Design Concepts ReportSXSW 2017:

VOL. 3 APRIL 2017

Amy Lee, Vivian Lin, Joan Neeno, Roshelle Ritzenthaler & Stefanie Norvaisas Illustrations by Erik Eisermann

© 2017 DESIGN CONCEPTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PG 3

ContentsListening (and talking) at SXSW 2017 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

South By . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

How to give Design a seat at the Lean Startup table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Food & Tech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Making decisions at SXSW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Finding parallels at SXSW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

AI or IA? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Listening (and talking) at SXSW 2017This is the third year that we have sent a team to South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive . This year, there was a different spin … we were presenters as well as participants .

We were hopeful but realistic when we submitted our submissions for consideration last summer . Literally thousands of people apply to speak at SXSW . So it was incredibly gratifying to have two of our submissions selected through a community vote/juried panel process .

Senior Design Researcher Amy Lee and Design Strategist Roshelle Ritzenthaler presented on “Giving Design a seat at the Lean table,” which you can read more about on page eight . It was amazing to see a line the snaked around the corridor and a packed room for |the presentation .

Stefanie Norvaisas, Director of Research & Design Strategy, and Design Strategist Vivian Lin held a three-hour intensive workshop on designing for a successful

decision-making process . The workshop sold out on the day it opened and we have since adapted it into a regular education offering among our services . Read Vivian’s article about the SXSW workshop and its results on page sixteen .

When not presenting, we attended inspiring sessions across many subject tracks and rubbed elbows with lots of fascinating people from around the world . If you’re looking for inspiration, taking a trip to Austin, TX, in the spring is a good place to find it . From politicians to scientists, film directors to artists, musicians to medtech entrepreneurs, we found the richest learning came from being open to what fell into our path . If one session was full, the next one typically proved itself to be just as fascinating .

So here is our third report on our SXSW experiences . We hope you enjoy . Sincerely,

Dave Franchino President & Principal

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full-scale culture change . In the end, I walked away feeling excited about the future but aware of the work that needs to be done to get there quickly and efficiently . Below are some key themes that emerged for me . They apply to healthcare but to other industries as well that struggle to move into the promise of the future .

You can’t do it aloneAcademic institutions, government and corporations have survived and thrived on the basic notion of competition and protectionism . It is at their cultural core . To continue to survive and thrive, we must all move beyond this paradigm and understand what collaboration means in our industries and what it means to solving the problems we’re working on .

Joe Biden’s talk on the Cancer Moonshot highlighted this point through a recounting of the Task Force he built, the initiatives they are working on, and how the success they’re seeing is through the breaking down of silos in government . It’s like the Department of Energy’s ability to work with big data through collaborating with the Department of Veterans Affairs to create a repository of health records .

A panel on “Connect to End Cancer” discussed how academic journals and institutions discourage information sharing, making it difficult for those working on curing cancer to learn from what is already known . Even a representative from IBM Watson stated that “Watson requires partnerships” to be a success . Culture change is big and difficult, but keeping an eye firmly on the problems we’re trying to solve will help ease some of the initial pains it takes getting there .

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaking at SxSW

South By“ . . .to cure cancer we need to proceed with a sense of collaboration, urgency, hope and full-scale culture change .” – Joe Biden

Collaboration, hope, urgency and cultural changeBy Stefanie Norvaisas

It can feel like the world is changing at lightning speed and at the same time it can feel like nothing has changed .

While attending talks on healthcare at South by Southwest (SXSW) it was easy to get excited about all the future possibilities that technology can offer us and the difficulties we are having working within our current bureaucracies .

I heard pitches for tricorder-like health diagnostic and monitoring devices that offered diagnostics at home . I saw

3D-printed shoes . I heard many people talk about difficulties getting the information they need because of a lack of collaboration and shared infrastructure and the powerful results of collaboration when NASA and radiation therapy experts worked together .

I listened to a debate between big healthcare/pharma companies insisting they hold the keys to the future of healthcare via the infrastructure only they can build and startups who insisted that they could go it alone .

The event was highlighted, for me, by listening to Joe Biden send out a call to action as he passionately told the crowd that to cure cancer we need to proceed with a sense of collaboration, urgency, hope and

South By

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Science!!While technology rules SXSW, a common theme was the importance of pure science . A speaker suggested that we all befriend a scientist and learn about how they solve problems . One event was a great reminder of the joy and importance of science was a documentary about the life and work of Bill Nye the Science Guy . The documentary followed his life work as a TV celebrity, teacher, global-warming activist, space exploration advocate/champion and leader . It was a lovely reminder of the power, excitement and joy of science .

I was inspired by the speakers and the overall environment and vibe of SXSW . It was refreshing to be in a place of such optimism, excitement and possibility . I walked away feeling excited and ready to work closely with my clients to help them navigate a future landscape that – while confusing, sometimes daunting and seemingly intractable – is also full of hope and opportunity .

P.S. If you ever need to feel fully inspired, to see humility, expertise and leadership in action, find a Joe Biden speech and watch it . I recommend his talk from SXSW . Or just watch an old episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy . Either should do it!

David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg’s film funded through Kickstarter debuted at SxSW

Bill Nye, the Science Guy

Context mattersIn the world of both big data and personalized medicine living together, I heard clearly from several speakers about the importance of deeply understanding the context in which you are operating . In the “HackPharma” talk they discussed the importance of pharma, payers, physicians and hospitals working together to define and deliver outcomes, value and aligning incentives . How we treat disease in the future will need to fine-tune drugs to populations, realizing the importance of working locally, going

to where people are at, and understanding how their environment (cultural, social and physical) affects their health . The panel discussed how clinical trials will be more successful if we find ways to engage people close to home and the need to address disparity in healthcare by “connecting with people where they are at .” While very different examples, what they have in common is taking the point of view of those with which they will collaborate and/or serve and creating opportunities there .

The panel discussed how clinical trials will be more successful if we find ways to

engage people close to home

South By“How we treat disease in the

future will need to fine-tune drugs to

populations . . .”

Medicine will become increasingly personalized

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First, let’s look at the common ground between the Design and Lean Startup methodologies and then where there is some tension before revealing five best practices that integrate the best of both worlds .

Both Design and Lean Startup practitioners agree on some important points:

§ Get out of the building. Talk to customers . Insight and innovation won’t happen sitting at your desk .

§ Acknowledge and manage uncertainty. We live in a world of extreme uncertainty . The world is always changing so we need to build that into the approach .

§ Iterate in the development. The process should be very iterative – adjusting the approach, tools and next steps as we learn more .

§ Prototype early and often. Make it real as quickly as you can .

With that common ground in mind, there are differences in how practitioners of each methodology approach these four foundations . This sometimes leads to friction as champions of each approach are fierce advocates that their way is the best . Each foundation has some nuanced differences:

§ Get out of the building. Design seeks deep human understanding in the form of empathetic research and discovery, while Lean Startup often skips this step in lieu of quick customer feedback about an idea .

§ Acknowledge and manage uncertainty. Lean Startup manages uncertainty by adhering to a strict process . Design, however, believes you can’t necessarily “manage” uncertainty . Design embraces the uncertainty with divergent thinking and manages it by innovating from the future .

§ Iterate in the development. Design iterates beyond what feels like the scope of the work (embraces a reframe of the problem and divergent thinking) while Lean Startup iterates (or pivots) within a tightly defined area of inquiry related to the solution or idea .

§ Prototype early and often. Design prototypes more to learn and may not have “metrics” to relay the findings while Lean Startup uses Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) to experiment in a very data-driven fashion .

As you can see, the friction arises in part because Design is more rooted in exploration while a Lean Startup is more rooted in experimentation . Additionally,

SXSW 2017 presentationBy Amy Lee

My colleague Roshelle Ritzenthaler and I recently presented at SXSW on “How to give Design a seat at the Lean Startup table .”

If you’re familiar with the two methodologies (Design Thinking and Lean Startup) as they relate to product or service development, then you know they don’t seem to have much in common on the surface . However, if you take a deeper look, you’ll find there are some best practices that build upon the common ground and tensions that are inherent to both methodologies .

How to give Design a seat at the Lean Startup table

Design at the Lean Startup table

Roshelle & Amy presenting Line out the door!!!

“...friction arises in part because Design is more

rooted in exploration while a Lean Startup is more

rooted in experimentation.”

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3. Borrow from the designer’s toolkit. The team needs to clearly visualize the “conceptual center” of the effort across all layers of the Lean Startup vision, strategy and product pyramid – making the invisible visible . A product via an MVP is relatively easy for the team to understand and visualize (because we need to make it real to test it), but vision and strategy are more amorphous . Tools that are core to a designer’s toolkit like service blueprints and experience maps help teams visualize complex ideas and experiences, uncover any inconsistencies, and create a shared vision for the future .

4. Look for opportunities to diverge. Lean teams are incredibly focused and deliberate about testing out uncertainty related to one idea .

Design, however, invites divergence into the process because it allows for new ideas and solutions . Allowing for divergence –within limits – and re-casting experimentation as opportunities for linear divergence allows for the best of both worlds . This approach can be especially valuable when a team faces challenges such as product/market fit . So, if you’re questioning the next step in developing your MVP, take a step back and allow the team to diverge and generate new options — it can be for an hour, a day or a week, but always within limits .

5. Don’t confuse empathy with experimentation. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another . Just because you got “out of the building” and talked to 80 people for 10 minutes each, that’s probably not empathy . Empathy is achieved through giving context to the problem, not speed and quantity of interviews . The more understanding there is for the customer beyond a solution or a problem and the more we understand “why” people do what they do, the more room there is to pivot – and to pivot quickly when there are challenges .

With these five best practices in place, Lean Startup and Design teams can both have a seat at the table and create long-lasting business models as well as meaningful products and experiences .

there is some tension because, as good as Eric Ries is at explaining the principles of the Lean Startup in his book, his references to “design” are limited and his definition of Design is mostly limited to aesthetics (see page 109) . While he calls out some of the similarities between Design and Lean Startup, he suggests that Design creates impractical deliverables (see page 93) .

So, for the sake of not being vague, let’s be clear that when we say Design we are talking about more than aesthetics and usability . We’re talking about building emotional connections and meaningful experiences that are rooted in empathetic understanding of people and problem solving .

We also know that Design really does matter – you don’t need to run an experiment to measure it . It’s a “critical known” to put it in Lean Startup terms . Design-led companies in the S&P 500 show a 211 percent return over their non-design-led peers, according to the Design Management Institute’s 2015 Design Value Index .

Assuming we can agree that both Design and Lean Startup have strong advantages when it comes to developing ideas, there are five best practices from both sides of the table that teams can follow to increase the odds of success:

1. Convene a hybrid team. This is about more than job titles – it’s about competencies in a few different ways . First, it means ensuring that a strategic design thinker (not only a graphics or UX designer) is part of the core team and given equal voice as other team members . Additionally, this hybrid team needs to have a clear decider that can keep progress moving . Third, everyone on the team needs to be truly ambidextrous — as comfortable designing an experiment as they are an experience, because their role will evolve every day .

2. Find your horizon. This draws from the Three Horizons of Growth framework as described in the book the Alchemy of Growth . In short, Horizon One is business as usual, Horizon Two is composed of emerging ideas to support today’s business, and Horizon Three is composed of many seed ideas and ventures that may not materialize but need to be explored to feed growth . With that in mind, it’s important to recognize what Horizon you are really working on and to match the approach to the Horizon . Design has a place in all three Horizons, especially in Two and Three, while Lean Startup methods are a better fit for Horizon One and some Horizon Two initiatives .

Design at the Lean Startup table

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interviewing, researching and writing about the Millennial and Gen Z generations, particularly their relationships to food . While they are using technology to record and share their experiences, Paul thinks they use food as “anti-technology .”

In an information-overload, virtual relationship world, food becomes community and identity . It’s how people come together, slow down and appreciate something that is thoughtfully made (while taking pictures of it on their phones) . Where Gen Y was more wont to use clothes to create a personal brand, she said, Millennials post pictures of food adventures – an organic peach from a local farm or the best bowl of ramen in the area – to make a statement about their values .

Speakers Mackenzie Barth and Sarah Adler have made a career from the community element of food . As undergrads at Northwestern University, they started Spoon University . The idea was to get college kids together to learn how to cook, discover the best places to eat around campus, and share information . There are now chapters on hundreds of campuses around the U .S .

Barth and Adler bonded over their cluelessness about feeding themselves once they were on their own for the first time . It was the hands-on community events that fueled the company’s growth, they said . The online content created by students just enhances the sense of a campus community that shares its tips for cheap eats and hacking recipes .

It’s all about flowWhile Millennials may display more passion about their food choices on social media than previous generations, the anti-technology sentiment is not theirs alone . In fact, the kitchen is a space where very little has changed since the microwave .

On a panel about “The Smart Kitchen: Cooking Better with Technology,” the speakers were openly ambivalent about high-tech tools in the kitchen . Lisa Fetterman, founder and CEO of Nomiku, the first home sous vide machine on the market, is a regular evangelist about the wonders of sous vide cooking . But when it comes to most gadgets, she’s not interested . “I don’t want something telling me what to do in the kitchen,” she said . “If (a smart device) stops you from going deeper as a cook, I don’t think it’s worth it .”

Vivian Barad, director of IDEO’s Design for Food Studio, agreed that the kitchen tools with staying power are the

ones that let people experiment and play . “Any device in the kitchen, smart or not, is a tool, a paintbrush,” she said . “It needs to be something thoughtful and well considered that grows with you and empowers you as a cook .”

“Any device in the kitchen, smart or not, is a tool, a

paintbrush,”

It’s complicated...By Joan Neeno

Food is a central component of our daily lives . We’re either cooking or looking for our next meal at least a couple times a day . It’s more than nutrition/fuel for most of us . It’s memory, emotion, community, health and identity … and no doubt a lot more .

Throughout my career, I have written about food for nutrition and gourmet food companies and as a restaurant reviewer . And now my husband and I are set to launch our own restaurant this year, which feels like my own personal lesson in Lean Startup (and a whole different article when I have enough perspective to write it) . In addition, Design

Concepts has done a lot of research and design work around food and cooking over the years for many clients . So personal and professional interests converged in the Food track of South by Southwest (SXSW) .

And, boy, it was an interesting track to spend time in .

It’s a love/hate relationshipOne of the first presentations I attended was “Engaging Millennials in New Media Through the Lens of Food .” One thing that shouldn’t be surprising is that Millennials (ages 20-35) are, far more than any previous generation, new media pros .

A quick perusal of Instagram will clue you into the Millennial love of photographing and fetishizing food . Author Eva Turow Paul has spent a lot of time

Food & Tech

Food & Tech

Spoon University, a food website and community for college students.

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That consumers increasingly care about how and where their food is raised is a great thing, but it can blind people to technology that can make food more accessible and nutritious, said the farmers and analysts on the panel, “We Love Technology … Why Not When It Comes to Food?” There’s a romanticism to the small family farm, but it may not be the best approach to feeding a large global population sustainably, cost-effectively and in an environmentally friendly way .

“We need a new paradigm about how we grow our food,” said David Rosenberg, co-founder of AeroFarms, a clean technology company that builds and operates indoor vertical farms in urban environments . Leafy greens and herbs are grown without sunlight, soil or pesticides . The company claims its vertical farms are 130 times more productive than field farming and bring food production closer to the areas where it’s consumed, reducing its carbon footprint .

Data technology is at the heart of both AeroFarms and Fair Oaks Farms, a 37,000-cow operation that includes 12 family-run dairies, and is the country’s largest agritourism attraction . The entire facility runs on cow and pig manure . Sue McCloskey, who runs the farm with her husband Mike, said future farmers will be “IT people .” Computer science, horticulture, knowledge of the body’s microbiome and how food interacts with it,

and a strong business background will be critical to the newer, bigger farms . These farms will be expected to produce more nutritious food responsibly and sustainably .

To McCloskey, the fear of GMOs (genetically modified food) is overblown and, perhaps, more than a little first-world-centric . “If through GMOs you can grow crops in places where plants can’t grow right now, that could help solve hunger problems around the world .”

Food tech investor Brian Frank summed up the communication challenge that today’s farmers face nicely . “It’s not about fetishizing tech, but talking about good food,” he said . “And sometimes tech helps you get there .”

The gadgets that make their way into the kitchen in mass (sometimes as fads) are things that either make food more fun (think Toasteroid) or make a task easier like OXO tools, which were originally designed with bigger grips for people with arthritis in their hands . OXO’s a great example of universal design – products and environments that are designed to be usable to the

greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability or status .

Barad said smart tools will need to make things easier like OXO or do chores that people hate, like logging food . For example, she suggested a smart refrigerator that reads what’s inside, looks at the nutritional value of each item, and suggests what to do with what you’ve got on hand – a tool that empowers rather than dictates .

But regardless of whether it’s an app, a home delivery service like HelloFresh, or a sous vide machine, it all circles around to the experience of food, which for

centuries was simple, slow and satisfying . How do you fit that into a busy modern life? A good tool makes the cook more confident, which encourages him to cook more, which in turn can make him a healthier person . The importance of teaching people to make their own food was the idea behind Spoon University and was echoed in this panel .

As Fetterman put it, in her hyper-fast and colorful way, “Not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to make love . Both are core life skills and neither are taught in school .”

Growing trust at the farmOur romanticism with food and cooking extends to the roots of food, literally . It can get over the top, as the chicken sketch from Portlandia perfectly parodies . A Hartman Group survey showed that 68 percent of consumers are concerned about animal welfare and 55 percent want to know how products are made .

“Not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to make love. Both are core life skills and neither are

taught in school.”

“It’s not about fetishizing tech, but talking about

good food.”

Behold the Toasteroid! Yes, this is a real product.

Food & Tech

Vertical farming

Fair Oaks Farms agritourism attraction

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The work we do as design consultants is marked by urgency, uncertainty and high risk . We are often asking people to make choices based on things for which they

have no reference; we are in the business of innovation after all . During our careers, we have become frustrated after working so hard to get to a milestone meeting and then struggling to make a decision . We have shepherded a client through a tough decision, only to have it rejected by the larger organization . We realized we must be “doing it wrong” and turned to the large body of research on decision making . We’ve summarized our learnings and our experience in this workshop to help ourselves and others design a decision-making process to control for biases and a decision-making experience to improve commitment .

In the workshop, we shared what we’ve learned about the cognitive and social biases that can lead us astray and how to work with or navigate around these biases . We also walked the group through a decision-making process and identified critical failure modes to avoid at every step along the way . We finished with a hands-on exercise that involved dividing the group into small teams . Every team worked on the same challenge using the same decision-making steps, but each team had a different decision-making team structure .

We defined four types, based on structures we’ve encountered through working with clients:

Consensus Group: All group members contribute to the making of the decision . Every member has a decision-making role .

Justification Group: All group members contribute to the making of the decision . Every member has a decision-making role . In addition, this group had to justify its decision to an outside individual .

Consulting (or Recommending) Group: The group makes decision recommendations to an outside individual . Every member is an advisor only .

Mixed Group: The group has one and only one decision maker . All other group members are advisors to the decision maker . The decision maker has final say in the decision for the group .

Part of our interest in conducting this workshop is to better understand how these different decision-making team structures affect the decision-making experience, and the level of confidence and satisfaction individuals feel regarding the final decision . This wasn’t a true, controlled experiment, but if it were, the decision-making team structures would be our independent variables, and each individual’s reported confidence and satisfaction levels would be our dependent variables . (This was not a controlled experiment so the results are suggestive or directional at best .)

The $25,000 Challenge (no actual money was at risk)Imagine that you are part of a small startup. Your company has been given $25,000 and the opportunity to make more money (or lose it) by investing the entire amount in one of the following stocks for the duration of one week: Alphabet (Google) – GOOG, Facebook – FB, or Snap (Snapchat) – SNAP .

By Vivian Lin

Stefanie Norvaisas and I recently returned from an amazing trip to South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, where we had the opportunity to host a workshop on Designing Decisions .

We believe it’s a critical part of all our jobs to facilitate and drive decision making . Yet this simple statement glosses over the fact that the mechanics of decision making are complex, sensitive to emotion and contextual influence . It also ignores the fact

that most of us were never given the tools or the understanding needed to design a good decision-making experience .

“The mechanics of decision making are complex,

sensitive to emotional and contextual influence.”

“The work we do as design consultants is marked by urgency, uncertainty and

high risk.”

Making decisions at SXSW

Making decisions

Vivian and Stef presenting

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What did we learn from this? § People don’t always follow directions, so don’t expect them to do so and plan

around that reality .

§ Getting the decision-making criteria right from the outset is important .

§ The process led to a good decision and the group led to a confident decision .

We had a great time and a fruitful discussion with this group . We always learn something new by discussing the difficulties and the realities of decision making, and we appreciate the workshop attendees for engaging in the conversation with us! We look forward to future conversations on the topic as we work to hone our decision-making skills .

You can also decide to not invest in any of these three options, in which case you can keep the $25,000 . Again, if you choose to invest, your stock will be cashed out one week from today .

Each group created a team name and made a decision using the process and tools we provided . Throughout the decision-making exercise, participants were asked to report decisions and confidence levels via an online survey . They made individual, independent decisions first before participating in their groups .

What did each team decide, and how did they do? The exercise and the concluding discussion reminded us of some of the decision-making details that are critical to get right, including understanding the business and its appetite for risk, and knowing how to define decision criteria .

Only 23 of the 39 workshop attendees actually followed all of the directions and filled out all of their survey questions . Of those, we saw agreement with results from academic research that shows that people who make decisions as part of a group tend to have more confidence in their decision than people making decisions on their own .* Ten out of the 23 reporting actually changed their minds going from their individual decision to the group decision . Nine out of the 23 increased their reported confidence level in the final decision . No one reported a decrease in confidence level going from individual to group decision . * For example: Sniezek, Janet A . and Rebecca A . Henry . 1989 . Accuracy and Confidence in Group Judgment, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 43(1):1-28 .

Making decisions

Documenting the decisions made

The outcomes

Could your team benefit from our Decision Making

workshop? Contact us to learn more about this

workshop and our other educational offerings.

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First, a bit about Design ResearchDesign Research is a collaborative process of making sense of people and using the insights from that sense-making to inform design decisions about products, services and experiences . It is everything I loved about co-creating, editing and designing a four-times-weekly (now twice-daily and online) publication plus the beautiful challenge of solving “wicked problems .”

When I first started my career as a Design Researcher, we fiercely guarded our craft . Today, there are so many tools available to collect data and they are sold in practically fool-proof platforms so that (almost) anyone can “do” research . While there is always risk of the misuse of tools and insight, there is probably greater benefit in providing more access to human-driven insight than in restricting it .

In the talk I attended, Baquet made a similar acknowledgment . While the definition of journalism is changing, that’s been better than worse for the profession . Even if today’s changing definition doesn’t fit his, it excites him .

Baquet was adamant, though, that “there must be some honorable pursuit of the truth” in his practice (and some news organizations do not fit that definition to him) . Likewise, as a researcher, my job is to find the truth . Sometimes the people I’m interviewing don’t know their own truth until we start talking about it . That is precarious moral ground for me . Just as news organizations are tempted by clicks, buzz and ad dollars, my fellow researchers and I need to resist being swayed by client demands, easy insights and our own biases .

Looking for what you hope you won’t findIt almost goes without saying that the outcome of the 2016 election was a shock to many . After all the polls and analysis, how could so many have gotten it so wrong?

As a researcher, this reminds me to seek the disconfirming information – the data that invalidates our assumptions and tests our preconceived notions . Baquet said had he known better, they would have doubled down on their “Anxious in America” reporting– a series of articles that featured everyday Americans

Truth, justice and not just checking the boxBy Amy Lee

Anyone who has attended the annual Austin music and design festival South by Southwest (SxSW) will tell you that to nab a seat at one of hundreds of interesting workshops on offer requires standing in lines . Long lines . A lot .

My record-holding wait of 60 minutes to hear Dean Baquet and Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times talk about their “failing publication” was well worth it .

As a Design Researcher who was the copy chief of my college newspaper, I was

intrigued by the idea of two esteemed journalists speaking at a design conference held in a conservative state . While they hosted a largely political conversation about modern news coverage, I found myself drawing a handful of parallels between the fields of Journalism and Design Research .

“Today...anyone can ‘do’ research. While there is

always risk of the misuse of tools and insight, there

is probably greater benefit in providing more access to human-driven insight than

in restricting it.”

Finding parallels at SXSW

Welcome to SXSW! ...please, wait here.

Finding parallels

Anxious In America series, The New York Times

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and their struggles that attempted to capture the nation’s mood before the election . Had he sought out what he hoped not to hear, Baquet said, this might have given The Times a deeper insight into how the election would turn out . So, too, researchers and designers need to explore alternative paths in our processes and not be afraid to diverge from drawing a linear conclusion or to explore things that feel more wrong than right .

Is it better to be first or to be right? It’s a tenuous balance – being faster or being more right – that exists in both journalism and in research . In my work, where deep ethnographic exploration with people is a cornerstone of empathy, there is growing pressure to “get it” faster . Clients are under pressure to grow their businesses and are understandingly impatient . Journalists are subject to similar demands—publishers, editors and, of course, the public—clamoring for more news, more frequent news and more salacious stories .

As writers and researchers seek not just answers but fast answers we, of course, risk accuracy and not getting the whole story – two things that are probably more difficult to judge in research than in journalism .

More worrisome to me, however, is a risk that ‘empathy’ is becoming a bankrupt term . It’s a check box (thank you, Martha Cotton, for those words!) in some design efforts and definitely in the media . An example is

blindfolding yourself and then “checking the box” that you know what it’s like to be blind . Empathy — in recounting human stories for research or in journalism is never a box that can be checked . If, like Baquet, we want to “tell stories that explain the world” and create meaningful products and breakthrough innovations, then we will need to constantly search for and unearth deeper meanings and the “so what .”

I hope that storytellers everywhere will leave ample room for a deeper understanding of behaviors, attitudes and issues in their work . Without them, we might miss the REAL story .

Dean Baquet and Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times

Martha Cotton, Dscout photo by Yvette Marie Dostatni

Finding parallels

‘empathy’ is becoming a bankrupt term. It’s a check box...in some design efforts and definitely in the media.

© 2017 DESIGN CONCEPTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PG 25

effectively in a given domain . An AI system demonstrates a kind of intentionality—it initiates action in its environment and pursues goals .

IA—The idea that a computer system supplements and supports human thinking, analysis, and planning, leaving the intentionality of a human actor at the heart of human-computer interaction . Focusing on the interaction of humans and computers, rather than on computers alone .

Blue pill or red pill?

It’s easy to fall into dystopian nightmares about where an AI-engineered super intelligence might lead us . Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have warned about the need to control this genie in a bottle now .

“The question to ask is not how do we make machines more intelligent, but how do we get them to do the right thing by people?” Cook asked .

We already have a successful history of IA—the internet, search engines, graphic UI and touch screens, to name a few . Studies have shown that a human working with

Will robots work with us or replace us?By Joan Neeno

It was the most compelling presentation I saw at SXSW .

A petite, soft-spoken woman with an English accent, standing in front of a podium as the years started ticking away on a large screen beside her .

We’ve got 30 years, she said .

We’re in a 30-year grace period before many economists speculate that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be sophisticated enough to replace millions of people in the

workplace with machines .

You could have heard a pin drop in the packed ballroom .

Melanie Cook, a Strategy and Consultancy Lead at Sapient Razorfish, asked some provocative questions during her presentation, “AI:IA: Designing AI to augment not replace people in the workplace .”

IA stands for Intelligence Augmentation . How is it different from AI? Here are the definitions Cook gave in her presentation:

AI—The idea of a computer system that, by reproducing human cognition, allows that system to function autonomously and

AI or IA?

AI or IA?

“The question to ask is not how do we

make machines more intelligent, but how do we get them to do the right thing

by people?” – Melanie Cook

© 2017 DESIGN CONCEPTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PG 27

referendum . If more socialized European countries are struggling with the idea, needless to say it will have a much higher bar to cross in the United States .

Time to take controlBut big changes to the labor force are already in play and bigger changes are coming . To Cook’s point, do we sit idly by and let AI become an unrelenting force for mass unemployment and income inequality? Or do

leaders in government, science and industry harness the potential of IA to help people become more engaged, effective workers with the help of machines?

“We have the opportunity to embrace and make AI more human-centered now,” Cook said . “Although machines are 30 years away from taking over, that’s

not a reason to shirk your responsibility to try and make machines and humans work together . We want beneficial IA . IA that is beneficial to humans . Not AI that replaces them .”

Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, Masayoshi Son, recently said that in 30 years there will be more robots than humans and your shoes will be smarter than you . Given how brain-dead I often feel at 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, I have no reason to doubt him . The question is, though, will those genius shoes let me walk all over them? That’s the basic question about AI/IA – can something that’s 10,000 times smarter than us still reliably support us or will we be working (or

a machine will outperform a human or a machine at almost every task . Machines can release people from drudgery to do more creative, knowledge-based work . But if designed without regard to its impact on society, AI could also cause mass unemployment and significant social upheaval .

“We are moving toward a cliff because we are not looking at the end result, which is super intelligence,” Cook said . “We are instead looking at the small movements forward, toward creating it .”

As the recent presidential election brought into focus the frustration of working-class Americans, many have pointed to automation as the real driving force behind job loss, not trade agreements . Until recently, most of the job loss has been blue collar . That’s changing .

Cook pointed to a Japanese insurance company that replaced its human claims clerks with IBM Watson, citing better customer service and saving $1 .1 million annually . In another example, a British think tank released a study saying that websites and AI chatbots could replace up to 90 percent of the UK’s government administrators and even some work of nurses and physicians by 2030 . It would save the government £4 billion and cost around 250,000 people their jobs .

A recent federal study estimated that AI is a threat to up to 47 percent of U .S . jobs within two decades and could widen the income disparity between less-

skilled, lower-wage workers and those with more skills . The benefits of increased productivity could also accrue more to a wealthy few than broader society, leaving governments struggling to pay for education, infrastructure and healthcare .

Planning for a post-work worldBut it’s more than dollars, yen and pounds . Humans derive more than money from work . It provides a sense of identity and security . If large portions of humanity no longer have meaningful work to do, how do we function as a society?

Bill Gates has suggested robots pay taxes equal to what a human would pay for performing the same job . Instead of working on an assembly line or in a call center, people can work in areas where there are labor shortages such as teaching and caring for the elderly . Taxation on robots could provide more funding for those human-centered functions .

Another idea that is getting a lot of attention is a Universal Basic Income (UBI) . The idea is that all citizens receive a set monthly stipend from the government whether they work or not . Several countries have done experiments with the idea and, in general, it has not been a disincentive to work . In fact, it may encourage more low-income people to work because they won’t lose their benefits by getting a job that places them just above the income cap .

The Swiss recently rejected a UBI for its citizens by more than a 75 percent margin in a recent national

If large portions of humanity no longer have

meaningful work to do, how do we function as a society?

“We have the opportunity to embrace and make AI more

human-centered now”

An interview with Bill Gates: https://qz.com/911968/

U.S. has shed 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000, source: BLS

AI or IA?

© 2017 DESIGN CONCEPTS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Copyright © 2017 Design Concepts, Inc .

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduction any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from Design Concepts except for brief excerpts in reviews or analysis .

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks . Where those designations appear in this book, and the author was aware of the claim, the designations have been marked with ® symbols . While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the author assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein .

Third Edition, April 2017

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Amy Lee, Vivian Lin, Joan Neeno, Roshelle Ritzenthaler & Stefanie Norvaisas. Illustrations by Erik Eisermann.

SXSW Report 2017