I have earlier blogged about service design and last week at the 1st Nordic conference on Service Design and Service Innovation conference I met a number of very skilled people from different domains. It just reinforced my thinking about the need for a multi-disciplinary approach to address the challenges of designing services.
My own contribution on Day 2 was during the workshop on "Designing public services" was enlightening. My role was not as an expert in service design, but as a consumer-citizen; a c-c trying to make a case for participatory design. I am even more convinced that consumer-centered design is critical in the design of services and even more so in the design of public services. This blog was taglined "citizen-driven design. Shaping the agenda for Society 2.0" some years ago and my search for methods and practices for citizen involvement continues. It's not a question of "getting there" -- but more on evolving democratic processes to capture the "requirements" from citizens.
My presentation - that focused on scenarios for health care and wellness - was actually making a point around "capture of requirements". I used scenarios as a means to convey "requirements -- while making the point that we need to be more intention-oriented in understanding services. I view intentions as an abstraction above needs and requirements and suspect intention-orientation will open for citizen participation while also providing a means to "manage" the design process using conventional practices like "requirements management". Besides citizen participation, intention-orientation will also help unify practices from the different disciplines involved in service design.
So it is with some expectations I will be attending Dugnadssamfunnet 2.0 (Norwegian) arranged by the Ministry of Government Administration and Reform.
Showing posts with label knowledge sharing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knowledge sharing. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
A big problem with laws and other technical material produced for bureacratic use is that it is - for all practical purposes - limited to those who are well-versed in the jargon or those with an immense capacity to read through technical documentation. (This is not unlike similar practices where for eg only priests could read holy scripture). Opening up content, not only by putting it on the web, but also providing tools to review and comment it is a good idea.
Therefore, Sharedbook is a very welcome technology that encourages people to collaboratively comment and annotate content. This form of collaborative action is useful in growing communities and creating a more engaging electorate (or an enterprise workforce for that matter). As a champion of more direct and participatory democracy, this move has a lot of potential of driving transparency.
I mention Sharedbook, because this is being used by some in the current health care debate in the US. See Congressman John Culberson's effort to get his constituents to engage themselves in the debate. There are similar technologies for co-creation of content (collaboratively creating content) -- and hopefully we will see the electorate actually collaborating on creating content that can become law. NB! I am not advocating that untrained people replace laywers or other experts, but that people are encouraged to participate in shaping policy and help lawyers and the experts.
Therefore, Sharedbook is a very welcome technology that encourages people to collaboratively comment and annotate content. This form of collaborative action is useful in growing communities and creating a more engaging electorate (or an enterprise workforce for that matter). As a champion of more direct and participatory democracy, this move has a lot of potential of driving transparency.
I mention Sharedbook, because this is being used by some in the current health care debate in the US. See Congressman John Culberson's effort to get his constituents to engage themselves in the debate. There are similar technologies for co-creation of content (collaboratively creating content) -- and hopefully we will see the electorate actually collaborating on creating content that can become law. NB! I am not advocating that untrained people replace laywers or other experts, but that people are encouraged to participate in shaping policy and help lawyers and the experts.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The browser is the new desktop! Last september, I commented Google's launch of Chrome with thoughts along those lines. Having watched the demo of Google Wave yesterday, I am even more convinced that the browser is the new desktop (screenshots from 7:40 into the video)
For our digital society, this development brings the power of the web and computing closer to the masses - consumers at all levels of society. The ubiquity of the mobile phone with built-in browsers paves the way for broadbased access to the masses. Admittedly, it will be a while before the phones morph to mobile internet devices (MIDs), but the potential is definitely there. And soon the MID will be the new PC.
It is tempting to view Wave as Google's "reply" to Microsoft's Bing and Vine services. And while its a bit hard to nail these Microsoft services, I suspect Wave will catalyse Redmond in "bringing it together".
Aside: Interestingly Google is copying Microsoft's market approach - i.e. targetting the developer community. But with a big difference, they are making this product Open Source. In my mind, I can see that this competition is going to benefit everyone... except probably the manipulators and lobbyist. Transparency and mass-participation are getting powerful tools!
I'm confident that the difficult challenges with technology will be solved as the masses put these technologies to use in regular tasks at work and in social contexts -- to support their work and improve their lives. The developments in Wave and Vine definitely encourage sharing of knowledge and co-creation. Thus promoting crowdsourcing as a means of value-creation and
innovation. I revisted the Harvard Business review article "Disruptive innovation for social change" by Clayton Christensen that I blogged here.
I am reminded once again that disruption is continuous -- happening as we speak; that there is no such thing as a revolution, just rapid evolution.
For our digital society, this development brings the power of the web and computing closer to the masses - consumers at all levels of society. The ubiquity of the mobile phone with built-in browsers paves the way for broadbased access to the masses. Admittedly, it will be a while before the phones morph to mobile internet devices (MIDs), but the potential is definitely there. And soon the MID will be the new PC.
It is tempting to view Wave as Google's "reply" to Microsoft's Bing and Vine services. And while its a bit hard to nail these Microsoft services, I suspect Wave will catalyse Redmond in "bringing it together".
Aside: Interestingly Google is copying Microsoft's market approach - i.e. targetting the developer community. But with a big difference, they are making this product Open Source. In my mind, I can see that this competition is going to benefit everyone... except probably the manipulators and lobbyist. Transparency and mass-participation are getting powerful tools!
I'm confident that the difficult challenges with technology will be solved as the masses put these technologies to use in regular tasks at work and in social contexts -- to support their work and improve their lives. The developments in Wave and Vine definitely encourage sharing of knowledge and co-creation. Thus promoting crowdsourcing as a means of value-creation and
innovation. I revisted the Harvard Business review article "Disruptive innovation for social change" by Clayton Christensen that I blogged here.
I am reminded once again that disruption is continuous -- happening as we speak; that there is no such thing as a revolution, just rapid evolution.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
I just read Nicholas Carr's note on the Web-Wikipedia-Google connection. It got me thinking about the way society in general perceives content from the Web as the sole truth (I too quote from Wikipedia, mainly definitions). The line of thinking in Carr's article got me digging into my mailbox for an email I wrote to friends on the EPIC video made by Matt Thomson and Robin Sloan.
Well, Googlezon is not here .... at least not as yet. However, since publishing the EPIC video, we have seen the rise of Facebook and the Huffington Post, YouTube is now a Google company and Amazon and Google are priming their products and services for cloud computing. The technology building blocks are taking shape (see my comments on Chrome and Web 2.0) and media ownership is changing rapidly. EPIC could be a reality pretty soon.
I'm hopeful that, as a society, we will push back the homogenisation and group-think that technology brings -- but it will not come easily. Developing our sense of critical thinking will be crucial. Besides, will our politicans and lawmakers resist the temptation to quote irresponsibly? We must evolve the governance structures of the hierarchical, atom-world to also address the networked, bit-world.
Sure, its not going to come easily and its definitely not going to be done overnight. Patience and diligence needed.
PS! Unless Britannica can be as easy to use as Wikipedia, I'm afraid Wikipedia will still be the preferred source of quotes. I tried quoting from Britannica for this article and it was far from easy.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Following the announcement of this years Nobel Peace Prize; Renny had an interesting post here - Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore or Vint Cerf? I like the line of thinking and would like to extend this nomination for 2008 to also include Robert Kahn (Cerf's co-inventor) and 3 others:
(1) Sir Tim Berners-Lee -- for taking the TCP/IP and layering a powerful "human interface" on it with the sole purpose of sharing information and driving the rapid evolution we experience. But what I think is even more noble (no pun intendend) is his choice to make his invention open and free -- notable if one considers the potential for commercial gain through intellectual property rights. I think CERN his employer at the time, also deserves credit.
(2) Linus Torvalds for almost single-handedly making Open Source a model, not just for software technology innovation, but for inspiring and driving societal innovation and grass-roots development.
(3) Dr Nicholas Negroponte for his $100 computer initiative -- also known as the One Laptop Per Child project. The success of such an initiative is crucial for bridging the digital divide and helping education become a fundamental human right. The Give 1 Get 1 move could open the floodgates.
What appeals is the vision, selflessness and humanness of these individuals in creating an infrastructure needed for a grass-roots knowledge ecosystem that the world needs. These individuals also represent courage and strength in taking on the commercial giants on their own turf -- and driving change. Like Dr Negroponte convincing Intel to collaborate on the OLPC.
As an aside:
The much publicized "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." statement from Al Gore during the presidential election drew much fire from the media. I believe the media put a different twist causing misunderstanding and ridicule that "Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet". However, as Internet pioneers Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn set the record straight in this little known article, Al Gore does deserve some credit for making the Internet a global success.
I look forward to hearing Cerf at this years Norwegian Computer Society's annual awards event.
(1) Sir Tim Berners-Lee -- for taking the TCP/IP and layering a powerful "human interface" on it with the sole purpose of sharing information and driving the rapid evolution we experience. But what I think is even more noble (no pun intendend) is his choice to make his invention open and free -- notable if one considers the potential for commercial gain through intellectual property rights. I think CERN his employer at the time, also deserves credit.
(2) Linus Torvalds for almost single-handedly making Open Source a model, not just for software technology innovation, but for inspiring and driving societal innovation and grass-roots development.
(3) Dr Nicholas Negroponte for his $100 computer initiative -- also known as the One Laptop Per Child project. The success of such an initiative is crucial for bridging the digital divide and helping education become a fundamental human right. The Give 1 Get 1 move could open the floodgates.
What appeals is the vision, selflessness and humanness of these individuals in creating an infrastructure needed for a grass-roots knowledge ecosystem that the world needs. These individuals also represent courage and strength in taking on the commercial giants on their own turf -- and driving change. Like Dr Negroponte convincing Intel to collaborate on the OLPC.
As an aside:
The much publicized "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." statement from Al Gore during the presidential election drew much fire from the media. I believe the media put a different twist causing misunderstanding and ridicule that "Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet". However, as Internet pioneers Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn set the record straight in this little known article, Al Gore does deserve some credit for making the Internet a global success.
I look forward to hearing Cerf at this years Norwegian Computer Society's annual awards event.
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