Speaking at the global tech conference SXSW 2016, President Obama issued a challenge to the tech community. He said we should refocus – away from trivialities, to tackle the serious issues, such as the democratic process: “It’s easier to order a pizza than it is to vote.”
It’s a statement that reflects what we value most – our own little slice of life delivered when, how and where we want. But at what price to our development? Something’s off with our “all you can eat” tech diet. What can we do about it?
Our behaviour with technology remains teenage at best. We embody a “Generation Tinder” (swipe-left, swipe-right) mindset. Even mild-mannered Brits represent an increasingly demand-it-now culture, with one in three claiming to have no patience at all.
And there’s the rub. We aren’t nurturing ourselves, or others. Being driven by immediate gratification does little for self-reflection. Paradoxically, it’s something we really need to reflect upon.
I used my time at SXSW to grapple with how we can collectively mature in our approach – as people, and for the companies and brands we create communications for.
Here are three points providing a snapshot of SXSW 2016, to help us avoid gliding through life in an Uber-like brand bubble and embrace technology to live more mindful, human lives.
Place human service above value extraction
Noted cyber-visionary Douglas Rushkoff argued that we need a new operating system (OS) for the digital age.
Based on his new book, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Rushkoff summarised in his keynote: “We’re developing companies that are designed to do little more than take money out of the system – they’re all extractive.”
In another talk, Julia Hu, the founder/CEO of health coach app Lark, echoed Rushkoff’s points, saying we must philosophically place human service design above utility because, in so doing, we enrich experience and extend future brand value.
Humans must teach big data and AI how to behave
As part of his 12 inevitable tech trends that will shape our future, Wired’s Kevin Kelly said big data – fuel for artificial intelligence development – is more acceptable when both parties are complicit in “co-veillance”. Both know what the other is doing, control what’s gathered and share mutual value.
This approach was echoed by an excellent panel offering a realistic vision of AI’s human impact. The key opportunity is using human behaviour to inform how AIs grow, for example in education technology. This involves having the AI “play dumb” while a child teaches it methodology, such as that involved in solving maths challenges. In this way, we teach the tech how to behave.
‘Human experience design’ requires friction
Steve Selzer, experience design manager at Airbnb, gave a talk highlighting that ease alone doesn’t enrich experiences. We need to design friction back in, to encourage personal growth and deliver more human connection.
Selzer gave four practical examples:
- Design for skill-building: for example, Purple Carrot cooking (we ship the ingredients, you cook).
- Design for collisions: for example, ride-share app Lyft (people grow through sharing space).
- Design for self-reflection: for example, the Unstuck app – like a creative life-coach, but for overcoming writers’ block
- Design for confrontation: for example, Airbnb replacing its customer support with direct contact (host/guest exchanges build a deeper sense of cultural connection).
Moving forward
In our relationship with tech as an expression of ourselves, we must be mindful that the future doesn’t just happen – that it’s shaped by us. Our choices shouldn’t all be based on ease; that’s not good for us. We must be wary of feeding our every whim at the touch of a button. While this certainly represents flow, it isn’t much of a life.
“Life in flow” is our new focus at HeyHuman. We’ve consciously re-engineered the agency to interrogate those behaviours that really drive what people do, identify the relationships people want (and that nourish them), and determine how to make creative more brain-friendly.
If we accept technology as inevitable, we must move to mindful marketing – cognisant of what it means to fully express man in the machine.
Dan Machen is the director of innovation at HeyHuman
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