, bathrooms in advanced countries may be a good place to start the conversation.
Blogs
Promotion
Articles Content Kenya Partnership
Ogra Foundation UK-based Team
Droplet
Team
Droplet
Online Platform
What Audience Where When
UK Partnership
Wasot-UK Social
Illustration 11: The Framework of the Droplet online platform, by the author
Vimeo Instagram
Illustration 12: Concept demonstration, by the author
30 The Telegraph, Quarter of men admit to sitting down on the loo so they can keep using mobile phone, http://www.telegraph.co.uk, 07 Mar 2013 31 World Health Organization, Global analysis and assessment of sanitation and drinking-water (GLAAS), 2012
35
2. Beyond The Seen (August 2013 - now) I participated in a volunteering environmental project this summer. It’s a collaboration between the National Trust and the Taiwan Environmental Information Association (TEIA). This Taiwanese NGO has been in touch with the National Trust, especially focusing on the Neptune Coastline Campaign since 2007. The Neptune Coastline Campaign was launched in 1965, and it has been regarded as one of the greatest conservation projects in the 20th century. So far, this campaign has raised £65 million, the biggest sum ever raised by the National Trust; and it has held 720 miles of coastline, which counts as one out of ten of the coastlines in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In 2015, the Neptune Coastline Campaign will reach its 50th anniversary – and they will keep working to acquire, restore, repair, improve and maintain the coast, for the next one hundred years.32 Since the Neptune Coastline Campaign is so successful and influential, TEIA would like to learn from their experience, and think about how Taiwanese charities could absorb and transform the know-how, to solve the environmental problems in our highly developed, tiny island. In the summer of 2013, the researcher Jude Lin came to the UK, and we visited six of the National Trust properties: Dunwich Heath, Orford Ness National Reserve, The White Cliffs of Dover, East Head, Studland Beach, Brownsea Island, and the National Trust Headquarters in Swindon.
Illustration 13: Interviews with NT rangers, by the author
32 National Trust, The Neptune Coastline Campaign, http://www.neptunecoastlinecampaign.org.uk
36
During this period, I worked as a TEIA environmental volunteer, visiting coastlines, interviewing National Trust rangers and local people, taking photographs and video and so on. This is an extraordinary learning experience, and now here comes the challenge: How could I communicate the knowledge and experience to the younger generation, to raise their awareness, and encourage them to take action immediately? In this project, my target audience is the Y generation; most of them will be Taiwanese, and then British and Europeans. This challenge would be more difficult for Taiwanese charities due to two reasons: First, the lack of marketing, including of traditional and social media. Without the support of marketing, they can’t raise enough funding. Next, the lack of cross-disciplinary cooperation with commercial entrepreneurs and academic institutions. For environmental charities, the normal approach is to protest against the companies and the government. However, from my point of view, my hometown Taiwan is a tiny island exploited by economic development and human conflicts...... We do not have the resources to fight with each other on this very limited land. Therefore, how could I come up with a more peaceful strategy to clearly communicate my idea? Facebook and Instagram are globally popular, and the Y generation has acquired the same social networking addiction – both in the UK and Taiwan. For example, every summer, youngsters go to the beach, taking pictures and sharing them online, afterwards their friends “like” their posts and may go to the beach as well. There are 17,670,037 photos hash-tagged “beach” on Instagram – “beach” is the most popular location tag.33 Could we turn this common social networking habit into something valuable, into meaningful, but still fun, actions?
Illustration 14: The map of TEIA’s visit of Neptune Coastline Campaign, by the author
33 Brian Honigman, The 100 Most Popular Hashtags on Instagram, Huff Post Tech, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk, 2013
37
The idea we came up with was “Beyond The Seen.” It’s a platform that encourages young people to share their sea pictures and a piece of thought about that, to think beyond the seen. The pictures don’t have to be a masterpiece and the text doesn’t have to be a poem either. My expectation is that I might be able to follow the existing social networking habits, but just adding the harsh tag of “beyondtheseen”, can enable and encourage online users to join this platform. If you see a beautiful beach and have a great time here, please share it with us, and tell us a little bit about how it can be maintained so well? If you see a polluted coast and get depressed about that, please share it with us too, and tell us what you think you can do about it right now? Picking up a can, recycling a plastic bag, not buying bottled water – these are all ordinary things people can do in their lives, but we just do not see the vision coming with a big impact. Actually, everything is interrelated; urban human waste can determine the lives of remote marine creatures, but human’s daily habits, such as tweeting or sharing, may save them on the other hand. “Beyond The Seen” is about collaborative consumption from the perspective of a knowledge economy, and it is going to launch in mid-October. Just like the slogan from my previous case studies – “People using Facebook in extraordinary ways” – I sincerely hope this simple platform could generate more sparks from the common pattern of behaviours, the bad habits or addicts to social networkings, and afterwards, hopefully we can see more changes in action.
38
Illustration 15: Beyond The Seen website, by the author
39
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi 34 I’d like to conclude my experimental research and works, and apply them into my future direction. As a young designer, I admire the beauty of nature rather than human-made creation. Therefore, I develop this thought and try to look more deeply into human nature, and regard the inner world and the outside world as a new ecosystem. However, compared with the universe, all human beings are merely made of stardust, just like travellers on a cosmic journey, so could we really be able to change the world? Recently, while I was staring at the night sky while volunteering on an environmental project, or while I was looking at the lights of the city after a working day, an idea has come to my mind: All human beings‘ lives are meant to be meaningful. I don’t know if the universe, with its countless galaxies, stars and planets, has a real meaning or not, but, at least, I believe that, even though we are just stardust, we still spark at some points and even could shine in each others’ lives. Even though we are just travellers in the infinite universe, we are still trying to explore the possibilities - across the Mindscape and the landscape. This is end of my dissertation, and now my own exploration is just about to embark. I sincerely hope my piece of writing could help me to find a way, and even a meaning for others – on the journey of social design.
34 Mahatma Gandhi, 98 Volumes, 1913 (the quote is world-widely paraphrased from a paragraph of 98 Volumes; Vol. 13, Ch. 153, page 241)
40
Illustration 16: The universe (Photography credit: Davidsy Yen-Hsun Shih)
41
Books Aristotle, Politics, 384 - 322 B.C. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859 Jared Diamond, Guns Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies, W.W.Norton,1997 Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Penguin, 2009 Sheena Iyengar, The Art Of Choosing: The Decisions We Make Everyday of our Lives, What They Say About Us and How We Can Improve Them, Abacus, 2011 William Golding, Lord of Flies, Faber and Faber,1954 William Gibson,The Economist, 4 December 2003
Papers / Reports Diana I. Tamir & Jason P. Mitchell, Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 2012 Jonathan Rowson, Transforming Behaviour Change: Beyond Nudging and Neuromania, RSA, 2011 Paul Dolan, Michael Hallsworth, David Halpern, Dominic King, Ivo Vlaev, Mindspace: Influencing behaviour through public policy, the Cabinet Office, http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk, 2009 Reon Brand & Simona Rocchi, Rethinking Value in a Changing Landscape : A model for strategic reflection and business transformation, Phillips Design, 2011 World Health Organization, Global analysis and assessment of sanitation and drinking-water (GLAAS), 2012
42
Talks / Lectures Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address, New York, 27 February 1860 Dan Pallotta,The way we think about charity is dead wrong, TED Talk, http://www.ted.com, 2013 Ezio Manzini, People-as-asset, A Radical Social Innovation And A design Opportunity, DESIS Public and Collaborative Lecture Series, UAL, 2013 Jeffrey Sachs, the Great Convergence, http://www.chathamhouse.org, 2007 Sarah Caddick, Dare to Image, Skoll World Forum, http://skollworldforum.org, 2013 Simon Sinek, How great Leaders Inspire Action, TED Talk, http://www.ted.com, 2009
Online Articles / Documents Albert Einstein to Lina Kocherthaler, http://www.asl-associates.com, 27 July 1951 Brian Honigman, The 100 Most Popular Hashtags on Instagram, Huff Post Tech, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk, 2013 Charlotte Ashton, Why are social enterprises thriving in the UK, BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17104953, 21 February 2012 David Cohen, 2Q: Facebook Reaches 1.15B Monthly Active Users, 819M Mobile MAUs; Revenue Up 53% Vs. 2Q 2012, GAAP Net Income Of $333M, http://allfacebook.com, 2013 Juliana Liu (Hong Kong correspondent), Social entrepreneurship takes off in China, BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19652712, 23 September 2012 The Telegraph, Quarter of men admit to sitting down on the loo so they can keep using mobile phone, http://www.telegraph.co.uk, 07 Mar 2013 University of Leicester, Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Corporal Works of Mercy, http://www.le.ac.uk
43
Websites http://www.who.int http://www.un.org http://www.ons.gov.uk http://www.bbc.co.uk http://www.telegraph.co.uk http://www.ted.com http://skollworldforum.org http://www.neptunecoastlinecampaign.org.uk http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk http://www.goodreads.com http://www.gutenberg.org http://www.thersa.org http://www.le.ac.uk http://www.chathamhouse.org http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org http://www.asl-associates.com http://allfacebook.com http://big5.xinhuanet.com http://www.statisticbrain.com http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk http://www.thebigdig.org http://www.facebookstories.com
44
Author Interviews National Trust rangers: Duncan Kent, David Mason (Orford Ness Natural Reserve) Richard Gilbert, Alison Joseph (Dunwich Heath) Virginia Portman (White Cliffs on Dove) Mark Wardle (East Head) Reuben Hawkwood (Brownsea Island) National Trust Headquarter staffs: Caroline Bowyer, Julia Horne (Headquarter in Swindon) Taiwan Environmental Information Associate researcher: Jude Lin
45