[ Music ]
>> Laetitia Wolff: Welcome everyone to
AIGA Design for Good webcast series.
Today's our fourth webcast, and this
program is supported by an award
from the National Endowments for the Arts,
as well as with additional support from IBM.
Today our webcast is given to
focus on innovation in governments.
The Design for Good webcast series has
tried to cover all the different initiatives
that are happening at AIGA, and trying to
illustrate how we can understand this Design
for Good and practice, whether it's through
dealing with issues related to women's rights,
or it's about Social Impact 101, or it's about
how to manage function in urban communities.
Today, we're going to focus
on government innovation,
and I'll start by introducing
you to one of our guests today.
On my right, Emily Herrick, welcome Emily.
Emily works at Reboot, a social
impact firm in New York City,
that self-describes itself
as -- what did you say?
>> Emily Herrick: We're a
bit of a think/do tank.
>> Think/do tank, that's one
of my favorite expressions.
Emily comes from communications/design
background, and actually started working
at Reboot as such and such position,
and then evolving to service design
after having joined SVA
design for social innovation,
a program that we're very close to,
and that we support through AIGA.
We have Chelsea Mauldin
that will join us from far Brooklyn.
Chelsea is the executive director of
Public Policy Lab, a sort of small firm
that has been focused on providing
better public service and collaborating
with government agencies to do so,
really focused on low-income
populations and at-risk Americans.
She'll be joining us afterwards, Emily and
Chelsea will play the role of respondents.
And, our guest speaker is Tomas
Ives, who is based in Chile.
Tomas is now working at the government of Chile,
as the head of the design in
special projects department.
He's trained as an illustrator, and happened
to have been my student a few years ago
at the SVA Impact Design
for Special Change Program.
And, I saw him evolve from being a rock
and roll illustrator, who still is,
but then joined the government, and we'll talk
about this amazing multiple hat-wearing quality.
So, with no further ado, I will invite now
Tomas to walk us through a fantastic project
that I thought could inspire Americans
to think about their own constitution
and their own democracy, this
is really democracy at play.
And, we're going to discuss in this
webcast how design plays a role
in really engaging civically various
populations, be inclusive in this process,
but also really look at like
what are those tactics?
Those strategies?
And, those visual tools that
can be leveraged to engage
in such conversation that's not
exactly an easy project to do.
So, Tomas, to you.
>> Laetitia Wolff: Hi everyone.
Visibly, we're having a
little technical issue here,
the communication between US
and Chile is being problematic.
So, why don't I start with an informal
conversation here with Emily Herrick
from Reboot, who's joining us
kindly from the New York office.
I think one of the reasons why I was
very interested in having Reboot involved
in this conversation, is that first of
all, there's like this practice at Reboot,
around social impact and collaborating with
a lot of the major development agencies
and NGOs around changing the
ways governments really function, right?
And, how design can become a sort of
strategic tool to make this happen.
So, I have read an article on the Reboot
website, that I just got done [phonetic].
Panthea Lee, the founder of Reboot, recently,
and I thought, "Wow, this is perfect".
I forgot how relevant the --
all this work that you're doing.
So, Emily, you've been involved
particularly recently in a sort
of platform called Open Government
Program Partnership,
can you tell us about this and how it works?
>> Emily Herrick: Sure, yes.
I can step back and say a
little bit about Reboot.
So, we are a social impact firm like you
mentioned earlier, we both work internationally
and domestically, and our work kind
of focuses on inclusive governments.
We do that by helping governments, non-profits,
international organizations, designed programs
and policies that meet their user needs by using
these user-centered design methodologies.
And, our focus is really on inclusive
governments, accountable governments,
and we've been doing some of that work
through the Open Government Partnership.
The Open Government Partnership
is an international initiative
that governments can apply to be a part of.
And, once they are accepted, they are
responsible for creating action plans
that represent the ideas of Open Government.
And so, Open Government really means
kind of, to those who aren't familiar,
it's really about how you make a relationship
better between citizens and their government.
So, we think about that as
actually opening up governments.
So, how do you encourage governments
to become more transparent?
More participatory?
And, how do you help citizens really participate
in government to hold them to account?
To make sure that there's a robust
dialogue between the citizens
and the governments that serve them.
And so, we've been -- we partnered
with five sub-national governments.
So, under the federal government in
every country, there's different levels
of governments, from city governments to
state governments, provincial governments?
So, we had partnered with five of
these governments around the world
to really help them develop
a DISCO creation action plan.
So, how can they come together with citizens?
With civil society?
And, with governments to
create a sort of commitment
that really help them become more
accountable, transparent, and participatory.
And so, we've done that in five different
contexts, like I mentioned before,
anywhere from the city of Austin,
to the government of Ontario,
the city [inaudible] the
state of Jalisco, Mexico,
and the county government of [inaudible].
And, we -- yes, in Kenya, excuse me.
And we really helped them kind of work
through some, and facilitated this process,
where they can really come together with
citizens and decide what is the most feasible
and impactful way to become more open?
>> Laetitia Wolff: So, one of the
questions that comes to mind is,
"How do you start such a process?"
I mean, for a government itself to realize that
this is what they need to do, and you know,
is there a demand from the population?
I mean I imagine often these processes
happen as a sort of healing process, often,
within a sort of complicated
political situation,
ranging from post-genocide
situations, terrorism, civil wars.
I mean, what have been your experiences so far?
>> Emily Herrick: Yes, I think, I mean, from
our work, it really depends on the context.
If you're working with this city of Austin on
Open Government initiatives, it's very different
than working with the county in Kenya.
And so, I think for us kind of coming
in to facilitate, "Oh, what first?"
It's like, you have to have a government that
really is interested in these principles,
and that's where the Open Government partnership
comes in, because they already have like kind
of self-selected to be a
part of this partnership.
And so, what we can do to facilitate
this process, is we really come in
and understand kind of the
complexity that we're coming into.
As a design organization, we provide
a strategic guidance along the way.
And so, that really first starts
with understanding what their political
priorities are, what their challenges have been
in the past, and what they really
want to get out of something that's
out of an Open Government initiative.
For example, in Kenya, the work -- Open
Government can feel a little bit like secondary
to some of their more pressing needs.
Service delivery challenges, infrastructure,
making sure that everyone has water,
those seem a little bit more pressing
than maybe like becoming more transparent.
So, we really wanted to go in and help
them understand how to use Open Government
to really a better service delivery.
And so, that first starts with taking
some time to really do some research,
and understand what are the
priorities of the government,
and then how to best facilitate bringing
together citizens and still [phonetic] a society
that is really a representative
sample of that, of the context.
>> Laetitia Wolff: So, often in those
engagements with those governments
and their various stakeholders, technology
seems to be playing an important role right?
The key role in some instances.
Especially in those countries
in Africa or France,
since [phonetic] where you've worked a lot.
Where the access to mobile technology is
sort of critical, in sort of the connections
between people, can you speak to this a bit?
>> Emily Herrick: Yes.
I think there's definitely varying levels
of technology used and desirability
when it comes to Open Government.
I think a lot of times it's very
kind of instinctual to think
that we should start with technology.
I think when we first started working
with this county in Kenya, for example,
they were really excited about an open data
platform, and it's something that they could put
on their county website that could
help them push out any of the data
that they're creating kind of internally.
But, when you think about that in a new context,
you're thinking that most people don't
have access to the internet other
than their mobile phone, so how do you
really help them see Open Government,
not as something that's flashy and
technology-based, but can be actually improve --
>> Laetitia Wolff: Their lives.
>> Emily Herrick: Yes, and like
service delivery, specifically.
So, for Kenya, it kind of was taking
-- we kind of asked them all, "Well,
why do you want this open data platform?
What is the goal of it?"
And, they said that they were getting a lot
of citizens that were providing feedback
around service delivery, kind of through
informal channels, specifically WhatsApp.
People were whatsapping the government,
whatsapping the director of roads
and urban planning, and saying like, "My
road's washed out, I need information
on when it's going to be fixed", and how to,
you know, how to like access that information.
And, they thought that this open data platform
would kind of provide some of that information.
And so, we really helped them kind
of take a step back and say, "Well,
maybe what you really need is to build out the
WhatsApp feedback mechanism that's already kind
of started in a process", to really
help citizens have their voice be heard
in the government, and really help
government respond to those needs.
>> Laetitia Wolff: Right, the response is
always exactly -- the big work to put in place.
>> Emily Herrick: And, maybe it's on a website,
but how do you actually make facilitate
that connection between government
and their citizens.
>> Laetitia Wolff: Yes, we've seen
in many many post-its projects,
where really like putting their wishes and their
desires on post-its that somewhat are supposed
to go back to the city that they were, you
know, that was inviting the conversation,
but we never know the practice exactly.
OK, so are we ready?
Chile is back with us.
Hola, hola, are you there?
Hola, OK, super.
So, we're going to let you
do your presentation now.
OK, we're going to start with a video
of Tomas, and that will give us context
for launching this constitutionary project
that Tomas is going to talk to us about.
>> Una constitución es la
madre de las leyes de un estado,
establece las principales
instituciones del país,
y que derechos y deberes tenemos las personas.
Por eso, la nueva constitución debe
construir el techo común de nuestra patria.
Y para escribirla, todos
y todas somos importantes.
Uno, comenzaremos este proceso con una etapa
de información cívica constitucional,
para que todos y todas podamos conversar
sobre la nueva constitución que queremos,
de acuerdo a los mismos conceptos.
Dos, recogeremos todas las voces
que conforman nuestra diversidad,
con diálogos ciudadanos entre marzo y
octubre del próximo año, primero comunales,
luego provinciales, y finalmente
dialogo regionales.
Tres, para que este proceso
participativo sea transparente, libre,
sin presiones ni distorsiones de ningún tipo,
se conformara un consejo ciudadano de
observadores que garantiza la etapa
de participación.
Cuatro, el resultado de estos
diálogos participativos,
compondrán las bases ciudadanas
para la nueva constitución.
Con estas bases, la Presidenta de la república
dará formar un proyecto de nueva constitución,
que también recoja lo mejor de la
tradición constitucional chilena,
y que reconozca las obligaciones jurídicas
que Chile ha contraído con el mundo.
Durante el segundo semestre del 2017,
la Presidenta enviara el congreso de
este proyecto de nueva constitución.
Cinco, para que este cambio
constitucional sea posible,
es necesario modificar la constitución
actual para que permita su reemplazo.
El congreso será el encargado de decidir cómo
y quiénes discutirán la nueva constitución.
Seis, el congreso tomará la decisión
sobre el mecanismo constituyente,
y discutirá el proyecto de nueva constitución.
Este escogerá entre cuatro alternativas.
A, podría ser el mismo congreso en una
comisión compuesta por un grupo de senadores
y diputados.
B, una convención constituyente mixta
que incluya parlamentarios y ciudadanos.
C, una asamblea constituyente, conformado por
un grupo de personas elegidas para elaborar una
nueva constitución.
D, un plebiscito donde la ciudadanía
elija entre las tres opciones anteriores.
Siete, finalmente una vez debatido y sancionado
al proyecto de nueva constitución de acuerdo al
mecanismo escogido, la ciudadanía será
convocada a un plebiscito para ratificar la
propuesta de la nueva constitución para Chile.
>> Tomas Ives: Well, good
afternoon everyone, I am Tomas Ives.
And, between December 2016 and generally
2017, we, all Chilean citizens and rest
of the immigrants have the chance
to be part of this historical part
of the building this new constitution.
I would like you to present you my
experience as the designer in charge
for all the visual aspects of this
very unique participating process.
As you could see in the video, it was kind of
complex at the beginning, we had to take it
and transform it into design products to explain
people, increase participation, democracy.
So, this process underwent for about 14
months, and I would like to give you some kind
of context for you to understand
why this process was necessary.
So, after the first seven years,
after the extreme right coup
d'état by the Dictator Pinochet.
He brought down the 1980
constitution, through our referendum,
without the proper electoral registries.
In addition to that, the political
opposition have no access to the media at all.
So, it's strong criticism to believe that this
election contradicted the 1989 referendum.
And, to the 2005 reform by the President
during that time, Ricardo Lagos.
But, none of this reduces the symbolism
of the constitution as a material reminder
of the dictatorship, and all the
suffering that that man meant.
Why? Because the people never were part of it,
and just a very complex text
always imposed from [inaudible].
When Michelle Bachelet returned to
power in 2016, she promised big reforms.
Intuitive the design and startup of
a fully new constitutional process.
[Inaudible] staff, the home office secretary
and the communication secretary
[inaudible] the task [phonetic].
The communication secretary will have
like $1.5 million for the campaign,
that will educate and stimulate participation.
I know it sounds modest, but
this is kind of a breakthrough.
For example, Pinochet had extensively abused
of the media control to achieve his objectives.
To have now a public budget to promote a
political reform, is kind of a new big thing.
So, the process opens our workplace to apply
new communication strategies which we will have
to be both effective, I'm also
being very cheap [phonetic].
So, we began by coding the constitution
language accessible to people.
And, we focus in the set of 37 cardinal virtues,
which will make the essential [phonetic] easy
to understand elements of the
constitutions around the world.
The first something we'll be focused
so in constitutional education.
A well-known cartoonist [inaudible] called
Alberto Montt, is hired to present each virtue
with animals and humor, to reach
both old and younger generations.
Since each virtue opens the way
to our reflection or a meditation,
we swapped [phonetic] into postcards
that resemble a pack of cards sort of it
or was [phonetic] of the constitution.
The postcard will stimulate collectionism, and
thus become the perfect [inaudible] summer.
So, our campaign was friendly,
funny, and it really worked.
So, as you can see, people share it down at the
beaches, share it during their summer times,
and they have a good time
talking about constitution.
At the end of the participa -- at the end of the
summer, the participation process had to begin.
This is a more complex than boating [phonetic],
as you can see and at the video of the recently.
So, since there will be multiple
ways of bringing your voice forth.
So, on voluntary TV airings, the President
announced that the participation process,
and shared 50% of her seven minutes
on air time with these animated videos
to explain the participation process.
This is the first time ever for the
usually rigid republican [inaudible]
of the President on TV.
[Inaudible] for us, as designers,
was refreshing.
It was a full animated video,
for first time on her broadcasted
to all Chileans all -- in the whole country.
As you can see, it's a personal invitation for
each and every citizen to be part of one or each
and every one of the four steps that
are explained in video.
You just have to focus on these four
questions that concerns values,
rights, and duties, and institutions.
So, after that video presentation
on live broadcast,
we reinforced the six month, four step
participation process, with a printed booklet
on a free giveaway [inaudible] and
send in the booklet all over Chile.
So, with this publication, all
political problems unleashed.
So, the council of citizen observers, it's a
group of people that observing the whole process
of refunding the constitution, complained
about the usage of the word "new".
Because we are not supposed
to promote a new constitution.
They mean that perhaps we
won't get to that point.
So, the expression "new constitution"
is censored
out of the campaign, and it's deemed a proselytizer.
But, we were allowed to say “a new constitution
for Chile,” just without the word “new.”
In the view of participation, start -- sorry.
In the middle of participation,
summoned gatherings start as soon
as this booklet art is published.
But, there are way more conflicts than
just casting a vote, you have to listen,
you have to debate, you have
to agree, you have to learn how
to disagree and deal with disagreement.
So, the designed lines, formularies,
and videos, not only to explain the procedure,
but to teach Chileans how to be
more civic, honestly something
that we're not very used to in every way.
But, by being-- using the friendly language
of animation, we try to illustrate a diversity
and tolerance for the whole methodology.
So, if we can go to the second video, please?
>> Para la constitución, una conversación.
La etapa participativa del proceso constituyente
nos invita a expresar que constitución queremos
para chile,
a través de nuestras opiniones respecto a
los valores y principios, derechos, deberes,
responsabilidades, y las instituciones
del estado que debiera contemplar.
Debes saber que si participas de este proceso,
tu opinión quedara registrada y [inaudible]
en la propuesta de cambio constitucional de
la Presidenta.
¿Cómo participar?
Hay cuatro formas, si puedes
participar en una, o en todas ellas.
Uno, participación individual.
Ingresando a una constitución para Chile.cl,
y respondiendo la consulta ciudadana.
Solo necesitaras tu número
de RUN y numero de documento.
Podrán participar chilenos,
extranjeros residentes,
y también los chilenos residentes en
el exterior, desde los 14 años de edad.
Dos, encuentros locales.
Estos pueden ser convocados por
cualquier persona o grupo de personas.
Déjese [phonetic] inscribir tu encuentro local
y a sus participantes en la página web o en el
número telefónico 600-204-0000,
identificando un mínimo de 15 y
un máximo de 30 participantes.
Cada encuentro contara con un
moderador previamente inscrito,
elegido por el propio grupo.
Al final del encuentro deberás completar
el acta, el listado de participantes,
y una fotografía de las
personas que participaron.
Subiéndolas a una constitución para Chile.cl.
Podrás participar en un solo encuentro local
entre el sábado 23 de abril y el jueves 23
de julio.
Los resultados de los encuentros
locales de tu provincia,
fijaran la hacienda del cabildo provincial.
Tres, cabildo provincial.
Es una reunión pública abierta de
ciudadanas y ciudadanos previamente inscritos,
a realizarse en las 54 provincias
de Chile el Sábado 23 de Julio.
Este nivel busca que los temas constitucionales
previtarios surgidos de sus encuentros locales,
se manifiesten en una conversación abierta.
En cada cabildo, se levantará un acta donde se
expresarán acuerdos—los acuerdos parciales y
desacuerdos entre los asistentes.
Cuatro, cabildo regional.
Es el ultimo nivel de proceso
de diálogos territoriales.
Se realizarán en las 15 capitales
regionales el sábado 6 de agosto.
Aquí se conocerán los acuerdos
definitivos del nivel provincial,
y se dialogara sobre los
acuerdos parciales y desacuerdos.
5 Para nuevos acuerdos ahora
de carácter racional.
La etapa participativa concluirá con la
elaboración de un documento denominado
"Bases Ciudadanas para la Constitución".
Este documento incidirá en la propuesta de
constitución que la Presidenta de la república
presentará al país.
Si participas de este proceso, tu opinión
será parte de esta constitución debatida en
democracia para las nuevas
generaciones de ciudadanos.
Infórmate de los detalles, inscríbete y
participa en una constitución para Chile.cl.
Para la constitucional, una conversación.
>> Tomas Ives: So, participation can actually
be fun, and you can discuss with our citizens,
it's OK, it's fun, it's healing, it's healing
the fears of the long dictatorial period.
It can be respectful.
As the design elements multiply, we set up
a main website with all of the information.
And, here we would encounter a second problem,
who is in charge of the information flow?
In particular, it's output.
The chief of stock office works
well with the communication office, that is us.
And, we would [inaudible]
our closer partnerships,
since we have to sportly
along the way think, design, publish,
think again, design again, and publish again.
But, the home office, it's a technical host.
For transparency reasons, it's a key to ensure
an impartial registration system,
and they do not have a rhythm, because
of security reasons, of course.
Well, home office, they have the technical
host, and they take care all about the security.
So, keeping all the data as secure as they can.
So, furthermore, after the
new constitution incidents,
the observers are closely monitoring
each and every word we use,
so we had to be really careful about
the whole materials that we are posting
on social networks and the website.
So, the act of communication itself,
it's kind of an attitude of equality.
Everyone has the right to speak
to the masses, but most important,
everyone has the duty to speak to each other.
So, this logo, for the constitution,
at conversation, o "para la constitución,
una conversación", because a
powerful logo, that branded
our whole content during this process.
So, complementary actions are designing for the participation
of three minorities too.
In that way, we have the
constitutional indigenous process,
that was focused on the nine
originary cultures of Chile,
the I think process, that was, it was focused on
civic education and constitutional conversations
with children, and the Chileans
abroad program,
that was focused on the partici -- and, to
encourage the participation of the more
than a million Chileans living overseas.
So, as soon as the self-summoning gatherings are
over, it started the next step, the assemblies.
So, assemblies will be setup at public
schools, usually on the range of 300 people,
divided in work groups of 20 people.
So, if you can imagine this, during
the dictatorship for 70 years,
it was illegal to assemble meetings, and now the
government itself is gathering people in spaces.
This is kind of, I don't know,
it's kind of revolutionary
in a way when we used to speak about it.
So, we decided to do a plotting
 one week before the gatherings
in Patagonia, as a lab test.
But, we publicly announced as a lab test.
Having that, I don't know if anyone of you,
or listeners, have you ever visit Patagonia?
It's actually a really beautiful place,
it looks like a different country.
So, the experiment itself is kind of a marketing
device, bringing Patagonia closer to the rest
of Chile, in a leading futuristic role.
Once we've reached the final step, the regional
councils, we attempt technological feats.
The simultaneous transmission of the streaming
of the 16 councils throughout Chile.
We wanted to communicate the feeling
of simultaneous participation.
And, we do not have the budget
to do it like via free-TV airing,
and cable/satellite is not
available to everyone here in Chile.
So, finally the idea is Chileans can
see Chileans everywhere participating
with passion, respect, and equality.
So, without like some kind of a sense of
maturity going on, the participation period,
after the regional councils, the
participation period was finally over.
So, right now, back then, sorry, much tedious
non-audiovisual part of the process unfolds.
The systematization of the big data,
90,000 queries, 8,000 gatherings,
67 provincial assemblies, and 16
regional assemblies, will be hard to do.
And, the approach to that was
not digital, was analogical.
So, the academy was called for this, and
as you can -- as some of you may know,
academics dislike cameras, publicity,
and media, and it becomes impossible task
to coordinate press conferences, activities,
or even artifacts to explain people
how the big data is being processed.
And, I must assume that we failed to dabble
up enough status [phonetic] for this stage.
Perhaps because it's of its analogical approach.
And, this was probably the
least successful powerful work.
The report finally comes to light after
three months later than the deadline.
The President received it,
and you have to understand,
it's her who will now write the new
constitutional text incorporating the results
of the participation of state.
The President herself warranties the inclusion
of the participation process into definite text,
she will bear this responsibility on her arms.
The production of several events unfolds.
The constitutional process has been a process
of collective understanding of equality.
So, the final exhibition with the
results given to the President,
it's organized for the President as a gift
for her strong personal commitment
to the whole process.
The process has achieved an overall
magic graphic style in many ways.
It just tries to be memorable.
So, Chile's moving into other issues like types, economic growth, political turmoil,
and this potluck of the
constitution reform, it's kind of over.
Participation can actually
be respectful and fun.
But, the design elements multiply, we set up a
main website with all the information, sorry.
So, the self-summoning --
I'm sorry, I mixed my papers.
So, as an essential group for any
long-run campaign, it's timing and rhythm,
those are the essences of campaigns.
The steps now for 2017 will go back
to the boring language of politics.
The President, right now, at the end
of this month, she must send the reform
to the reformed mechanism of the constitution.
So, in that way, we need two
thirds of the representatives
to agree upon an almost impossible fact, which
requires a new campaign that we are working to.
We hold general elections in November 2017, and
the political climate, it's volatile these days,
as you yourself have experienced
in the United States.
By the end of the year, the President
will submit the new constitution
to the new reformed mechanism.
It will be her final act before
her departure from office.
So, December 2017 feels not only
like the end of an intense season,
but like an upcoming blank page
on the Chilean history canvas.
So, we have a year ahead
of us to design, to think,
what to put in that blank
canvas, and we're working on that.
>> Laetitia Wolff: And, the pressure
to make it happen between now
and November is, I imagine, pretty big.
But, Tomas, I have a first question for you.
You mentioned values, principles, rights,
and duties, and asking the participants
to really think about what were the
institutions that mostly matter to them?
What was in the experience over the
past few months, the word of the notion
that seemed to be the most consensus?
>> Tomas Ives: Overall, Justice.
It has like 57% of mentions, it's awesome.
At the second place, it's democracy.
So, justice and democracy, it's like the
main spirit of a constitution, right?
And, the people know it.
So, as long as -- well, there's other
issues like administrative issues
that involve Chilean policies, like
decentralization of the state, etc.,
that also have like this
important mentions, but justice
and democracy are the top two of the list.
>> Laetitia Wolff: And so, what we saw in
your process, it's the sort of scaled process,
where you sort of start with
different scale of the region,
the county, the city, the small region.
It's very interesting how it sort of
feeds into creating this collective voice.
What was the sort of main challenge that you
had engaging with the indigenous populations?
>> Tomas Ives: Well, it was about trying to
find what will be the mythology that you have
to use during these gatherings,
self-summoned gatherings.
Because, it's much more complex than just
voting, because you have to argue with people,
you have to talk to people
that probably you don't know.
So, we tried to do this, to create this message,
through these funny animated characters,
and to tell people, "OK, if you're willing
to do this, you will spend 6 to 8 hours
in a conversation about politics,
about constitution, about values, etc."
So, convincing people about this -- telling
people like this is important and we want you
to do it, and it's much more
complex than voting.
I think that was kind of
the main challenge we had.
>> Leititia Wolff: Chelsea, I remember you told
me when you were working with the mayor's office
on digital access, that the mandate of
the mayor was to meet the people where they are.
Which is sort of the phrase that we
often hear more recently in terms
of creating a social impact
that really is inclusive.
Can you speak to this experience,
and if you can compare it
to the situation you just heard in Chile?
>> Chelsea: Yes, sure.
I think in that project, which was a partnership
with the New York City mayor's office
of digital strategy, their task was to develop
a series of guidelines and recommendations
for how New York City public agencies
could deliver digital services
that really speak to the needs of New Yorkers.
And interestingly, the idea of meeting people
where they are, was not something that was
in our beliefs originally, it was something that
emerged from our team engaging with New Yorkers
to say, "What do you require of digital services
for them to be valuable for you in your life?"
And, what we heard from people and it's
interesting, I think it's an echo of this idea
of justice, and justice being critical
to people, is that it wasn't good enough
for the government of New York City to push
out services that were notionally equitable,
that had to be genuinely equitable,
meaning available to all people
in their lives as they lived them.
That came from a bunch of research that we did,
specifically targeting marginalized populations.
The populations who we felt
were likely to be disadvantaged
when attempting to access digital services.
Again, I thought it was really interesting that
Tomas discussed kind of starting at Patagonia.
You know, this idea that you as a designer,
who's interested in issues of social equity,
you attempt to identify who are the
populations that will be both affected
by this work that I am carrying out?
Or the team that I'm working
with is carrying out.
And then, who amongst those people
who are going to be affected,
is least likely to have appropriate
access, or appropriate power.
And, you start there, you say, "Let's begin our
process with the people who are least likely
to be included if we don't make a point
of saying we are going to go to you
and ask you about your experience".
So, for us, looking at digital services in New
York City, we said, "How do we conduct research
with people who don't have digital access?
What does it mean to provide digital service
to someone who doesn't have a computer?
What is a digital service in that context?
What does it mean to provide a digital service
to someone who has profound visual impairments?
So, they can't see a screen.
What does it mean to provide digital services
to someone who not only doesn't speak
or read English, that may not speak
or read their native spoken tongue?"
So, in all of those instances,
we sought out the opportunity
to do this collaborative research
policy making process with people
who we felt were not typical
powered in that conversation.
So, it's fascinating to hear Tomas talking
about their attempts to address some
of those same questions in Chile,
with this obviously very much
bigger question of the constitution.
>> Leititia Wolff: Thank you.
And, I think what comes out of all of
your experiences, is this assumption
that the engagement, the civic
engagement of these various populations,
is going to start with a very specific topic,
in this case the constitution, in your case,
digital strategy, in your case, Open Government.
But, what I want to hear more about,
maybe I'll start with you, Emily,
is how do you start this conversation when
you're not sure about the educational level
of the population you're engaged with.
Meaning not just education in general, but the
civic level of understanding how these entities
and these political powers even
function, does that matter?
>> Emily Herrick: I think it definitely
matters, I think Chelsea spoke
about it -- turn my headphones on.
Spoke about it beautifully.
When you kind of, you have to go and ask them,
and then kind of understand the different ranges
of education people have before
you're designing a solution, right?
You have to really understand the
constraints people are operating in,
and that includes their level of education.
And, I think through a lot of my work,
people always over-estimate how much
people know about the civic process.
And so, you kind of -- you first,
you do your thorough research,
and you frame your problem accordingly,
and then you test it continuously.
And, then that kind of gives you the parameters
of how you can kind of design for everyone.
>> Leititia Wolff: And, even present to them.
>> Emily Herrick: Yes.
>> Leititia Wolff: How do
you present to them the fact
that their involvement is
very complicated conversation
of them designing their own government?
>> Emily Herrick: Yes.
I think it's an enormous challenge, and
I think it comes from really testing
out different approaches, and I'm sure Tomas
can speak too, how they engage different,
different levels, and in such an
intricate process of the constitution.
>> Chelsea: I think one answer
to that too, is that you --
or I think all of us would probably
describe ourselves as designers who practice
at human center, or at user
center to design methodology.
So, you start from where your users are.
So, that question of, "How
you describe a process?"
What you call it, starts by first listening.
It doesn't start by me coming in and saying,
"This is how you should understand
what a digital service is."
It starts by me coming in and
saying, "How do you ever try to,
you know, interact with the city?"
You know, you ask people about their
own lives and their own experiences,
and you ask them to define them on their terms.
And, by attentively listening,
you hear the language they use,
and then you use that language to frame
the questions that you want to ask,
and to get at the problems
that you're trying to solve
by adopting their own vocabulary,
and their overall view.
>> Leititia Wolff: Right, and
bringing back to their life experience.
>> Chelsea: Exactly.
>> Leititia Wolff: I wanted
to focus on one more topic.
And, unfortunately we had a little
bit of a delay for this webcast,
but I think it's a really critical point of
this project, and quite a symbolic demonstration
of the power of design, of visual
design, of illustration in this case,
a craft in this social impact/engagement.
And, we're all facing off in the user center
processes, sometimes the design quality,
the product, is sort of put
at the end or less important.
Here, it all started with this animation of
this video that you have developed, Tomas.
I'm just curious to see how you leverage
your illustrator background in this process.
>> Tomas Ives: Well, actually when we
receive all the information from methodology,
it was kind of reading Chinese for me.
So, we had to code it and rewrite it, and
hire some screenwriters to transform it
into some kind of manual, like if
you were playing some game like,
I don't know, Monopoly, or stuff like that.
If you answer this, you can
go to the next level,
if you answer this, you can
go to the next levels.
You can choose each and every word of
these 37 works, etc. So, the way that we --
how did we get to say, "Well, we need an
animation video", it was kind of trying to call
that spirit of the games, and gatherings, and
rules, simple rules, and make it a product
that it could be printed, it could be
televised, it could be shared by social media.
If you watch it from the beginning to the
end, you can understand the whole process.
And, make it as simple as possible
for a constitutional conversation,
that will take you six to eight hours.
So, that was kind of the inspiration,
but that we had to get to the point
of doing info-graphics and
animation, fun animations.
>> Leititia Wolff: You said that, you're
afraid that now they're going to go back
to the boring language of politics.
>> Tomas Ives: Exactly.
>> Leititia Wolff: I do think that you've
had like an incredible pioneering role
in shifting the way things are being
told, and how you tell a story,
and how you use these strategic tools,
visual tools, as a way to practice democracy.
>> Tomas Ives: Yes.
Well, right now, we are trying to figure
out like, "How can we put this whole back
to politics, going back to the congress,
how we can go back to all the people
that participated during the
constitutionary reform process?"
This big survey, how can we put
them back to push this to congress?
And, to be aware of what's going on?
To call their senators, to call the people in
congress, to say, "Hey, my work, my values,
my institution's all on that
document", so move on.
So, let's go to next step, like let's decide
how are we going to reform the constitution?
So, that's the point where
we are focusing right now.
How can we do it?
To do it like in the same way that we did this
whole process in a fun way, in a democratic way,
with a republican spirit, with
a democratic spirit, you know?
So, that's where our issues
are focused right now.
>> Leititia Wolff: Yes.
So, I want to finish on a sort of personal note,
and ask you all to speak to
your personal career pathway.
I mean, taking you, Tomas, as the example
of like the tattooed illustrator
that joined the government.
I mean, can you tell us about your other life?
And, then I want to hear about
that from Chelsea and Emily.
>> Tomas Ives: Yes.
You mean like how did this tattooed
illustrator got to the government?
>> Leititia Wolff: To work with the President.
>> Tomas Ives: Well, as soon as I got back from
New York, I started working doing presentations
for political programs, like PowerPoint
presentations, that used to be boring.
But, I decided to have like something like
info-graphics, much more of what you can see
at the presentation I just made, like move
things around, do logos, and create artifacts,
like political artifacts, designing politics.
And, it turns out that I was -- it
got, we had like success doing that.
So, that's when they called me back and said,
"Hey, well, we have this special project.
We're doing this whole new team of 25 people,
we need them to be focused
on the constitution process".
And, was I, "Well, OK, great, sounds like
a monster coming ahead of me", but anyway,
was as super difficult, the political
struggle was super difficult, too.
Anyway, I think that this whole thing
stopped, we learn and understand
as designers what Chelsea was saying about
we're going to have to go and put the solutions
on the table, we just need to
hear that you have a dialogue.
And, after that, we can design a product.
So, thinking, discussing, designing,
testing, design it again, etc. So --
>> Leititia Wolff: Una conversación.
>> Tomas Ives: La conversación.
So, I think that kind of spirit took me to work
with at the palace of the
government, with tattoos.
>> Leititia Wolff: That's amazing.
What about you, Chelsea?
I know you went to London School of Economics.
You were at some point heading
a bid in Brooklyn?
>> Chelsea: Yes, my Masters study was
in Social Science and Urban Design.
And, when I returned to New York after
that program at the LSE,
I had a very good experience of working
with another non-profit organization here
in New York City called The
Design Trust for Public Space,
which provides strategic design
assistance to public agencies.
They're taking on a range of public
realm, more built environment projects.
So, thinking about design in that context of
the public sector's control of the public realm.
And, that was really my first experience
doing work in a government context.
And, it was just immediately interesting to
me that the scale on which one can operate
when one partners with government,
is remarkable.
Obviously there are huge challenges
that come with scale, complexity
and speed is obviously not such a great
thing often, but really the ability to say,
"We can make a thing, a product, a service,
an environment, a policy, a constitution,
which affects millions upon millions of people,
is a really remarkable experience as a designer.
So, after that original bit of my life where
I was focused more on thinking about design
of the context of the built
realm, some colleagues
and I launched the public
policy lab as a not for profit.
Although we function a lot like a consultancy,
we're actually a non-profit organization.
Because, we feel that our goal is not just
to provide design services to governments
who are trying to redesign social services,
but also to really advocate for the use
of design methodologies when
governments are thinking about how
to improve policies of social service delivery.
>> Leititia Wolff: Yes, I remember when
I met you first with Sylvia Harris.
And then, at that time I was working on an explorential [phonetic] project, with my little crazy, ambitious ideas.
And, you said to me, "I don't work for free.
No way. Those agencies, they're
going to pay for my services,
and we'll have some fellows helping
them figure out what exactly they need".
I remember that.
>> Chelsea: I think that it's a danger
where designers want to do good work
in the worlds, and we're so motivated by that.
And, so often, particularly more design-naive
partners, don't actually understand the kind
of professional and time-requirements of doing
really meaningful and professional design work.
And, some people say, "Can
you just help us with this?"
And, I think of that [phonetic] one is always
tempted, because you want to be helpful.
But, at the same time, not only do all of
us who are making our lives as professionals
and designing fields need to pay our own
rent, but also I think it's important
for government entities to begin to realize
that this is a professional
capacity that one pays for.
You would not expect--
>> Laetitia: It's work.
>>Chelsea: Yes, you wouldn't expect any other
provider of a valuable and uniqueful service
to sell any of your work for free.
>> Leititia Wolff: Thank you.
All right, one last word for Emily.
She went from communications
design to service design.
>> Emily Herrick: Yes.
When I started my career working
as a communications designer,
I worked in book publishing, I've also worked
for some socially focused branding agencies.
I was deigning annual reports,
and collateral for non-profits.
But, as a graphic designer, a communications
designer, I've kind of always felt
like I was coming in at the end of the
process, kind of putting the finishing touches
on something that I continuously had
questions about how programs or services
that I was promoting were really designed.
And so, that constant questioning of, "How
can I get to the front of the process?"
Or really the definition of the
shaping and the scoping of solutions,
kind of always brought me towards service
design, I didn't really know what it was,
I had no kind of understanding of it.
But, when I started working at Reboot, I
was hired as a communications designer.
We are a very small team of
20 people over two continents,
so really only 11 in the
office here in New York.
Really, an understanding of how would
this kind of work was happening?
This user center of design
work was really happening
in a government context,
some internationally as well.
And, was really drawn to it, the problem
scoping and the users in their design.
Methodologies until [phonetic] I kind of
in between being hired at Reboot and kind
of working under our [phonetic]
communications design apartment.
I have come back to school, to
the School of Visual Arts' Design
for Social Innovation Program, and
had an opportunity to really kind
of un-bridge [phonetic] myself in this kind of
type of thinking, and really came out of it.
I'm much better and more
well-rounded designer, I think.
>> Leititia Wolff: Yes.
Holistic design.
Well, thank you.
I mean, you know, wanted to finish on
these set of more background conversations,
because I think it's important to the
overall conversation of Design for Good.
And, what we're trying to share
with at AIGA, is that there's hope,
there are jobs, there are roles to play.
There's an influence you can have at
different levels, in different ways.
But, these civic engagement projects really
show us the potential that design can play,
and that very simple seemingly
fun, as you call them, Tomas,
illustrations actually go really far into
messaging the value of democracy today.
So, thank you all for participating today.
We'll be publishing some additional
references and resources on our websites.
We will be also providing a closed
caption version of this video,
and clean up all the snaffu in between.
Thank you Lilly Smith for helping
us produce this webcast again.
Thank you John Snowden, our videographer.
Thank you Tomas for joining us.
Thank you Chelsea, thank you Emily.
Thank you to our sponsors NEA and IBM.
And, see you in a month for webcast number five.
