Perspectives on Digital Humanism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open Access Book edited by Hannes Werthner, Erich Prem, Edward A. Lee, and Carlo Ghezzi: “Digital Humanism is young; it has evolved from an unease about the consequences of a digitized world for human beings, into an internationally connected community that aims at developing concepts to provide a positive and constructive response. Following up on several successful workshops and a lecture series that bring together authorities of the various disciplines, this book is our latest contribution to the ongoing international discussions and developments. We have compiled a collection of 46 articles from experts with different disciplinary and institutional backgrounds, who provide their view on the interplay of human and machine.

Please note our open access publishing strategy for this book to enable widespread circulation and accessibility. This means that you can make use of the content freely, as long as you ensure appropriate referencing. At the same time, the book is also published in printed and online versions by Springer….(More)”.

Systemic Mapping and Design Research: Towards Participatory Democratic Engagement

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Juan de LaRosa, Stan Ruecker, Carolina Giraldo Nohora: “This article presents an argument to extend possibilities and discussions about the role of design in democratic participation. We ground this argument in case studies and observations of several grassroots experimental participatory design workshops run with the intention of producing spaces for community deliberation and a tangible transformation of these communities. These cases show how systemic mapping and prototyping are used to increase community understanding of how potential futures represent values systems that should correspond to the values the community would like to see in place. The methodologies used on these workshops are presented it here as an opportunity to question the role of design in democratic deliberation and policy making….(More)”.

The Time Tax

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Annie Lowrey: “…In my decade-plus of social-policy reporting, I have mostly understood these stories as facts of life. Government programs exist. People have to navigate those programs. That is how it goes. But at some point, I started thinking about these kinds of administrative burdens as the “time tax”—a levy of paperwork, aggravation, and mental effort imposed on citizens in exchange for benefits that putatively exist to help them. This time tax is a public-policy cancer, mediating every American’s relationship with the government and wasting countless precious hours of people’s time.

The issue is not that modern life comes with paperwork hassles. The issue is that American benefit programs are, as a whole, difficult and sometimes impossible for everyday citizens to use. Our public policy is crafted from red tape, entangling millions of people who are struggling to find a job, failing to feed their kids, sliding into poverty, or managing a disabling health condition.

… the government needs to simplify. For safety-net programs, this means eliminating asset tests, work requirements, interviews, and other hassles. It means federalizing programs like unemployment insurance and Medicaid. It means cross-coordinating, so that applicants are automatically approved for everything for which they qualify.

Finally, it needs to take responsibility for the time tax. Congress needs to pump money into the civil service and into user-friendly, citizen-centered programmatic design. And the federal government needs to reward states and the executive agencies for increasing uptake and participation rates, while punishing them for long wait times and other bureaucratic snafus.

Such changes would eliminate poverty and encourage trust in government. They would make American lives easier and simpler. Yes, Washington should give Americans more money and more security. But most of all, it should give them back their time….(More)”.

….

What is the difference between current awareness and horizon scanning?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst
identifying the trends

An informed perspective is more important than ever in order to anticipate what comes next and succeed in emerging futures”. HBR, October 16, 2015

Article by Clare Brown: “Legal professionals are busy people. They are concerned with doing the best they can for their clients and making sure that their business runs smoothly. Trend spotting or horizon scanning isn’t necessarily at the top of their daily “to do” lists but if they want to grow the firm effectively, everyone – from trainee to managing partner – needs to anticipate future events. 

The best way information people can help to do this is to first understand how everything fits together. We need to look at the difference between current awareness and horizon scanning – and put them both into a wider strategic context. When we present our management teams with evidence that they need automated current awareness, we should also be dazzling them with future information possibilities. 

…The answer might lie in a strategic and collaborative form of foresight, or as Kerstin E. Cuhls defines it, “a systematic debate of complex futures”. Large corporations, governments and intergovernmental organisations have used various methods to use information in their efforts to predict all possible outcomes. For instance, 

Georghiou (2007) reported that foresight activities have been conducted in conjunction with NIS in the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, India, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa and other countries. In Germany, the Fraunhofer Society has taken the lead in progressively applying foresight not only in NIS but also in the preparation of strategic scenarios at the corporate level (Cuhls, 2015). (Yuichi Washida and Akihisa Yahata “Predictive value of horizon scanning for future scenarios in Foresight, 3 February 2021)

The excellent article on horizon scanning I mentioned above explains how they attempt it. In essence, it involves literature searches, conversations, taking a broad view, and being open to any and all possibilities:

  • Structured: it is a systematic approach by applying methods of futures research, science-based, and based on new theories of futures research
  • Debate: it includes interaction of relevant actors, active preparation for the future or different futures, and orientation towards shaping the future
  • Complex: it includes the consideration of systemic interdependencies, takes a holistic view
  • Futures is plural: it is an open view on different paths into the future with thinking in alternatives. We also envisage different types of futures, in futures research we differentiate between possible, probable and preferable futures…(More)”.

To solve big issues like climate change, we need to reframe our problems

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst


Essay by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg and Jonathan Wichmann: “Imagine you own an office building and your tenants are complaining that the elevator is way too slow. What do you do?

Faced with this problem, most people instinctively jump into solution mode. How can we make the elevator faster? Can we upgrade the motor? Tweak the algorithm? Do we need to buy a new elevator?

The speed of the elevator might be the wrong problem to focus on, however. Talk to an experienced landlord and they might offer you a more elegant solution: put up mirrors next to the elevator so people don’t notice the wait. Gazing lovingly at your own reflection tends to have that effect.

The mirror doesn’t make the elevator faster. It solves a different problem – that the wait is annoying.

Solve the right problem

The slow elevator story highlights an important truth, in that the way we frame a problem often determines which solutions we come up with. By shifting the way we see a problem, we can sometimes find better solutions.

Problem framing is of paramount importance when it comes to tackling the many hard challenges our societies face. And yet, we’re not terribly good at it. In a survey of 106 corporate leaders, 87% said their people waste significant resources solving the wrong problems. When we go to the doctor, we know very well that identifying the right problem is key. Too often, we fail to apply the same thinking to social and global problems.

Three common patterns

So, how do we get better at it? One starting point is to recognise that there are often patterns in the way we frame problems. Get better at recognising those patterns, and you can dramatically improve your ability to solve the right problems. Here are three typical patterns:

1. We prefer framings that allow us to avoid change

People tend to frame problems so they don’t have to change their own behaviour. When the lack of women leading companies first became a prominent concern decades ago, it was often framed as a pipeline problem. Many corporate leaders simply assumed that, once there were enough women in junior positions, the C-suite would follow.

That framing allowed companies to carry on as usual for about a generation until time eventually proved the pipeline theory wrong, or at best radically incomplete. The gender balance among senior executives would surely be better by now if companies had not spent a few decades ignoring other explanations for the skewed ratio….(More)”.

Street Experiments

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “City streets are increasingly becoming spaces for experimentation, for testing “in the wild” a seemingly unstoppable flow of “disruptive” mobility innovations such as mobility platforms for shared mobility and ride/hailing, electric and autonomous vehicles, micro-mobility solutions, etc. But also, and perhaps more radically, for recovering the primary function of city streets as public spaces, not just traffic channels.

City street experiments are:

​“intentional, temporary changes of the street use, regulation and/or form, aimed at exploring systemic change in urban mobility”

​They offer a prefiguration of what a radically different arrangement of the city´s mobility system and public space could look like and allow moving towards that vision by means of “learning by doing”.

The S.E.T. platform offers a collection of Resources for implementing and supporting street experiments. As well as a special section of COVID-19 devoted to the best practices of street experiments that offered solutions and strategies for cities to respond to the current pandemic and a SET Guidelines Kit that provides insights and considerations on creating impactful street experiments with long-term effects….(More)”.

Who’s Afraid of Big Numbers?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Aiyana Green and Steven Strogatz at the New York Times: “Billions” and “trillions” seem to be an inescapable part of our conversations these days, whether the subject is Jeff Bezos’s net worth or President Biden’s proposed budget. Yet nearly everyone has trouble making sense of such big numbers. Is there any way to get a feel for them? As it turns out, there is. If we can relate big numbers to something familiar, they start to feel much more tangible, almost palpable.

For example, consider Senator Bernie Sanders’s signature reference to “millionaires and billionaires.” Politics aside, are these levels of wealth really comparable? Intellectually, we all know that billionaires have a lot more money than millionaires do, but intuitively it’s hard to feel the difference, because most of us haven’t experienced what it’s like to have that much money.

In contrast, everyone knows what the passage of time feels like. So consider how long it would take for a million seconds to tick by. Do the math, and you’ll find that a million seconds is about 12 days. And a billion seconds? That’s about 32 years. Suddenly the vastness of the gulf between a million and a billion becomes obvious. A million seconds is a brief vacation; a billion seconds is a major fraction of a lifetime.

Comparisons to ordinary distances provide another way to make sense of big numbers. Here in Ithaca, we have a scale model of the solar system known as the Sagan Walk, in which all the planets and the gaps between them are reduced by a factor of five billion. At that scale, the sun becomes the size of a serving plate, Earth is a small pea and Jupiter is a brussels sprout. To walk from Earth to the sun takes just a few dozen footsteps, whereas Pluto is a 15-minute hike across town. Strolling through the solar system, you gain a visceral understanding of astronomical distances that you don’t get from looking at a book or visiting a planetarium. Your body grasps it even if your mind cannot….(More)”.

Open Hardware: An Opportunity to Build Better Science

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Alison Parker et al: “Today’s research infrastructure, including scientific hardware, is unevenly distributed in the scientific community, severely limiting collaboration, customization, and impact. Open hardware for science provides an alternative approach to reliance on expensive and proprietary instrumentation while giving “people the freedom to control their technology while sharing knowledge and encouraging commerce through the open exchange of design.”

Open hardware can be modified and recombined to build diverse libraries of tools that serve as a freely available resource for use across several disciplines. By improving access to tools, open hardware for science encourages collaboration, accelerates innovation, and improves scientific reproducibility and repeatability. Open hardware for science is often less expensive than proprietary equivalents, allowing research laboratories to stretch funding further. Beyond scientific research, open hardware has proven to benefit and impact a number of complementary policy priorities including: broadening public participation in science, accessible experiential STEM education, crisis response, and improving distributed manufacturing capabilities.

Because of recent, bipartisan progress in open science, the U.S. government is well positioned to elevate and enhance the impact of open hardware in American science. By addressing key implementation challenges and prioritizing open hardware for science, we as a nation can build better infrastructure for future science, cement U.S. scientific leadership and innovation, and help the U.S. prepare for future crises. This report addresses the need to build a stronger foundation for science by prioritizing open hardware, describes the unique benefits of open hardware alongside complementary policy priorities, and briefly lays out implementation challenges to overcome. …(More)”.

Berlin Declaration on Digital Society and Value-based Digital Government

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

European Commission: “…The Declaration follows up on the success of the Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment, which endorsed the key principles for digital public services put forward in the eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020. The Berlin Declaration takes the user-centricity principles formulated in the Tallinn Declaration a step further by strengthening the pioneering role of public administrations in driving a value-based digital transformation of our European societies.

The Declaration acknowledges the public sector as an essential element for the European Single Market and a driving force for new and innovative technological solutions for public services and societal challenges. It emphasises that public authorities at all levels must lead by example to strengthen the tenets of the European Union.

To do so it sets out seven key principles with related policy action lines and national and EU level:

  1. Validity and respect of fundamental rights and democratic values in the digital sphere;
  2. Social participation and digital inclusion to shape the digital world;
  3. Empowerment and digital literacy, allowing all citizens to participate in the digital sphere;
  4. Trust and security in digital government interactions, allowing everyone to navigate the digital world safely, authenticate and be digitally recognised within the EU conveniently;
  5. Digital sovereignty and interoperability, as a key in ensuring the ability of citizens and public administrations to make decisions and act self-determined in the digital world;
  6. Human-centred systems and innovative technologies in the public sector, strengthening its pioneering role in the research on secure and trustworthy technology design;
  7. A resilient and sustainable digital society, preserving our natural foundations of life in line with the Green Deal and using digital technologies to enhance the sustainability of our health systems….(More)”.

Laboratories of Design: A Catalog of Policy Innovation Labs in Europe

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Anat Gofen and Esti Golan: “To address both persistent and emerging social and environmental problems, governments around the world have been seeking innovative ways to generate policy solutions in collaboration with citizens. One prominent trend during recent decades is the proliferation of Policy Innovation Labs (PILs), in which the search for policy solutions is embedded within scientific laboratory-like structures. Spread across the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and often funded by local, regional, or national governments, PILs utilize experimental methods, testing, and measurement to generate innovative, evidence-based policy solutions to complex public issues.

This catalog lists PILs in Europe. For each lab, a one-page profile specifies its vision, policy innovation approaches, methodologies, major projects, parent entity, funding sources, and its alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) call to action. For each lab we identify governmental, municipal, multi-sectorial, academic, non-profit, or private sector affiliation.

The goals of compiling this catalog and making it available to citizens, scholars, NGOs, and public officials are to call attention to the growing spirit of citizen engagement in developing innovative policy solutions for their own communities and to facilitate collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas between organizations. Despite their increasing importance in public policy making, PILs are as yet understudied. This catalog will provide an opportunity for scholars to explore the function and value of community-oriented policy innovation as well as the effects of approaching policy making around disruptive social problems in a “scientific” way.

Methodology: This catalog of policy innovation labs was compiled based on published reports, as well as a Google search for each individual country using the terms “policy lab” and “innovation lab,” first in English, then in the native language. Sometimes the labs themselves came up in the search results; for others, an article or a blog that mentioned them appeared. Next, each lab was searched specifically by name or by using an identified link. Each lab website that was identified was searched for other labs that were mentioned. Some labs were identified more than once, and a few that were found to be defunct or lacking a website were excluded. Innovation labs that referred only to technical or technological innovations were omitted. Only labs that relate to policy and to so-called “public innovation” were included in this catalog. Eligible PILs could be run and/or sponsored by local, regional, or national governments, universities, non-profit organizations, or the private sector. This resulted in a total of 212 European PILs.

Notably, while the global proliferation of policy innovation labs is acknowledged by formal, global organizations, there are no clear-cut criteria to determine which organizations are considered PILs. Therefore, this catalog follows the precedent set by previous catalogs and identifies PILs as organizations that generate policy recommendations for social problems and public issues by employing a user-oriented design approach and utilizing experimental methods.

Information about every lab was collected form its website, with minimal editing for coherence. For some labs, information was presented in English on its website; for others, information in the native language was translated into English using machine translation followed by human editing. Data for the catalog was collected between December 2019 and July 2020. PILs are opening and closing with increasing frequency so this catalog serves as a snapshot in time, featuring PILs that are currently active as of the time of compilation….(More)”.