design

On hope

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I used to run design thinking events with international students. I would take them through a guided process, to find new ways of building intercultural connections in their environment. In the divergent phase, I saw radical ideas emerge – real original stuff. Then time came to select one idea and pitch. It was just a pitch, low stakes, not a lifetime commitment. Yet students would always pick the safest cliché – ‘Food brings people together.’  

2

We commonly confuse two types of strategy. The first identifies the best way to reach a goal, given a set of constraints. I call this shallow strategy. The second – which I call deep strategy – questions and refines the goal itself, and the constraints.

For-profit organisations, in their immense majority, never reach the level of deep strategy. The goal is a given – make money. Corporate Social Responsibility, B-Corp charters and other ESG frameworks are only stricter sets of constraints. We’re still in shallow strategy. Make money while meeting a few sustainability criteria.

In my experience, not-for-profits and charities are the only structures that engage in deep strategy. Yet even there, even on the board, discussions often get stuck in the shallows. You know, those tedious discussions, where the goal is far from clear, and someone raves at length about the best software to use.  

3

Apollo, God of oracles, was known as loxios, ‘oblique’. He revealed truth indirectly. The same applies to the Christian God. We have not a revealed book of truth, but the Gospels – four elliptic narratives about the life of Christ.

If we seriously believe in a God creator of Heaven and Earth, maker of all things seen and unseen, could that God not have chosen to engrave his commands in letters of fire, and held them floating in the sky above Jerusalem, for all to see? No, God decided that he would reveal himself indirectly – and let us free to believe – as a matter of deliberate design.

4

This may be the most valuable insight I got from my two years in preparatory class. My French teacher was having a rant. ‘People speak of literature, and schools, and the Humanities, as if all this was ‘not the real world’. You hear that all the time. It’s not the real world. And yet here we are,’ he said, pointing his finger to the ceiling, then out the window, ‘I’m paid good money to teach you, we’ve got a huge library full of books on top of us, and this is prime real estate in the heart of Paris. I call this the real world.’

5

There are two main forms of charity work.

One is remedial. It aims to reduce suffering, right here right now. It’s homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and blood donations. It’s firefighters and emergency room doctors.

The other is preventative. It aims to prevent suffering, at some point in the future. It’s public health, social work, and education design. It’s risk management, culture, and governance.  

The second is impossible, unless faith and hope complement pure charity.

6

From the age of 18, I’ve had a Greek quote from Heraclitus on my desk: ‘ἐὰν µὴ ἔλπηται, ἀνέλπιστον οὐκ ἐξευρήσει, ἀνεξερεύνητον ἐὸν καὶ ἄπορον.’ In my translation: ‘As for what is beyond hope, it will not manifest unless you hope for it. It’s not something you just stumble upon already made. It has no shape of its own.’

Designing for love

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I’m on top of Bellevue Hill, in Sydney. I’m looking for the perfect spot to sit and watch the harbour. There’s a young woman nearby. She’s in a good spot. It looks like the best spot. I’m annoyed. I’ll have to wait for her to stand up and leave. So that I can take her seat.  

Melbourne has more distributed beauty. It’s a grid on a swamp, with wide avenues and a few creeks. Bridges are functional, theatres part of our urban fabric. Instead of exclusive vantage points, it’s full of hollow spaces, generously sized. In most places, just a few more people would make things even better. It is, in other words, a city designed for love. 

2

When the pandemic hit, AirBNB chose to let people go. ‘Fair enough’, you might say, financial constraints, etc. Yet they treated staff like family, using emotional bonding for productivity. People there lost more than a job.  

What is it like, when your ‘family’ treats you as expendable? I wonder if those laid-off staff saw The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and what kind of revenge they’re planning. 

3

In many languages, the mode of address depends on the relationship. In French, it’s the difference between polite and formal address, ‘tu’ or ‘vous’. Most languages have similar complexities. This feature has a radical implication. I’m not the same person in all contexts.

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In our late capitalist world, companies and industry sectors have taken on the function of kin relationships, for members of the middle class at least. You’re a lawyer, an accountant, a teacher. This defines a set of expected behaviours, values, and relationships. It’s an identity.

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Kierkegaard warns against the risk of living sub specie eternitatis:give in to the sirens of abstraction, and let existence pass by. I try to live in the first person. Which often leaves me confused. So many people refer to ‘the mainstream’, ‘general opinion’, or otherwise agreed rankings, with perfect assurance. I find it hard enough to know the shape of my own brain.

6

‘So, what do you do?’ I’ve always dreaded that question. I listen to people with complex ideas. I help them clarify their vision. I edit their texts. This is my craft and function. Expressing it is not that hard. But the system is diffuse. It’s a bunch of emerging projects. And that confuses people.

On the surface, the question is about craft or function. But often, it’s in fact about the surrounding system. Not what you do, but where you work. What collective is your primary place of professional belonging. What collective outcomes you support.   

For many people, there’s a simple overlap. My partner is head of English at Kilvington Grammar school. Function, location. Doctors, nurses, childcare workers, product designers, developers, project managers, hairdressers, lawyers, salespeople, and a whole lot of others are able to give similarly straightforward answers. They’ve got a recognizable function, within a recognizable collective – school, hospital, company, shop, or salon.

Not so for me. It’s often awkward, but it’s good for the brain too. For a while, I was coaching young business students. When they shared hesitation about their career direction – they all did – I would ask them an either/or question, variation of the following. ‘Would you rather work as accountant for a film production company, or in-house media for PWC?’ They studied business, and it was the first time anyone asked them the question. 

7

The good story matches plot with character. This is also the core of Ignatian spirituality. It’s virtue, leadership, ikigai. It’s all about telos. How will your existence manifest humanity?

For this, stories have the greatest importance. We learn from characters, never direct experience. Without the frameworks offered by stories, how could we discern any coherence in the shapeless chaos of ‘real life’?

All of us are immersed in storytelling, constantly. This is the fabric of our common morality. This is also where we can build character. By attentional effort, we choose a balance of stories, and through this, we shape the world we live in. Sometimes, we do this deliberately.

8

Are we, humans, like tigers, eagles, and killer whales, an apex predator ruling over our element? Or like chimpanzee, parrots and octopus, both predator and prey, capable yet vulnerable, somewhere in-between?

Marco Polo Project – designing new practices

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In 2010, I founded an organisation called Marco Polo Project. After COVID put a spanner in our wheels, we put most of our activities on ice. We’re now re-inventing what the future might look like. As part of this work, I wrote a series of posts exploring the original drivers behind Marco Polo Project. This is also an opportunity to reflect on success and failure – celebrate what was, mourn, and explore what could be.

‘Lots of people talk about engaging with China. You’re one of the few who’s actually doing something about it.’ I received this affirmation from a business manager at the Sydney University China Centre in 2013, after speaking at an Australia China Youth Association event. A number of others have praised my work with Marco Polo Project in similar ways over the years. For a while, this caused me confusion, since my core skillset is about arranging words together. I’m too dim-witted to raise a question in reply to a compliment, so I was left to find the meaning of the statement on my own. Here is what I made of it.

Back then, there was a lot of money flowing to China-stuff, and associated opportunities. I benefited too. There were a lot of public events, roundtables and conferences, with recurring injunctions and recriminations: ‘We must do more of this. We must do less of this.’ As for the details of implementation, what precisely we should do more of and less of, this was not a matter for the future leaders of Australia-China engagement to define.

Major changes in global macro-structures require new micro-structures. Seating arrangements matter when people don’t share the same language, as does acoustics, and turn-taking rules. Good intercultural networking calls for clear instructions. Loose ‘discuss and mingle’ models only shift the burden on the more culturally intelligent participants. Online, sharp editorial choices are needed – or smart algorithms – to break the filter bubble. Established ways of doing things will only replicate existing structures and dynamics. New formats must be designed, and put to the test, then packaged, and shared.

Self-appointed ‘big picture thinkers’ stay well clear of those details, and the efforts involved. After all, public funding and other official accolades are mainly focused on outcomes. I’m an earthy guy at heart, and ill-suited to business as usual. I don’t put much credit in standard outcome frameworks. I like getting my hands dirty, and play in the mud of outputs. Or if I’m not, I look for impact at the nth degree. I guess that’s what they meant by ‘do something’.   

I was reflecting with an Indonesian friend, a few weeks back, on institutional failure to meet the core social needs of migrant populations and international students. For their well-being, as well as for professional success, newcomers need to form supportive, trusting relationships – personal and professional. Which means, at the very least, a chance to follow up on initial conversations. Migrants and international students must also find ways to integrate all the new things they learn about their new context to their existing understanding of the world, and their identity. Yet most events – networking and otherwise – are marketed as opportunities to ‘meet new people’ and ‘learn new things’, and designed in line with that goal.

You know the joke. A man is looking for his keys under a streetlight. ‘Is this where you dropped them?’ asks a supportive passer-by. ‘No, but it’s pitch dark where I did, so I’m looking over here.’ I always think of this when I attend an intercultural get together. I still remember a Facebook conversation on the topic. I was back from yet another disappointing event at some university, with boring speeches and no meaningful encounter. Yet there were prawns and scallops on the buffet table. I wrote a post about it. ‘Why do the people running those events spend so much on food, and nothing on experience?’ It sparked a lively discussion. It led me to finally realise – and accept – that improving participant experience must fall outside what most people consider even possible. Pretentious food and poor design may well not be matters of malice, cowardice, or laziness. Just a lack of imagination. This is where design comes into play. It’s not just about prototyping to figure out what could work: it’s offering something concrete, as a way to shift perceptions of where action is needed, possible, and fruitful. And this is what Marco Polo Project has done over the years. 

We have developed a broad range of new formats and resources. Some have achieved their final form. After numerous iterations, starting in 2012, we landed on Translation Club, a collaborative translation event to build deep intercultural empathy and trigger insights of cultural self-awareness, with low facilitation overheads. Using design-thinking as a template, we developed Design for Diversity, a one day program to train better intercultural collaboration in creative problem solving. Our Marco Polo Manual documents a number of micro-structures, components of facilitated events and programs trialled over the years. We’re still iterating on Culture Flip, a card game to support better language exchange by playing on conversational archetypes, and a few more tools and formats for better networking.

The doing certainly worked, yet we failed at one point in the process. We neglected the work of convincing. We fell short of producing sexy media to document our workshops, anchor assumptions in scientific articles, or get big names to vouch for us. And so, we stayed small. Maybe my new Dr. title will bring about an added layer of legitimacy? Or maybe now is time for scientific retrofitting? Time to make our assumptions explicit, articulate our practice to new trends in language learning, social health and psychology, and make academic sense of our efforts. Then we can focus on sharing the models, in hope to see them scale.

Marco Polo Project – Follow the creative impulse

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In 2010, I founded an organisation called Marco Polo Project. After COVID put a spanner in our wheels, we put most of our activities on ice. We’re now re-inventing what the future might look like. As part of this work, I wrote a series of posts exploring the original drivers behind Marco Polo Project. This is also an opportunity to reflect on success and failure – celebrate what was, mourn, and explore what could be.

Marco Polo Project was born in Tianjin, on a beautiful night of insomnia, in December 2010.

Earlier that year, I passed the second level of the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, and received a scholarship to spend three weeks in Tianjin. It was my first time attending formal education in Chinese. On day one, I learned that Chinese people like dragons and the colour red.

Back then, I was working for the Victorian State, exploring e-government. Wikis, open data, gamified tools for bug reporting were the next stage in citizen engagement and service delivery. My partner had a blog, documenting daily projects, with fans in the US and invitations to Writers’ Festivals. I was excited by the possibilities offered by the Internet to share stories, ideas and practices around the world – create some sort of new cosmopolitan identity, and collaborative abundance. Those were the glory days of the sharing economy, when Facebook was about friends, Google about knowledge, and a different type of world seemed possible. I was also fascinated by the discourses of a burgeoning ‘online China’ that my language skills were still too limited to let me access. What was happening there? I wanted to know, but my classroom experience gave me no clue.

That night, in the hotel attached to Tianjin Normal University, right next to the Balitai roundabout, I had a vision. What if we could gather a curated selection of texts from Chinese writers, cultural analysts and intellectuals publishing online, and offer them to the people learning Chinese around the world for collaborative translation. I imagined a thorough division of labour. Advanced learners and Chinese natives would scour the Chinese Internet for texts to share. They would propose a first version of the translation, discussing options in a comment section. Less advanced learners could read the translated texts, in bilingual format or English only, as a way to better understand China. There would be mutual support, a point system, and badges for various accomplishments, forming a grand online community. I went to the bathroom to keep my roommate asleep, took extensive notes, and got back to bed a few hours later, shaking with excitement.

Daniel Ednie-Lockett was the first believer. We met in 2009 through a Chinese language MeetUp. He ran a small company that took international students on local tours as a way to promote cultural integration, and would soon evolve into a language exchange network. It’s late December 2010, and we’re sitting at a café on Little Lonsdale Street. I share the vision with him. He jots down a few notes on a napkin. ‘I don’t know if it’s going to work,’ he said, ‘but it’s cheap enough to try’. With a thousand dollars or so, we could build a prototype. I was willing to lose that money. Dan introduced me to people who could help, I put an ad online, and gathered a first team. Three months later, we had a functional website running live, with a small selection of texts.

Human-centered design teaches you to look for a need – a problem to solve – through a systematic process, then go on to prototype a solution. There is certainly wisdom to that approach. Yet sometimes, the desire to create something comes first. This was the case for me, with Marco Polo Project. My creative impulse had a force of its own. I would not stop until I brought it to life. I believe this kind of creative imagination plays a bigger role than we acknowledge in entrepreneurship, as it does in creative ventures.

Yet the force of imagination comes with a downside. The vision may be clear, but it floats, disconnected from the world. Perspective only comes retrospectively. So, when things don’t work out, and compromises must be made, it is unclear where to hold on, and where to let go. Particularly, reaching a joint agreement on where to pivot is critically difficult.

By 2017, our website had fallen into disarray. With no business model or investment, the code was developed on the cheap. It was breaking apart. China blocked its online blogs and magazines one by one. Hardly anyone contributed to our translations any more. So, we decided to shift offline entirely, archive the magazine, and redirect our address to a new website focused on our workshop design activities. It made sense at the time, and has taken us where we are. Yet a bitterness remains. Something of that original creative impulse remains un-satisfied, and I often wonder if we should have simply kept on course.

I wish, in the early years, I had met someone who listened to me closely, took the time to sit down and ask ‘what exactly do you want’, work with me on the vision, and help me make the right decision. Either I met no such person, or I wasn’t able to recognize them. There was a lot of rush, narrow-mindedness, self-evidence and complex egos. I guess the texts in this series are a retrospective attempt at making sense, then – and figure out what I had attempted to do, in the hope that it will be useful for the future.

To catch the bug, learn from the spider

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Over the past year and a half, I took a series of notes on my practice. I gathered those in various documents, shuffled them around, and merged in older thoughts and reflections. Lockdown #6 was an opportunity to bring all this to shape. I am now sharing those thoughts as a series, forming a sort of mosaic on my work, and what has been driving it.

Software is a precarious, multi-layered bricolage, always evolving. If something in the new code conflicts with the old, the system crashes. We call this a bug.

The metaphor applies to all human systems. To solve a new problem or satisfy a new demand, we build new technology, we propose new norms, we create new narratives. Those come in conflict with existing ones, and the system stalls.

What’s hard is not fixing it. It’s finding where the problem is.

Jordan Peterson, in his ‘9th rule for life’, writes that women are often frustrated by men in conversations. Men want to fix the problem, efficiently and quickly. ‘It might be easier for my male readers to understand why this does not work, however,’ adds Peterson, ’if they could realize and then remember that before a problem can be solved, it must be formulated precisely. Women are often intent on formulating the problem when they are discussing something, and they need to be listened to – even questioned – to help ensure clarity in the formulation. Then, whatever problem is left, if any, can be helpfully solved.’

Climate change’ is not a clearly formulated problem. We have a carbon emission governance problem. We have an energy grid stability problem. We have a material greed problem. We have a free-rider problem. Only, by formulating each of those problems, and their interaction, can we start solving them.

To catch our bugs, let’s learn from the spider. Patiently lay traps, follow the process, then sit still, like a hunter waiting. And maybe we can save our society from collapse.

Rethinking the study day model

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How can we do academic conferences better?

Over the course of my PhD, I became deeply disappointed with conferences and study days. Those were always presented in the marketing as an opportunity to share and question ideas with peers. Yet the design was hardly conducive to that goal. It was either plenaries or parallel sessions, with a clear division of roles: speakers, listeners. Presenters had one single slot of about 40 minutes in the conference to share their research or ideas. They were invited to leave time for questions, but everybody went overtime, limiting interactions to 10 minutes at best. Which typically consisted of a ‘question that is actually a remark suggesting an alternative reference’, clarification on a minor point of detail, and a theoretical challenge with hardly any time to reflect. How is that an opportunity to share ideas with peers?

I noted similar contradictions with the ‘milestone presentations’ I was invited to do, as part of Monash University’s PhD program. Here again, in theory, it was an opportunity to receive feedback – but in fact, seemed to serve mainly the purpose of confirming my academic capacity. I had to share documents in advance, give twenty minutes of presentation, then get feedback from faculty members, and give a short response. Document had to be formatted to standards: how misaligned with research as an emergent process. Practically, it meant a lot of time spent formally perfecting early stage prototypes. Nor was the presentation a proper dialogue, but professorial expert feedback. Again, not a great mode of interaction, especially for an extravert like me.

It’s unlikely that any of this can change: habits run deep. I soon gave up attempts to bring what I had learned in innovation and entrepreneurial circles to a university setting – the final drop was one memorably dysfunctional conversation with a mid-level administrator. Yet, in the margins of a conference, I remember discussing an alternative model, as a provocation, with a friendly peer.

I’m a bit of a design nerd, so, on that evening, I jotted down notes for this conference model. It has remained at the back of a drawer, in draft form, for years. I thought I might take it out, give it shape and share it. Much of it is inspired by the wonderful Liberating Structures model of Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless. The timings are slightly tight, with long pauses. This means, it’s possible to extend the length of activities and ‘eat into’ pauses a little. Pauses are also intended for introverts to relax.

I’d love to try it out one day, but not on my own. So, if anyone would like to pick it up? Please, I’d love to talk.  

Day 1: Fast prototyping

Prior to the conference, participants have been invited to prepare a presentation on either their whole research, or part of their research. They have been warned that the purpose of the day is to exchange ideas, tackle challenges, and review their presentation – so to prepare something that could be changed.

9:00 – 9:30: Coffee & tea

Sequence 1: introduction (9:30 – 10:30)

Goal: set the mood and principles for the day. Break the ice. People feel a sense of connection with other participants. People reflect on ‘what brought them here’ and set goals for themselves.

Five finger ice-breaker (9:30-9:55)

Participants are invited to lift their five fingers in turn, and form pairs based on ‘who has a finger that looks a little like yours’. Each round, they reflect and discuss a different question. 3’ / round.

Questions:

  • What is the latest paper you read?  
  • What’s an author or thinker you keep returning to and why?
  • What’s an idea, or theory that you’re trying to destroy?
  • What would you like to achieve with your research? What’s the big vision?
  • As a researcher, what’s a thing you’re really good at?

General introduction (9h55-10h00)

  • Principles of the day – this is a conference optimized for deep exchange of ideas
  • Over the course of two days, you will present the same paper three times, in different formats, gathering feedback as you go.

Impromptu networking (10h00 – 10h30)

 Impromptu networkingis a way to quickly bring a group to focus on questions that matter to them.  

  • People are invited to form pairs, and answer the following question in turn: ‘What challenge are you hoping to overcome in this conference?’
  • Three rounds, followed by a general debrief. Participants are invited to share insights, maintaining confidentiality (e.g. share ideas or challenges, but not who articulated them).   

Coffee and Tea: 10h30-11h00

Sequence #2: Testing your pitch

Fast-pitching (11h00 – 11h45)

This section is inspired by the ‘Helping heuristics’ liberating structure.  

Participants form groups of 3, and rotate between three roles: speaker, listener, observer. 9 minutes / round

  • Round 1: Pitch your paper. The listener listens silently. (Rotate roles, 3’ for each speaker)
  • Round 2: Pitch your paper. The listener can ask clarifying questions. (Rotate roles, 3’ for each speaker)
  • Round 3: Pitch your paper. The listener can challenge or make suggestions  (Rotate roles, 3’ for each speaker)

Debrief – what happened

  • Observers: How did the pitches evolve? What else did you notice?
  • Listeners: How did it feel to ‘listen differently’? Did you have time to ask any question?
  • Speakers: How did it feel to have listeners’ attention? Did you modify the pitch?
  • All: What else did you notice?

Review your pitch (11h45 – 12h15)

Participants are given 30 minutes to review presentations, based on the morning’s experience.

Lunch: 12h15 – 1h00

Note, over lunch, participants can choose to socialize, or work on their presentations. Colour-coded stickers may be provided to indicate if participants want to ‘chat’ or ‘be quiet’.

Sequence #3: first presentation (1h00 – 2h15)

Participants form groups of three, in breakout rooms or separate corners of a main room.

In turn, candidates present their paper, to an audience of two peers. Time is strictly limited to 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, listeners share questions and comments for 10 minutes. Listeners can interact with each other. Candidates cannot respond.

Sequence #4: silent reflection (2h15 – 3h15)

Alone, candidates reflect on what they heard and review their presentation accordingly.

Sequence #5: second presentation (3h15 – 5h00)

Participants form groups of three, in breakout rooms or separate corners of a main room.

In turn, participants present their paper, to an audience of two peers. Time is strictly limited to 15 minutes. Participants then interact for 20 minutes with their audience, actively sharing challenges and uncertainties with the audience, and looking for ways to improve their approach, presentation or thinking.

Sequence #6: Closure (5h00-5h15)

Participants are invited to digest the day and review their presentation for the next day.

Note – it would be possible to hold this as a one-day conference, and close with a ‘what, so what, now what’ activity (detailed at the end of Day 2)  

Day 2

Coffee and tea (9h00 – 9h30)

Sequence #1: Fast pitching (9h30 – 10h15)

Participants are invited to form pairs, and do short presentation of their papers, in five successive rounds, with a different focus each round. Strictly 3’ for each person each round.

  • Round 1: focus on why the research matters
  • Round 2: focus on the methodology
  • Round 3: focus on the references
  • Round 4: focus on the data you used
  • Round 5: focus on what’s original about the research  

General debrief:

  • How was it? What did you learn? Did your thinking evolve?  

Sequence #2: Third breakout room presentation (10h15 – 12h15)

Participants form groups of three, in breakout rooms or separate corners of a main room.

In turn, participants present their paper to an audience of two peers. Time is strictly limited to 15 minutes. Participants then interact for 20 minutes with their audience, actively sharing challenges and uncertainties with the audience, and looking for ways to improve their approach, presentation or thinking.

Between each round, participants are invited to take a short 5’ break.

Sequence #3: work lunch (12h15 – 1h30)

Participants finalise their presentation over a light lunch.

Sequence #4: plenary (1h30 – 4h30)

Participants are split in groups of 8 presenters. An external audience may be invited to attend. They present a final, reviewed version of their paper, with strictly 20’/presenter, and no time for question.

A short 10 ‘ pause is given after the first four presenters.

Depending on attendance, the length of this section may vary, and groups of different sizes can be organised.  

Closure: (4h30 – 5h15)

Participants are invited to reflect on the process, and what can be applied from it, following the What, so what, now what liberating structure.

Participants are invited to discuss the following questions in turn. For each question, participants start with 1 minute to think about the question alone, then discuss in groups of 3-5 (depending on total numbers), for 6 minutes.  

  • What happened? What did you notice? What stood out or was new?
  • So what? Why is a process like the one we went through important? What can be learned from it?
  • Now what? After going through this process, what will you do differently?

Participants are then invited to share key insights and actions with the group.

The conference ends with a ritual round circle, where participants are invited to share their experience in one word.

On narrative experiences

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Our current conception of music distinguishes three main figures: the composer, the performer, and the listener.

In Music, Nicholas Cook interrogates the Western construct of ‘music’ as an historically and geographically determined cultural experience. As I read his book (I’m up to chapter three), I wonder about writing as an art form. In particular, I wonder to what extent our current understanding of ‘writing’ echoes industrial production models. The writer is the ‘primary producer’ of a good (the book, the article), packaged and transported by intermediaries (editors, publishers, booksellers), and eventually purchased by customers (the readers). With this model as a background, we fight for the right of ‘writers’ to be paid in proportion to the quantity they produce – alternatively using word count or number of copies as a basis to calculate their share.

This framework has always struck me as dated and deceptive. Value chains are significantly more complex, involving layers of direct and indirect benefits, social, symbolic and financial. In addition writers don’t  produce goods in the way publishers do. Books and magazines are goods – texts may not be.

So what if we redefined writing as ‘crafting narrative experiences’, using contemporary service industries as a model?What new business model and value proposition could we come up with? What new prospects would that open to rethink the way we pay the writers, and the type of literature we produce?

User Stories

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Yesterday, I’ve been working on drafting ‘user stories’ for the information architecture part of the Marco Polo project. It’s an interesting process: in order to develop the architecture and navigation plan of your website, you imagine a fictional user – giving him or her a name, an age, a profession, as well as a motive for visiting your website; then, you describe, in all details, the interaction between that fictional user and your intended website.

It a a fabulous visualisation technique, and suddenly raises many questions you wouldn’t ask yourself otherwise: she wants to input text but is not logged in – what action triggers an error message? is she redirected to a registration page? She wants to register, is that instant, or does she receive an email with an activation link? Little details and decisions you need to make.

I was reminded of things I read about architects – how the art of architecture is about building daring shapes in space, inspired from dreams or animals. But their art is, also, that of the mason, build something that holds together; and something even more down-to-earth, a kind of simple commonsense, or knowledge of the human – make sure there is a pathway to each room. Build in windows, plumbing, ventilation. Think where your doors will be.

But for a fiction writer, this process is more than just about making a blueprint. Believe it or not, I grew attached to my characters. I started wondering, will their life be changed by this website? Will they, or will they not contact another user? Will something happen then? It was exhilarating, to imagine as fiction something I want to bring to the world. Dangerous also – probably – taking me far from the mundane drafting of a business plan or of a budget, into my own fantasy-world, where volunteers jump in, enthusiasms feed each other, yet everyone does, to a point, exactly as I tell them.