For the past year, Change Observer has been publishing Project Reports as an editorial zone to write about distinct projects at the intersection of design and social innovation. This post summarizes the 38 Project Reports we have published to date.

article by Amy-Mae Elliott, published on 27 April 2010, accessed 27 April 2010
original article can be retrieved from http://mashable.com/2010/04/27/1millionshirts-wants-tees/

A new clothing-themed charitable campaign from the guys behind lucrative social media marketing exercise I Wear Your Shirt is looking to get unwanted T-shirts out of your closet and onto the backs of a million people across Kenya, Uganda, DRC, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Swaziland and South Africa.

The 1MillionShirts project, launched this month, is asking for used (but decent) T-shirts to be sent in with a one dollar bill to help with container costs. The shirts will then be shipped to Africa to help clothe folks in need.

As you’d expect, Jason and Evan are using social media to help promote the campaign with a Facebook page that is already racking up Likes, a Flickr tag to gather all relevant pics and the #1millionshirts Twitter hashtag to spread the word via Twitter.

While the project is thus far U.S.-centric, it’s starting to generate some momentum across the pond too. The team is currently looking for a company that can help store and/or ship the T-shirts in the U.K. If you or anyone you know is interested in helping out, please contact project ambassador Alex Hardie.

“We understand that t-shirts aren’t the first thing you think of when you hear people are in need,” says the team, “but we also know what it takes to ask people to donate money.” See the video below to watch Jason explain the project in his own words and to find out more about the campaign before heading to your closet to weed out some spare tees to send in.

Man and superman

by Chris Dixon, written on 10 October 2009, accessed 26 April 2010
original article can be retrieved from http://cdixon.org/2009/10/10/man-and-superman/

There are two broad philosophical approaches to explaining the forces that drive world events. The first one is sometimes called the Great man theory, neatly summarized by the quote ”the history of the world is but the biography of great men.”  This view was famously espoused by the philosopher Hegel and later Nietzche, who called such great people Ubermenchen (“supermen”).

The alternative view argues that history is largely determined by a complex series of societal, political, institutional, technological and other forces.  This view argues that great people are more a product of their time than the times are a product of them.

You can apply these theories to companies, in particular to the founders of technology companies who keep their companies great long after their “natural” life cycle.  Most successful companies start with one great product and ride its growth but fail to pull off a second act.

The companies that defy this natural cycle are invariable run by “supermen” (or women).  Akio Morita founded Sony in 1946 and was a very active CEO until 1994.   At the time he left, Sony had a $40B market cap.  Today it is valued at $28B.  Akio had an incredible run of hit products: the first transistor radio, the first transistor television, the Walkman, the first video cassette recorder, and the compact disc. Akio ran Sony based on his intuitions.  For example, he ignored focus groups that hated the Walkman, saying:

“We don’t ask consumers what they want. They don’t know. Instead we apply our brain power to what they need, and will want, and make sure we’re there, ready”

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976.  He was pushed out in in May 1985 when the company was valued at about $2.2B.  He returned in 1996 when Apple was worth $3B.  Today it is worth $169B.  Jobs famously micromanages every product detail and like Akio makes decisions based on intuitions.

Bill Gates was the co-founder and CEO of Microsoft, building it to an astounding $470B market cap.  Under him, Microsoft had multiple acts, among them:  DOS, Windows, Office, and enterprise server software.  Since Steve Ballmer became CEO, the company’s value has declined to $223B. I’m sure Steve Ballmer is a smart and passionate guy, but he’s no superman.

Some observers like the author Jim Collins think great companies are all about culture, not a singularly great leader.  Collin’s “built to last” case study companies included Circuit City and Fannie Mae, both of which have been catastrophic failures.  His “portfolio” has underperformed to S&P.

It is convenient to think you can take greatness and bottle it up and sell it in a book.   In fact, life is unfair:  there are geniuses and then there are the rest of us.  When great leaders go away, so does the greatness of their companies.

An example from the King of the Internet

The other day I was applying for a job using my gmail account. I had written a sweet cover letter, edited it and reviewed it a few times, and hit send. What happened next saved me incredible embarrassment and jumping out of my bedroom window: Google popped up from behind the scenes and told me I was an idiot.

No, do not send anyway.

I attached my .pdf, sent, and immediately went to all other mail clients I could find to see if this was standard operating procedure. It’s not. This is Google going that extra step and holding my hand to make sure I don’t fail at the Internet. I’ve never found a better example of having the users best interest at heart before, and here’s why:

1. It’s important

There are a lot of things out there that try to help you, but don’t really need to. This is all well and good but can get to be too much. We’ve all been on a website and by the end of our visit thought “Come on, I’m not a moron.” Having your hand held when you don’t need it can become frustrating, so when using a pop up you have to make sure that pop-up is needed and will be appreciated.

2. It’s completely user-centric

It exists for the sole reason of making sure you succeed at what you’re doing. There are no ulterior motives, it’s not “helping” you buy more products, it’s just keeping you from being frustrated and embarrassed.

3. It’s unobtrusive

They didn’t go the route of a message displayed to all users. It only pops up when necessary. They know that most people are going to remember to attach their file, so they only whisper to those who didn’t.

A mail client is something that’s hard to be good at. That is, it’s hard to be better than the others. You can simplify your interface, you can put important features in easy-to-find locations, and you can send the actual mail. But e-mail has been around a long time, so differentiating yourself isn’t easy to do. Most people try to add more features on the front-end to make themselves special, in any facet of business, but sometimes you need to step back and think about how you can help somebody who isn’t asking for help. Thanks for having my back, Gmail.

Statement of the addressed social problem

High level of individualism and ignorance, pressured by the modern ways of living in metropolitan cities with high population like Sydney, where social ties between unrelated individuals are loose and becoming less important.
The addressed problem is fundamental regardless of countries or cities, but particularly in Australia, a research-survey from Hofstede (2009) shows that the country has a high level of individualism index of 90, the second highest behind the United States’ level of 91.
Although less apparent in smaller cities, or in the past, where individuals were more dependant of each other to be able to survive, level of individualism and ignorance is higher in bigger cities due to more population, cultural groups; which my participant believes leads to stereotyping and cultural frictions (2010, pers. comm., 9 April), businesses, activities, and many other aspects.
The participant also feels that many people are boxed inside their current situation and barriers, without any interest of knowing other people, activities, tangible and intangible things around them, including cultures, preferences, and values. He also believes that unity only arises when there is a commonality in interests, motivation, need, goal, preferences, respect, and values.

Proposed social change

1. Breaking the barriers, including personal, cultures, beliefs, activities, business, and other barriers (with unlimited possibilities and creativities).
2. Increasing individual acceptance, awareness, understanding, and respect of others.

Design to enable the change

A fun event with a proposed name of “[city/area name] Fiesta”, for example, Sydney Fiesta or “Stirred [city/area name]!”, for example, Stirred Sydney!, which is held in a weekend or long weekend (2-3 days) once a year throughout a city or certain area, where people (including my participant) can try random things offered by random individuals, businesses, institutions, or groups. The basic idea is “open house” for the people to be “open” for others, where individuals can meet and know others, as well as try, look, and feel many things, cultures, or activities that are not immediately and normally available to them.
For instance, an individual can come to a fire station, chocolate café, an African drumming group, or any other public services, private businesses, institutions, or groups that will offer a brief tour of their premises and explanation of their duties, jobs, interest, or cultures, and put the visiting people in their position by presentation, games, doing action/role-plays, and many others.
There will be a dedicated website, SMS/TXT content, mail and phone services (promoted around 3-6 months before the event) for prospective participants to register their activities or businesses, which then will be selected and filtered (for the nature, decency, law, safety reason, classification, and others) by a board of juries from different elements of the society. The selected activities or businesses will then be published on the website or newspaper starting from one month before the weekend/long weekend. There will also be 1,2,4,8 hours roster/time-slots depending on the activities, so that the activities organisers can still attend other activities organised by others. There will also be a payment mechanism for activities that requires it, as well as online forums.
The event will also have side events such as concerts, exhibitions, and social awareness week (on the same week) that promotes the main event and the activities, a possible media is temporary chalk gravity on sidewalk) or flyers containing poems, quotes, and such, to engage people to be more friendly and open to themselves and others.

In relation to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

This projects tries to fulfill Maslow’s hierarchy of needs starting from third highest level: the needs for love (affection)/belongingness level, as Maslow (Simons, Irwin, & Drinnien, 1987) states this level is where people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation, which involves both giving and receiving love/affection and the sense of belonging. The next level, the needs for esteem/respect; both self-esteem and esteem a person gets from others, also the highest level, self-actualisation, which Maslow described as a person’s need to be and do what the person was “born to do”; a musician must make or interpret music, a painter must paint, etc.
Maslow believes, the only reason people would not move well in direction of self-actualisation is because of hindrances placed in their way by the society itself (Simons et al., 1987), which this project aims to break and lower, by encouraging people to be authentic and accept a person as he or she is, to go beyond their own cultural conditioning and become “world citizens”, to experience the joy, to be open, to appreciate beauty and the other good things in nature and in living.

Intended social impact and outcomes of the change

1. Lower social barriers, including cultural and personal barriers, particularly in metropolitan lifestyle; more open, united, and less individualistic society.
2. Higher level of acceptance, awareness, understanding, and respect between individuals and their duties, cultures, characteristics, and other tangible and intangible aspects.
3. Broadened network, friendships, and connections.

Possible challenges and problems if the project is carried out

1. Safety, law, decency, etc.: there must be clear rules and guidelines of permitted activities.
2. Managing complexity and the structure of the event.
3. Low participation and willingness to participate, from the following but not limited to; people who are simply not interested and willing to participate, people with anti-social behaviour, people with depression, people who are isolated and have no connection whatsoever to the Internet, mobile, landline, or other means of telecommunication or connection.
4. Force majeur, including weather condition, disasters, etc.

Reference

Project participant information: “Nate”, 24 years old male Indonesian, single, living in Sydney, graduated from and working in IT field.

Hofstede, G. 2009, Australia – Australian Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Explained, Geert Hofstede – itim, viewed 9 April 2010,
Simons, J.A., Irwin, D.B. & Drinnien, B.A. 1987, Psychology – The Search for Understanding, West Publishing Company, New York, N.J.

Class

In class feedback from Mike was overall positive, though in his opinion it will be more effective to propose something local (in small area) first rather than bigger one like I did, as it will hopefully make people in smaller areas (and number) closer first before introducing them into a bigger area event.

There was also a lecture from him on tactics to develop an independent and critical perspective, where I noted several important points:
- As a result of looking into both positive and negative aspects, broader and narrower scope, cause and effects, comparisons, contrasts, research, stats, facts, examples, different perceptions, perspectives, logical considerations, critical perspectives lead to more realistic and successful outcomes.
- There are some aspects designers need to be aware of when understanding the brief and participant:
1. the participant is not always right.
2. avoid group/generalised thinking
3. how real and important is the issue to the participant
4. assumptions and logical error in statements
5. possibility of using unconventional approaches to gain alternative perspectives.
- also when assessing solution options:
1. avoid obvious or first solution, instead, expand and expand.
2. be aware of solutions that feel like a compromise.
3. check if similar solution has already been developed, what can I learn from it.
4. consider boundaries of solution possibilities, what is appropriate and inappropriate
5. beware of blackbox machines or creating solutions that use technologies that do not even yet exist.
6. not to reduce participant’s indepence or make dependence more convenient.
7. consider implementation, that intentional social change is never technological only and always requires human understanding and interaction.

First, change of design (to design thinking to solve problems) in today’s world and the responsibility that designers as social change agents must take; the new choices, challenges, and complexity that designers are facing in practice, therefore, designers have to get better understanding on contexts and cultures.

Second, change from consumption to participation, that users are becoming more active and critical to designs.

Third, by focusing on system, bigger change can be made, but designers also have to think small to make it happen more realistically, more or less like the idea of zooming in and out when looking to solve a problem. This is somewhat applicable to my project’s main issue (increasing individualism and ignorance, where social ties between unrelated individuals are loose and becoming less important, particularly in bigger metropolitan cities), that I and my participant have to picture the bigger condition (system), that individuals are in fact separated in cells since they were born; families, cultures, schools, class, etc. so that me and my participant have to somehow find a way to reconnect them, and this does not have to start as something big, but can be something small and made bigger later.

Levels of participation were also discussed, including representation (assuming), questionary (research rather than assume), regionalism (or the opposite, that people in one are are not same individuals), dialoging (input from people or users on what they want), and co-decision (power and knowledge on who should decide).

Most of all, I think Design as a way of thinking process, providing response and creating solution to a (social) problem. The problem is sometimes other people’s problem and not necessarily the designer’s problem, therefore it is important for the designer to understand the problem from different perspectives in order to provide more accurate respond and solution.