ThinkPlace - Trusted Institutions

Appreciating health workers in the COVID fight isn’t ‘nice’: it’s a moral duty

Sashi Surendran — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 07:11:30 +0000

Appreciating health workers in the COVID fight isn’t ‘nice’: it’s a moral duty

Australia

What are our moral duties to frontline COVID-19 health workers? Supplying PPE, training, adequate clinical support and (if they fall ill) enhanced care, certainly. But we also have a duty to recognise, applaud and tangibly thank them for their efforts, the risks they are taking, and in some cases, their sacrifices.

Doctors, nurses, ward assistants, chaplains, cleaning staff, are at risk of being stigmatised for their role in the C-19 fight. We saw this during SARS and Ebola, and we are, distressingly, seeing it now.

But we are also seeing amazing recognition and support. In some countries (like Italy, Spain and the US), they get daily applause from houses and balconies near their home or hospitals.

In Victoria, Australia, the Government has made accommodation available to them free of charge if they need to self-isolate so they can reduce the risk to their families, while in Western Australia, you can buy a meal for tired clinicians online, which is then made available to them by a mobile food truck parked outside their hospital, all delivered under social distancing arrangements.

In Singapore, almost 2,000 people have signed an online petition whose intent is simple: to say thank you to and to appreciate frontline health workers. One respondent posted: "The frontline healthcare staffs are our guardian angels. They are the ones helping to keep us safe and healthy, despite the risks they face. Appreciate and respect them. Thank you for your commitment and dedication!"

In the UK, the NHS has made it easy for people to volunteer and support NHS and its health workforce, and have launched a dedicated mental health helpline for health workers so that they can have 24 hour phone or SMS support.

And on, and on.

It's hard to overstate the importance of this. Every government, community and person should think about how we can go about the simple, moral duty of embracing, rather than stigmatising, the people who are putting themselves at risk in this fight.

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Dream of a better New Zealand society? Let's make it happen

Sashi Surendran — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 01:42:47 +0000

New Zealand

Dream of a better New Zealand society? Let's make it happen

Topics

codesign

Our world is complex, and change is hard… but not impossible.

The age of IoT, Big Data, Artificial intelligence, Robotics, Sharing Economy, etc otherwise known as Industry 4.0 is real and happening across our country in industries and our private lives.

Do you want to be part of making the change you want to see in our society? Do you want to work with us to envision Aotearoa New Zealand Society 5.0 - more equitable, sustainable and productive? Together, we can continue to evolve and build our collective wellbeing.

Japan and several other countries are already thinking about these very questions. As a society, we can ‘drift’ into this future and it will happen to us or we can be very intentional and navigate to it. In an increasingly more connected age of technology, we can become even more disconnected or we can do something about it.

To work on this challenge, ThinkPlace New Zealand is standing up a Society 5.0 design coalition. Together we will realise a vision of Society 5.0 where we resolve social challenges by incorporating the innovations of Industry 4.0 into the fabric of our social life.

Who could be in the coalition?

A group of 20 likeminded people with a mandate for leading change from 10 organisations who want more for this country and all of its people. A group who are willing to invest a small budget and some time to join us to seek an answer to the question we have posed.

Are you someone who cares about our social support for vulnerable people?

Are you someone who cares about our environment and planet?

Are you someone who cares about the wellness and health of our people?

Are you hungry for greater momentum?

Are you building industry 4.0 and also want bigger outcomes for this country?

How we will do this?

The work is a collaborative system design dropping out organisation specific initiatives that you can take into your own organisation’s strategic planning.

At ThinkPlace, we are a passionate group of subject matter experts in the areas of complex systems, human lived experiences and behaviour, organisation strategy and convening collaborative conversations.

The work will be informed by

A clear view of the current system and its flaws
A large-scale deep dive research project with New Zealanders
Merging qualitative and quantitative insights along the views of a number of subject matter experts across complex systems, human insight and behaviour change, organisation strategy and Industry 4.0.

What are the outcomes?

You will get a grasp of our society as a complex system and the possible initiatives you could explore to achieve your organisation’s outcomes and better equity, productivity and sustainability in Aotearoa Society 5.0.

Collectively, you along with other partners in the coalition will be able to see each other’s initiatives, minimising duplication and maximising collaboration so that we can use this country’s scarce resources more effectively and efficiently.

As current (and future) leaders of this country, you will get a holistic view of bi-partisan pathways to a better future.

Why work with us?

We don’t just bring complexity to the table but embrace it to have breakthrough conversations, surfacing what is and what could be. Our expertise lies in understanding people’s behaviour and needs, navigating areas of uncertainty.

Whether it’s world leading behaviour change to save lives, turning around a historically disadvantaged community or a new paradigm for environmental stewardship in NZ, we build partnership, confidence and hope by creating action pathways.

If you need to make your case with your organisation leaders, start the conversation today with a downloadable pdf below.

aotearoa_society_5.0_design_coalition.pdf

The investment is $40,000 per organisation and eight days in coalition working sessions spread across six months.

I’m leading this work and will be joined by three of my senior colleagues.

Get in touch with me if you want more info or to reserve two seats at the table.

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You've found your 'why'... So now what?

Daniel Silkstone — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:37:12 +0000

You've found your 'why'... So now what?

Australia

For people, and increasingly for organisations, the search for higher purpose –for a sense of mission that drives us forward – has become increasingly important. Across business and government, leaders pursue purpose as if it is the answer to all ills.

Our why. Our mission. Our reason for getting out of bed each day.

Purpose has great PR, but alone it will never be enough. And, though it seems counter-intuitive, without a high-performance mindset and toolkit, overwhelming purpose can actually be a detriment to your organisation. More on that later.

MY HIGH-PERFORMANCE JOURNEY

What do I know about high-performance? I grew up surrounded by it. Both my parents are multi-Olympians, my father (3xGames) a swimming coach and my mother (5xGames) a manager. Often at our Sunday family dinners I would sit surrounded by coaches and athletes from around the world listening to ‘shop talk’.

I began my coaching ‘career’ at the age of 13, helping out wherever I could. At 22, I won a scholarship coaching position at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) with the Swimming Team. Eighteen months later, I coached Jade Edminston to a World Record.

In 2007 I began coaching Alicia Coutts, a genuine diamond in the rough. Alicia’s father died of cancer on the day of her first swimming carnival, she was 7 years old. Nothing was ever handed to Alicia growing up, she had to work for everything.

I consider talent to be two things: work ethic and an ability to learn. Alicia is the most talented athlete I ever coached.

Video of AIS coach named best in Australia

A BIG SHIFT

In 2009 my coaching shifted. Alicia and I set an audacious goal, to achieve elite success not just for ten minutes but for ten years. That decision changed everything. We needed to start thinking long-term and holistically.

This meant:

Creating and sustaining momentum and
Having Alicia invest time in school, work, family and friends to nurture her support networks (you need them when things get tough).

By 2012, Alicia Coutts stood on top of the world as Olympic Champion. She had equalled the great Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould as the only Australians to win 5 medals at a single Olympic Games.

Alicia eventually retired a triple Olympian and a 28-time international medallist. I am immensely proud of our decade-long partnership. Together, we learned a lot about what it takes to chase and achieve a state of elite performance over a sustained period of time.

THE SECOND SHIFT

In October 2017 I shifted again, leaving swimming to join a different group of high-performers with a similarly audacious goal: to make the world a better place.

When I met with ThinkPlace leaders John Body and Nina Terrey I could immediately see they were facing the same types of challenges I had faced with Alicia in 2009.

Theirs was not a challenge of vision or motivation (they had that in spades) but of creating sustainable high-performance. We spoke about balancing intensity with recovery, creating cycles, flow and other lessons we could bring across from international sport to the world of a fast-growing global strategic design network. I now lead High Performance for the Global ThinkPlace Team.

We define high-performance as:

A team of highly skilled people with a clear sense of purpose at the leading edge of their field, resourced and supported to achieve high quality and continuously improving outcomes which are sustainable over time.

Video of High performance culture for your organisation

HOW THIS CAN HELP YOUR ORGANISATION

According to author Daniel Pink, there are three key elements which drive internal motivation: autonomy (desire to be self-directed), mastery (desire to develop skills and learn) and purpose (desire to do something meaningful).

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, there’s a growing movement for organisations to become more ‘purposeful’. This may be through increasing social and environmental responsibilities or aligning work to global movements of change (such as the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals).

And that’s fantastic. These are positive ideas that can be tremendously energising.

But there’s another side to it. The irony is that the higher your organisation’s purpose (say for example winning Olympic gold or changing the world), the higher the risk of burn out.

This is because people with a strong sense of purpose become extremely driven to go above and beyond what is expected of them. Time and again the evidence shows they will push themselves to ever increasing intensities for longer and longer periods of time.

THAT'S NOT SUSTAINED SUCCESS

The lesson from high-performance sport is ‘the greater the intensity, the greater the need for recovery’. This is exact reason the Australian Government invested millions of dollars to build the state-of-the-art Recovery Centre at the Australian Institute of Sport.

When everyone has talent, purpose, mission, and motivation other things can become your advantage (your edge). Things like patience, perspective, timing and recovery.

HIGH PERFORMANCE NEEDS HIGH PERFORMERS

This way of thinking about organisational performance focuses attention on your team’s very best.

One of the ongoing challenges for coaches, teachers and executives is not to become hyper-focused on the worst performers: the squeaky wheels.

If all your focus and messaging is targeted at middle and lower performers, the top will eventually ‘switch off’ from leadership. When high-performers are driven to go the extra mile but their leader’s messaging is all about addressing poor performance, they become disconnected and resentment can build. This doesn’t mean poor performers or those who are struggling should be abandoned or written off. But nor should they dictate your strategy and monopolise your resources.

HOW TO SHIFT TO A HIGH PERFORMANCE CULTURE

1.Create a sustainable leadership team. Most leadership development focuses on cohesion, alignment or interpersonal skills. These are all important areas for development however one lens is missing, personal skills. We like to ask one powerful question of our leadership team: Will you be an effective leader for us in 10 years or will you burn out at the rate you are going now? Personal skill development is the first area we develop our leaders in at ThinkPlace, after all, what’s the point of development if you can’t retain who you have developed?

2. Build bulletproof performers.

As a coach I always aimed to develop people able to perform in high pressure environments without me there. In 2016 this is exactly what happened with Alicia. My first son, Jude, was born 2 months early and only weeks before the Rio Olympic Games. Needless to say, I was at home with him when Alicia competed in her third Olympics. Leaders should focus on building capability in their team, not providing all the answers or doing the work for them. Develop people with the end in mind. You may not be by their side when it matters most.

3.Vacate space and allow your culture to grow. When positive cultures begin developing, leaders must resist the urge to lead or drive everything. Allow others to take over ideas and initiative (even if it isn’t done exactly how you would do it). The ultimate compliment is watching a team embody the type of culture you want. Culture is not scalable if only driven by a few people.

At ThinkPlace, we work every day with individuals, teams, and organisations to help them research, design and implement genuine high-performance. To discuss your high-performance challenges, please get in touch.

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Helping governments grapple with the challenge of AI

Daniel Silkstone — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 01:10:35 +0000

New Zealand

Helping governments grapple with the challenge of AI

Topics

digital solutions

Regulating in the age of AI presents unique issues for our society and for those within government who are working to improve it.

Recent advances in AI and machine learning have shown us the scale of complexity and the sometimes-disorienting speed at which change is taking place. Well-publicised cases of unethical practices with AI and machine learning have fuelled mistrust across the global community and have the potential to create crippling uncertainty in the minds of those who might deploy AI in pursuit of greater efficiencies or social benefit.

In this context, governments around the world are beginning to realise that they have both a responsibility and a need to ensure that AI is adopted in ethical ways. But apprehending this need and acting strategically upon it are two different things.

Many government actors are dealing with the same emerging questions about how best to do this: How quickly should the uses that AI is put to and the way in which it operates be regulated? And how can this be done while upholding important human rights and values?

Drawing on our deep expertise with emerging technologies and digital ethics, ThinkPlace recently facilitated a conversation to explore these questions for the World Economic Forum Center for the Fourth Digital Revolution (C4IR) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs. Leaders from across government, business, Māoridom (New Zealand indigenous community) and civil society gathered to have open dialogue about the opportunities and challenges of AI, and potential steps forward.

Kate MacDonald, NZ Government Fellow at C4IR, said the intention was to bring together stakeholders across all sectors to collaborate on designing innovative and agile frameworks for governing AI.

Activities in New Zealand will be based on creating a policy roadmap to guide decision-makers; convening a national conversation; and piloting the most promising approaches and tools - Kate MacDonald, C4IR

This is an opportuntity space not just a risk one

This was a hugely necessary and very timely conversation. For many government leaders across multiple sectors artificial intelligence is an uncharted territory with huge potential. While attention is rightly often focused upon making sure that applications do not create harms for citizens (either intended or unintended) there is also huge opportunity for AI to be a powerful force for public good at a human level.

We’re already seeing some of the benefits – efficiencies, cost savings, error reduction and future forecasting – to name a few. It’s not hard to see the potential benefits when algorithms can assess a wide range of data to make determinations about where aid should be delivered during an unfolding crisis or which portions of the population might be targeted for a public health campaign, a tax audit or a new form of skills training.

But it’s also not hard to see the potential ethical pitfalls if these processes are mishandled. When we empower AI to pick winners and losers, when we use people’s private information and data to aid in decision making we are operating at a new ethical frontier.

Done wrong, AI has the potential to create harms, including privacy issues, entrenched biases, power structures and racism, control issues, and accountability issues. The diverse range of sectors also means that there is a wide range of interests in AI from all sides of the spectrum.

The scale of the potential harms can be intimidating – and there is currently no map, no template for doing this well. This event was a necessary first step towards creating that template and making sure it is co-created by all of the voices who have a stake in its application and success.

We were asking: How might we enable the best of AI in a way that protects human rights and values and meets the needs of our sectors?

Here are the top four insights that we took away from the day.

1. Whose ethics?

When talking about AI and regulation, it’s not simply a discussion about the tools or technologies but also the ethical framework that serves as a scaffold. It includes questioning how decisions are made, how power is distributed and who benefits and is excluded.

2. What will our country stand for?

Regulating AI well means striking the right balance between global scalability and local relevance, and to do this requires a deep understanding of where our nation wants to sit on the spectrum – to appropriately honour the diversity of voices and rights of our citizens.

3. How might we aspire to be trustworthy, not just trusted?

AI will be meaningless if the leaders, data, frameworks and tools for regulating are not considered trustworthy by citizens. AI relies heavily on data inputs – but leveraging this data in the long-term requires the reputation of reliability and a strong alignment in ethics. We’ve seen what happens when companies are trusted, but are not trustworthy with their use of data.

4. How do we honour the cultural uniqueness of data ownership and data sovereignty?

In our conversations we explored the notion of individual, community and societal data ownership and data sovereignty, but also recognised that these are rooted in cultures. In Aotearoa New Zealand, honouring and upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) is critical for ethical application of AI. However, as part of a global community, we also need to identify the expectations of other country cultures and understand how our unique approach may have similarities and differences with our overseas peers.

While these discussions and the insights they generated were specific to a New Zealand context they also have much potential to resonate more broadly.

“New Zealand was chosen as a country to explore this work because ensuring people’s rights in the digital age and keeping citizens safe in a technological world are two key government priorities,” Kate MacDonald says.

“From a WEF point of view, New Zealand is a small country, able to move nimbly and work across the system and sectors. It already has a strong collaborative culture, and is bicultural with a wide diversity within its population.”

“I was thrilled at the high energy and enthusiasm in the room, the wide ranging and respectful conversations and the real passion the people in the room had to see this succeed.”

Want to know more? Inquire about our short course in digital ethics

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Designing for people in a rapidly transforming Singapore

Daniel Silkstone — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 22:39:03 +0000

Designing for people in a rapidly transforming Singapore

Singapore

Singapore is not like other places. A city but also a nation. A culture but also a community.

And that means designing for positive change in Singapore is a unique experience.

It needs a unique set of skills to identify the challenges and opportunities that can lead to better lives and experiences for all Singaporeans.

That’s where Joshua Teo comes in.

Newly appointed as Principal at ThinkPlace’s Singapore design studio, Teo is well placed to meet the future needs of a city-state that is undergoing rapid transformation.

Whether it’s his passion for street photography or his commitment to designing in human-centred ways, Joshua's life-long fascination is with understanding people, what motivates them and how they live their lives.

Video of Joshua Teo - My Moment of Design Impact

TP: Tell us a bit about yourself.

JT: I come from an architecture background. I’ve spent the last eight years at one of Singapore’s leading architecture firms doing design that included architectural design but also experience design.

Where I am now, I stand at the intersection of design, business, digital technology and community. For me, the role of a designer is facilitating change, and bringing the right people together to make it happen.

And the kind of changes we are looking to make now, many of them either relate to digital transfromation in Singapore. Either that's the subject of the change or it is a big part of making it happen. In this world it's important to keep hold of the human side of design, to approach change as an holistic experience.

And to make sure that when we are driving towards digtial transforation that we bring all Singaporeans along with us. We need to make sure we are being inclusive and not creating a digital divide.

TP: That means human-centred design, as it touches upon places but also on technology, is a crucial part of changemaking in Singapore, would you agree?

JT: It really is. One of our most senior government ministers gave a speech recently, laying out three big priorities for Singapore.

Energy
Public housing
An ageing population

When you think about it, all of these priorities touch upon placemaking, public spaces and how we can use design to meet these challenges.

TP: Tell us more.

JT: As a nation our energy use and carbon footprint is critical for our future. Changing the way we do a few things can have a massive impact for Singapore. For example, we spend so much energy cooling our buildings with air conditioning. How might we design spaces or ways of living that are less carbon intensive?

On public housing, we have land scarcity in Singapore – it’s a small country – and we have a growing population. We need to create quality housing and quality opportunities for our people in the future. It’s an area where we can look at the entirety of how people live, what they need and value in a community and in their living environment.

Then there’s the ageing population. Singapore’s demographics are going to hit us hard in the next 15 years and we are not currently well enough prepared. How can we allow these people to age with dignity but also allow them to continue making a contribution to society? How can we use the design tools at our disposal to ensure they lead rich lives?

TP: It does seem that human-centred design and the possibilities it offers are having a bit of a moment in Singapore?

JT: They really are. What I am seeing is a Government that is making a real effort to become more relatable to its citizens. This is a country that is working to get better at co-creation and collaboration. I think that was a necessary change. There is still plenty of work to do and we think at ThinkPlace that we are really well-placed to help with that.

TP: That speaks to the Government’s growing investment in human-centred change but there’s something else special about Singapore and design isn’t there?

JT: Definitely. Because it is a nation state that is the size of a city and because there are fewer layers of government, Singapore can be a brilliant environment to innovate and test things. We are so self-contained, we can rapidly iterate and then test programs and interventions that could eventually be applied much more broadly across Asia and beyond.

TP: What's something interesting about you, outside of work?

I love to take photos. And the kind of photography I am most interested in is street photography. I love just to meet interesting people, get an insight into what thye are doing and try to record it with my camera. Every person has something special and something interesting about their story. As humans we are all natural storytellers and I think this is a thread that comes across from my wider life to my life as a designer in complex human systems.

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Helping businesses benefit from digital technology

Daniel Silkstone — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 23:23:00 +0000

Work

Helping businesses benefit from digital technology

Service

Experience & Behavioural DesignInnovation AmplifiedDigital

People

Sector

Strong Economies

Singapore is a nation that is pushing hard to build its digital future.

The Singaporean government has taken an active role, supporting the nation’s businesses and companies to embrace the efficiencies and growth possibilities made possible by emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analysis.

The response to this urging has been strong and enthusiastic but enthusiasm alone will not be enough to guarantee success.

While many businesses display a willingness to wade into these new spaces there are not always sufficient levels of knowledge or competency for them to do so with confidence.

It’s especially true for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who often lack the resources to run detailed analyses of the opportunities and risks associated with specific technologies. They sometimes find it hard to know where and with who to get started.

At the same time technological innovators and vendors often have an incomplete understanding of the business problems they could be helping to solve. Experience and context is needed to allow them to better target their innovations and make products work in the real world.

THE CHALLENGE

It's not always easy for businesses and technology providers to work together to create new mutual value. It requires trust.

For these reasons the Singapore Government has established the Open Innovation Platform – a way to connect and facilitate partnerships between businesses with hard-to-solve problems, and technology providers who just might have the answer.

The platform is an initiative of Infocomm Media Development Authority.

OUR RESPONSE

ThinkPlace is supporting the program as a design thinking facilitator.

As part of the platform, we’ve been working directly with businesses and technology solution providers to help them engage with one another, and find what works.

We’re working with a variety of Singapore businesses across areas like construction, insurance, food, retail and sustainability. Using design thinking and other methods, as well as our extensive and diverse consulting experience, we’ve helped them make sense of what they’re seeking to achieve and how to engage the world of technology effectively.

HOW WE DO IT

The OIP is a strong platform for matching and catalysing business and technology partners. It’s based on a model, where businesses construct a design challenge around their problem, and offer a prize to the technologist that can best tackle it.

The process starts with problem framing. Together with IMDA, ThinkPlace works with businesses to help them refine their problem statement, ready to be published to the platform.

Some businesses have a very clear idea of the problem (having dealt with it for years) and we help them to put it into language that is clear for a technologist. With other businesses, we help clarify intent and craft the problem statement that they want to put before a techno

We use human-centred design techniques to ensure that requirements consider real world human needs and context. At other points, we’ll explore the system-level view, walk through critical business processes, and consider business risks. Once we’ve reached clarity, the agreed-upon ‘problem’ is then uploaded to the platform and the IMDA shares it with a global pool of thousands of tech providers, to generate a shortlist of interested parties.

At this point, we support IMDA and the business to evaluate potential solutions, and prepare the businesses to effectively interview a chosen few solution providers.

Once a partner is selected we help the business and technology providers agree to the terms of the design challenge, and the KPIs they are to meet in order to receive prize money.

Next, we assist the business problem owner and technology solution provider to design the solution. We bring in years of design experience to create a proof of concept or prototype (depending on the terms of the challenge) that is effective, efficient, ethical and provides a great user experience.

THE IMPACT

This project provides Singapore’s businesses with critical support from an independent trusted ally who can help them navigate a process that is absolutely necessary but often nervously engaged with and potentially fraught with risk.

“What they’ve really appreciated is our independence and our real commitment to trying to understand and address their specific challenges,” says ThinkPlace Singapore Managing Director Bill Bannear.

“It’s a great thing to have the confidence that you are buying something that is really going to help your business, not just being sold something shiny that you’ll regret investing in six months from now.”

For the technology solution providers, the program has opened up new business opportunities and a platform that makes it easy to co-create valuable products. The partnerships from OIP are already creating a portfolio of new business products, powered by emerging technologies, that will scale across the region.

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An exciting partnership for design education in Singapore

Daniel Silkstone — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 01:05:05 +0000

Work

An exciting partnership for design education in Singapore

Service

Experience & Behavioural DesignDigitalEducation & Capability

People

Sector

Vibrant Communities

In the right hands they are powerful tools but misapplied by the inexperienced they can be little more than buzzwords: User experience design, design thinking, gamification.

And in Singapore, as with many other worldwide markets, there is growing demand for these services.

THE CHALLENGE

When the Republic Polytechnic in Singapore recently decided to expand its suite of adult education services into design thinking, gamification and experience design they didn’t have to work too hard to decide who they needed to partner with.

ThinkPlace has strong capability and global profile across all three areas. We also have a thriving Singapore Design Studio and a strong track record of working with government and non-government organisations in the city-state.

That’s why ThinkPlace and Republic Polytechnic signed a memorandum of understanding to make this new partnership official. The MOU coincides with the opening of Republic Polytechnic’s new Experience Design and Gamification Centre.

This major partnership between ThinkPlace and the Polytechnic cements our role as a global leader in education around design thinking, user experience and gamification.

OUR RESPONSE

The XGD centre will focus on promoting awareness, and developing capabilities and expertise in UX and Gamification via projects, consultancies and training. 

It will help businesses to develop and adopt UX and Gamification solutions that foster innovation and enhance productivity and competitiveness. 

The centre brings together a powerful alliance of industry, private and public sector. This will open up spaces for consultancy work as well as advanced training in methods that ThinkPlace is a world leader in.

There is a growing demand for user experience design services in Singapore and this partnership will allow the building of new capability that allows the Polytechnic to provide the technical support Singaporean businesses are increasingly demanding.

HOW WE'RE DOING IT

Gamification is more than just leader boards, badges and rewards. Designed well, it engages and motivates people across all activities and organisations.

Gamification has immense potential in engaging customers, improving loyalty and shifting behaviours. It has the power to spur motivation of people and influence behaviours. Customers are not the only group of people that organisations need to motivate and engage. In fact, employees can significantly benefit from these programmes to retain, recognise and spur engagement of staff beyond compensation.

ThinkPlace has long been a leader in this emerging space and a gamification company - Pentaquest - is a part of the ThinkPlace global network.

THE IMPACT

Through both the new XGD Centre, and the broader ThinkPlace-RP relationship, we will be engaging with organisations on User Research, UX, Design Thinking, Service Design, Serious Games and Gamification through: 

Projects - An opportunity for ThinkPlace and Polytechnic staff to collaborate on projects for clients where differing skillsets make this desirable and to share access to labs and facilities. 
Consultancy – A joint effort to establish gamification in Singapore, and realise its benefits for both private and public sector
Industry collaboration - Driving Singapore's industry transformation roadmaps, working with employers and employees alike, to achieve change at scale across sectors
Training – A new platform to provide continuing adult design training for adult learners as part of our collaboration

ABOUT THINKPLACE SINGAPORE

ThinkPlace is a global network of strategic design studios, founded in 2005. Our Singapore Studio opened in 2014 and is led by General Manager Bill Bannear.

Building on ThinkPlace's global reputation as a provider of education and training we have established strong credentials in providing design thinking training and education to public organisations over the past four years. Increasingly, we are seeing interest from the private sector looking for partners that could help them develop and embed design capability in an effort to unlock strategic competitiveness and innovation.

Continuing education is a critical part of building human capital in Singapore and aligns closely with the Government’s plans for workforce transformation. The Singaporean Prime Minister also talks about how design thinking will be instrumental in the nation’s continued development.

There is plenty of ongoing interest in these methods right now. We see this as an opportunity to extend our footprint and to collaborate with the polytechnic to offer a design thinking training programme. Beyond that, we want to introduce new programmes through the centre such as design thinking for specific industries and gamification design - Bill Bannear

“These are areas where we have clear expertise and we can help, not only Singaporean businesses and organisations to flourish but help to build the capacity for innovation across the nation.”

ABOUT REPUBLIC POLYTECHNIC

Republic Polytechnic is the youngest polytechnic in Singapore, offering diploma courses in Engineering, ICT, hospitality, management and communications to interested tertiary students.

ThinkPlace has previously worked with the Polytechnic to embed design capabilities with their staff and lecturers. We have also accommodated students from the Polytechnic’s Diploma in Design for user experience as interns, while maintaining a close relationship to support them in their design growth. The new centre and the memorandum of understanding that create sit are a logical next step in this partnership.

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The one algorithm we are still badly missing

Daniel Silkstone — Sun, 22 Sep 2019 23:56:13 +0000

Australia

The one algorithm we are still badly missing

Topics

#innovation #globalinnovation, human-centred design

We are seeing it constantly; the algorithms that decide which news to place in our feeds like nothing better, it seems, than feeding us news about algorithms.

I am fascinated by the pace of artificial intelligence discourse in everyday media and news. And I see huge potential for the shift that’s underway to unearth systemic root drivers using data in ways that the human mind can’t process.

Take, for example, IBM’s much-lauded Project Debater. This masterpiece of algorithm and programming – released in 2019 – has achieved plenty of fanfare. The promise it offers is tantalising: A tool that can help people make decisions about complex questions, weighing up evidence (in the form of big data) on a computational scale no human could match and using decision-making frameworks to provide advice that is said to be both evidence-based and “not clouded by emotion”.

It’s an interesting metaphor in this context, the cloud. More on that in a moment.

Amid all this change, as I read about new business ideas, services and their possible ethical implications, I can’t help but lean on my own world view, as a human-centred designer and sociologist.

What about Human Intelligence (HI) in this world of increasing AI? As humans, what do we bring? What can we add to both guide and complement the emergence of AI?

It’s important as a species to register our intent: that we are not designing for our own obsolescence when it comes to making sense of the world and working to improve it.

How might we be sure to preserve the role of us, as people, in the way we define and design solutions to our most pressing challenges?

Let’s get back to clouds. In 1966, Karl Popper wrote the famous piece: Of Clocks and Clouds. Decades later, the distinction it makes is still relevant.

Popper observed that clocks are precise mechanisms. It is clear what each component of the clock does and how changing that component will affect the clock as a whole.

Not so clouds! A cloud is composed of many different components and the individual behaviour of each is random and unpredictable. 

“Cloud problems” are complex. They feature interconnections and interdependencies that are unstable and unpredictable. Changing one part of this system will not have a predictable outcome for other parts. These problems cannot be solved in a linear, staged way.

Emotions, relationships, personal connections and private motivations, all are real parts of the problems we see. But most are below the surface. Sometimes invisible. All require human intelligence to build and deploy understanding.

The temptation here would be to presume that, while algorithmic understanding is emerging rapidly and constantly shifting we have “got the human part covered”.

That’s not what I’m arguing. While human intelligence is something we all possess (and something older than human civilisation itself) this does not mean that we don’t need to develop, update, rethink and redesign how we apply it.

For those who seek to make a positive change in the world, this is the truly great challenge of our time. At ThinkPlace we are increasingly working to pair our understanding of human behaviours and the social with the information-gathering and analytic power offered by emerging technologies. Together, both are stronger.

So I’m throwing out two challenges: How  might we increase our sophistication of HI as fast as we work on improving artificial algorithms? 

And how might we define HI in a way that means it is built into future decision-making so that AI will only work if HI is involved? 

Why does this matter? If we pay attention to HI as a critical partner to AI, then complex issues will be solved in dignified and socially sensitised ways, and we have a much greater chance of producing the results we most need. 

It’s possible that algorithms can and will get better at “cloudy thinking” to tackle the kinds of complex problems Popper identified (problems that we see are increasingly common and increasingly complex in the connected, globalised, digitally transforming world we now inhabit). But we know that humans offer some powerful capabilities right now that can be put to use with great impact.

What if we proposed HI as an algorithm too? At its most basic an algorithm is a recipe; a set of assumptions and instructions that can be applied to determine decision-making. So here’s a new recipe for a new human intelligence…

Understanding the social + enrolling the social + optimised collaboration capacity + strengthened learning models. 

Pause for a second and read it again. Think of the power this recipe might hold. If we start to think of things in this way, we can then devote meaningful attention to the work needed to create HI at the same rate we are furiously building AI.

Here’s an example. ThinkPlace recently led an award-winning project to co-create a Family Safety Hub for the ACT Government. The idea was to remove some of the friction or disconnection points between available services and resources for both survivors and perpetrators of family violence, increasing connection and accessibility to make seeking and receiving help a more seamless experience.

To do this we spent plenty of time speaking with survivors of family violence from a variety of backgrounds, as well as discussions with stakeholders in the system and even perpetrators themselves. The ostensible purpose of this was discovery. By seeking, gaining and synthesising insights from users of the system we hoped to use that understanding to create a better system (this is the heart of what human-centred design and co-design are all about).

But we quickly noticed something else we hadn’t built into the project intentionally. The act of coming together to discuss these matters in a shared and safe environment had value in itself. Lots of value. These “focus groups” became “conversation circles”. They physically and emotionally brought people together who would otherwise have remained disconnected and isolated.

To some extent, the research became the intervention. We are now following up how “conversation circles” (both physical and virtual) can be built into the future system.

I’d humbly submit that an entirely data-driven, algorithm-decided look at this problem would not have achieved the sense of collaborative catharsis that our process uncovered (and would not have been ready to pivot and capitalise on the value that emerged).

That’s why human intelligence will continue to play a vital role as our ability to tackle complex problems increases over time.

Responsibility for building this capability lies with leaders in organizational settings - government, corporate, community - to invest in the balance of HI and AI. 

It’s as leaders we can pay attention to how people in our organisations are given agency to be participants in this HI. It plays to very real areas of organisational culture expectations: as issues get more complex this requires even great HI. 

The cultural imperative to build HI - as a collective concept, in temporary and more permanent settings, can help us more fiercely focus on what matters. 

Nina is Global Chief Methodologist, and is driving new models for collaboration and innovation. 

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An award-winning approach to Aboriginal place naming

Daniel Silkstone — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 21:55:16 +0000

Work

An award-winning approach to Aboriginal place naming

Service

Experience & Behavioural DesignInclusive Co-design & EngagementResearch & insights

People

Sector

Vibrant Communities

What’s in a name? If you are an Aboriginal person in Bendigo, Victoria and have to regularly walk past a local creek that carries an offensive racial term as its name you might think quite a lot.

All around Australia the names of things -- roads, waterways and geographic features -- serve as reminders of our past. In many instances place names reference acts of violence or displacement against Aboriginal people.

Changing this situation can address past and present wrongs but also carries exciting potential for the future. A greater integration between place-naming and Aboriginal culture and languages can help all Australians be better connected to the land they are living in.

THE CHALLENGE

“Some of the names in our landscape are racist and offensive. Some are just plain wrong in terms of how they are said or spelled,” says Susanna Collis, who worked on the project as a representative of the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council.

“This actually does matter to Traditional Owners. They feel it.”

In some cases, geographic features are named after colonial settlers who participated in atrocities against Aboriginal people. In others, names may appear harmless enough but by their simple existence may be effectively obscuring or erasing Aboriginal culture.

Beyond righting historical naming wrongs there is another -- equally pressing – need. Across Australia, we name a lot of things. New streets in new residential communities. New bridges and parks and water courses and hills.

It turns out, we are not very imaginative about how we do it.

“We keep giving the same types of names to new places, new roads,” says Susanna. “Often we know that these places already have names. They’ve had names for thousands of years. Not using those names is denying a truth. Using them highlights the continuity, presence and importance of Aboriginal culture.”

Naming authorities have too often been confused by how to engage with Aboriginal communities. At the same time, communities have felt unvalued, ignored and degraded by a lack of engagement and unaware of how decisions about naming are being made.

The challenge for ThinkPlace was to create a space and a process that would allow diverse people and interests to come together, using innovative methods and resources to drive shared understanding and purpose.

OUR RESPONSE

ThinkPlace was engaged by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council and the Department of Environment, Water, Land and Planning to create and run a process that would encourage and facilitate more inclusion of Aboriginal people, language and custom in place-naming throughout Victoria.

We designed a process – Our Languages Matter -- that has brought together Traditional Owners, naming authorities and other stakeholders in a way that is both pragmatic and symbolic, to reshape how things are named and why.

This is the first time anyone in any jurisdiction has attempted to do this anywhere in Australia. (Susanna Collis)

ThinkPlace’s design work offers a breakthrough in creating a new naming practice that is collaborative, inclusive and truthfully reflects Australia’s complex history.

HOW WE DID IT

We were initially asked to design an opportunity for people to know more about guidelines for naming and to promote opportunities for Aboriginal place naming in the future. This brief was initially limited in scope but -- with collaborative effort and extensive consultation – we were able to push beyond it.

ThinkPlace worked with Traditional Owners and other stakeholders to co-design new frameworks for Aboriginal people to connect with government, and a new kind of conversation -- running sessions across Victoria where Traditional Owners engaged with local councils, surveyors, developers, planners and more.

“This was about getting the right people in the room for the first time but also about inventing a process for them to understand each other and collaborate together,” Susanna says.

Sessions began with Welcome to Country and, where possible, smoking ceremonies. Traditional Owners then hosted the opening session of the workshop and shared language and other cultural heritage knowledge. It was important to commence the workshop with Traditional Owners framing the context and scope of discussions, as it set the agenda for participant collaboration throughout the remainder of the day. This approach meant that each workshop was unique, with discussions localised to the place in which we were convening.

The Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages also participated by supporting discussions about revival and maintenance of Aboriginal languages and the importance of local cultural heritages.

Recognising the different languages (including technical languages) and cultures in the room we worked together to create shared understanding, shared intent and shared direction by depicting sessions visually, rapidly scribing with a mix of pictures, diagrams and words.

It is a design process and an end product that has now won recognition from the Good Design Awards jury, awarded a prestigious ‘Tick’ trophy.

“This is a project that applies co-design approaches to a sensitive and complex topic, and the adoption of visual techniques to work around language challenges,” the awards judges said.

“The Jury appreciated the connection between participation and positive impact for the communities involved - creating value through both process and outcome. It's heartening to see both social impact and the potential for economic advancement. Well done.”

THE IMPACT

DEWLP reports that the sessions have produced value beyond their original hopes.

We fully expect as a result of this project there will be an increase in the use of Aboriginal languages to name roads, features and localities across the state. (Rafe Benli)

Reinstating Aboriginal names for places has led to new signage and interpretation which the department says is already opening up new business opportunities for Traditional Owners around tourism and interpretation.

The process has:

- Created meaningful, ongoing engagement between Aboriginal communities and naming authorities.

- Increased the ability of stakeholders to understand, pronounce and value Aboriginal place names.

- Given a platform for Traditional Owners across Victoria to register their objections to offensive local place names

- Initiated a process of replacing offensive names with appropriate ones.

The project has provided placename authorities, such as local and state governments, national parks agencies and water authorities with the tools and motivation to productively engage with, and build enduring relationships with, Aboriginal communities in all naming processes.

“This has been an incredibly cohesive process for participants,” says Rafe. “They came expecting to be bored and left invigorated”.

“From the live scribing to the talks about language and culture it created delight. And that shared delight got everyone connected to what we were doing and why.”

These sessions have achieved what years of effort had failed to do: creating shared purpose, developing understanding and designing a shared approach that enables all interested people to create change together.

“Our cultural heritage is best understood through demonstrating respect for Traditional Owners – our knowledge, our skills, our appreciation of our heritage,” says VAHC Chairperson Rodney Carter.

“The practicing of our culture and traditions makes us stronger and this strength offers all Victorians opportunities to value, understand and celebrate the unique cultural heritage we care for on behalf of all of us.”

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Assessing vital mental health initiatives

Daniel Silkstone — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 02:12:08 +0000

Work

Assessing vital mental health initiatives

Service

Strategy & policy designMeasuring Impact

People

Sector

Healthy Societies

Those who work every day in Australia's defence can be exposed to high-pressure situations and stressful conditions, both at home and abroad.

And if not catered to effectively and compassionately, mental health and wellness issues for Defence personnel can have serious negative copnsequences for both individuals, for Defence organisations and for Australian society as a whole.

Significant steps have been taken in recent years to embed new initiatives and better practices that increase wellbeing for Defence staff. But are they working?

THE CHALLENGE

The Department of Defence had implemented a Continuous Improvement Framework to monitor and evaluate the mental health and wellbeing initiatives being implemented across Defence under the Defence Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2018-2023.

That docuiment set as its goal: "For Defence to be a trusted and respected organisation that helps and supports our people in relation to their mental health and wellbeing and one that responds appropriately when they experience mental health problems or illness."

But due to a number of factors there had been limited engagement by the owners of the various mental health and wellbeing initiatives across Defence resulting in very few requisite M&E plans being completed and the quality being highly variable.

Defence sought to understand what was contributing to this lack of engagement and to improve engagement to help ensure they would have sufficient information to inform the continuous improvement and eventual evaluation of the initiatives and the strategy as a whole.

ThinkPlace was engaged to help understand the factors affecting engagement and to help design an improved and streamlined approach.

OUR RESPONSE

We commenced by undertaking user research with the owners of the mental health and wellbeing initiatives to understand their experience and the factors that were affecting their ability to effectively engage with and complete the M&E activities.

Based on this research we identified a number of factors affecting engagement including; a lack of prioritisation of M&E activities at all levels; limited time and resources allocated; perceptions that the process was too onerous, comprehensive and complicated; and a low level of evaluation expertise and experience.

Based on the findings, we identified that a more streamlined approach was necessary to help overcome these issues and increase engagement and uptake of M&E activities.

HOW WE DID IT

We determined that a Theory of Change Methodology would help achieve this and help the owners of the initiatives better understand why they were doing what they were doing and how they could practically improve their initiatives to improve mental health and wellbeing outcomes across the defence population.

We then co-designed and co-developed the Theory of Change documentation for two such initiatives to test our approach and iterate as required.

We built clarity around what the activities being undertaken were intended to achieve; identified desired outcomes over the short, medium and long term; and identified indicators and other measures which could be used to show whether the desired outcomes had been met.

In completing the Theory of Change documentation we had developed, we also sought to build a framework that showed the relationship and connections between the different initiatives to help show the collective impact of the initiatives in improving mental health and wellbeing across the defence population over the life of the strategy.

Based on our learnings from these two prototype initiatives, we refined our documentation and approach, further streamlining the process and documentation. We then rolled out the updated approach and documentation across all of the defence's mental health initiatives. We held co-development workshops with relevant stakeholders for each initiative, working through all components of the documentation, while building the capability and understanding of the stakeholders present.

The IMPACT

By developing an updated approach that was informed by the users of the M&E documentation, we were able to design a streamlined approach that addressed the key issues while still providing sufficient detail to inform effective continuous improvement and evaluation.

We were able to help Defence develop and implement a consistent approach to M&E and build a solid foundation, upon which future monitoring and continuous improvement activities could be built and which would provide sufficient information to effectively evaluate the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy at its conclusion in 2023.

Our approach and documentation were very well received across Defence and will contribute meaningfully to ensuring that mental health and wellbeing initiatives aimed at defence personnel are more effective and more helpful.

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